Dallas Bragg argues that pornography and dating apps have commodified desire while masking as freedom. He urges you to write down what you actually want in sex and intimacy, separate from what you think you should want, and to treat not knowing as a starting point rather than a failure.
This week, I want you to sit with this question. What would sex and intimacy look like if I stopped trying to meet anyone's expectations, including my own? Not what it should look like, not what would make me feel adequate. What would it actually look like if I were free to want what I want, to desire what I desire, to connect how I need to connect? Write it down. What comes up? Not what you think you're supposed to say. What's actually true? Not desires that someone gave you. And what if the answer is, I don't know? Good, good. That's the beginning of finding out. The not knowing. You've been following somebody else's map to somebody else's destination. No wonder you feel lost. It's time to draw your own map, to define intimacy for yourself, to discover what your body actually wants when it's not performing for validation. The culture lied to you. Porn trained you. Apps commodified you. And you call it freedom. Real freedom is choosing connection over conquest, presence over performance, truth over trends. That's where intimacy lives. That's where you'll find what you're actually looking for.
