Tuned
I went looking for my friend and found her in deeply relaxed catharsis.
She was flat on her back, mounted by a man. He was slapping her face hard and she was luxuriating in it with loud groans and laughs.
Other humans lay relaxed, observing this, along the walls or else absorbed in their own conversations. The two dogs in the room wandered, at ease, and this is what drew my attention. Their bodies were not registering hard impact as violence.
Consensual play makes sense to dogs and to humans, on the level of the nervous system. It is utterly clear when two beings are feeling an interaction together and when they are not. It is a visceral thing, part of that 90% of communication which is nonverbal.
Play is the universal language.
Play is how we are allowed to use our human bodies while we've got them, how these bodies are FOR US.
Watch out, oh no! Have you sexualized any of this?
Because this was NOT a sex party, not even really a sexy party. It wasn't kink-focused, this wasn't a demonstration. It was more of a pajama party than anything, people dressed in relaxed, comfy clothes, clothes for movement and dance.
This is the erotic integration which is commonplace in my life, for which I starve when it is not present. It is normal to me that adults would be rolling around together on the floor, cuddled with friends or new acquaintances, naked in the water together. All of this unfolds naturally and it's perfectly platonic, it is the meat of living in the human body, and the village is oriented around the human body.
And this village, so accustomed to orienting around the human body, has exquisite skill and technique for playing with other bodies from inside their bodies. That trusty buzzword: attunement, it is built in these lands, where bodies have close encounters with other bodies, where the body is the primary element of communication.
This is where I have found men who can be in an experience with me and have no pursuit energy, no goal, no aim, no idea of success or failure, truly present with right fucking now.
This embodied intimacy takes an infrastructure of safety, that much is true. Perhaps you have been sold the idea that the ideal infrastructure of safety is the confines of a committed monogamous relationship. Perhaps this is the intimacy you dream of sharing with only one person, perhaps it weirds you out to consider being this close with your friends.
All I'm saying is that you've been sold a particular idea about safety and threat, and the infrastructure required to produce safety and prevent threat.
All I'm saying is that there is another infrastructure in which I feel safe, and part of it is how everyone treats it as a norm. It gets WEIRD if someone sexualizes it, even to refuse platonic touch as though it is a sexual touch.
The relational infrastructure in any space is latent to that space, and I'm noticing it more and more, noticing how clear it is since I learned there is more than one infrastructure.
