{"id":7406,"date":"2026-10-27T18:10:41","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T15:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/queercollective.cy\/?p=7406"},"modified":"2026-10-27T18:14:27","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T15:14:27","slug":"radical-intimacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/queercollective.cy\/el\/radical-intimacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Radical Intimacy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When one speaks of intimacy in the new age of performative feminism, queerbaiting straightness and pink-washed nationalism, there are some phenomena that are now familiar to our cultural knowledge (and if they\u2019re not, they should be).Phenomena like \u201cBerlin straight\u201d, \u201chetero-pessimism\u201d and \u201cnon-binary male\u201d. Somewhere between the identity battlefields, the \u201cQueerbaiting heteros\u201d, that have had enough privilege, now seek it\u2019s re-instating in darkrooms and queer parties, and the \u201cHeterobased gays\u201d, that have had enough \u201cvictim\u201d privilege, now seek its refusal in CEO chairs and wedding chapels. In this cultural-flop era we\u2019re living through, of modern \u2013isms, zapified cognitions and lobotomized politics, how can one even think of intimacy within the game of musical chairs we\u2019re asked to participate in: Fuck, Marry, Kill \u2013 Empty Hedonism, Sellout Homonormativity or Solitary political consciousness? Joke is, gender might be a construct, but everyone still likes to cuddle.<\/p>

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When speaking of radical intimacy, Sophie K. Rosa\u2019s book, entitled as such, asks for a deconstruction of the thought patterns we all unconsciously adopt. Firstly, intimacy as reserved for romantic partners though compulsory monogamy. Then, the couple as the ultimate form of intimacy toppling all the rest, and lastly, treating romance and the \u201ccouple\u201d as outside of community and thus outside of politics. Ultimately asking for healthier and more diverse ways of connecting with one another, rather than a \u201cperfect\u201d relationship.<\/p>

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To begin with, the first thing we should posit against is the idea of Romantic Teleology. We treat \u201cromance\u201d as the ultimate goal of a person\u2019s life. Its aspiration is everywhere around us, from the way newborns are being talked to, being promised a future of Prince Charmings, to every single pop song we belt out with our friends when we\u2019re white-girl-wasted. In a society that is bereft of spirituality, \u201clove\u201d is treated as a God-like creature whose presence we might not necessarily be able to put into words, yet we constantly feel looming over us either as the ultimate reward of luck, or as the penultimate judgment, dying alone being the only thing worse than simply dying. We live in a heterosexist world, where toxic monogamy started from Valentines Day cards saying \u201cYou\u2019re my other half\u201d, \u201cYou complete me\u201d, \u201cYou are my everything\u201d, \u201cI have eyes for no one but you\u201d and has now taken a ship to a Love Island where it is paraded around within the premise of \u201cIf your love is real, you would never cheat\u201d opposed to \u201cThe whole point of the show is dependent on people that DO cheat which is what the whole entertainment aspect is, cause what\u2019s entertaining in watching a bunch of people who love one another be faithful and not tempted?\u201d. If indeed the \u201cultimate\u201d love, is natural, magnetic, unanimous, spiritual and divine, then what is this nugget of curiosity, our own sexual itch is based on? Such understandings of love, as needing to be tested, isolated in a holy-chamber of pure ideation and holy nature, creates a power dynamic of Evangelical Monogamy. In this world full of ZioNazis running governments and ChristianoTallibans enablers claiming gay protection from Muslims, it seems like the worst thing you can do to oppose their mission of holy retribution is to defile the \u201cunion\u201d these clowns call \u201cPurity\u201d, via sex, either gay or simply, extramarital by \u201ccheating\u201d on your partner.<\/p>

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God forbid a girl has a little fun. (Evidently, lying to your partner is the bad aspect of cheating. As Rosa so boldly says \u201ccheating is the worst part of the revolution\u201d. This is not to promote cheating as a sort of advisory revolutionary act. More so, it is to consolidate the fact that we should strive for sexual openness<\/p>

and exploration and oppose compulsory monogamy, if that is what we want, in ORDER to maintain healthy relationships instead of using sexual exploration as a result to what an \u201cunhealthy\u201d relationship looks like.)<\/p>

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If compulsory monogamy and heterosexuality are seen as \u201cnatural\u201d and a straight cis monogamous couple is seen as an \u201cestablished relationship\u201d, then what about queerness? Okay okay, let\u2019s maybe not get to fisting yet. How about then, a married couple that cheated? How about, a single mother? How about, a married couple with kids that are secretly swingers? Are any of these relationships valid, natural and established, or is their variance forfeiting their fight for the top of the SexSuccessPyramid? Is ANY infraction of the framework of monogamy seen as a moral failing or is that just reserved for cheaters, women that gained weight during their marriage and \u201clet themselves go\u201d and the \u201ccooky, slutty, commited-phobic fags that munch butts\u201d? To noone\u2019s surprise, the first step in destabilizing the teleological approach to thinking about love, one simply needs to look back. Only during the 17th and 18th century, were the first introductions of romantic love as a valid reason for marriage, amongst the rich in the West – as opposed to simply, capital exchange between clans. Then, as recent as the 19th century did the phenomenon of romantic love marriages become more widely spread for lower classes. Even then though, the nature of marriage, had a transactional nature where the women were basically traded on the marriage market, for their fathers and families to accumulate more wealth, and love was simply a conceptual tool to somehow create the illusion of choice. Marriage then, as the ultimate goal of a person\u2019s life, has a fairly short history of power and relevance beyond the subjugation of women to another patriarch. If you\u2019re shocked by this, just read Engels and the Origin of the Oppression of Women \u2013 you can thank me later.<\/p>

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When it comes to gay marriage though, we believe the laws are reversed due to the subjugation of LGBT people within the homophobic regimes we live in. Under the sexual hegemony we live in , where desire is organized contractually, gay marriage represents the last-frontier of neoliberal capitalism as far as love and intimacy goes. Initially, what one should deconstruct is the aspirational fantasy of assimilation as a \u201csolution\u201d to the social status of oppression an alternative would be. By naturalizing and assimilating gay desire within society, what capitalism does is re-instate the sexual hegemony straight people suffer in, to gay relationships. How this happens is by extending the laws that regulate intimate relationships (ex. Inheritance, care giving when sick) to gay people that are married, ultimately establishing the power of marriage over any other kind of relationship. You see! Marriage is great! Even gay people want it!<\/p>

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Gay love is seen as love par-excellence since ultimately, with no cause of \u201cnatural reproduction\u201d, you represent the desire to marry in its purest form \u2013 love as a bond needing protection from the bad, crazy world of hedonism. Used as a form of nation building, gay marriage is plastered across campaigns as empty as \u201cLove is Love\u201d and \u201cWe\u2019re all human\u201d, to somehow show how similar gay people are to straight people. As opposed to the crazy, threatening, sex-obsessed, glitter wearing, STD baring fairies that are so selfish they want to party till their 80\u2019s and stack up a sex-roaster in the 3-digits. The same ones that are ruining our claim for rights with their harnesses during Pride and their dirty cruising. An example shoved down our throats ad-nauseum is Tel Aviv as the gay Mecca of the Middle-East. HOW can one hate Israel when they are the ONLY democracy in the Middle East, and the ONLY country that loves gays and wants to protect them from the big scary brown Muslim? As if the biggest cause of death of queer Palestinians is Allah and not Israel.<\/p>

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Homonationalism is not only a form to control gay people from revolting, but also a way to cement Western supremacy over the Muslim world. Look at the wholesome, gay couple of Prime Ministers, using a surrogate (aka. rich people harvesting their seed in a woman as if our societies weren\u2019t dystopian enough) and adopting a less-privileged black kid to show them the wonders of the West, posing over the Amsterdam river \u00e0 la Ikea picture-frame. How beautiful of a sight it is, this \u201cwin\u201d for Gayness, while their government is literally funding a genocide 5 countries to the left, and enforcing stricter migration policies by the minute. It doesn\u2019t matter, as long as the rainbow flag is big enough to cover all the dead bodies we\u2019ll step on in our heels during Pride.<\/p>

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IF indeed, the reason we are fighting for gay marriage is not assimilation but it is to receive all the advantages this union has, then why are we not fighting exclusively for those advantages instead? Why do we need to pass the message of \u201cI\u2019m just like you\u201d, in order to receive only a fraction of privilege? If what we want is the privilege to see our partner in the ER, why do we not fight for the recognition of other relationships as important too? Why are we so bothered by the table only until we get a seat and then we put our feet on it? This hetero-normality we so eagerly beg for, as breadcrumbs from the privilege pie is nothing more but a distraction, created by the upper-class gays, the ones that vote against us in the booth only because they wish to see themselves sitting at the head of that table. It universalizes a normative framework of intimacy which ultimately excludes the BIGGEST chunk of the community that instead of wedding bells and tuxedos, what we need is:<\/p>

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– FREE TRANS HEALTHCARE<\/p>

– FREE MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES<\/p>

– SEXUAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS<\/p>

– EQUAL WORKSPACE OPPORTUNITIES<\/p>

AND FOR FUCKS SAKE<\/p>

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– BETTER EDUCATION AROUND OUR LIVES<\/p>

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Latsly, what Radical Intimacy preaches, is a form of Relationship Anarchy that is informed and realistic to the discourse, most people\u2019s lives are jettisoned in without their will. Yes, you do not get to choose whether you\u2019re gay or not. You do get to choose whether you\u2019re a bootlicker though.<\/p>

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Firstly, Relationship Anarchy is not an \u201canything goes\u201d Fuckfest. It is an awareness and a plea to collaborative relationships that are built around people, as opposed to a \u201ccommon sense\u201d of what our desires and wishes are.<\/p>

Relationship Anarchy is an inclusion of your romantic relationship as \u201ca part of\u201d the community rather than \u201capart of\u201d the community. Community comes first. Always.<\/p>

Relationship Anarchy is thinking of friendships as relationships that need equal attention as to whoever is providing your orgasms.<\/p>

Relationship Anarchy is thinking of that someone who provides your orgasms as important and who you relate you to through queer time instead of a hetero \u201c first date-become monogamous-move in-get married-have kids\u201d kind of timeline.<\/p>

Relationship Anarchy is denouncing romance as competitive and see it as touchy, and affective, and sticky, and sweet, and salty and sexy and malleable to whatever fucking adjective you want to attach to it.<\/p>

Relationship Anarchy is seeing Romance with a capital R as inherently queerphobic and the pop culture bullshit we\u2019re deep-throating as needing a gag-reflex because you should not want to ingest everything they sell to you.<\/p>

Relationship Anarchy is promoting political partnerships that go against hoarding another person\u2019s body and lastly, Relationship Anarchy is understanding the power of your body as that is in constant tension with the evolving power structures that make it what it is: a tool of the Empire to control.<\/p>

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Instead, Relationship Anarchy asks you to treat intimacy and your body as a powerful nuclear tool of mass destruction. Withhold sex from losers. Withhold sex from people that would vote against you. Withhold sex from fascists and from racists and from transphobes. Realize the beauty that comes with the crevice, folds and shimmies, your belly, titties and thighs make, when you wish to dance horizontally with whoever you want, whenever you want, and however you want.<\/p>

Life is what you make of it but life is gonna suck, if you don\u2019t know how to swallow. So guzzle up gurls.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When one speaks of intimacy in the new age of performative feminism, queerbaiting straightness and pink-washed nationalism, there are some phenomena that are now familiar to our cultural knowledge (and if they\u2019re not, they should be).Phenomena like \u201cBerlin straight\u201d, \u201chetero-pessimism\u201d and \u201cnon-binary male\u201d. Somewhere between the identity battlefields, the \u201cQueerbaiting heteros\u201d, that have had enough […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-club"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t