We learn how to be physically intimate by practicing in reciprocal relationships

Learning "How to Touch"-- An intimate look at my intimacy hurdles

Of all the things I’ve written, this piece may be one I’ve doubted & questioned the most. I wrote many drafts, recorded long voice notes, scribbled anxious, spiraling ideas on a whiteboard… only to go back & delete everything. It’s terrifying to share intimate details on the hurdles I haven’t figured out how to overcome or tackle yet. But maybe that is what makes this piece important & necessary for me to share with you.

In Part I of the Sex & Intimacy series, my partner Ciro & I discussed the impact of oppressive capitalist/ colonial systems on our sex & love lives. After a transcontinental move from Chile to Nashville, we struggled to find the time, space or capacity to emotionally or physically be intimate with each other:

Capitalism is the ultimate turn off -- a series on sex & intimacy

So today in Part II, I want to go from the MACRO (big picture) to the MICRO & discuss the messy, nitty gritty details of the intimacy issues I’m facing in my daily life. A glimpse into how systemic & relational oppression affects my body and how I’m (only now) learning to use touch or physical intimacy as a pathway for deep connection to other people & the land.

& This is for everyone- any open-minded reader wanting to dive into the day-to-day intricacies of how to build intimate, reciprocal relationships.

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“Why is this happening to me?”

I’m struggling to be physically intimate with my partner— phew, I don’t know why that always feels so icky & dirty to say. A few months ago, my partner & I were cuddling on our couch, wrapped in a blanket cocoon, kissing, caressing & enjoying the warmth of our intertwined bodies after a long day. The playful kisses sandwiched between laughs & casual chit chat gradually escalated. There was less talking; more passionate, lingering, deeper kisses; more fervent, aroused breathing… and suddenly, almost instinctively, I kicked Ciro in the stomach.

I saw my hands, as though acting on their own accord, shove him in the chest to create distance between us. My body acted without me consciously directing it. I felt like my consciousness was floating outside & above my body, watching it move & react in ways that confused me. Before I could process it all, I saw Ciro recoil in shock keeping his hands extended— almost like he wanted to hold me but wasn’t sure if his touch would console me or terrorize me.

More context— We had already gone weeks without having sex by the time this happened^. This was uncharacteristic for us. The initial ~8 months of our relationship were founded on plenty of physical affection, queer sexual connection & exploration, curiosity-driven divergence from norms & a collective pursuit of pleasure. The relationship was a soothing salve for both our childhood wounds. This made my dramatic behavioral shifts from our baseline even more painfully obvious & confusing to us both. I initially attributed my newly emerged avoidance of sex to the stress & exhaustion that came with my re-entry into the heart of the empire. I was back in the belly of hustle/ grind/ individualistic culture that made prioritizing relationships difficult. Work had to be THE problem. So I tried to fix it. We blocked off time on our calendars to spend with friends & each other. Except, the same reflexive recoil reaction I described above occurred over & over again in different ways. Why? I’m still trying to figure it out.

I still craved closeness, physical proximity, the comfort of hugs & cuddles or the ease of brief kisses. Brief being the key word. It felt like my bones had decided on some arbitrary threshold beyond which any touch was labeled “too much” & unsafe. If Ciro initiated any physical contact that felt “too intimate” (i.e. as though it may potentially progress to ‘sex’), my body would instinctively react & try to stop the escalation of intimacy. Sometimes, my whole body would thrash involuntarily like a spasm. Other times, I would start laughing, talking or make jokes- which I see now as more covert attempts to redirect us. I didn’t know I was doing it till a very puzzled & perplexed Ciro would check-in with me.

“What is happening to me? How did I get here? I thought I figured this out! Why is this happening NOW? What if I can never regain any “sex drive”? Am I broken? Was I subconsciously manipulating my partner by having sex hoping to secure his long-term commitment? What’s wrong with me?” — It terrifies me to not know how to navigate my way out of this but I’m going to try to explain the realizations I’ve had so far about why our bodies struggle with intimacy & how we can learn to love with time & practice.

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“I can’t be the only one struggling, right?”

This is my first safe, stable, equitable, long-term relationship— so I ambitiously & overzealously expected it to be prime, fertile soil to resolve all my previous trauma around sex & intimacy. I didn’t know what the process would look like & I definitely DID NOT foresee that my body would refuse to let my caring, kind, loving partner touch me. My analytical mind’s desire to heal on a timeline was thwarted by my unyielding body.

Practicing healthy relational intimacy is a key, irreplaceable aspect of what we need to do to be free— a part & parcel of community building. Yet, political education or movement work typically doesn’t involve diving into the grimy, slimy, sloppy, unpalatable details and specifics of how to go about this— especially physical intimacy. For a long time, I’ve felt broken & defective because the details of physical & emotional intimacy felt so messy, ungraspable & confusing to me while others seemingly grasped it more easily. But in reality, intimacy is difficult for everyone, especially within the confines of systems built to isolate us. & the more we talk about it honestly, share openly & navigate the mess together, the more life is worth living.

We don’t just innately KNOW how to love one another in healthy, reciprocal ways. It isn’t a biological ingrained, predestined trait or raw instinct — it is something we learn in community, fine tuning it over a lifetime. I now know that we need guidance, practice & companionship to learn how to be intimate with not just another human, but with the land itself. I’m only now exploring the details of how to have a healthier relationship with my body— one where my physical being can serve as a pathway or tool of connection to people, flora, fauna, the land as a whole & my cultural roots.

P.S. I put the most personal, intimate, messy details below for paid subscribers. It paints a more vivid picture of how our bodies carry the wounds & scars of a lifetime of systemic & relational oppression. I’m open to eventually making this whole piece public for anyone to read. But because it is so vulnerable, I’d really love your feedback on if the personal details are helpful for folks to better understand these ideas & political praxis. Any unfiltered thoughts on how you felt reading it helps.

My body’s relationship with the world

We underestimate how beaten up our bodies are from years of surviving authoritarian capitalist/ colonial systems. We’re forced to put our bodies through an excessive, brutal amount of labor to earn the right to live. From school to having jobs- our bodies have been through a lot. We know how to push our bodies past our breakpoint over & over again doing whatever it takes to survive. My body knows how to bear blows.

Besides the more apparent wounds we bear from state/ capitalist violence, many relationships that were meant to be safe for us embodied oppressive values & may have not been safe which created more subtle, covert wounds. From abusive family dynamics, religious institution related shame & body/ morality policing, to being trapped in an abusive long-term relationship where sexual assault became “the norm”, to the years I spent trying to alter my body & behavior aspiring to the colonial norms trending around me — my body (like yours) has a lot of harsh & violent associations with the outside world. It’s been through a lot.

I can’t go into every detail but maybe I can share a few examples to paint a picture of the forms of daily stressors my body learned to adapt to.

• I was raised in an abusive household where my authoritarian mother’s primary mode of parenting me was harshness, strict control, & punishment, including unpredictable but consistent physical & emotional abuse.

She would spend hours unleashing her anger & rage (that is all shaped by the colonial trauma passed down to her) on my then emaciated, lanky body. Leather belts, furniture, cutlery, hands, other sharp objects. She used whatever she could get her hands on. She would compliment me for my lack of resistance when I was getting thrashed around, which she interpreted as commendable compliance, obedience & unwavering respect for her authority. I never shouted, screamed, fought or kicked back. To me- my dissociated apathy & detached indifference was my resistance.

When my sister was born, I wanted to shield her from both my mother’s overt violence and my father’s neglect & immaturity. When she’d pick up a belt to discipline my sister, I stood in the way, sometimes with my arms stretched out wide, firm, sturdy, steady as a rock, almost stoic & serene-looking. “Hit me. Not her. Hit me.” She’d say if I don’t get out of the way, I’d be hit twice more or longer than my sister. “Ok. That’s fine. Hit me.” This pattern eventually spared my sister from much of the physical abuse but given that I was the scapegoat & her the “golden child”, she got a fair share of emotional trauma from being entangled with my mother. Her body went thru a lot too.

• Fast forward to my first serious romantic (abusive) relationship… I spent 7 years lying in bed underneath an emotionally detached, self-centered, deeply traumatized man.

I was desperate to fit colonial norms & be in a traditional, socially acceptable relationship. Since there was no mutual care or emotional intimacy, eventually violent sex was the only thread that connected me to him so I was desperate to make it work. As my body was routinely thrashed around like an inanimate object - I just laid there as still as possible & practiced dissociating from my body to get through the pain, counting till an arbitrary number, rigid, expression-less, biting my tongue, holding my breath, just waiting for it to be over. My soul’s detachment from my physical body was a protective survival mechanism.