I have been trying to find the words to describe what has been going on in my head lately. I have been feeling quite fragile, filled with an insatiable yearning for gentleness.
I have been single for over two years now, and I have never been in a serious, long-term relationship. For a time, I actively chose to be single because I felt that I was not in a healthy space mentally to be able to be with someone without being toxic in some way. I needed to heal, I needed to grow, and I needed to do so alone. I still value my time spent on my own, and have grown to love myself immensely. I am proud of what I have overcome, of what I have accomplished, and of who I am becoming.
An important boundary for me is that I do not have sex or take part in sexual acts with anyone that I do not trust. Trust, however, does not come easily for me. I need to feel safe and comfortable with someone so that I am willing to be vulnerable with them. This means that I do not have sex with someone I am not in a committed relationship with.
Considering these two points - my boundary and my length of singledom - I have not had sex in over two years. There are moments where I miss it, quite desperately even, but the longer I go without it, the less I seem to need it. I realized that it wasn’t the sex I was missing, but the feeling of being close to someone, of being wanted and needed. In the moment, sex offers that. Once it is over, however, I was more often than not left feeling used, abused, hollowed out and abandoned. That is not how anyone should be made to feel.
All of this time has led to quite a bit of self-reflection. It has made me analyze my past relationships - familial, platonic, romantic, sexual, professional - and to understand what it was I was missing. The conclusion I came to was this: gentleness. Few people in my life have ever treated me with a reverent kind of gentleness that made me feel precious, cherished. I have always been a sensitive individual, in so many ways, and yet no one ever treated me as something they didn’t want to break.
My sexual tastes can sometimes sway a bit rougher than some, but that is not always true. Yet, never once has someone looked at me and said they wanted to touch me softly, taste me slowly, treat me with kindness and love and care before they demanded to ravage and ruin. I’ve come to wonder why everyone who meets me and feels some kind of attraction towards me immediately desires to beat me down, tear me apart, and abuse me as they please. Sometimes innocence can just be innocence, without the potential to be corrupted. Fragile can simply be fragile, without tempting you to smash it to pieces.
So that is what I have come to desire. Gentleness. Gentleness brings with it reverence, care, consideration. It brings with it an attention and an effort few are willing to offer anymore, if they ever were to begin with.
I will continue to search for gentleness in the morning birdsong outside my window, in the warmth of a soft blanket at night, in the smile of a friend. I will no longer search for it in the arms of a stranger, the touch of a midnight lover, the empty words of a faceless name. If no one is capable or willing to be gentle with me, then I will simply be gentle with myself.
