bakerstreet | The Nonsexual Intimacy Meme

The Nonsexual Intimacy Meme

The Nonsexual Intimacy Meme

Intimacy is NOT necessarily about full sexual contact. Intimacy is all about two people forming a connection and bond between them. That involves becoming best friends, trusting each other, knowing each other, understanding each other. Intimacy is grown and developed, it can't be rushed.

Nonsexual forms of intimacy can add a great deal of depth and variety to fiction. On one end of the spectrum, they provide extra steps to support the journey from meeting a potential mate through romance, sex, and marriage. In the middle, they convey the import of family and professional connections, distinguishing those from more casual acquaintances. On the other end, they form much of the glue in primary relationships for people who don't base their ties on sexuality. Sex and romance are valuable, but they're not everything.

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PROMPTS

Hair care. Brushing, braiding, washing, cutting -- all of these involve a lot of careful touching in ways that many people enjoy. Hair braiding is a bonding experience in some cultures. In fact, grooming is a bonding technique for social primates in general. People without close ties to others often treat themselves to regular salon visits as a socially acceptable way to meet the need for touch and interaction.
Shaving. This involves an unusually high level of trust, especially if the person is using a straight-edge razor or something else with an exposed blade rather than just a buzzer. Although it can apply to women, shaving is one of the few forms of physical intimacy that is most closely associated with men due to their facial hair. Initiaton into shaving is a major milestone for becoming a man, not just for boys during puberty but also for transsexuals during transition.
Bathing. This varies by culture; in America most people bathe alone but some other cultures practice communal bathing. A bath is usually more intimate than a shower, although a public bath can be non-intimate and small shower stall can be intimate. It's also different when two people wash each other (an exchange of intimacy and affection) than when one person washes someone else (more of a caretaking or protective gesture).
Feeding. A classic romantic motif involves lovers feeding each other, but it works as a way of providing and caring for someone in any context. Like bathing, it can also clue whether both parties are participating equally or one is taking care of the other (temporarily or regularly). This one has an existential flavor since survival depends on food supply.
Seeing someone without their adaptive equipment on. This includes glasses, dentalware, prosthetic limbs, a wheelchair, etc. Adaptive equipment is part of one's presentation to the everyday world, and taking it off can be as intimate as removing clothing, for many people in many contexts.
Holding Hands: There can be many reasons for this gesture. Physical closeness, offering comfort, or staying together in a crowd, all may have you reaching for someone.
Undressing someone. This can be kind of a one-way experience if the recipient isn't awake, and is often awkward for both people if they are awake. Sometimes it happens because hands are out of commission, but a more common example is someone passing out drunk. Overheating is another good reason. Different circumstances can imply different levels of intimacy.
Sharing secrets. This especially applies to talking about personal issues that aren't widely known. An exchange of secrets is a common ritual between "best friends" among girls and women, but appears elsewhere as well. Some things are only discussed among people with a common reference; veterans may be more comfortable discussing war memories with each other than civilians.
Ordering for someone in a restaurant. Acquiring food, without asking the other person what to get, shows a knowledge of their needs and desires. Providing food is also a gesture of support and sustenance.
Providing moral support at a major event. Helping someone get through a funeral, a trial, or other intense but not crisis situation is usually performed by a very dear friend. This is a situation where lovers or family members may be too close to the matter to be much use.
Crying on someone. When you cry, you tend to let your guard down. Most of the people close to you will see you cry at some point, so that can be a milestone in a relationship. Actually crying on someone, letting them hold you, is even more intimate.
Serving in a primary role for someone during a wedding. This includes the best man or maid of honor at a wedding, or stand-in for absent parents, etc. as well as the traditional family roles. One aspect of intimacy is sharing each other's lives, including ceremonies and transitions.
Comforting someone after a bad breakup. Moments of great vulnerability can bring people closer. While this role sometimes falls to family, breakup repair more often goes to a woman's female friends or a man's male friends.
Listening to someone's heartbeat or breathing. Close body contact, enough to carry soft personal sounds, tends to be comforting as well as connecting, as it touches on positive childhood memories for most people. It is shared between parent and child, sometimes between siblings, and later between lovers. Tight nonsexual partners may also do this.
Putting someone to bed. Interestingly, this activity can happen among people who are just getting to know each other -- most often if someone passes out drunk, but exhaustion can have a similar effect. It's a gesture of caring to put someone to bed rather than leave them where they drop. A milder version involves draping a blanket or coat over a person asleep on a couch or the like.
Sleeping in the same bed. This is an act of shared vulnerability and intimacy. Lovers customarily do this; so do some siblings or friends, especially as children. People may also be driven to share a bed, sleeping bag, etc. for warmth or lack of other accommodations in challenging circumstances.
Watching someone sleep. There is more vulnerability on the part of the sleeper, and more intimacy from the watcher, when only one person is asleep. Parents often watch their children sleep. Lovers sometimes do this with each other, which can be cute or creepy. It's also a guard position, useful for showing that one character seeks to protect another.
Waking someone up from a nightmare. A subtler form of rescue than more physical actions, this is still a gesture of protection and caring. It often leads to comfort afterwards. A typical courtesy between parent and child, or lovers, this can also be an early threshold for characters thrust together unexpectedly if one of them has sturdy daytime walls and a lot of issues. It is common, but often unspoken, among war buddies or veterans, many of whom have nightmares.
Sharing clothes, jewelry, other personal items. This is common between siblings or close female friends. Sometimes roommates do it too. Wearing someone else's shirt or bathrobe is typical in romantic relationships, so can suggest a similar level of intimacy even in the absence of sex.
Cleaning someone else's living space. This shows care and knowledge on the part of the cleaner, and trust on the part of the recipient. You have to know what NOT to throw away or move. It's typical of family members and roommates. Coworkers may clean each other's desk, office space, etc.
Living together. This is a big step, even if it's just for a little while. Housemates are in each other's pockets; it's hard to keep secrets. Family members and lovers often live together, but housemates who are family-of-choice form a category of their own. If you don't want a romantic partner, a permanent housemate is a good choice for someone to share your life with.
Childbirth. Attending the blessed event entails providing a lot of moral support for hours under high stress. It can create a bond with the baby as well as with the mother. When planned, this opportunity is only offered to the closest family members or friends, barring professionals. But it can happen by surprise in very awkward circumstances, a popular motif in fiction.
Saving someone's life. Quick action in a life-threatening situation demonstrates how much one person values another. This can create a strong sense of connection, and sometimes obligation. It often, though not always, entails personal risk for the rescuer. This is fairly typical for military buddies or police partners, etc.
Risking your life for someone. Placing someone else ahead of your own life shows their importance to you unequivocally. This often, though not always, involves trying to save or protect another person. While it can create a sense of gratitude, it frequently causes anger as well -- someone who loves you will generally object to you endangering yourself, even to protect them. Military and police buddies protect each other regularly.
Making emergency decisions for someone. This reveals both how well you know the person, and how much you care about them -- whether you know what they would want, and act on it even if it differs from your personal preference. Unlike some of the other options, in this one the initial action is often outweighed by the aftermath. Both characters have to deal with the results of the decisions, good or bad.
Deathwatch. Dying can be as intimate as giving birth. Staying with someone while they pass is an act of love; so is providing moral support to someone sitting deathwatch for a family member or other person. Many soldiers and police have done this for someone.

(taken from here)

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"Then I'll just have to keep them in a super secret location and put them up anonymously." He gave Isaac a cheeky look back.

"Oh God. Who told you I'm an exhibitionist," he asked, gasping, mocking as if he was covering himself.

"I can see it in your eyes. You have the exhibitionist look." He was grinning, wondering how they'd gotten to this strange point in their conversation.

"What look is that? Gorgeous with bedroom eyes? Is that it? How much have you been staring at my eyes, Stilinski?"

"No, I have not been staring at your eyes." He rolled his own before he realized what the emphasis could imply. "Or anything else." Nope. No staring from Stiles. Nope. Not even a little.

"I think the lady do protesteth too much." Yep, dick is back in mode again. He's not real sure how to be anything but.

"I think the werewolf doth suck cock too much." He grumbled, glaring at Isaac.

"Oh you wish, Stilinski," he said, grinning widely at Stiles. "You could try asking."

He's joking. Yep, that's what it is. A joke.

And in the same totally joking (but maybe with just that little bit of a not joke), he laughed. "Right. Because I'm going to ask you that." Ha ha, Isaac. You're so funny, Isaac. Rub in his status a little more, Isaac.

Isaac smirked, shrugging. "Yeah well, I know you can't help yourself. Who can?" Yep, he's just playing. It's something he's finding easier and easier when around Stiles. That alone should make him curious, wondering just why it's so comfortable now. Or more comfortable.

"I'm sure you've had lots of practice. Lots and lots. That'd make anyone good at it." He grinned just a little, getting up and going over to where he had a book of movie discs. He picked it up and tossed it at Isaac. "Pick something."

Isaac gasped, trying not to laugh. "Did you just call me a cocksucker without saying it," he asked, grinning. He can't help himself, and he needed this kind of humor, silliness, now than he knew.

Catching the book without a second thought, glancing at Stiles before flipping through it. "If I find Twilight in here, I'm going to tell everyone." He glanced up at Stiles, pulling out a disc. It was a horror movie. No dogs at all. Or wolves.

"Gee, Isaac. I don't know. Did I?" He smirked, waiting for Isaac to pick a movie and taking it when he finally held one up. Not bad. Surprising that he'd pick a horror movie after having a panic attack, but hey, he wasn't the one in someone else's bedroom right now.

"No Twilight, I promise. Or anything to do with feelings." He jumped on his bed, leaving room for Isaac if he wanted. Or he could take the floor, like a good dog.

"Have you been spying on me, " he asked, gasping and trying to sound and look as scandalous as he could. "You wicked thing." Smirking as he covered himself with his hands. "Bad Stiles. Bad."

Stepping back, still trying not to laugh to look scared even as he slunk over and dropped down on the end of the bed.

"I don't need to spy on you. That look on your face pretty much says it all." He didn't need to look over at Isaac to give him a smug grin, it was implied in his tone.

The bed bounced as the other boy dropped onto it, but Stiles didn't move away from where he'd landed, staying in his spot and waiting for the movie to start.

"Here's hoping she you're waiting for is one as well. There. Is that better," he asked, glancing at him. It wasn't a fishing expedition to see if Stiles corrected him. Nope. Not at all.

Leaning back on his hands, half shifting toward Stiles though his gaze was on the screen now. "You are waiting for a girl, right?" Now that was fishing.

He didn't answer for a minute. He was busy thinking. Was he? He'd been waiting for Lydia for so long, it was almost habit to say that. But no. He wasn't waiting for her anymore. It was clear, more than, that she had no reciprocal feelings in that matter and he needed to move on.

So who was he waiting for? He wanted to say yes, because he knew he liked girls, but the thought of a guy didn't exactly have him making an icky face.

Maybe it just depended on the guy.

"I don't know." He gave Isaac an honest answer as he pillowed his chin on his hands.

He waits, glancing sidelong at Stiles while he takes his time answering. He wondered briefly if he'd overstepped himself, pushing too hard when his humor got out of control. He did that a lot though it hardly ever slowed him down. The last thing he expected was as honest an answer as he got.

"Yeah well... you got time, right? I mean, if you're waiting for the one, you'll know them when you find them." That was the theory, wasn't it? "Course, if they're not one, would that make them not the one or would you not know what you're missing," he teased, trying to lighten the mood for Stiles' sake.

He shrugged, shoulders lifting by the sides of his head. "Who knows. Is there even a one? Who knows if I'll find it. Maybe my one's already dead."

He let out a breath, feeling that flicker of despair at the thought that he'd be alone for the rest of his life.

"Hey, don't talk like that. Why would you think that? We're not even graduated yet. There are girls out there everywhere, and if you're not caring what sex they are, look at how many options you have. Seriously, Stiles, you've got time, okay? Don't judge by me. I'm just a stud."

And a guy with enough fear of his future to think he doesn't have time. And possibly bragging more than he should be about things that he might be exaggerating.

Stiles snorted, grabbing a pillow to move over and hit Isaac with. "Yeah, you're such a stud."

The tone was implied, Isaac. Couldn't you hear the sarcasm? It was there, thick and delicious and topping that entire statement.

He laughed, shifting away from the hit. "I'm trying to help here! And I'm glad you see it too. I mean, you do seem to have noticed my oral ways and all," he said, rolling his eyes. It was a joke. Yep. Just a joke.

"God, do you flirt like that with everyone? Is that why you get laid all the time? You and your 'oral skills'?" He shook his head, trying to hide the grin in his arms.

"With everyone? No," he said, shrugging one shoulder. Staring at the screen, he made a small sound.

"You ever heard a saying about how whatever number a guy gives you, cut it in third, but with girls you like double it or something?" He wasn't saying exact numbers, but after feeling about Stilinski's goal, he felt bad bragging even though he kept flirting.

"I might have." But regardless of whatever number Isaac gave him, unless it was 'zero', he was definitely up on Stiles. Which was frankly kind of annoying.

Stiles had some kind of charm, didn't he?

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