This is everything I know about intimacy
I’m 22 and when a boy asks me what I do, I still feel like I need to preface the word ‘writer’ with a: ‘this makes me sound like such a flog, but I’m a…’.
I’ve started to build a writing portfolio of pieces that say things other people don't really want to, but wish were spoken about more because everyone’s navigating them. The recent reel has canvassed hot topics like pandemic situationships, setting intentions, orgasms, disrupting the sexual wellness industry and other stuff adjacent to living as a female in your 20s/working/wild coitus/navigating the dating field.
Stupid Carrie Bradshaw parallels aside, these share-all exposes are really important to me. They not only exist as an outlet for my romantic tumults, but have propelled authentic conversations and new unions online. I’ve received DMs from past-flings, old friends, people I’ve never met before and fellow writers saying ‘thank you’ or ‘I so related to that’ and it made the anecdotal haemorrhaging and emotional watershed worth it.
I guess what I’ve learned recently, through chats with founders of communities like FIGR and Rosewell, couples therapists like Natalie King and iconoclasts like Flex Mami, is that everything to do with sex and love and our 20s comes back to one word: intimacy.
To me, feeling connected via shared experiences and through digital storytelling is a mode of intimacy. Through interviews and thought-pieces, I’ve carved out a space for togetherness with complete strangers.
“Intimacy is something that remains so elusive to so many of us as we grapple with sex, be it by ourselves or with another human. It’s one of the most integral foundations of a functional relationship, and it has so often in my last few moons felt just out of reach. ”
Or it’s absolutely there and powerful and unwavering, but not enough to mean anything more.
Something made me tear up in the acknowledgements of Daisy Buchanan’s Insatiable (touted ‘a love story for greedy girls’) last night. I was lying in bed nursing a pasta bloat, Friday regrets and Sunday successes when I read the author’s final line that goes something like: ‘thank you XX, I wouldn’t have been able to write this love story if it wasn’t for loving you.’
As a writer, it feels so frustrating to say I’ve never properly, romantically loved someone before when I go to lecture on matters of the heart. It can feel fraudulent, especially when I backtrack on my own advice and recycle the same two heartaches on a loop.
I’ve realised intimacy is something that comes well before love.
Love can be absent where intimacy is strong, and they’re two things I’ve confused in the last 12 months. When I wrote this Fashion Journal piece on having the ‘what are we’ chat with someone who wasn’t ready to commit to me in a meaningful way, I was so assertive and authoritative in my narration. Fast-forward 3ish months after ending it and, dare I admit, we hooked up twice in the last week. The intimacy I feel with this person is sadly something of a palpable magnetic force, and one I’m not ready to make a clean break from again (just yet).
And now I’m back on a mental pendulum swing from intoxicating, whopping, soaring highs to dull aches of unnamed sadness. I’m fine, I just know how dangerous it can be to pursue momentary highs for an intimacy ‘fix’ when you’re only feeling close part-time.
But then what’s the alternative? I went on a Hinge date the very night that I caught up with a past burn. It was painless but listless, friendly but flimsy. And I have another one this Friday for the sake of journalistic content.
Alas, intimacy isn’t something that shows up 10 minutes into a first date off an app on a Friday night when you’re mildly hungover and thinking of somebody else. Call it sacrilegious, but the whole time I was quaffing red and scraping arancini off my plate, I was squatting thoughts of who I’d rather end up with later that night. And yes, I still ended up there.
Intimacy means feeling home-like comfort, familiarity, unconditional ease and mutual respect. It’s like the third-wine-down tipsy bliss that has you feeling buzzed, edging away from sobriety and cognitive awareness of everything going on in the world, but lucid enough to be held captive by the moment.
I’ve recently met a few women who have brought stories of intimacy and connection to the forefront of our social scrolls. Two best-mates and beguiling creatives Eloise O’Sullivan and Eloise McCullough have become good friends of mine, and semi-colleagues. They’ve just launched a new-world lube dubbed FIGR to remove the friction from our sexual experiences, both figuratively and literally. For me, it’s like these two girls are lifting the veil off true intimacy with our lovers and ourselves and building a stage for conversations around better sex.
When a girlfriend recently retorted, ‘but I don’t need lube’, I tried to think of a decent analogy to vouch for its oft-forgotten value. The best one I settled on is this: I can function well in the mornings okay without coffee, but add some lubrication of an extra-hot almond latte into the equation and I’ll be better.
It feels so important to start elevating products of self-cultivation and sex to the tiers of beautiful skincare, fashion, food and other things that make us feel good in life. Eloise and Eloise are two of many pioneers in the modern, female revolutionary set. Brands like Rosewell (pleasure tools and conversational card games) and FIG Femme (self-care products like vulva sheets masks!!!) are there in the same corner. These women are contributing to a future of closeness, free from conversational and physical barriers to better sexual wellness. I’d implore anyone feeling frustrated with sexual pleasure, be it solitary or with another person, to give their pages a visit and linger a while.
I think openly sharing in the frustrations, lessons and desires for intimacy is something we should all revel in. I’ve learned that intimacy isn’t transactional. You don’t always get what you give. It’s not always felt at the same magnitude when two parties are involved. It’s a lonely week waiting, it’s a one-night stand, it’s 2am phone calls, it’s hands held in the backseats of an Uber, it’s the memories you share with only one other person, and it’s moments alone with yourself.
If intimacy isn’t something I’ve fully figured out yet, I’m just glad there are allies in my circles and communities that are giving us the tools to get better about discussing it, finding it and nurturing it. If anything, at least we can share in that triumph.
Words — Genevieve Phelan
Image — Sarah Blais via Pinterest
