A connexion without touch

When I turn to look at the curve of your back I know I have found home. Your breath gets louder, slower, filling the room with a sweet lullaby raindrops echo on the window. We are barely touching and yet I feel complete. This is intimacy. The caress of sheets against a naked chest. The comfort of a silence that doesn’t need to be filled. When we’ll wake up in the morning and quietly look at our phones it will be warm as freshly made pancakes. The sight of your eyelids opening up is the most beautiful of sunrises.

It took me some time to identify as asexual. I enjoyed sex, but always felt disconnected from its usual representations. The mechanical aspects seemed tedious and life seemed full of more easily attainable pleasures — after all why risk a strained wrist when you could just eat some salted caramel chocolate?

To me the real ecstasy came from sparkly eyes and flushed cheeks, the giggles when a bra refuses to come off, the fire in a loved one’s pupils as they look up from between my legs, their erratic b-b-b-breaths as our bodies get closer, closer, closer, in an embrace that words nor flesh cannot comprehend.

It is the moans, the sweat, the messed up hair, the exhilaration of seeing a face contorted from pleasure and feeling like you’re gazing at the Mona Lisa in a completely empty room. It is not the orgasms I crave, but the human experience.

The point I want to make here is that sex, love and intimacy are separate concepts for me, dancing on a never-ending spectrum.

To me, intimacy comes from stripping your soul down to the core and trusting your partner enough to believe they won’t run away. It’s eating midnight cereals together while binge-watching Netflix under a warm blanket, hoping the world will stop turning just for one night.

It’s allowing yourself to cry, not a movie-style unique crystal tear, but to wail, covered in fluids you no longer can distinguish between tears and snot.

To me intimacy is the moments we share, the vulnerabilities we lay bare, the beauty of a moment created by people comfortable or daring enough to expose who they really are.

I have felt more connected to my partner bursting into laughter together when we read a poem ten-year old me wrote about their favourite horse, than when I blindfolded and tied them to a chair (I’ll leave the rest to your imagination). What I mean is that there are many ways to experience human connexion and yes, sex can be one of them. But it shouldn’t be seen as a compulsory norm. As I used to say: intimacy is my biggest kink.

When a plaintive moan breaks the silence I turn back to gently stroke your hair, hoping this will help you set sail towards sweeter dreams. I know what mine will be made of.

About the author

Shei is a non-binary queer crafter, cultural writer, zinester and unicorn in human disguise. Their work revolves around queerness, pop culture, mental health and magic. They can be found on twitter @_godsavethequeer_ and @sheinicorn.

Photo by Andrei Lazarev on Unsplash.