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I have been thinking a bit about intimacy on and off in recent times and what intimacy actually means, and what it means in relationships of all kinds.
In my view, people can have sex and no emotional involvement and deep emotional involvement with no sex; the two don’t go hand in hand. People who fuck around a lot, as deemed by others, tend to get called sluts or a seemingly more positive word player (although player seems to relate more to men and therefore the whole ‘thing’ becomes gendered). Slut implies it’s a bad thing to seek out, let alone enjoy sex, and I would say perhaps this label comes with the idea that there is no emotional involvement ‘that’ kind of sex. It is somehow lacking and not moral because of no emotional connection. Of course the only people that know whether or not it is intimate is the people who have engaged in it. Of course if there was emotional connection the person would then become virtuous focussing all their attention on one person, who they truly love.
The link in these ideas, the concept that makes it hard to define and what blurs things, is what is considered intimate. To have sex with someone, to have two or more bodies rubbing up against each other with the possibility of the exchange of body fluid, I would consider intimate, but not necessarily emotional. To have a long conversation revealing your deepest personal or emotional ‘stuff’ is intimate, it has the emotional but not the physical. I believe it’s when you get all the physical, the emotional and the intimate, you might begin to feel something that is described as a sexual interest and intimacy described as love.
Love seems to arise upon the sharing of the emotional stuffs, the revealing of oneself, of one’s vulnerability and things that cause us to feel. The acts that go on around this are sex, or engagement of thoughts, ideas, intellectual conversation, laughing for if you click intellectually you will probably share a sense of humour. These are the things that occur when we meet someone, these are the things that keep us busy. Hormones are playing part, if the sex is great and we are floating on a high because the person is so god dam hot and we’re getting to fuck them a lot, then that will keep us interested. If we like their intelligence that will also keep us there and keep us busy, we don’t need to feel anything emotionally, we are being entertained.
In the meantime that part of the brain the amygdala which is connected to emotions and emotional memory, is doing all sorts of things and it might begin to take over and we have these ‘feelings’ which rise up and eventually these feelings, god forbid, will turn into something that resembles the beginnings of love. Or we might feel no resonance or no feelings and the nature of the relationship is likely to change or remain stunted in that it may not deepen into love but develop into something else with some other sort of label.
A relationship really is any interaction between one or more person; you have a relationship with yourself, and others. It can be fleeting or something that goes on for ages. It can be intimate, it can be sexual or it can be business like. It can be anything that you make it; it’s all about how you interact with that person. How you communicate.
A question I have, or rather a thought, is around the occurrence of close intimate sexual relationships. As stated above I think it’s when we get a number of things all happening at once. Otherwise the relationships could be described as friendships, fuck buddies, one night stands, lovers, business partners or any other label we choose to use.
Being polyamorous, I know it is in my nature to have feelings for more than one person. When I have feelings for a person I give quite deeply on an emotional level. To truly love someone beyond friendship I need to have all these interactions with them. I need to have an intellectual understanding, a physical connection, and an emotional connection. I also tend to ‘work’ on an emotional level so for a deep friendship with someone I need emotional exchange or understanding.
I’m always thinking about how other people might feel. I’m always thinking of that little amygdala underneath and what it’s doing. Because I work this way and my waters run deep I am very careful about whom I open up to, because when I do I just tend to gush. Or that’s how it feels. I feel very emotionally vulnerable, but at the same time I believe I am also very emotionally strong, otherwise I would not be able to be polyamorous, jealousy would be far too much to deal with, and confronting jealousy is what I have to deal with in order to let all the other amazing stuff in. I can also sense and understand where other people are at, even when they don’t and at times I feel this carries responsibility, it also means that being around lots of people can be downright draining.
I enjoy watching people and their relationships with others, I find it helps me to grow and learn and reflect on how I move in the world. I have observed friends in relationships which I would describe as very intimate relationships, close friends, ‘besties’ and I sit back and just think that they are in a polyamorous situation, they love that person, they care about them, they have most of the ingredients except for the sex. I have also felt that way about friends in the past. Then there are people who operate on a purely intellectual type of level, people who are in their heads, they might be having sex with someone, but they are scared of and deny the feelings that the amygdala throws at them. It’s not like they don’t feel, but they just don’t know what to do with it, how to process that feeling, where to go next. Feelings are scary things that make them loose control.
I believe any kind of relationship is possible, it’s just how we process things, what we want from others and how clear we are with that. I think there are misunderstandings because people do not communicate clearly. They don’t talk about sex and what it is they want, and they indeed don’t even know, because they don’t have a strong relationship with themselves in that sense. Then they don’t know how to negotiate sex and safe sex with a partner and they don’t know how to tell the person they don’t know what they like. Friends don’t know or don’t understand each others’ friendship boundaries, it’s unclear about what a friend is and then if they develop feelings it can be hard to move onto the next stage which might be sex for fear of ruining the friendship. Indeed I think there are multiple, multiple duty statements for friends. Some friendships are deeply emotional and intimate, others only operate on the intellectual level. Some people consider they need to see someone every other week to remain friends, whereas other people (myself included) think a good friend is someone you can see every six months and it’s all fine.
Anything is possible and many people would be much happier if they learnt to face their fears and take risks when encountering intimacy.
In my view, people can have sex and no emotional involvement and deep emotional involvement with no sex; the two don’t go hand in hand. People who fuck around a lot, as deemed by others, tend to get called sluts or a seemingly more positive word player (although player seems to relate more to men and therefore the whole ‘thing’ becomes gendered). Slut implies it’s a bad thing to seek out, let alone enjoy sex, and I would say perhaps this label comes with the idea that there is no emotional involvement ‘that’ kind of sex. It is somehow lacking and not moral because of no emotional connection. Of course the only people that know whether or not it is intimate is the people who have engaged in it. Of course if there was emotional connection the person would then become virtuous focussing all their attention on one person, who they truly love.
The link in these ideas, the concept that makes it hard to define and what blurs things, is what is considered intimate. To have sex with someone, to have two or more bodies rubbing up against each other with the possibility of the exchange of body fluid, I would consider intimate, but not necessarily emotional. To have a long conversation revealing your deepest personal or emotional ‘stuff’ is intimate, it has the emotional but not the physical. I believe it’s when you get all the physical, the emotional and the intimate, you might begin to feel something that is described as a sexual interest and intimacy described as love.
Love seems to arise upon the sharing of the emotional stuffs, the revealing of oneself, of one’s vulnerability and things that cause us to feel. The acts that go on around this are sex, or engagement of thoughts, ideas, intellectual conversation, laughing for if you click intellectually you will probably share a sense of humour. These are the things that occur when we meet someone, these are the things that keep us busy. Hormones are playing part, if the sex is great and we are floating on a high because the person is so god dam hot and we’re getting to fuck them a lot, then that will keep us interested. If we like their intelligence that will also keep us there and keep us busy, we don’t need to feel anything emotionally, we are being entertained.
In the meantime that part of the brain the amygdala which is connected to emotions and emotional memory, is doing all sorts of things and it might begin to take over and we have these ‘feelings’ which rise up and eventually these feelings, god forbid, will turn into something that resembles the beginnings of love. Or we might feel no resonance or no feelings and the nature of the relationship is likely to change or remain stunted in that it may not deepen into love but develop into something else with some other sort of label.
A relationship really is any interaction between one or more person; you have a relationship with yourself, and others. It can be fleeting or something that goes on for ages. It can be intimate, it can be sexual or it can be business like. It can be anything that you make it; it’s all about how you interact with that person. How you communicate.
A question I have, or rather a thought, is around the occurrence of close intimate sexual relationships. As stated above I think it’s when we get a number of things all happening at once. Otherwise the relationships could be described as friendships, fuck buddies, one night stands, lovers, business partners or any other label we choose to use.
Being polyamorous, I know it is in my nature to have feelings for more than one person. When I have feelings for a person I give quite deeply on an emotional level. To truly love someone beyond friendship I need to have all these interactions with them. I need to have an intellectual understanding, a physical connection, and an emotional connection. I also tend to ‘work’ on an emotional level so for a deep friendship with someone I need emotional exchange or understanding.
I’m always thinking about how other people might feel. I’m always thinking of that little amygdala underneath and what it’s doing. Because I work this way and my waters run deep I am very careful about whom I open up to, because when I do I just tend to gush. Or that’s how it feels. I feel very emotionally vulnerable, but at the same time I believe I am also very emotionally strong, otherwise I would not be able to be polyamorous, jealousy would be far too much to deal with, and confronting jealousy is what I have to deal with in order to let all the other amazing stuff in. I can also sense and understand where other people are at, even when they don’t and at times I feel this carries responsibility, it also means that being around lots of people can be downright draining.
I enjoy watching people and their relationships with others, I find it helps me to grow and learn and reflect on how I move in the world. I have observed friends in relationships which I would describe as very intimate relationships, close friends, ‘besties’ and I sit back and just think that they are in a polyamorous situation, they love that person, they care about them, they have most of the ingredients except for the sex. I have also felt that way about friends in the past. Then there are people who operate on a purely intellectual type of level, people who are in their heads, they might be having sex with someone, but they are scared of and deny the feelings that the amygdala throws at them. It’s not like they don’t feel, but they just don’t know what to do with it, how to process that feeling, where to go next. Feelings are scary things that make them loose control.
I believe any kind of relationship is possible, it’s just how we process things, what we want from others and how clear we are with that. I think there are misunderstandings because people do not communicate clearly. They don’t talk about sex and what it is they want, and they indeed don’t even know, because they don’t have a strong relationship with themselves in that sense. Then they don’t know how to negotiate sex and safe sex with a partner and they don’t know how to tell the person they don’t know what they like. Friends don’t know or don’t understand each others’ friendship boundaries, it’s unclear about what a friend is and then if they develop feelings it can be hard to move onto the next stage which might be sex for fear of ruining the friendship. Indeed I think there are multiple, multiple duty statements for friends. Some friendships are deeply emotional and intimate, others only operate on the intellectual level. Some people consider they need to see someone every other week to remain friends, whereas other people (myself included) think a good friend is someone you can see every six months and it’s all fine.
Anything is possible and many people would be much happier if they learnt to face their fears and take risks when encountering intimacy.
