#it's not all new movies because i'm a chronic rewatcher 80 of them are new the last 20 rewatches

[maddy-ferguson]

i'm watching my 100th movie of the year. insert i'm a film addict, absolutely crazy about cinema godard meme here

[labelleizzy]

Today's writing prompt:

How do you define intimacy?

It's funny how difficult this is for me to wrap words around. Because for me intimacy isn't the same as sex not even remotely. Intimacy is primarily, primarily trust, honesty, feeling safe, and vulnerability. Playfulness is an important component as well, affection and love also.

The funny thing is there's a certain level of intimacy that I am totally fine sharing with strangers. Intellectual and emotional intimacy, is sometimes even easier with strangers. I can share stories at various levels, of things that have happened in my life, things that I think, believe, prioritize.

Physical intimacy to one specific point, which is: I love giving hugs. I even receive compliments regularly, and have started volunteering at pride events, with the free mom hugs organization. I'm really good at putting my whole heart into it, my whole attention, and all of the nonverbal comforting things that go into making a really good hug. And that is important to me. To be good at that.

Here's the thing. What I said at the beginning about trust and honesty and feeling safe. People who don't know me, don't know how to keep me safe.

I would love to be open-hearted and free and welcoming on the dance floor, for example I've been a dancer for decades. But if somebody doesn't know me well enough to know that I have an injured knee, and ankle on the same leg. Twice now in the 8 years I've been doing ecstatic dance, a partner flung me into a spin in a way that was painful because they didn't know me. I don't think it did permanent damage in either case, but I won't dance with either of those people again.

I never did date, or fuck, casually. I came of age, during the AIDS crisis in the '80s. When the meta message from the government and advertising and the news was that sex was so dangerous it could kill you. So you better be sure you can trust your partner and you better protect yourself as best as you can.

And now that we have had a global pandemic of massive scale, I don't even feel that I can kiss people casually. unless I know somebody well enough that I won't give offense by asking if they've tested recently?

I lived with such a profound fear in my early dating life. Not just because of AIDS or other STDs, but because the culture was steeped in fictional characters of disposable women. And I didn't realize it at the time. It's only in looking back that I can see how the chronic condition of fear was fertilized with art with rapey motifs, undergrads who are treated like interchangeable pieces of meat, and it's treated like cause for humor. I rewatched one of those John Hughes movies last year and I couldn't believe how shitty all the women characters were treated. (Not even to get into some of the horrible racist stereotypes)

You know I should probably talk to a therapist about this. And makes it hard to have relationships and to make new friends when I truck this around with me.

Intimacy, huh? This is intimacy, this right here. This is honesty, and trust. And it's because I've cultivated my circle here on Tumblr out of decent people, and people who share my values. I have a reasonably high level of confidence that nobody is going to be mierda on my post. Because I remove those people as I find them.

Anyway, well, thanks for listening. I had a tangle in here *thumps sternum gently* and it's better now.