horizontal with Epiphany Jordan in Austin, Texas. November 2018
55. touch hunger: horizontal with a professional nurturer
This week and next week’s episodes are the last ones recorded on my horizontal does america tour, which took place in October & November of 2017. Lucid Studios NYC provided a car, and I went on a solo road trip adventure, circumnavigating the U.S., covering 10,700 miles and recording with people in their homes, in their cities.
Lila: My mom needs that, desperately. She is running on an extreme touch deficit. She hasn’t had a boyfriend or someone to embrace her since I was studying abroad in Amsterdam in 2002, and her ex-boyfriend killed himself.
Epiphany: Ohhh,
Lila: Drowned himself in the pool.
Epiphany: Ohhhh. Ffffff.
Lila: And she found him.
Epiphany: Oh my God.
Lila: So she has not had, a partner since then and she’s ver— she’s Brazilian. She’s very gregarious and very touchy and very warm. And she needs attention and affection and has not received it, so she’s running on such a deficit. And she would love for me to be affectionate with her— to sit and hug her on the couch, to, embrace her and, I want to want to, because I know it would be so, healthy for her and because she’s 76, and I don’t know how much longer she’s going to be around, and, I’m trying to parse out in myself, what it’s about, to see if I can shift it, because I also don’t wanna do it if I don’t wanna do it. […] ‘Cause that doesn’t, that doesn’t seem positive for anybody, if I fake it. I maybe got— my mom was sick. She had, she had colon cancer when I was 7, 8, and 9, so she was in the— in and out of the hospital, and, and I wanted a brother, and they, they, she l— she had a miscarriage and she lost a baby. And she’s manic-depressive and so she’s had these depressive episodes and she’s a very anxious person. […] I’ve had a very fraught and challenging relationship with her, I think since we moved to Florida, since my parents got divorced when I was 12. And I wonder if I s— am still holding so much… resentment, and anger.
Epiphany: Because she couldn’t be the mother that you needed her to be.
Lila: Yeah. (begins to cry) And I’m 35 now. So, you know, she’s just a human being (voice breaking) I, (raggedy breathing, crying) would like to forgive her for doing the best that she could. And not, and not being maybe what was, what I wanted or… but I, I don’t, I don’t know how to—
Epiphany: How to bridge the gap?
Lila: Let it go or. (crying) I get so annoyed with her. And I feel so, ashamed, for (voice tremulous) how little I enjoy her company when she loves me so much and she’s so alone. (crying) I don’t know. I don’t know how to shift it.
Epiphany: Mm. That sounds really hard.
Lila: And I know she’s tried to get me to fill an empty space inside her and I actually had a very very honest conversation with her in the past year, where I said, you know, I said I— sometimes push back, because I know I can’t, I can’t be that for you. And she said, “I don’t expect you to,” but she’s so lonely she’s like (voice breaking) everything I’m afraid to be, everything I never wanna be. (sniffling) But she, I can see her, qualities and her attributes and what I got from her she’s, incredibly artistic temperament and she’s gregarious and she’s charismatic. She’s charming, and, I (whimpering) wanna be able to love her. (sniffly pause) It’s like, it’s so much pressure to feel like I’m the only person she’s got, and then I feel so, so guilty. And it doesn’t help anything but I feel so guilty. (sniffling)
Epiphany: It’s a lot to unpack.
Lila: And I kind of just … committed to speaking to her once a week, you know, over Facetime, so she gets to see me, but I— I usually don’t enjoy it. And I, just do it out of obligation.
Epiphany: Mmm. So, I know that you’re on your way to see her.
Lila: (tearfully) Yeah.
Epiphany: This week. Could you think about doing something for her or with her that doesn’t necessarily involve holding her, like brushing her hair or rubbing her feet or, um—
Lila: I could give her a Thai bodywork session.
Epiphany: Mm, that might be a little bit intense for her. I know that Thai bodywork can be pretty heavy-duty if she’s, um—
Lila: I could do it gently.
Epiphany: Yeah, or but, you know, some, something that, you know, puts some, some distance, you know, like giving her a pedicure or something—
Lila: Mm.
Epiphany: Let’s do face masks together or, you know, there’s a lot of ways to share touch that we would have done when we were, you know, the, back a hundred years, you know, what we didn’t have people to go to to cut our hair. You know, like women would be braiding each other’s hair.
Lila: Yeah.
Epiphany: Brushing each other’s hair and things like that.
Lila: Maybe a hand massage.
Epiphany: Yeah, exactly, so that she still gets a little bit, that so that you can try and approach her, a little softly. Does she know, all of this stuff that you’ve just told me?
Lila: Yes. I think so. I, I did sit down with her the last time I saw her and, and say that I thought maybe I was holding some anger and resentment from these things and, sometimes when I bring it up she says, “Oh, let’s just not, it’s too much. It’s too much for right now, let’s just not talk about it.” What I hope to do this time is to sit down with her, and just, for myself, record me asking her questions about her life.
Epiphany: Mmm.
Lila: And asking her questions about my life.
Epiphany: Yeah.
Lila: What she remembers about me that I don’t remember, because I’m not utilizing that um, gift of memory, that she has, and she has a good memory.
Epiphany: Yeah, it’s a good time to, to to, to capture her life and it sounds like … wow, that’s such a, that’s such a hard position to be in.
Lila: I also don’t have— if something happens to her, I don’t have money to support her. You know.
Epiphany: Mm. That’s rough as well.
Lila: No idea, what …
Epiphany: Yeah, we’ve, we’ve created a culture where we don’t and we can’t take care of each other. It’s really hard.
Dear One, welcome back to horizontal, the podcast of intimacies recorded while lying down, sharing a single pillow, and wearing robes. If you’ve ever watched Slow TV, you’ll feel it: horizontal is like Slow Radio: it’s the stories around a campfire, stargazing on a hill, post-coital tangled in the sheets, dinner party after three glasses of wine when everyone leans back, loosens their belts, and drifts towards the couch kind of aural experience.
My intention is to make private conversations public, in service of dispelling shame, diminishing loneliness, and inspiring human connection.
This week and next week’s episodes are the last ones recorded on my horizontal does america tour, which took place in October & November of 2017. Lucid Studios NYC provided a car, and I went on a solo road trip adventure, circumnavigating the U.S., covering 10,700 miles and recording with people in their homes, in their cities.
We recorded this episode in Austin, Texas, in a color-saturated cottage sanctuary filled with art and altars, called the Blue Star Temple.
This is Epiphany Jordan.
In this episode, I lie down with Epiphany Jordan.
Epiphany is a nurturer by trade, a professional cuddler, aka the Chief Oxytocin Provider of Karuna Sessions, described as the “rolls royce” of cuddling experiences,” a 2-on-1 deepdive immersion in mothering energy and loving touch. Her forthcoming book, Somebody Hold Me: The Single Person’s Guide to Nurturing Human Touch. Keep your eye out over the next few months for its release, by going to the website somebodyhold.me
You can also find her on karunasessions.com and bluestartemple.com
She is a reader of the tarot, proprietress of the Blue Star Temple guest house and sanctuary space. We recorded this episode there, and I can attest to the coziness, color therapy, and great good juju of the place.
At Blue Star Temple, Epiphany offers services like Cross-Dress for Success, Design a Ritual, and the iconically-titled Sanctuary. I love that she offers Sanctuary as a service. We could all use some Sanctuary, don’t you agree?
In this part of our conversation, we discuss Epiphany’s Muslim / Jewish / Catholic upbringing, sexual rebellion in Reno, Nevada in the 70s, the cyclical nature of sexual mores, society’s touch deficit, and my complicated relationship with my mother, and my mother’s touch.
If you enjoy lying down with us, and believe in my mission to spread intimacy across the globe, that’s how you can make sure that this podcast remains ad-free, and remains a podcast. Become a patron of the horizontal arts. Patreon is the love child of a subscription service and crowd-funding. You offer a monthly contribution, and you get a level of special access to me and my work.
Beginning in the next couple of weeks, [note: it went into effect on 11.28.18] the second part of my conversation with each guest will be gated, meaning roughly every other episode will be free, and every other episode will be paid — but all episodes will always be available to patrons at $5 a month and up! So, become a $5 a month patron for full access going forward.
Thanks to my newest patrons: Evyn, Melani, Mark, Christopher, Antonio, and Rex, I’m now halfway towards breaking even on the current podcast expenses! After breaking even, the next goal is to hire a transcriptionist. I’ve been painstakingly transcribing my show notes by hand in order to create gorgeous, informative, accessible to differently-abled folx blog posts. (And pssst, you can get my writing and photos and links to the blog posts in your inbox weekly, by signing up on horizontalwithlila.com and adding lila@horizontalwithlila.com to your address book.)
Since I am both unskilled in transcription and extraordinarily meticulous, each set of show notes takes me about 10 – 12 hours to put together. When I hire someone, 90 percent of those hours will be freed up to conduct more interviews, offer more live events, and create more horizontal goodness for you!
Just before we dive into the episode, I want to make this super clear: a lot of friends have told me that they’ve been hesitant to become my patrons because they feel embarrassed to only be able to give $2/month. Oh My goodness, if everybody who loves the podcast or my writing became a patron at $2 a month, it would CHANGE MY LIFE. Every patron is so incredibly valuable to me, and the beauty of crowd funding is precisely this – when many people give a little bit, it adds up appreciably, and with each new patron, I can feel how many people out there believe in me and my mission to spread intimacy across the globe.
Plus, I do a happy dance every time.
Now darlin’, come lie down with us in Austin, Texas.
Links to Things:
Patron of the horizontal arts! ($5+ per month gives you access to all the episodes!)
somebodyhold.me, the website for Epiphany’s forthcoming book about touch as a single person
karunasessions.com, the website for what Epiphany calls “the Rolls Royce” of cuddling sessions, a 2-on-1 deep dive in loving, nonsexual touch
bluestartemple.com, the website for the healing space in Austin, Texas that Epiphany curates
Cross Dress for Success, one of Epiphany’s offerings at the Blue Star Temple
The origin of the quote, “If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a weekend with your family.”
The Science of Sex podcast by Dr. Zhana (my horizontal guest for episodes 4 & 5!)
Show Notes (feel free to share quotes/resources on social media, and please link to this website or my Patreon!):
website link: https://horizontalwithlila.com/
Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
[8:00] Lila sets the scene.
Lila: We are in a little annex / home / temple place, where all the walls are colorful. On the right is, is a green wall, on the left is a— nnn, it’s not teal, it’s turquoise—
Epiphany: Turquoise.
Lila: — turquoise wall, we’ve got a yellow wall across from us, there’s colorful art everywhere, it’s an extremely inspiring environment. It feels really peaceful; it feels like a lot of, comfort has been had here.
[8:50] Epiphany on the perils of remodeling the Blue Star Temple with her ex-husband.
Epiphany: My ex-husband and I started remodeling this together and, it destroyed our relationship, as many house remodels do. It’s not an uncommon scenario.
Lila: (sighs) It makes sense. But it’s also so preposterous. I mean it’s it’s a— it’s just a hou— it is a, you know, it’s a huge undertaking and, so many decisions have to be made, but, but it’s a house, does it have to ruin otherwise lovely relationships?
Epiphany: Well, I think the house was a catalyst; it wasn’t necessarily— there were underlying problems as it was before. (Lila hm’s) And, this situation just exacerbated it.
Lila: So it just brings out, calls to light the already existing issues in a partnership.
Epiphany: Absolutely, and—
Lila: Like any collaboration does.
Epiphany: Right. Although I would, I would even, go as far as to say that: If you really wanna test your relationship, you should remodel a house with somebody. (both laugh lightly)
Lila: That’s, that’s like what they say about, if you wanna test your serenity, go visit your family.
Epiphany: Yeah, exactly.
Lila: If you think you’re enlightened—
Epiphany: If you think you’re enlightened, yeah—
Lila: — go visit your family.
Epiphany: — go spend a weekend with your family. Yeah, that was Ram Dass.
Lila: Or I’ve also heard, “Family is the master class,” and I’m like, “Oh, I fail the master—” (whispering) “I fail the master class.”
[10:24] Epiphany on her “crazy family award.”
Epiphany: Oh my goodness, I always win the family— crazy family award.
Lila: Oooh, I can’t wait. (both chuckle)
Epiphany: So my father was Muslim; he was born in India, and when he was about a year old, he moved to South Africa, his whole family emigrated to South Africa, and he had about a third grade education, and started educating himself by reading books and he, when he was in his 20s, he got a scholarship and went to college in Ohio, and then he went back to South Africa for a little while — still under apartheid — and Indians were, considered, they called them Asians, but, you know, they had a lot of the same restrictions as Blacks did, so, he came back to the United States and ended up doing his graduate degree at USC. My mother is half-Catholic and half-Jewish. She was born in Palestine, because her father was a Jewish agitator in Vienna and he almost got caught by the Nazis and decided to flee so, they spent the war in Palestine and then they went back to Vienna, after the war was over, annd […] all of my grandfather’s brothers and sisters ended up emigrating to the United States as well. And uh, my parents met at USC and uh, got married. Both of them were college professors and, when I was about 3 years old we moved to Reno, which is where I grew up and I did a fairly, had a pretty cultured growing up, uh, we went to Europe frequently to visit my grandparents, and, a lot of theatre and museums and, a houseful of books, my dad had a crazy library and uh so, I got a lot of pretty interesting experiences as a child.
Lila: And in that, what did you learn about sex and touch?
[12:31]
Epiphany: (chuckles) Uh, my family was fairly affectionate, and while my— neither of my parents raised me in their religions, my, my mother went to Catholic school but she’s fairly agnostic, she just doesn’t have a lot of uhh…
Lila: Faith?
Epiphany: Need, nee— she just doesn’t have a lot of need for, religion or spirituality in her life. My father on the other hand was a very devout Muslim, and while he did not raise me as a Muslim, I got all of the negative cultural shaming and, sex was kind of my form of rebellion as a, as a teenager. Um, I had a lot of sex, just ki— as a way of acting out, and it was, not all that pleasant, it was, it was pretty painful for me and for my parents, umm.
Lila: (quietly) Emotionally? Or physically?
Epiphany: Emotionally. Uh, they, you know, that was, it was really, I mean that’s like the very worst thing you could possibly do to a Muslim father is, you know, run around acting like a slut. Doesn’t go over real well.
Lila: Mm. So that caused a lot of conflict in your house.
Epiphany: Yeah, my uh, father — my mother says she doesn’t remember this, but — I pretty clearly remember, a couple of times a year, my whole family sitting down and, my father would proclaim that I was a whore and he was disowning me—
Lila: Tshhh—
Epiphany: — and I wasn’t his child anymore, and my mother would cry and my brother would just kind of sit there and, yeah, so it wasn’t a lot of real positive messaging around sexuality.
[14:11]
Lila: One of my friends, Meghan Tonjes, who I recorded with earlier this year in L.A., she was actually disowned, by her dad. And her mom has to sneak out, essentially, and visit her. Has to sn— her mom has to, pretend she’s doing something else, so that she can go and visit her daughter.
[14:35] Epiphany on the overprotectiveness of her father.
Epiphany: Yeah, my father was very protective, I can, I can remember, one situation, I was, it was, one of the times I had moved back home and some friends of mine lived a few blocks away and, I was gonna walk over there after dinner and, he was like, “You can’t do that, it’s dangerous!” And I’m just like, “We’re in a very suburban neighborhood, you know, I used to live in a really sketchy neighborhood in San Francisco, Dad, I’m sure I’m gonna be fine.” “Oh no no no, what if somebody like, comes and, pulls you in their car and drives off and I’m like, “Ehh, that’s probably not gonna happen to me but.” You know, so he was, he was coming from a place of love and protection — one of the central tenets of Islam is taking care of your family. That’s a, very very important part of it.
[15:26] Were Epiphany’s parents affectionate?
Epiphany: Yeah, they were. They definitely were. Ahh— my mother is actually a child psychologist, and, ran a preschool for her university. For many years, she’s kind of devoted her life to children and, yeah, she’s, she’s very affectionate. My dad was, somewhat affectionate, when I was younger, but he’s a little, he’s, spent a lot of time in his head, he’s, he’s actually dead now. […]
Lila: Were they affectionate at all, to each other, in front of you?
Epiphany: A little bit. I mean, I have one of those proverbial stories about: getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and seeing my parents having sex, (both chuckle) I was probably about 10 or 11. Shortly after that, they got a deadlock for their bedroom door.
[16:40] What was Epiphany’s first experience of sexual pleasure in her body?
Epiphany: Well (laughs) I actually, I was masturbating from a fairly young age, and the way I did it was really funny. We had this chinning bar that was, in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen and, I used to hang upside down with one knee over it and, you know, kinda holding on and I kind of like, you know, pressed my legs together and, like let my fingers almost come off of it, and, so I would be doing that and, nobody of course knew what (chuckles) I was doing. […] I’d just kind of be—
Lila: You’d cross your legs tightly.
Epiphany: Right, and, you know, be pressing my thighs together to, to stimulate my uh, genitalia.
Lila: So you were squeezing, essentially.
Epiphany: Yeah, exactly.
[…]
Lila: And could you bring yourself to climax that way?
Epiphany: I think I was—
Lila: Wow!
Epiphany: Yeah, I, if I wasn’t bringing myself to climax I was at least, you know kind of doing the, the waves of pleasure.
Lila: That sounds like a lot of work! (giggles)
Epiphany: Uh, you know. You hear a lot about, you know one of, one of the theories is that— or, the reason that a lot of men are quiet while they’re coming, is because, as a teenager they had—
Lila: (emphatically) Yes.
Epiphany: — to be quiet.
Lila: In their bedroom.
Epiphany: In their bedrooms. So that they wouldn’t get caught—
Lila: Yes.
Epiphany: — and so, you know, I kind of wonder if, you know, part of the thrill was like, you know, my dad’s sitting and watching T— the news on TV, and my mother’s fixing dinner, and, you know, I’m doing this thing—
Lila: (overlapping) And nobody—
Epiphany: Nobody—
Lila & Epiphany: knows!
[19:10] On masturbating as a baby.
Epiphany: I know somebody who, you know they had to, you know, get their kid when she was under a year old, to, you know, you can’t do that in front of everybody, kinda thing, ‘cause she was just, doing it all the time I, I think it’s a way of self-soothing.
Lila: Absolutely! That’s really tough though, right? Because that means that, that the child… has, a physical, almost imprint of this thing not being okay.
Epiphany: I think a lot of parents handle that by telling their kid just that it’s private—
Lila: Yeah.
Epiphany: Just so they can’t do it in public, but you know, go ahead and—
Lila: Go to your room.
Epiphany: You know, do it all you want in, in your bedroom.
[20:20] Does Lila consider Louis C.K. a Weinstein?
[20:48]
Lila: What Dr. Zhana says, and she said it on her Science of Sex podcast as well is: She doesn’t wanna live in a world where, where someone can’t express a desire, you know, and make, an invitation. But, you have to know, that if you have power over someone, that if… they would fear to say no to you, because of repercussions to their career or their life, then—
Epiphany: It’s probably not such a great idea.
Lila: It is not such a great idea. It is— dangerous for them.
Epiphany: Yeah, I mean we’re, as a, society I think it’s time to be having a lot of conversations around boundary and consent and it’s just so frustrating that we don’t teach that to kids when they’re young, and how to deal with rejection, (Lila mmhm’s) and all these things.
[21:35] Lila on co-leading the consent speech / orientation with Mirelle (of episode 1: feed your delight!) at the Rainbows & Unicorns party thrown by the housemates of the Villa. What does enthusiastic consent sound like?
[23:06] Epiphany’s mom’s take on precautionary measures.
Epiphany: My mother was fairly pragmatic with me, I mean I, I had a boyfriend when I was about 15 or 16, and she marched me down to Planned Parenthood and put me on birth control. ‘Cause she didn’t want me screwing it up and getting pregnant.
[23:41] Lila on her mom’s sex-positive sex talk.
[24:15] Epiphany on her virginity.
Epiphany: I started when I was young; I— lost my virginity a couple months into my freshman year in high school I was 14 at the time. […] So there was a, a guy that had lived on the block behind me, and we were kind of buddies and he, he was a couple years older than me and then he had another friend and, uhh, in Reno at the time there were all of these, uh, it was called The Pits, and it was just kind of like areas where you kind of off-roaded in the foothills of the, of Peavine Mountain, and you know there was, you know, people would take their 4 wheel-drive trucks up there and all this stuff—
Lila: (overlapping) Is that…
Epiphany: — and drive around.
Lila: Is that— muddin’?
Epiphany: No, it, it wasn’t mud. Uh, you know, it’s it’s the desert, so.
Lila: It’s the desert. It’s the desert.
Epiphany: (overlapping) It’s pretty dry.
Lila: So anyways, I, I, one afternoon I went for a ride with the two of them and uh, the one kid had this, you know, really nice Mustang, and so (Lila giggles) we go up there and, um, you know, the three of us get out of the car and, walk a little bit away and, you know it’s like— th— they’re— I guess both gonna have sex with me, and then they’re like, “Oh, we should get a blanket,” and the guy walks back to the car and it turns out that he’s like locked the keys in the car, so (Lila laughs) you know, we can’t, you know—
Lila: Oh no!
Epiphany: — then it becomes about, you know, getting the keys out of the car, so we end up, you know, we finally get this all to happen, and it’s getting late, so we drive back and, I ended up having sex with the, the one guy — not the kid who lived behind me, but the other guy, at his house, um, and, I don’t remember it being super pleasant, or, you know, it was just kind of like, “Ehm… What’s the big deal about this?”
Lila: Mmhm. I had the same reaction. And from many people that I’ve talked to, that is fairly common.
Epiphany: Yeah, I mean, you know we weren’t in love or, you know, even boyfriend and girlfriend, so it was just kind of this thing that happened and. It wasn’t super great.
Lila: Was there, the satisfaction of knowing that you had rebelled, that you were be— doing something transgressive?
Epiphany: (laughs heartily) Well yeah. And just kind of like, Oh okay well, you know, I’ve, I’ve passed that, you know, big milestone in life. You know, we’re.
Lila: (briskly) Got that done.
Epiphany: Got that done, yeah. We can check that one off the bucket list.
Lila: Right.
Epiphany: You know, which is kind of a big deal when you’re a teenager and then of course, you know, like, other girls were talking about me at school. And, you know—
Lila: Ohhhh.
Resist.
Epiphany: (overlapping) I was branded a slut, and, you know, all this stuff.
Lila: How did it reverberate through your social life?
Epiphany: Mm, I wasn’t a very popular kid to begin with. So, you know, I was, I was a little bit estranged, I was one of the, the odd kids out. With, with most stuff. You know, a couple of the girls that I was friends with pretty shocked and, you know, kind of judgey about it.
Lila: And do you think those kids weren’t having sex?
Epiphany: I think they probably weren’t, I, I think they maybe waited, and started a little bit later than I did. You know I mean, 14 is not an uncommon age, buuut, you know, it’s still on the early side.
Lila: Well I hope they’ve seen the error of their ways, for shaming you!
Epiphany: Yeah, I mean, you know, that was, what, the late 70s, so.
Lila: (incredulously) 70s is supposed to be this incredibly liberal, swingin’ time, no?!
Epiphany: Mmm, I lived in a pret— you know, I lived in—
Lila & Epiphany: Reno.
Epiphany: So it wasn’t a big city or anything, it was pretty provincial at the time.
[27:58] Lila on the 70s-themed Pop-up Activists’ Living Room Photo Booth installation she came across the day before, behind Justine’s Brasserie during Nov. 2017’s East End Studio Tour in Austin.
horizontal in the 70s activist living room pop-up installation. November 2017
[29:13] Lila’s mom’s wisdom about the cyclical nature of sexual mores.
Lila: My mom used to tell me, “Oh, it’s always cyclical. So you have, you know, a generation that’s more repressive, and then you have, a wilder, or or freer generation.
Epiphany: I don’t know, I mean, I think, things are, things are pretty hard right now, for a lot of people sexually. I mean it’s, it feels like it’s open and free, but I think a lot of people are struggling with it.
Lila: Only in certain pockets, I realize, does it feel that way. I am just fortunate to live in a community that—
Epiphany: (chuckles) Yeah—
Lila: — makes it feel that way.
[29:45]
Epiphany: Definitely. I mean, I know, I know a lotta people who really struggle with— finding people that they want to have sex with.
Lila: I struggle with finding people that I want to have sex with.
Epiphany: Yeah, I’ve been— going through that since I first broke up with my boyfriend about 6 months ago, so.
Lila: It’s something I wanted to talk to you about, because, I’m— it’s really, become very clear to me on this trip, on this adventure … I mean I’m traveling with, all of these condoms! And! (laughs)
Epiphany: And they are not getting used?
Lila: (giggling) They are not getting used! Em. My ex-partner and I broke up in late spring. And I have— I had a sensation play extravaganza that was wonderful, in which I received some oral sex, and then I had … some oral and manual sex with a lover who was passing through town, and then I, I slept with, an old lover of mine, when I was in Portland.And other than that, it has been— yeah, it’s really, challenging for me to find people that I’m attracted to enough to have sex with, who are available to have sex, or touch me, right? (Epiphany mmhms) I seem to have a honing beacon for… I don’t know, the young married men? There’s this like type that I’m really drawn to.
Epiphany: (chuckles) I mean, I— I’m in my early 50s now, and uhh, I find that, you know, the, the guys that contact me off of my okcupid profile are either— you know, guys who are just like, they’re spamming everybody, ‘cause they just want a girlfriend—
Lila: (overlapping) Ugh that’s so gross.
Epiphany: (overlapping) — who will come and take care of them and (Lila snickers) you know, cook them dinner and, take care of their kids and stuff, which I’m, not really into (Lila mmhms) or, you know, like, married guys. You know. Who are like, “Oh, well, I’m married, but!” I’m like, “No.”
Lila: Not people in an open relationship. People who wanna fuck around.
Epiphany: Yeeeaah. Ah, you know, some of them might be in an open relationship, but, at this point in my life it just feels too complicated, I mean I’ve had a few experiences with polyamory and I was actually very good at it, but, any relationship is like a part-time job.
Lila: Oh yeah.
Epiphany: (laughs) Like, I don’t, I don’t need a, you know, to take on one that, you know, is actually two or three part-time jobs!
Lila: It’s unbelievable. Mirelle has so many … relationship and lovers and partnerships going. I am astonished. I’m astonished! How can she show up for all of those things, you know, and, and nurture all of those things? And it’s because that’s the most important thing to her.
Epiphany: Yeah, I mean, a lot of people that I know who do pretty well with polyamory like, don’t work outside the home or something. (Lila hms) You know, so they have all this time to, to do all this stuff.
Lila: Right, because you have to invest time and energy and, connection into it for things to, to work. To function.
Epiphany: Absolutely, and I think a lot of people are being left out of the way that we configure relationships right now I think doesn’t, necessarily work really well for a lot of people.
Lila: What do you think we can do?
[33:16] Epiphany on
Epiphany: One of the things that I found out— so I’ve been spending about the past 6-8 months working on a book, and the current working title of it is Somebody Hold Me: The Single Person’s Guide to Satisfying Touch Hunger.
[…]
You know, the basic premise is, you now, that when you’re, when you’re single and, you know, at this point, […] I can’t remember the exact statistic, but the, the last couple censuses it’s been — you know, it’s something like 46% of people in the United States, say that they’re single. And… you know, there’s a lot of needs that you can get met when you’re single. I mean, I have amazing friends, and, we travel and we play and we have fun and we collaborate—
Lila: When you—
Epiphany: We support each other. But! Getting your touch needs met, is hard, to next to impossible. You know, because we expect our romantic partners to meet all of our touch needs.
Lila: When you say “play,” you don’t mean sexually play, do you?
Epiphany: No.
Lila: Because people in my community often use play as a euphemism for sex.
Epiphany: Yeah, n-n-n-no, I’ve I’ve. I know those people too. (both laugh) I’ve been to those kinds of play parties. (Lila mmhms) No, I’m talking about— y— you know, like going out and—
Lila: Frolicking.
Epiphany: Frolicking. Yes, okay, we can use frolicking.
Lila: Yeah.
Epiphany: That’ll work.
Lila: I love that word.
[…]
Epiphany: So I think that— touch is very fundamental, I mean, we’ve— I think people are starting to pay more and more attention to, to looking at it and going, “Oh, okay, you know, that’s probably something that I don’t have in my life.” Uhhh, but at the same time we don’t really, know how to get it. Because, we expect that, we’re gonna, you know, meet this person and fall in love and, they’re gonna give us all the touch we want, which I, you know, know from my other work (Lila scoffs a tiny bit) that that doesn’t always; it doesn’t always happen that way.
Lila: I have never been in a relationship where I was touched as much as I wanted to be touched. Ever.
Epiphany: Mm, my last relationship I was. I had, I had a lot of touch, and a lot of sex, and, it was, it was good. (beat) So, you know, I’ve kind of tackled this problem of, you know, how do you get your touch needs met when you’re single? And it’s hard. So—
Lila: I get a massage once a week, from my amazing friend. And, in my community we hug each other, a lot. Which is lovely. And there are opportunities, right, at these play parties or cuddle parties. But because I am so, incredibly selective, about who I allow to touch me. Which leads me to believe since I, I hardly have, memories before the age of 12. […] And, I was told, many years ago— many years later and many years ago, right, that my babysitter when I was a kid touched me inappropriately. […] And I wonder if there’s other… other abuse in there because I am so— I have a lot of sexual disgust, and I, I kind of like shiver with disgust whenever I hear about— somebody engaging with a child, inappropriately, and so I, I have, such a visceral reaction (Epiphany mmhms) and I am so very careful about who I allow to touch me and so particular and specific about who can touch me, and how, that I wonder if there’s more abuse in my history than I remember.
Epiphany: That’s…it could very well be, and that’s a fairly common reason that I’ve found, where people are very very touch sensitive and and selective about who touches them. That, you know, there was something that caused them a lot of distrust, um there’s been,
[37:37] On children and consent.
there’s actually been a lot of conversation over the past year or so about parents like, not forcing their kids—
Lila: To sit on laps, right?
Epiphany: Or, or to hug people.
Lila: Yeah.
Epiphany: You know, and people are like, “But it’s their grandparents!” […] And it’s like, well, you know, if the kid doesn’t you know, y— , you know, you may be close to your parents, because you grew up with them, but if they live on the other side of the country, you know, the kid doesn’t, know their grandparent and, you know, it’s like, give ‘em a little bit of time and, you know, that’s another (Lila sighs heavily) situation where there’s a power differential, right?
Lila: Yes, absolutely.
Epiphany: You know and some adults understand that. You know, and then there’s other adults who are like, you know, well, “Life’s all about having to do things that you don’t necessarily wanna do,” and it’s like, but you’re teaching your kids not to have bodily autonomy […] and not to trust their own intuition about who feels safe and who doesn’t, because, at it’s core, touch is really about feeling safe. We, evolved both as a species and, both in our individual human development with touch, you know, when we were— you know, when human beings first came onto the scene— w— we, you know, we would sleep in large clumps in caves and we did it for two reasons— one for warmth and two for safety. And it’s the same thing, when you’re born, you first learn about safety in your parent’s arms, you know, that’s where you learn to feel secured and cared-for, and— safe, and so, touch is so fundamental and so intertwined into our biology that, the fact that, we have a lot of people in the world now who don’t have it and don’t have opportunities to get it, I think, contributes to a lot of feelings of, that we don’t belong, that we’re not seen, that we’re not important, that we’re not part of the tribe, um, that we’re not cared-for. It’s something that’s very simple, but, it’s important.
Lila: But profound. Simple but profound.
[39:46] Lila on being particular with her touch even as a child.
Lila: I haven’t been able to quite, untangle this, just yet— I’ve been thinking about it for many years. So I can’t remember a time when I wanted my mother’s touch.
Epiphany: Mm, mmhm.
Lila: And she, would say, in kind of a— I remember her saying it — I’m gonna ask her about it when I see her — in kind of a complaining way, like “You were very particular,” you know, you— you didn’t wanna sit on, you know, certain people’s laps,” and I think, you know, Go me! That I was— discerning and… said no and, you know, drew boundaries. And I don’t think she was somebody who woud try to force me, because she had been sexually abused, but she had gone looking for i— her father never touched her. And she longed for male touch so much that she went to, I think friends of the family, to get her touch needs met. And I think she was so scared that I would have some kind of similar abuse experience, that she made sure I was never alone with men. And then, ironically: who touched me? But my female babysitter.
Epiphany: (groaning) Ahhhhhh. Yeah, I mean we, we often, you know, a— attribute unwanted or, you know, touch to, to men, but yeah, women—
Lila: It’s not only men.
Epiphany: Women do it too.
Lila: It’s not only men.
[41:21] Epiphany on an acquaintence who is such a touch enthusiast that the first time they met, she grabbed her and gave her a big hug.
[41:59]
Epiphany: People definitely have, like people have different sex drives, they kind of have different touch drives.
Lila: Yeah, and the, I think what’s interesting is that I’m extremely sensual and extremely touch-oriented, but people experience me in one of two ways: I’ll either seem totally standoffish to them, because I don’t want to touch them or have them touch me, or I’m incredibly warm, incredibly loving. Super touchy.
Epiphany: Well, the one, one of the things that I’ve found is that, y— y’know, d— I mean, we can sit here and talk about how wonderful touch is until we’re blue in the face, but, if it’s not consensual it won’t feel good. If you don’t wanna be touched, then it actually can do more damage. You know, one of the things that touch does for people on a physiological level is it relaxes you, I mean, I’ve, the, w— one of the things that I’ve noticed in, with karuna sessions is that uhh, which we’ll talk more about in a bit but, you know, people will get to this place about 10 minutes in, you know, sevent minutes in, where it’s like, you can feel all the little micro-muscles in their body relaxing. Annnd… touch is, is supposed to, make you feel safe and make you feel good, but if you don’t want to be touched it’s exactly the opposite— your body tenses up and you get into, fight or flight mode. And, we have so many opportunities to do that, in our world as it is, you know, to to be on guard and be alert and be tense, that, you know, I would like to see us create a culture where touch does exactly the opposite, where, you know, it is a place for people to get relaxed and feel safe and feel cared-for and, feel like they belong and—
[43:49] The touch deficit of Lila’s mom.
[51:03]
Lila: And I, I want, I keep nudging her, but she’s, so resistant, to move into a community of people over 65. And I don’t understand, I mean, for many years she said, “Oh, they’re really too— they’re too old for me, the people who live there, but now she’s, she’s 76 and they’re not too old for her, and, I know she needs community, and I know she’s a person who used to thrive in community.
Epiphany: (emphatically) Mmhmm.
Lila: Her college life, and, the kind of expat people that she gathered for, for potlucks and, and things like that… And I believe it would be such an improvement to her quality of life, and she’s seen how incredible it’s been for me, in the three and a half years that I’ve been living in community. We’re very similar. Similarly made. But I can’t push her to do anything that she’s not gonna do, not ready to do.
Epiphany: When we used to live in interg— multigenerational households, (Lila mmhms) you know, elderly people would get a lot of their touch needs met from, you know, taking care of the kids, I mean my, my mother takes care of her granddaughter a lot and, you know, my, my neice is very very, huggy and stuff and, you know, that’s where my mother’s getting her touch needs met, ‘cause she’s, she’s been a widow for close to 10 years now, and doesn’t seem to have any interest in being with somebody else, so— yeah, that might be a good idea, maybe you can— I don’t know, maybe that would be weird though, to go see if you can check a couple places out with her. I mean, you know, she may have changed her— you know, maybe she’s feeling more like she can be in community.
Lila: She doesn’t wanna leave her house; she doesn’t wanna sell her house.
Epiphany: Ohhhhh.
Lila: And that’s the only way she could do it.
Epiphany: (makes a “too bad” sound) Could she rent it out?
Lila: (soft sigh) I don’t know. I know that she doesn’t want to. (laughs)
Epiphany: Yeahhhh. She’s stubborn. It sounds like.
Lila: Yes. Yeah.
Epiphany: (sighs louder) Yeah it’s, that’s, it’s pretty heartbreaking for both of you, it sounds like. For different reasons.
Lila: (softly) Yeah…
Epiphany: That you both want something that, the gap just can’t be bridged by where, where you’re at.
Lila: (pause, Epiphany sighs) And it is better than it used to be, and every time I, I go back I think well, I’m gonna— it’s gonna be better this time. And it is better. It’s just not … lovely or, you know, I, I know I shouldn’t compare my insides to other people’s outsides, but, I know I see people posting, like, “Ahh. I just have the best mother in the world.”
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