Desire and sensuality as forces: transcendental and re-generative
These are really only ramblings but the type of topics you can unpick with me in-person —
How does desire reveal or unravel itself and in how many ways?
What fascinates me are its subtleties. It’s your approach to sex, yes, but also in your introduction - what are you willing to reveal about yourself straight off the bat? Surprises are nice, yes but when I already have a glimmer of something personal, vulnerable (and yes - self deprecating, I’m British), I know your walls are already down. You’re adjusted, you’ve done ‘the work’ we all have to do eventually. The effect of this single event on me cannot be downplayed. Coming to me without airs and in tune with themself? I’ve already melted sat reading your e-mail.
By the time we are in public, it’s that achingly lovely knowledge and also - curiosity of what will be occurring between us physically over the next hour or two. Its stimuli may be affecting the antennae of others around us, but only us in the room are sure of the immediate forces at play. I’m not an exhibitionist but exhibiting our interest in each other and dynamic is really fun for me…
How many possible pathways can our urges take?
It is easy to full out of an erotic approach to life, I definitely feel this: — all the more important to centre it. Of course, Audre Lorde and their ‘Uses of the Erotic’ dwells on what I mean - it’s subliminal power in daily life. We are missing out on small moments of connection, endlessly and increasingly, screens make less reasons to have that small, small talk with the stranger living in the same city. A closed-ness permeates us. But if we wish to pursue joy, lust and a generally transcendental form of living, these are the small things Lorde believes to centre in our everyday.
I mention subtleties, but what about during a date, when we’ve arrived at overt displays of flirting? Suddenly every word can feel like every word the sense of a quiet pull toward understanding the shape of another mind that pulls me to who I am sat with. novelist Christopher Isherwood wrote, '“Sensuality is… like a mine. You go deeper and deeper. There are passages, caves, whole strata. You discover entire geographical eras.” Anticipation builds in the small adjustments people make without thinking—the way you lean in a little when something interests you, the pause before I answer, the moment you study my face to see if I meant what I said. If we get to the point of meeting, this is the level of sensuality we’ll have arrived at.