Doodle Post - let's talk erotism and love

Samuel Sterns & Bruce Banner - Marvel Studio

I was hesitant to post this one because I wondered if I should turn it into a clean art, or at least a better sketch (this one is full of mistakes 'cause it's the step where I place things, they're not properly proportionate and shit). But I like it this way too (and I can't turn everything into a full art either). Everytime I draw a serious intimate and touching Samuce moment, let it be comics or MCU, it's always a sketch. I don't have any clean version of them actually being tender to each others. I'll have a few arts of them doing casual things together, but never more than that. Don't get me wrong, I love drawing them do very casual things together. There's something very wholesome and touching about two person who see themself as monsters experiencing some normality together. But I never do full arts of more intimate moments.

Maybe I'm scared, in an embarrassed way. Like I said yesterday, I don't feel shit when I watch porn. It's just that I don't see the point in watching people I don't know performing a random activity for the sake of it. When you watch sports you have "a lore", a performance. When you watch a streaming you have someone entertaining you, joking, talking. There's a staging, a presentation. When you watch porn you see a penetration and some growling of some folks you don't give a shit about with a poorly placed camera and whatever light they have in their ugly grey room in most case and that's it. It's BO-RING. It's not even worth feeling shame over it, it's just fucking boring, meaningless, pointless.

But the sensuality of a whisper, the passion of a touch? Now that's what make my heart races and my cheeks red. When I draw boys like this it's like sneaking in their intimacy. When I draw them opening to each others this way, letting go of their mask, showing and sharing their weaknesses, their shame, their pain. It's like drawing them naked. But not in a "I'm showing some flesh" kind of way, it rather feels like voyeurism. It feels like watching someone getting undressed through the hole of a lock, because I'm drawing moments that belong to them and them only and aren't meant to be seen by everyone but them. And it's because it's personal and intimate that these moments are so beautiful and touching. Erotism is more than raw boring sex, it's about desire, sensuality (it's in the name, "sense", that's why playing with sounds, touches, lights and even taste and smell make everything more arousing).

It's a tension you build, a connexion.

Maybe that's why I have a hard time doing a full art, because I feel like I'm watching through that hole and it makes me feel too much. That's why I hate "it's just a drawing" from people pretending to defend Art. It's not just a lazy and cowardly mindset, it's deeply anti-Art as well.

It's just a quick sketch, it's just quick raw lines on a white canvas and yet, it makes me feel so much emotions. If you want to really defend Art rather defend the right to feel negative emotions. The right to feel disturbed, grossed out. Like I said, Art is a safe and healthy way to experience the best and the worst. It's never "just a drawing", but it doesn't mean it shouldn't exist either. The wonderful thing about Art is how you're in control of it. If you see a depiction of something that makes you feel uncomfortable you can ignore it, mute it, not buy it. You're not forced to live what it shows. Thus the importance, also, to add proper triggers warning. Because it's not "anti free speech and Art", it's the opposite, it allows you to represent everything freely while respecting people's boundaries. This way they aren't forced into seeing something that makes them feel uncomfortable and they cannot force you to not represent it either. That being said, let's quickly talk about the doodle itself : Before I dive in I gotta remind you that I headcanon MCU Sam with a touch PTSD (not comics Sam, just MCU Sam). Understand by this that everytime I draw MCU Sam, I keep the idea in mind that touches not just make him uncomfortable, but also trigger violent traumatic reactions from him. That's why I like to imagine him hidding his skin under a few layer of clothings when I design him in a more Leader-ish outfit, so nothing can directly touch him :

The intial idea was to have Sam not just allowing but also initiating a touch by kindly putting Bruce's hand on his chest in order to comfort him. Imagine how much Sam cares to face such an intense fear and discomfort for Bruce. It makes everything so much more touching, so much more intense. It's Sam who suffered but it's him comforting Bruce. Because that's what a real healthy love is about, it's about sharing everything, including pain and so allowing people to feel bad for you and to deeply suffer it even if you're the one living it. You have your curse and theirs is to suffer out of love without being able to express it because "it's you who suffer". I usually draw MCU Sam with a hood when he's around Bruce, because I like to think he would hide his head in order to look more human around him, in fear that if Bruce truly sees him he would just back in fear and abandon him. After all, Bruce came to him and got him in this situation to get rid of a monster and there's no way Sam wouldn't think about that and fear how Bruce would react if he sees Sam as the monster he fears he is.

(I'm drawing a short comics about that, btw, here's a sneak peek but don't expect to see it anytime soon lol)

But I wanted Sam to be as exposed as possible. To accept what he became around Bruce because Bruce's love makes him accept that by feeling human.

Initially I wanted Sam to say "it doesn't hurt anymore", not "it doesn't hurt when you're here" because the second one implies that he still suffers and I guess that's not what Bruce wants to hear in this moment. But I don't believe in the importance of lies to comfort people. Actually I think there's something absolutly beautiful in the sincerity to tell someone that you do suffer. I'm disabled and neurodA (I separate them, I don't see neuroatypies as a disability the same way my disabilities are unrelated to it) and I'm dehumanized over both. The only people who make me feel human and reminds me that I'm allowed to exist and be who I am are the people who love me. It's only when they're here, it's only through their love that it doesn't hurt anymore. So when Bruce is around, Sam doesn't suffer his dehumanization, because Bruce makes him feel human. And this reality is way more beautiful and powerful than a lie.

I'm blessed with the most amazing possible lover. He started dating me when he was young and wanted to see the world and I was dying. I was ugly (because no matter what people say, you're never pretty when you're sick, or at least you cannot feel this way) but to him I was the most beautiful person alive. He made me feel pretty in a moment of my life I felt so bad about what I was. He gave me the strength to overcome so many of my fears because I wanted to comfort him the way Sam wants to comfort Bruce here.

I didn't have to mention my fiance in this post to explain my mindset, you would all have understand it anyway. I just wanted to talk about him because I love him, he is my humanity and so a part of my arts. They cannot exist without him the way they cannot exist without me because he gave me a heart and he taught me to live. To live for myself, not for him. It was never about him, everytime he cheared me up and helped me, it was always about me. He never made it about him even when he was in pain because of my condition.

I always say he sacrificed his life for me, his dreams, his youth. I made him grow too fast, the same way I had to. But he never saw it as a sacrifice. For him it was normal because I am everything to him the same way he is everything to me. I once asked him "why me, you could get so much better and comfortable" and he said "because nobody can ever make me feel as loved and needed as you do" and I feel the same about him. He makes me feel loved, but also necessary. Love is the most sefless and selfish feeling. You're willing to give up everything for that one person and destroy yourself for them while wanting them to make you feel special and better than anyone else. It's a very funny and beautiful contradiction.

He is my best friend, my lover, he is the family I want to build, the future I want to live. That's why I love shipping my favorite characters. It's a way for me to make them heal and experience life. Not just happiness, because loving someone isn't this easy, because healing doesn't mean getting rid of pain. But sadness and pain too. Because life is the best and the worst. Because nothing is warmer than the person you love comforting you.

Enjoy~