There Is Tenderness To Be Found In The Arms Of A Stranger

She looked at me with hunger in her eyes.

She looked at me with a plead for pleasure.

She looked at me like a new toy she can’t wait to break.

She looked at me with joy. Pure, beautiful, queer joy.

It is no secret that I am a promiscuous woman, at least at time of writing. I am in an upswing of hypersexuality, a side effect of finally claiming the identity of Butch. Being butch has imbued in me confidence like I’ve never felt before, the trueness of myself coming out in the way that I dress and how I act, and in how I flirt and how I fuck. With this confidence comes interest from other people; they want to examine this new creature, a being that greater cishetero society would rather see extinct.

And I want to be examined.

I have a number of different partners, and just as many lovers. Beyond that, I still find myself in the arms of strangers, never to see them again after our evening or afternoon, but still electing to share moments of vulnerability and intimacy with one another. Choosing to trust each other in a world that doesn’t trust us.

We are told by a cisheteropatriarchal society that us queers are disgusting, that we should be ashamed of ourselves for our sexual deviancy, that we are ruining ourselves with our multitude of partners. We are told that we are bringing an end to idea of intimacy as they know it.

I say, bring it all down. Burn the presupposed concepts of sex and love and family to the fucking ground.

I have found myself to be most vulnerable with these strangers, and found their own vulnerabilities to compliment mine. I have found trust in their hearts, and they have found trust in me. We have found pleasure like we’ve never known, and the kind of laughter one can only make when in the awkward acts of exploring a new body. We’ve shared smiles and sadness, tears of joy and despair. We share each other in the ways that we know how.

And we are told that we are lesser for this.

To what end shall they detest our queer love? What goal do they have in mind when they rid us of our hookup spots, take away our spontaneity, sanitize our protests, and pit us against each other? To erase the pleasure and love within our communities and our personal lives?

Make no mistake, this is love. I’ve loved people like I love to travel, like I love songs or mountains or clever jokes or the ocean or trains or walks in the park or flowers or alcohol. Every expression of love I have to give, I do. They cannot be relegated to just one partner, or even a certain number of them. I want to learn all the ways that I am capable of love, and capable of being loved back. I want to learn all the ways in which I can trust another person, and have it reciprocated. I want to share myself, as much as I can, and be shared with. You can only be so vulnerable with someone that you have known for years. I want to learn how to be vulnerable with you.

There is tenderness to be found in the arms of a stranger.