There’s a woman I love. Who I have loved for many years. I just saw some pictures of her, because we recently became friends on one of the social networks I belong to. I was immediately overcome with sorrow and longing. But it’s a weird longing that defies modern rules of love and relationships . . .which totally complicated our relationship when we were closer geographically.
I love her and long for her in an intensely physical way, and even though I identify myself as bisexual, it is not sexual as I recognize it. She is . . .like home. When I am near her I just want to touch her, breath the smell of her skin and the oils she wears. I want to sit at her feet, lay my head on her lap. I want snuggle between her breasts and be safe.
But, seriously, there’s no sexual element to this at all. When I think about people who I am sexually attracted to there is a desire to kiss them . .and more. But for her I just have the longing to be near her, touch her and be safe. Like a child is safe within her mothers arms.
It was getting to know her that first got me thinking about how all touch has become so sexualized in our society. Some how we’ve gotten to a place where all touches are “bad touches” and we live isolated from the contact of other humans by the fear that we will become perverts if we hug someone. Caregivers must keep children at arms length, lest a pat or a squeeze be construed as being sexually pleasurable to them. So children fail to be nurtured, fail to get the positive physical contact countless studies have shown they need to thrive. Adults medicate themselves to replace the simple contact that would help them moderate their moods and have a sense of belonging.
I don’t think it was that way in earlier times. As I’ve pondered this, I’ve gone back to art I once considered “lesbian” and realized that the women depicted were not lovers. They were simply together, touching, caring for and supporting each other. And I wonder how we can get to a place where Western women again feel safe with their own gender? Like our young girls are, when they pile together at slumber parties and other girls only events, combing each other’s hair, hugging and even kissing.
I know I would appreciate having a few women friends I trusted like that. Ones who accepted me and trusted me back. But I have no clue how to go about finding that place, when most women will act like the woman I love and recoil because they see my love as a desire to have sex.
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