Self-Intimacy & Asexual Platonic Commitments
Deep platonic relationships make up the core of my life. I desire this; it’s what I seek out, cultivate and do my part to sustain. It does and can feel lonely at times. There are moments when I am logistically and emotionally no one’s priority.
It’s in these moments where I need to dig deep. I am drawn into the question of self-pity or an invitation into self-intimacy. Where are those areas that I neglect myself? Am I truly cultivating the habits that daily help me to choose myself and become more alive to myself and the world around me?
These questions are important for me to come back to regularly. It could also be true that I am not articulating what I need clearly. Sometimes those needs feel more intellectual or emotional, and asking for those things can seem more abstract. Sometimes I might need more quality time, but the relationships in my life may or may not have that time. Again, I could get frustrated at them, or I could come back to myself. Everyday, I have the choice of whether or not I will stay close to myself.
However, I do not buy into the belief that self-intimacy happens in a vacuum or through sheer will power. I need to be in community to know how to receive love, and that in turn helps me to love myself. From that love of self, I can return to community with a certain attention focused on loving another. A lot happens in life and in the world to interrupt that healthy, natural flow. So many of us, due to the legacy and reality of imperialism, colonialism, anti-Blackness, capitalism, eugenics are not encouraged to be who we truly are. To love ourselves whole-heartedly.
Platonic love is something I relish in, and is beautiful because it’s a relationship you choose that has no legal protections. Platonic love can often be discarded because it’s seen as disposable, or can flounder with simply not enough attention in the busyness of life. It is also boundless, full of creativity, joy, trust, & presence. It’s a container that is always forming, always shifting. Friendship doesn’t just look one way. It’s a relationship that you must choose intentionally to prioritize.
Self-Intimacy
What does it mean to practice everyday intimacy with myself? For starters, it does mean that I do not withhold love from myself. I start from a place of dignity and believing that I am worthy of love. This self-intimacy also includes that my asexuality is not a barrier to love, but a particular means in which my love is expressed. It means that I prioritize tenderness, and being seen. This could mean buying myself flowers. Caressing my chest post-top surgery and smiling. Stretching or doing a few yoga poses upon waking. Saying some prayers throughout the day and including myself! Letting trusted loved ones be with me in vulnerable moments. Speaking kindness over myself, “You are lovely.”
Self-intimacy means that I spend time in my own healing work around pain, loss & grief, and paying attention to ways that I block love from entering my life or hide from it. This work is often mundane, ugly, embarrassing, and at times confusing. In various seasons, this work has looked different: working with a body-centric therapist, rhythmic meetings with a spiritual director, trauma-informed massage, sharing difficult, vulnerable things with trusted friends in real time & trusting the ways they move towards me, writing for myself or writing for others, chronic illness peer support, 12 step oriented groups around codependency.
As this work has layered in my life, my needs and desires have become more clear. I am able to name more directly what I need and am able to ask for those needs to be met by myself or others. What it means to mature and practice self-intimacy is to name and accept the ways in fact that I do need help. That life is indeed fragile and precarious and I do need help. And this is a scary, yet beautiful thing.
Life-Giving Simplicity
When I give myself time to grieve, when I ask for support in that grief and allow myself to be seen, I move into the practice of letting go. Letting go of relationships that have shifted into an unhealthy space, letting go of the person I was 5 years ago, letting go of ways that I hide and do not want to be known, letting go of attachments to employment, to a certain income, to the ways my health impacts how I move through the world on a daily basis.
As I think about simplicity, I think first about my internal world. How open am I to giving and receiving love? What pain is still present that I use to shield myself from relating to others in consensual and healthy ways? A consequence of prioritizing self-intimacy and tenderness is to let myself be changed by the process of grieving and letting go & opening myself to love in an ongoing way. As I live life in this flow, a simplicity and inner peace follows. There is an inner stillness I can access in the midst of complexity and ongoing trauma and pain. There is a confidence that builds. I am willing to risk vulnerability and being misunderstood. I am willing to learn the art of being alone, but not lonely. I am willing to commit to honoring my own existence by not abandoning myself. From these commitments, I am able to be with others, practicing less attachment, willing to just be in the present moment.
Platonic Commitments
It’s taken time to understand that a beautiful part of my asexual nature has been learning how my understanding and practice of love builds and strengthens by prioritizing platonic relationships. This truly is my greatest desire and it’s a complete one. It’s not immature or dishonest, it’s not a hiding or withholding. I desire and seek to live into multiple queer platonic committed relationships. There’s no road map for this. Relationship Anarchy gives some clues, so does ethical non-monogamy and the commitments of queer chosen family. Platonic commitments can be highly customized and ebb and flow along with life and how it changes. I can still struggle at seeing this as a liability rather than grounding in the reality of life as constant change & allowing the relationships in my life to heal, change and grow. Myself included.
