When Desire Sends You a Text

A friend's bold proposition for a night of intimacy with me stirred something I wasn't ready to face—until now. A meditation on desire, surrender, and learning to embrace what makes our bodies hum.

“Inside Your Eyes, (2024)” by Vanessa Raw

My loves—

Last year, as I watered my vase to prepare for the fresh new flowers I bought from Trader Joe’s, I got a text from a friend that sent me spiraling a little bit:

“Yo. Question… you’re not seeing anyone, right?”

I blinked at my phone, a little stunned that this question was finally coming up; I’ve had a thorough suspicion about our chemistry for a while now, and this text felt like a confirmation that I was right. Something between us made an obvious void, and she wanted to approach the gap.

“Uhhh, kinda sorta…? Yeah. Kind of. Sort of. I have that thing with that person,” I replied, eventually.

“You guys still doing that, lol?” She knew who I was talking about. How embarrassing. The last time this friend and I had seen each other, she was visiting LA for business and reached out to see me. This wasn’t a friend I had a long history with or even someone particularly close to me. We’d only met two times in person when I still lived in Brooklyn, with occasional text and IG chats. She was a delightful acquaintance; our conversations were always potent and enjoyable. With, now that I think about it, a sort of curiosity that wanted to peek under the skirt.

Seeing each other happened three months before this text convo. We had gone out for coffee and talked about her artwork (she’s an artist), my writing/life in LA that was just getting started, and dating. Love. Relationships.

I remember talking about my situation, denial held deep down in the pit of my gut as I told this friend that The Girl and I were enjoying each other, and it was lovely. Sure, I wanted more, but she didn’t yet, so I was happy to… be here with Her. I trained myself to play the role so well that I believed the script.

My friend was so kind not to question it, even though I knew I sounded like a girl deep in her stage performance. She nodded slowly, and I pretended she understood. To change the subject, my friend admitted that she hadn’t been intimate with anyone since before the pandemic. No kisses, no sex, no touching… nada. That she missed it but hadn’t met any prospects that could do the job—

“WOW. Tell me how you really feel,” I texted back playfully.

“Okay, okay. Lemme make my point…” she said. And I watched those three dots pulsate, my heart racing as I waited for her to plead her case. You see, during that coffee date three months ago, after she revealed what she revealed, it was my turn to nod slowly, downloading this information from a place of true oblivion. It wasn’t until she sent me a gaze that one could miss, the type that whispered a sweet thing the mouth didn’t need to.

I remember swallowing it, telling myself it’s best not to project. But… I am exceptionally great with reading energy. Too great, actually. When I want to be wrong, the read revealing the unspoken truth becomes a burden. And I had long read, since our first meeting, that while our interactions were always friendly, there was a thing. A simmering thing. A thing I ignored because my preoccupation rested with a person who was ambivalent about me, and I didn’t want to miss the moment when they had a change of heart and became sure.

But I knew that this friend and I were attracted to each other.

And I had a feeling this moment would be us acknowledging it. And I was frightened. Because now, we’d have to do something about this. And I… didn’t know what to do.

“…I wanna be intimate with you. It’s been a while since I’ve had any intimacy, as you know, and I feel like you’re someone I’d enjoy that with. And if you’d like, I’d love to discuss this more with you.”

How bold of her, Jesus Christ. I was such a damn baby when I read this. I almost fuckin’ threw up. I stared at my phone hard, rereading it like I wasn’t seeing what I thought I was. It was a cross between the sincerity of her message and the fact that she flat-out just asked if we could have sex because she knew we’d have a fantastic time and I was someone she wanted to experience. It would break the spell.

At that moment, though, I wish I was this bold, too. But I knew I wasn’t.

I was not ready or empowered to be desired by someone to whom I was also attracted enough to act on this desire.

Fast forward to yesterday, as I was driving around a warm Brooklyn, I thought about this entire exchange and my dynamic with this friend. I had been blasting NxWorries’s (Anderson .PaaK & producer Knxwledge), “Yes Lawd,” album, and the track “Lyk Dis” came on. I danced in my seat and put the volume up, the bass shaking the car, when its simple lyrics made me pay extra attention to it:

Let your hair down (Just like this)
Poke your back out (Just like this)
Talk dirty to me (Just like this)
Everything you do, oh when you do it
Say my name love (Just like this)
Now pick your legs up (Just like this)
Everything you do, oh when you do it

The last time I was brought to orgasm was earlier last year in this situationship. And I realized how much I miss sex. I missed it so much. Pushing buttons and revisiting your favorite places. The playfulness, the exploration, the taste and smell of the sex. I love who I become when I’m a lover. It’s not quite like I am as an artist, not at all how I am as a friend. When I get to have sex, and it’s good, I meet a person who doesn’t get to come out often, so she surprises me every time.

And then, it’s the plain and simple truth that getting tangled in sheets with a body you want to touch and who has hands and lips you want touching you is simply divine. I drove around, daydreaming about someone carefully considering my skin, tracing their fingers along my body. Marking checkpoints from head to toe with their tongue of spots they visited on their way down. They whisper how badly they want to taste the excitement between my legs, the teasing that comes from our anticipation. The sheer inability to catch my breath from the pleasure— ugh, I swooned to myself.

I didn’t think much about my situationship in particular. I couldn’t. It would try to come up since she was the last person I was intimate with, but heartbreak crushes some memories for you that can’t come back. Not in the way they used to, no matter how much my body wants to remember. And I’ve made peace with that, thankfully. So when it tries to creep in because it’s familiar or triggered, I protect myself from falling down the rabbit hole. There’s no point. When I’m done, I don’t look back.

That leaves me with no one to reminisce about. No past sex to play highlight reels of. Because it wasn’t until a year or two ago that I began to feel desirable and believed that people could, have, and WILL desire me. I understood right then why people have lovers: for this exact reason. And I wish I had one, too.

…that’s when I thought about my friend and our text convo from last year.

Had I been so bold, so empowered by my sexuality, I would have adequately considered it. Granted, empowerment in that sector of self doesn’t have to result in engaging in sex. Granting yourself the opportunity to decide and not feel pressured by anyone or any negative thoughts to say yes or no. My empowerment should rely on not being scared to have the conversation or on the actual act of considering them and myself, whether it would be an adventure I cared to embark on.

Instead, I feared the responsibility of deciding.

I feared what it meant for someone other than my situationship to desire me. When I think back, a small part of me was honored. I don’t take it lightly that someone chose me to engage in something they hadn’t done in a long time. I don’t take it lightly that they asked, knowing what they wanted, and did it in a way that wasn’t beating around the bush.

If we operated within a world where, when it came to sex, we TRULY appreciated each other enough to ask, listen, provide, explore, perform, learn, etc., for the sake of creating an incredible sexual experience? If we were thankful that someone decided to share their body and pleasure with us? Man…

Sex is extremely powerful. I think we ignore the weight of this because the conversation is heavily co-opted and hung up by its feet by religious doctrine. But, if you remove that hierarchy from the conversation, there is nothing more powerful than sex, and it being abused, weaponized, governed, and exploited by men throughout the centuries has ruined its beauty.

I don’t care much for it being saved for marriage. Not everyone will be married, not everyone WANTS to be married, and some marriages are forced and false where sex for the first time between the man and woman has not been earned but authorized just because you said, “I do.”

I am talking about the simple understanding that letting someone “have” your body is spectacular, and we should appreciate it when someone comes to us with a proposal to engage it. To please it. In someone saying, “I’ve chosen you to enjoy my body, and I’d like to enjoy yours, as well.”

…it doesn’t have to come out like that, lol. But the way my friend asked me took me aback because she was direct. She pondered on them and her decision, and she expressed herself.

Me now would have said yes. My relationship with desire has deepened over the year after my break up, where I’ve been studying the spoonfed reluctance we have towards exploring the tantalizing curiosities that give our hearts a mad dash. In the pursuit of intentionality with my creative nature, I’ve learned that creativity and sex not only go hand in hand, but they come from the same source and act for each other. Sex uses creativity in the exploration of the act, and my creative work is supported by my sexual prowess for living. Sex is life. Which is why it’s forced into a taboo that we skirt around.

My excitement for sex is finally coming from a place of wanting to meet myself, not run away from her, especially if it’s within an urge that happens between me and someone I may not be romantic with but fervently attracted to.

Me now would have called her and said, “First off, I love that you asked. So… what does intimacy look like for you?” And then we’d have fun discussing it. If they had been explicit and clear enough, we might have gotten turned on. We would have discussed when and where. We would have let our imaginations set a scene, and then, if we agreed to this dream together, we would have planned it out to happen in real life.

I’ve been exploring desire in my

But. We didn’t. In fact, we never got around to talking about it.

“I’d be open to it, sure. Maybe the next time you’re back,” I replied, knowing damn well I was going to avoid that conversation like the plague.

I think she sensed it. “Cool, cool,” she replied

And that was that.

She could have pressed into it, but in hindsight, I don’t think I gave the energy of curiosity that would have reassured her. Maybe she was nervous as fuck asking me, and my answer made her more anxious, and she chickened out. Maybe she had her reasons, and I don’t need to be on my newsletter creating them.

All I know is I was glad she didn't bring it up. Then.

Now, though? I find myself craving not just a lover but the boldness to fully embrace desire when it presents itself. To meet it with the same direct curiosity my friend showed that day. Because there's something powerful in knowing exactly what you want and having the courage to name it - whether that's with a long-term partner or a delightful acquaintance who catches your eye across a coffee shop table.

Maybe next time, I won't wait for the memory to become a lesson.

Love,
Cyn

The art featured in today’s post is by the extraordinary painter and triathlete Vanessa Raw (b. 1984), whose work I happened upon thanks to Brendon Holder’s latest around attending Miami Art Basel for his newsletter, “LOOSEY.” Featured at the notorious art fair, I was arrested by the heaven Vanessa channels, not as a form of romanticizing, but as if she were chosen to see something we find hard to grasp: women loving women with no interference of a male gaze. How that practice of pleasure extends to nature and life, and just how ecstatic it is and can be.

“Creating sensual and loving figures within peaceful surroundings, it's as if she's metamorphosing her own negative experiences and memories to that of new beginnings. The landscapes in which the figures reside are experienced by Raw when she runs through them. Once a GB triathlete, being in her “body” is a large part of the work. The physicality of her gestures can be experienced through the flowing flora. She refers to both running and painting as moving meditation, a place where she feels at peace.” (x)

What’s stunning to me is that her paintings are not shy in their femininity. It’s so overt, so charming, so sexual that, in a world where desire, nudity, pleasure, and expression get villainized or rejected if projected from a heart space, her art lives breathlessly on large tableaus meant to captivate with its wondrous imagination. As mentioned above, approaching such a power must be transformative. And as I inch to explore my own transformation, reminders like Vanessa affirms the direction.