The Non-Sexual Intimacy Meme

[enticingly]

Intimacy is NOT necessarily about full sexual contact. Intimacy is all about two people forming a connection and bond between them. That involves becoming best friends, trusting each other, knowing each other, understanding each other. Intimacy is grown and developed, it can't be rushed.

Nonsexual forms of intimacy can add a great deal of depth and variety to fiction. On one end of the spectrum, they provide extra steps to support the journey from meeting a potential mate through romance, sex, and marriage. In the middle, they convey the import of family and professional connections, distinguishing those from more casual acquaintances. On the other end, they form much of the glue in primary relationships for people who don't base their ties on sexuality. Sex and romance are valuable, but they're not everything.

RULES
-Comment with your character. Be sure to include preferences (ie, f/f for shipping, OTA for gen, etc)
-Tag others!

PROMPTS
1. Hair care. Brushing, braiding, washing, cutting -- all of these involve a lot of careful touching in ways that many people enjoy. Hair braiding is a bonding experience in some cultures. In fact, grooming is a bonding technique for social primates in general. People without close ties to others often treat themselves to regular salon visits as a socially acceptable way to meet the need for touch and interaction.

2. Shaving. This involves an unusually high level of trust, especially if the person is using a straight-edge razor or something else with an exposed blade rather than just a buzzer. Although it can apply to women, shaving is one of the few forms of physical intimacy that is most closely associated with men due to their facial hair. Initiaton into shaving is a major milestone for becoming a man, not just for boys during puberty but also for transsexuals during transition.

3. Bathing. This varies by culture; in America most people bathe alone but some other cultures practice communal bathing. A bath is usually more intimate than a shower, although a public bath can be non-intimate and small shower stall can be intimate. It's also different when two people wash each other (an exchange of intimacy and affection) than when one person washes someone else (more of a caretaking or protective gesture).

4. Feeding. A classic romantic motif involves lovers feeding each other, but it works as a way of providing and caring for someone in any context. Like bathing, it can also clue whether both parties are participating equally or one is taking care of the other (temporarily or regularly). This one has an existential flavor since survival depends on food supply.

5. Seeing someone without their adaptive equipment on. This includes glasses, dentalware, prosthetic limbs, a wheelchair, etc. Adaptive equipment is part of one's presentation to the everyday world, and taking it off can be as intimate as removing clothing, for many people in many contexts.

6. Holding Hands. There can be many reasons for this gesture. Physical closeness, offering comfort, or staying together in a crowd, all may have you reaching for someone.

7. Undressing someone. This can be kind of a one-way experience if the recipient isn't awake, and is often awkward for both people if they are awake. Sometimes it happens because hands are out of commission, but a more common example is someone passing out drunk. Overheating is another good reason. Different circumstances can imply different levels of intimacy.

8. Sharing secrets. This especially applies to talking about personal issues that aren't widely known. An exchange of secrets is a common ritual between "best friends" among girls and women, but appears elsewhere as well. Some things are only discussed among people with a common reference; veterans may be more comfortable discussing war memories with each other than civilians.

9. Ordering for someone in a restaurant. Acquiring food, without asking the other person what to get, shows a knowledge of their needs and desires. Providing food is also a gesture of support and sustenance.

10. Providing moral support at a major event. Helping someone get through a funeral, a trial, or other intense but not crisis situation is usually performed by a very dear friend. This is a situation where lovers or family members may be too close to the matter to be much use.

11. Crying on someone. When you cry, you tend to let your guard down. Most of the people close to you will see you cry at some point, so that can be a milestone in a relationship. Actually crying on someone, letting them hold you, is even more intimate.

12. Serving in a primary role for someone during a wedding. This includes the best man or maid of honor at a wedding, or stand-in for absent parents, etc. as well as the traditional family roles. One aspect of intimacy is sharing each other's lives, including ceremonies and transitions.

13. Comforting someone after a bad breakup. Moments of great vulnerability can bring people closer. While this role sometimes falls to family, breakup repair more often goes to a woman's female friends or a man's male friends.

14. Listening to someone's heartbeat or breathing. Close body contact, enough to carry soft personal sounds, tends to be comforting as well as connecting, as it touches on positive childhood memories for most people. It is shared between parent and child, sometimes between siblings, and later between lovers. Tight nonsexual partners may also do this.

15. Putting someone to bed. Interestingly, this activity can happen among people who are just getting to know each other -- most often if someone passes out drunk, but exhaustion can have a similar effect. It's a gesture of caring to put someone to bed rather than leave them where they drop. A milder version involves draping a blanket or coat over a person asleep on a couch or the like.

16. Sleeping in the same bed. This is an act of shared vulnerability and intimacy. Lovers customarily do this; so do some siblings or friends, especially as children. People may also be driven to share a bed, sleeping bag, etc. for warmth or lack of other accommodations in challenging circumstances.

17. Watching someone sleep. There is more vulnerability on the part of the sleeper, and more intimacy from the watcher, when only one person is asleep. Parents often watch their children sleep. Lovers sometimes do this with each other, which can be cute or creepy. It's also a guard position, useful for showing that one character seeks to protect another.

18. Waking someone up from a nightmare. A subtler form of rescue than more physical actions, this is still a gesture of protection and caring. It often leads to comfort afterwards. A typical courtesy between parent and child, or lovers, this can also be an early threshold for characters thrust together unexpectedly if one of them has sturdy daytime walls and a lot of issues. It is common, but often unspoken, among war buddies or veterans, many of whom have nightmares.

19. Sharing clothes, jewelry, other personal items. This is common between siblings or close female friends. Sometimes roommates do it too. Wearing someone else's shirt or bathrobe is typical in romantic relationships, so can suggest a similar level of intimacy even in the absence of sex.

20. Cleaning someone else's living space. This shows care and knowledge on the part of the cleaner, and trust on the part of the recipient. You have to know what NOT to throw away or move. It's typical of family members and roommates. Coworkers may clean each other's desk, office space, etc.

21. Living together. This is a big step, even if it's just for a little while. Housemates are in each other's pockets; it's hard to keep secrets. Family members and lovers often live together, but housemates who are family-of-choice form a category of their own. If you don't want a romantic partner, a permanent housemate is a good choice for someone to share your life with.

22. Childbirth. Attending the blessed event entails providing a lot of moral support for hours under high stress. It can create a bond with the baby as well as with the mother. When planned, this opportunity is only offered to the closest family members or friends, barring professionals. But it can happen by surprise in very awkward circumstances, a popular motif in fiction.

23. Saving someone's life. Quick action in a life-threatening situation demonstrates how much one person values another. This can create a strong sense of connection, and sometimes obligation. It often, though not always, entails personal risk for the rescuer. This is fairly typical for military buddies or police partners, etc.

24. Risking your life for someone. Placing someone else ahead of your own life shows their importance to you unequivocally. This often, though not always, involves trying to save or protect another person. While it can create a sense of gratitude, it frequently causes anger as well -- someone who loves you will generally object to you endangering yourself, even to protect them. Military and police buddies protect each other regularly.

25. Making emergency decisions for someone. This reveals both how well you know the person, and how much you care about them -- whether you know what they would want, and act on it even if it differs from your personal preference. Unlike some of the other options, in this one the initial action is often outweighed by the aftermath. Both characters have to deal with the results of the decisions, good or bad.

26. Deathwatch. Dying can be as intimate as giving birth. Staying with someone while they pass is an act of love; so is providing moral support to someone sitting deathwatch for a family member or other person. Many soldiers and police have done this for someone.

Comments

[weirlind]

[Why wouldn't they? She's beautiful. Not in the same way that Leesha is, the conventional way. But there's an air that's always followed Ellen. It's confidence, a certain comfortable swagger that says she knows who she is and it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about it.

That's beauty.

He places his arms behind his head, propping it up to watch her.] I like looking.

[legbreaker]

[She raises an eyebrow at him, before she shrugs. If he wants to watch, he can watch. She's not shy around him - what's the point? - and there are plenty of ways she can enjoy herself without him.]

Then enjoy, I guess. [She doesn't have that much faith in him being able to stop himself for long, anyway. Especially because she's not wearing a bra under his shirt, a fact that gets revealed almost immediately as she tugs it up that last little bit before pulling it off completely.

The shirt ends up somewhere unimportant. She meets his gaze and smirks again, pleased with herself.]

[weirlind]

[And, let's be real, Jack would honestly enjoy watching those ways, too. He's got a longer line of patience than Ellen does any day.]

I always do. [And then his shirt is gone and not exactly returned to him, which was the point. Wasn't it? Oh, who cares, his girlfriend is on top of him in only her underwear. His gaze combs over her, even though he's practically already memorized every curve, every soft place, every muscle that she's gained over the years.

Okay, maybe touching wouldn't hurt. His hands go to her waist, thumbs brushing over the skin gently in small circles.]

[legbreaker]

[She remains still as his eyes rake over her, not even a little bit shy or ashamed. Actually, it kind of turns her on even more, after their brief fight. A pleased light sparks in her eyes, and her lips quirk up a little more as his hands go to her waist.]

You're so easy. [She murmurs it, leaning down to brush her lips over the corner of his mouth.] Can you even get this shirt off?

[weirlind]

[His head turns to catch her mouth when she brushes her lips close to his. Whatever, Ellen. Just whatever.] Like you'd want me any other way. [Still, his hands travel up, over her ribs, fingertips brushing her breasts.] Probably.

[legbreaker]

[And maybe that's an actual, genuine smile he coaxes from her as he turns her head, broken by the soft way her breath catches in her throat from the touch of his fingers.] You're a challenge where it counts. [Far from being derisive, it's actually her way of agreeing. At the end of the day, Jack is the perfect guy for her, and they both know it]

So are you going to do it, or are we going to spend the rest of the morning chatting?

[weirlind]

[Yup, definitely a smile from her. Yeah, Jack's just good like that.] That's all that matters to me, really. [He's just always been laid back. Even when he rises to the challenge of fighting with her, he's still laid back.

His hands cup her breasts, thumbs brushing over her nipples softly.] I don't know, I'm good right now.

[legbreaker]

[Her back arches, pushing into his touch a little. Her teeth tug at his bottom lip in return] Take the shirt off. [It's absolutely a demand] I want to get my hands on you.

[weirlind]

[He groans against her mouth, shifting beneath her.] Take it off yourself if you want it that bad.

[legbreaker]

[Ellen eyes him for a moment, before pulling back, away from him] Okay. [And there's a tearing sound as she takes two handfuls of the shirt and rips it right up the middle. He already ruined it with his stupid muscles, anyway.

And she wants it. There's no denying that. She places her hands on his abruptly bare chest and starts dragging them down, angling the tips of her fingers so that her nails scrape over his skin, intending to tease more than hurt] Problem solved.

[weirlind]

[Jack laughs, because honestly. He'd been expecting that. Ellen doesn't take the normal route to things that she wants, she takes the abrupt route.] This is just so that you can keep my shirt later, isn't it?

[He jumps a bit at the feel of her nails, groaning in the back of his throat. He rolls her nipple between his fingers.]

[legbreaker]

[She rocks down against him as his fingers tease her nipple, and tells herself it's intentional. She's teasing him. Yup.] I was going to do that, anyway. [She likes his shirts. She also likes the way he reacts to her in his shirts.

Taking hold of his wrists, she drags his hands from her breasts down over her body, until they're settled at her waist. Giving her room to work with, as she proves a moment later as her head dips, pressing a messy kiss to his left pectoral, right over his heart. Or his Weirstone. Which one is significant doesn't actually matter, obviously, because it's just a coincidental choice. Her mouth works inward and down, towards the centre of his chest, enjoying the taste of skin and salt under her tongue]

[weirlind]

[He groans, hips stuttering back up against hers when she rocks down like that.] You're a jerk.

[He doesn't even resist when she tugs his hands like that, although there's a soft sound of protest. That's where he wants to be. His fingers dig into her waist, settling at her hips instead. She kisses his Weirstone - that's what he's going to believe - and works her mouth over his chest, his breath coming out a little more shallow. It's not quite panting, not yet. But he definitely rocks his hips up against hers, his grip on her holding her in place.]

[legbreaker]

Don't complain, you love it.

[A pleased moan gets breathed out against his skin as his finger dig in, and she makes use of her teeth in retaliation, letting them scrape against him as her head starts to move down, tongue painting a path over his abs.

She likes the way his breath picks up. The way he rocks up against her and holds her down. Like he needs her there. She likes everything about him, actually, which is maybe why she's going to do this for him.

Her mouth reaches his hip, and she doesn't hesitate in the way she kisses and sucks along his pelvis, hands tugging impatiently at his pants] Lift. [It's instructions, a demand, she doesn't really care. She just wants the pants to be off]

[weirlind]

[He makes a pleased noise in the back of his throat at that moan, because let's be real, he's barely done anything and she's already so responsive. The noise turns to a hiss at the feel of her teeth, her tongue as she moves down his body until his hands can no longer hold onto her hips if he's going to be lying down.

Her shifts beneath her, hips jerking up again.] Ellen. [But there's no hesitation in the way he moves so that she can pull his pants off. Whatever she wants, basically.]

[legbreaker]

[She lifts her head as she drags his pants down his legs, raising an eyebrow at him] Jack. [The 'congratulations, you know my name' is implied.

She holds his gaze as the pants disappear somewhere, she doesn't care, and her hand starts to slide up his leg again until her fingers tease over his cock through his boxers.] Something you wanted?

[weirlind]

You're beautiful. [It's not what he was intending to say. Jack said her name mostly because he likes to say it, but she's pulling down his pants and looking at him like he's some huge idiot and well, she's beautiful.

And then she's touching his cock. He moans, hips canting up against her teasing touch. He was semi before, but now he's just hard. She's good like that.]

[legbreaker]

[...Every time. She doesn't know how he does it, just opens his mouth and out comes something that is simultaneously stupid as all hell, and makes her want to hide her face in a pleased kind of embarrassment] You're ridiculous.

[And so is the extent to which she loves him. Rather than admit that out loud, she tugs his boxers down off his hips, getting rid of them. And she can't deny the heat that shudders through her at the sight of him naked in front of her. All power, all restrained, all hers. She bends, presses a kiss to his hip again as her fingers curl around his cock, dragging slowly up the length of it.]

[weirlind]

You like it. [He can see that in her, though. Getting to know your partner is about more than body movements; it's about who they are, too.

His hips jump, and a strangled moan leaves his lips when she touches him like that, heat spiking through him instantly. Jack buries his hands into her hair, twisting it around his fingers. A shudder runs down his spine at the kiss, at the proximity her mouth is to his cock.]

[legbreaker]

That doesn't make you any less ridiculous. [But there's a smile on her lips as she kisses him again, a little lower this time. Her hand works up his cock, from base to tip and back down again. And then her gaze is flickering back up to his, keeping deliberate eye contact as she licks slowly over the head, a brief touch before her mouth is pulling away again]

[weirlind]

[Jack would answer - despite the fact that she's working him over, and there's flares of pleasure washing over him - but then her gaze meets his. Dark and wicked and totally Ellen. He feels her tongue over the head of his cock, and he can't even bite back the moan that rips out of him, hands tightening in her hair as he tries to not buck his hips.]

Don't be a tease.

[legbreaker]

[A sharp breath leaves her at the way his hand tightens, ghosting over his cock. She licks her lips almost absently and chuckles at him a little, the way he tries to restrain himself for her.]

So tell me what you want.

[weirlind]

[His eyes follow the path of her tongue over her mouth, and he gives out a groaning huff of frustration. He doesn't know if he wants her to continue, or if he just wants to pin her down right now.]

I want you to suck me off.

[legbreaker]

[That's all Ellen really needs. A final kiss gets placed on his hip, and then she's shifting again, hand curling around the base of his cock. Her lips close over the head, working it with her tongue; she pulls back, but not enough for it to slip out of her mouth this time. She just wants to look up at him again, her smirk visible in her eyes even with her lips wrapped around his dick.

And then she's moving again, taking him in deeper. Her gag reflex protests momentarily, but she ignores it, picking up a steady rhythm. She'll never admit to it out loud, but every part of her is attuned to him right now, the way he sounds, the way he moves, how he reacts to what she's doing. It's not the first time she's done this for him, but she still wants to get it right]

[weirlind]

[Her mouth is on his cock, and it takes all of his control to a.) not buck his hips and b.) not make a sound loud enough that his mother might hear him. But, fuck, it's good, a low hiss escaping through his clenched teeth.

She's looking up at him, and that look in her eyes is hotter than it has any right to be. His fingers tighten in her hair, hips stuttering a bit as she works her mouth over him.

Jack can feel everything. Every flick of her tongue, the way her lips feel on his skin. She takes him in deeper, and this time he moans.] You're - amazing.