Friendship Is Sexual Liberation
Lourdez Velasco | Second Place Winner Of The Sexual Liberation Contest
To me, friendship is sexual liberation. Practicing care and intimacy through friendships has taught me so much about accessing my pleasure, learning more about my sexuality; opening doors as a CSA [Child Sexual Abuse] survivor to be able to receive. I really believe that I'm able to practice that in my queer friendships. From platonic intimacy to friends who are lovers, I've learned so much about liberating myself through my healing through my friendships.
One story I like to share is with a dear friend who loves to feed me food, like physically feed[ing] me food, like, literally feed[ing] me with the spoon and desserts, and we would laugh and giggle and kind of flirt with our eyes with each other. And it was such an act of care. One, because I'm a person who really struggles to receive care, so that opened me up to be able to say yes; say yes to this pleasurable moment and intimacy of being fed spiritually, physically, emotionally by a sweet friend who wanted to shower me in this type of care.
And the reason it's connected even more to my sexual liberation is because when I am centering in my erotic power in my sexuality, and engaging in any type of affection, sexual pleasure, and intimacy, it's been so healing for me to be able to experience it with people I trust and care for and in my survivorship. I've learned so much about the ways that I felt that I wasn't deserving of care and love and joy and even pleasure because of the shame, because of feeling like my power was taken from me. And through friendships, I've been able to really experience healing forms of care, of love, of pleasure, and of intimacy.
I feel so grateful that through my queer community I've been able to experience that type of joy and give myself permission to receive it and to be able to practice and reciprocate love, adoration, touch, kisses, cuddles, and [in] my body I could feel it. It's an embodied sense of feeling liberated, an experience and a state of being that I didn't get to experience for a long time. So for me, friendship is sexual liberation, and it is a practice of cultivating care and intimacy that is deeply connected to my healing and to my erotic power.