I've been thinking quite a bit about intimacy.

I am a lover at heart. Creating, to me, is basically making love to the page, the music, the moment, etc. I am very nurturing with regards to people. I recognize love easily and act sincerely when I know love. My definition for love has changed so radically over the past year that my definition of intimacy is being forced to change as well.

I see love everywhere and in everyone. It has been argued to me that love should be kept exclusive for a few people and, therefore, on some kind of a supply-and-demand model becomes special. In actuality this cheapens the idea horribly and falls in line with love as a business transaction. Love is not replacing bits and pieces of who you are with someone else. Love is coexistence, trust, and empathy... and there's no reason that those things cannot happen in yourself through many, many people.

And so, with love, we generate a sort of spiritual/soul intimacy that resonates freely and is a foundation that exists beyond the superficialities of ego, persona, body, etc. Yet... the expression of this foundation is important. And so we are faced with synchronizing the intimacy of spirit and soul with the other elements of human being... sharing emotions, identity, physical space, physical bodies, and some level of psychic cross pollination. And the synchronization of these things requires integration with life and with other people's lives. But when it happens, it feels right. And when it doesn't happen, it feels like something is literally out of sync.

Let's talk about sex. This is, possibly, the hardest thing to integrate with regards to realizing intimacy with others for many reasons. The biological drive to fuck is very strong and often overwhelms sex as an expression of love and mutual being. There's something to be said for this interaction, but it is not the same interaction. The target audience is different. They engage different parts of humanity. The standards are different. Would many men fuck Pamela Lee? Probably! Would many men lay in a bed next to her for hours cultivating a sense of intimacy by watching her eyes, holding her body, feeling her warmth, eliciting kisses not as a prelude to intercourse but as a gentle fondling of souls? I really doubt it. Pamela Lee, as I know her, is an object and not a human being... so this feels and sounds repulsive. I don't have any desire to be authentically intimate with a mannequin and Pam's not very different (this is not to insinuate that Pam is less than human but instead to demonstrate that she, as a human, is represented objectively and the intended audience is closer to biology than theology or phenomenology).

Although I have never experienced it, I believe that I would find sex without love to be empty. But, and here's the big point of all of this, I find love in just about everyone... hence the need for some sort of integration. If sex is an expression of a degree of intensity of love then some degree of sex (or, at lesser levels of intensity, just physical intimacy), then there's some degree of physical intimacy that is appropriate in all interactions. Eye contact? A handshake? A hug? Not moving an appendage when it's brushing against someone else? A kiss on the cheek? A kiss on the lips? A grab of the butt? Cuddling? Cessation of auxiliary thought and in meditative state of concentration on someone else? A French kiss? Groping? The act of removing clothing analogous to the cessation of physical identity barriers? Giving pleasure? Receiving pleasure? Penetration? Being penetrated? Cessation of egoic identity boundaries that arises out of focus on pleasure? Orgasm? Post-coital clarity and connectedness? This is a general continuum of physical intimacy as it proceeds in intensity.

These expressions of intimacy feel appropriate with different levels of coexistence, trust, and empathy.

The reason it feels so damned good to be with someone at some of the deeper levels of physical expression is that we spend so much of our time focused on maintaining our boundaries... our personal intellectual identity, constantly feeling that our skin is the end of 'us'. Putting these boundaries to rest for a while is an incredibly liberating respite from this constant game.

What I have come to understand is the way love flows in people. Through experience and practice I have become familiar with the process of opening up channels of love with others whether it be a genuine smile and eye contact with a stranger on the street or experiencing orgasm with a lover. It is important to recognize that, fundamentally, this is the same energy manifesting itself in intensity. This is not to say that we should experience orgasms with everyone we know, but instead to say that gradients of intensity are natural all the way up and all the way down.

We all are essentially already in love with someone. There are bits and pieces of that love in everyone and we can court that intimacy as a lover would court his or her love. That is we can court that intimacy with the sincerity and presence of a sexual act. We can shake hands absolutely and presently. We can hug absolutely and presently. We need to express whatever level of intimacy is appropriate to the greatest and most sincere extent that we can.

Love is required for an authentic sexual encounter. However, if one is present with someone and both people are engaged, love can be channeled and felt. This is real. It does not require three dates, a committed relationship, a year of experiences, common living quarters, or marriage to be experienced fully. These reference points are absolutely arbitrary and are excuses that are used to put something transrational in a rational context. Many people are scared to step outside of rationality and they strive to contextualize experiences within rationality, even if that context is artificial. An authentic union of being can happen instantly and requires nothing but awareness. It is uncommon to be able engage the trust element of love enough with a complete stranger, an acquaintance, or a friend. Many people need time and ego motivated reasons to let down their barriers to intimacy, but it is certainly possible under certain conditions and with people at similar places to find this trust easily and honestly. I believe that actualized, mature, and integrated people can experience intimacy easily and authentically because they recognize when communication of love is possible. These people do not seem like whores, players, sluts... somehow less human. They seem more human. And it seems beautiful. And this is a very real difference.