desire does not have to be extracted, optimized, or consumed. It can be inhabited.

The night unfolded like a dance, bodies awkwardly yet passionately learning one another, and toward the end I even briefly heard wedding bells, lol, until he mentioned his boyfriend.

I underwent a sort of metamorphosis with men: first, a phase of wanting to be chosen by anyone and everyone; then a blurrier phase of not wanting to choose, but accepting whatever came my way; and finally, arriving at a place of wanting to choose because I believed I deserved to.

For years, I had been performing a routine of sexuality that felt standardized, a one-size-fits-all formula, a costume slipped on without much thought. A version of sex that prioritized optics over presence, efficiency over curiosity, performance over feeling.

Every night that followed unfolded as its own small adventure, yet woven into each experience was a shared thread of passion. Whether it was a hookup, a fleeting make-out session on the street, or a kiss exchanged barefoot on the beach, Brazilians seemed to approach anything sexual with their entire being.

Gayness, as I have often experienced it, is an identity structured around replication, around rules that quietly mirror the very systems we claim to resist. Queerness, on the other hand, lives in the refusal to flatten experience. It is relational, embodied, and deeply situational. It asks not what should happen next, but what feels true right now.

I had unconsciously adapted to a gay, animalistic pace shaped by the men around me, one that demanded constant pursuit, constant availability, constant appetite. My body, however, had begun whispering something else entirely, and I did my best to ignore it.