Queerness is located not just inside me but also interpersonally, in the dynamics I seek and feel seen by. I have stopped sleeping with my friends with as much frequency, but sexual desire is no longer feared or categorically denied in our relationships. I now live with my closest friends from childhood. We met at eleven, we were children together

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The platonic/romantic binary is just as false as all the others. Admitting that has made my friendships richer and more truthful. Giving my friends pleasure felt pure, a more singular kind of giving than I had previously experienced, less fraught. When I sleep with men, I tend to do so the first time I go out with them; sometimes it turns into an

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perhaps this is why the idea of intellectual seduction is so intoxicating: it thrives on restraint. a conversation charged with subtext, a letter laden with implication, a gaze held just a second too long. these moments generate their own kind of tension, a pleasure sharpened by denial. the body, paradoxically, becomes most present in its absence.... See more