Intimacy
So today at the Lesbian Discussion Group the topic was intimacy, and to get the ball rolling there were two questions:
What does intimacy mean to you?
What is the most intimate thing you've ever done?
So the first question was pretty easy for me to answer, but the second question was kind of challenging and what I noticed is that I kept wanting to put some wild sexual experience there but eventually I had to acknowledge that I've done a lot of sexual things that were not intimate (Je regrette rien!), so I decided to just sit with #1 for a while & then using that definition to answer #2.
In my mind, intimacy involves risk and vulnerability. You take a risk on being seen for all of who you are: your sterling qualities & the ones that you’re not so proud of; no masks just you and your naked authenticity. In an intimate relationship the other person accepts all of you & values you in your entirety. It doesn’t mean that your partner doesn’t want to scream every time they see you’ve left the tube off the toothpaste or that you don’t curse their name for the way they put the toilet paper on the roll (over, you heathens!). It means that your inability to remember a punchline, and your tendency to shut down when you feel stressed, are seen as just as valid as your ability to know when they’ve had a bad day just by how they open the door, just as valid as the way your eyes light up when they say your name. In an intimate relationship, you are not devalued for your humanity.
It’s not the risk taking that creates the intimacy, it’s the intimacy that sets the stage for the ability to risk (although I don’t believe you can create intimacy with another person if you’re not capable of risking being seen). It’s the intimacy that let’s you know that you can take the risk of being seen.
An intimacy is not a one-way street, so in order to have an intimate relationship with someone you have to be able to accept them in all of their naked authenticity, you must accept their humanity. Being human that means that there might be things about them that don't sit so well with you—maybe they have a temper and your trigger is around thinking people hate you if they get mad but you still accept that that's a part of them (there's more that needs to be done if they're a person who yells at the slightest provocation and you are somebody who shuts down the moment voices are raised but that's a whole ‘nother issue).
So what was my answer to #2? Well I cycled between the gangbang with friends at MichFest & the gangbang with the strangers I met off Yahoo & ya know a bunch of other things & then after I sat with my definition for a bit, I realize that the most intimate thing I've ever done was when I agreed to “open up my marriage”. And that my friends is a blog post for another day.