Being Seen: Grip Versus Gaze
Two moments. One grip. One gaze. A story about Autism, paid intimacy, and the different ways we become real.
The quiet power of touch. The deeper truth of presence. And what happens when someone doesn’t just see you—but lets you stay seen.
I didn’t grow up expecting to be chosen…
When the world doesn’t reflect you back with warmth—when your body, your voice, your intensity all seem to press against the edges of what’s considered desirable—you learn to anticipate invisibility.
You learn to brace.
You might be in the room. But you’re not really in it.
People look at you, but their gaze doesn’t hold.
You speak, but your voice never quite lands.
You try to offer closeness, but something in you—your shape, your rhythm, your difference—keeps interrupting the script.
And so, slowly, you shrink.
Not dramatically.
But subtly.
Repeatedly.
Until your presence feels more like a courtesy than a claim.
This isn’t a story about sex. Though it happened in a bedroom.
And it’s not a story about fantasy.
It’s about two moments—two women—who didn’t just tolerate me.
They registered me.
One through her hand.
The other through her eyes.
And for someone like me—Autistic, emotionally layered, always logical, and long exiled from belonging—that kind of presence felt impossible.
Because for a brief, sacred window:
I was no longer translating myself into acceptability.
I was no longer performing softness just to be safe.
I was no longer a background character in my own life.
But I was simply… seen.
I. The Ache of Being Unreceived
The ache began early. Not with a scream—but with silence.
And not with neglect, but just absence.
The absence of eyes that lingered. The absence of arms that reached back. The absence of mirrors that reflected anything beyond utility, awkwardness or intensity.
I’m 5 ft 6.5 inches with a slim, skeletal frame and brown skin. My voice doesn’t have gravitas per se, and my face doesn’t signal safety, attractiveness or strength. My wiring has always been a little too direct, a little too slow and a little too deep.
I’ve been told I’m serious. Sensitive. Complicated.
I’ve also been told—quietly, with kind eyes—that I’m not for everyone.
And when you’re not for everyone long enough…
you start to wonder if you’re for anyone at all.
So you study people. Not to manipulate—but to belong. You learn facial expressions. Emotional pacing. You build conversation like architecture, constantly scanning for micro-adjustments in energy. You become fluent in performance, even if your voice never quite hits.
But the deeper ache remains.
Because what you want—what your system is starving for—isn’t approval.
It’s reception.
You want someone to hold you in their awareness without flinching. To stay.
And most of all, to say—without words—I notice you. I notice what you carry.
II. Katja: When the Body Is Met
We were in motion—my head between her thighs, tuned to her breath, my fingers careful, attentive.
And then—without prompt, without pause….
Her hand didn’t ask for anything.
It just held.
Firm. Unwavering. Entirely unambiguous.
There was no hesitation in her fingers. No theatre. No pressure. Just presence.
And then something in me stilled and impossibly—opened.
Because when someone meets you in your giving, without trying to shape it, reframe it or make it legible… it tells the body: stay.
You’re not too much.
You don’t have to shrink here.
You’re felt.
Still, a part of me resisted. The voice inside flared up immediately:
Don’t fall for this. She’s doing her job. This isn’t real. This is paid.
But my body wasn’t convinced that her grip wasn’t transactional and didn’t feel rehearsed. It felt like an anchor. Like I was no longer drifting through the act, but being drawn into the moment with her.
And even if doubt hummed at the edge of it…
my body had already decided:
This is real enough to matter.
III. Irina: When Two Souls Met
Irina’s presence was quieter. Slower. More… subterranean, shall we say.
No grip.
No sudden gestures.
Just gaze—held and steady, like a window left open just for you.
And when I spoke, she didn’t nod performatively, nor did she reach for affirmations or humour.
She just stayed with me.
When I paused, she didn’t fill the silence, and when I shared my piano piece—soft, broken, slightly unsure—she didn’t rush to praise. She listened the way people used to listen before the internet: with presence, stillness, and warmth.
She didn’t just see me—
she let me stay seen.
And when I said, with my voice catching, that this moment felt bittersweet, that I might cry out of something like gratitude, she didn’t correct me or shrink away.
She just looked into me, gently, and said:
“You can.”
Two words, but they landed like a psalm.
IV. Simone Weil and The Weight of Attention
There’s a writer—a mystic and philosopher—who once spoke about this exact kind of moment.
Her name was Simone Weil.
French. Devout. Radical. She believed that the purest form of love wasn’t touch or even language.
It was attention.
Not the hungry kind that wants to consume or the distracted kind that flickers.
But the kind of attention that empties itself.
That makes space.
She wrote:
“Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love.”
And I think that’s what happened in that room. These weren’t just acts of seduction but acts of prayerful attention that were offered without condition.
Held. Without resistance.
I wasn’t being managed or assessed.
I wasn’t being flattered or entertained.
I was simply being witnessed.
And when you live your life trying to earn that kind of gaze—through performance, through restraint, through endless self-analysis—having it offered freely does something to your system.
It interrupts the pattern and begins to rearrange you.
V. A Mosaic of Recognition
Katja held my hand.
Irina held my gaze.
Two moments. Two textures. Both rare and both… real.
And yet, I didn’t walk away healed.
I walked away re-membered.
Because wholeness doesn’t arrive in one thunderclap of belonging.
You don’t rebuild yourself all at once.
You reclaim yourself one felt moment at a time.
These moments didn’t fix me.
They reflected me—back to myself.
They reminded me I wasn’t invisible.
Just waiting to be met.
VI. The Ending That Isn’t One
What they gave me wasn’t permanent.
But it didn’t need to be.
It was real.
And when you’ve lived a life in translation—always editing, always second-guessing, always wondering if presence is something you’ll ever be given without having to barter for it—those brief recognitions feel like resurrection.
Not because they’re loud.
But because they’re quiet in the right places.
I no longer believe recognition has to be earned.
It just has to be offered.
Willingly.
Wordlessly.
Without flinching.
And maybe that’s enough.
Maybe the most human thing isn’t being seen everywhere.
Maybe it’s being seen once—fully, irrevocably—and carrying that moment forward like a lantern.
Because in that one held gaze, that one anchoring grip…
I existed.
This hit home: She didn’t just see me—
she let me stay seen.
I adored reading this, Soren. Thank you!