Intimacy conquers intimidation

We are in unprecedented times. None of us alive in the USA have lived through this combination of oppression, aggression, and threat that has assaulted us so quickly, so toxically, and so clumsily since January 20th. 

Writing from the Eastern Seaboard, I believe there’s something additionally cruel about opening the Gates of Hell in sync with the polar vortex Winter. My gloves are not made for multi-hour demonstrations and sit-ins. Daddy wants to hibernate. More urgently, the unhoused and unprivileged suffer and die in this kind of cold.

Here’s what I recommend to anyone reading this:

Get warm. Get touched. Get stimulated. Get intimate.  

I am smiling as I write, but I am not joking. We are currently the target of deliberate, bigoted, dangerous intimidation. It reaches us face to face, or face to news app. Do not underestimate the evil intentions of the administration and its mobs. Violent victimization has begun. They are risible but murderous. Their violent, cruel bullying, the unleashed Kraken of ignorance+bigotry+permission is manifesting everywhere. It’s hard to tell the vigilantes from official government forces – because very, very often, there is no difference. Our confusion is part of their strategy. 

The answer? Get trained. Get organized. Get involved. Get active.

AS IMPORTANT: Get intimate. Get touched. Get naked. Get stimulated.

In order to be ready for the former, we must attend to the latter. 

I. Am. Serious. Don’t do without, do with. Intimacy conquers intimidation.

Intimidation drives us into defensive stances, into corners, into paranoia and useless frenzy. It renders us tired and irritable. It leaves us stiff and emotionally desiccated. It makes for bad warriors, and this is a war we will only win if we come to it joyously, charged with love of ourselves and our world, love for our foes, even those not ready to accept it. Be a biscuit, not a Triscuit!  

Intimacy restores our resiliency and flexibility, our humor, our compassion, our powers of perception. There is a reason that boxers get their shoulders rubbed between rounds. There’s a reason athletes regularly get massaged before a match or a meet. There’s a reason you get the hots for the ebullient nerd with the megaphone who cheers you on and leads you forward at the demo. Nothing is hotter than a vibrant nerd. You know I’m right.

We get worn down by the dark matter we hear, read, or think. Literally, we need to feel and be felt. We need to receive and give sensation. It may need to tickle or to go deep. It may need to caress or to sting. Each of us in an individual manner, but we are all wired for touch. We are blessed with bodies that respond to safe and consensual intimacy. We have to be caressed, held, rubbed, soothed, thwacked, and invigorated.

In the spirit of transparency, I am advertising my work as an erotically informed, spiritually guided body worker and Sacred Intimate. I also have colleagues all over the country whom I can recommend if you aren’t within a 50-mile radius of the Liberty Bell, where I currently reside. When in need, hire a professional. 

God willing, many of us also have friends and lovers, partners, buddies, fwbs, etc. This is the time to reach out to each other and negotiate the intimacy we need. We need to be touched and we need to touch. We need to give and to take. We need to reinforce our confidence in our bodies and in our abilities to heal and to bless. Touch and be touched. Our erotic selves are our most creative, most generous selves, they are receptive, forgiving, powerful, and flexible. Everything our oppressors are trying to erase from our lives. 

Intimacy conquers intimidation. Imagine how the next demonstration might feel if everyone went there directly from a loving, consensual experience of sacred intimacy.