Olu Online

sensual

last updated 2 hours, 11 minutes ago

this piece is a response to the substack piece you don't need to log off, you need to become sensual.

audre lorde talks about the sensual the best, though her use of the word "erotic" seems to throw a lot of people off. it's worth reading the whole essay, but anyway, a quote:

during world war ii, we bought sealed plastic packets of white, uncolored margarine, with a tiny, intense pellet of yellow coloring perched like a topaz just inside the clear skin of the bag. we would leave the margarine out for a while to soften, and then we would pinch the little pellet to break it inside the bag, releasing the rich yellowness into the soft pale mass of margarine. then taking it carefully between our fingers, we would knead it gently back and forth, over and over, until the color had spread throughout the whole pound bag of margarine, thoroughly coloring it. i find the erotic such a kernel within myself. when released from its intense and constrained pellet, it flows through and colors my life with a kind of energy that heightens and sensitizes and strengthens all my experience. we have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings. but, once recognized, those which do not enhance our future lose their power and can be altered. the fear of our desires keeps them suspect and indiscriminately powerful, for to suppress any truth is to give it strength beyond endurance. — uses of the erotic, audre lorde

i think not denying my desires has led me down many very cool paths, so long as those desires are held up to the light. so long as i check that a need is a need, and not a need for something else in disguise.

i would never deny that doomscrolling and other forms of uncomfortable technology use stop us feeling as embodied as we could be. i'll be honest though, i've always high-key loved the lack of embodiment on the internet. it didn't matter how far away something or someone was, or who we were in the first place. i could be anywhere or anything or anyone for a few hours. it's a common viewpoint and one i used to fully endorse.

we've eroded the anonymous, disembodied nature of things a lot as years have gone on, real name policies and face-first social media leading the charge. i don't think the web is as disembodied for everyone any more, especially the ones posting and creating things on social media.

i think with this creator-first shift there was also a slide towards more negative body-related outcomes. there's such high levels of physical comparison on social media and the internet in general. "cortisol face" and "hip dips" could have been insecurities dissemniated by magazine and tv, for sure, but the speed at which a new term enters "the big book of body flaws" is wild to me. there's an accompaying, less massive tide of body positivity and neutrality, and the fat liberation movement has a foothold online, but the mood towards bodies is generally one of scrutiny instead of appreciation.

so why do i need disembodied spaces? is it a need for something else? i am unsure i have a deep answer to that yet. i know low embodiment spaces often feel safer to me for many reasons. i love interacting with people without having to worry what my face or tone or the combination of them are doing, autism wise. that's definitely part of it. i don't know to what degree denying this yes, reducing the online in my life, and logging off a little more is giving into the desires of the world instead of my own. if i'm changing my desires to match what other people say is right.

but i'm trying anyway. experimenting. i have been struggling a lot with my technology use as the world burns and people scream the world over. this harm is due in no small part to the incessant draining of minerals, metals, water and other resources from formerly colonised countries. i don't think boycotts alone will change things — they never have — but i do think interrogating my relationship with these systems can only be a good thing.

there's so many ways i try to maintain my logged-on nature whilst honouring the needs of my body. most recently, i tried a few apps that lock you out of your phone (screen zen, opal, freedom, focus friend). i find that they help my productivity, but i don't usually end up changing my habits in the long term. i'm just frustrated and locked out. i end up using other devices at worst!

i've also tried apps to remind me to look after my eyes and posture. look away is still my favourite on mac; it's a wonder what a bit of polish will do for my ability to stand an annoying app! it reminds me to blink more, look away from the screen at things in the distance, and sit up properly, all things that are hilarious to recount, but have actually successfully made me think of my body and surroundings a lot more. i can see the gentle swaying tops of trees, the pigeons alighting on the tops of neighbours chimney stacks, and green hills further in the distance.

i don't know if TikTok still does it, as i have better habits around it now, but there was a period of time that at a certain hour you would receive a specific TikTok to remind you to go to bed. i can't find the TikTok any more and am now wondering if it was regional (the person had a british accent).

plonking you back into the needs of your body at 2am via a video of someone hallucinating huge eye bags in the mirror from lack of sleep was a way to do it! maybe not the most fun or impactful way.

i think seeing the built world - technology! buildings! cars and electricity and water works! - in opposition to the natural (and good) is more normal than drawing breath at this point. i don't think it helps matters though. at my best, i'm using technology as a lens for the rest of the world, not in opposition to it.

this piece is part of my attempt at alphabet superset, a “6-month” creative challenge (i passed a year in september 2024 — with a long break! — and the creator of the challenge finished on 11th August 2025). other posts so far: abolition, bump, boost, culture, discussion, english, formulaic, gone, home, immortality, jargon, knowledge, leaving, monotony, no, permanent, questions and relationships.

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#alphabet-superset