I could not even begin to understand what it means to be a mother. But what I can understand—and deeply empathize with—is the feeling of being trapped in a single identity and feeling forced to present only that identity to the world when, in reality, there's so much more to you than meets the eye.
Sex, for me, is no longer casual because the same intimacy that I feared in my teens and early twenties that led me to treat sex like a plaything is the same intimacy that I now crave, respect, and will hold in the highest regard if I'm blessed to fully experience it with another person.
I've never had a male best friend because, in my opinion, we can't be best friends without emotional intimacy—and in my experience, both emotions and intimacy are things that most men do their very best never to be caught experiencing, especially by other men.
