On Desire, Intimacy, and the ethics of Love
Lately I’ve been having a lot of conversations around ideas of desire and intimacy. My conversations have mostly been with queer folks of varying expressions of identity and relations (single, monogamists, and polyamorous). These have been fruitful conversations and have challenged me to think about my own concepts of desire and intimacy.
I have several relationships that are intimate, intense, and compelling. These relationships are relationships of love, certainly, but I don’t have genital contact with these folks. Meaning, I don’t think these relationships qualify as polyamorous relationships. Yet, these relationships are primary to me–I desire these few folks and we share a level of intimacy that I don’t necessarily share with others. And, finally, I love them. I’m committed to them.
So, what is the place of desire and intimacy in relationships–relationships where you love someone but don’t necessarily have genital contact with them? For a decade I’ve been known to say that eroticism exists in any/every relationship. Desire, compulsion, and intimacy exists in interpersonal relationships. Is this an ethic of love?
On aside, I’ve been twittering w/ some poly folks attempting to both understand and support this expression of relationship. I’ve enjoyed this virtual perspective. I also have a colleague and two good friends who are poly; they all are in the Denver area. I’ve enjoyed learning about this expression of relationship and find myself asking the same question: where is the place for desire and intimacy?
If I have desire, compulsion, and in some of my relationships, and I’m not poly, then what is the difference here? Genital contact? I feel it has to be more than that, but I’m not sure what it is. I’m committed to learning, and I’m committed to getting a better sense of what the ethics of love really is. If you have thoughts, please deposit them here and join the conversation.
Finally, I’m super thankful that I had a parent who didn’t police my every move in the first 12 years of my life, allowing me to form opinions and value statements independent of her own. I think this gave me the skills to be open to different forms of love and relating, albeit challenging to do as a theologian/ethicist!
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