<p>Going a step further in McGlotten’s interpretation of Deleuze, this also plays into how virtual intimacies mirror queer intimacies as they approach normative ideals but “can never arrive at them”. Both queer and virtual relations are imagined by a greater narrative as fantastical, simulated, immaterial, and artificial—poor imitations and perversions of a heterosexual, monogamous, and procreative marital partnership (2013). A virtual body is similarly immanent, with both potential and corruption at the same time. It carries all the neoliberal normative power of freedom that a queer body can carry today but also reflects the unseemly fleshly reality of having one.</p>
<p>This is where the story continues. The body from the dream ocean leaves the primordial soup of the internet to stage a disruptive performance. It moves from potential creation to a wild spring river. A fluid being, that exists simultaneously inside and outside normative constructions. It channels deviant feelings and transcendental opinions about the collective’s physical form genuinely as people use it to navigate their physicality. Both virtual and queer intimacies highlight the constructed nature of identity and desire. They disrupt the notion of a fixed, essential self, instead embracing the multiplicity and complexity inherent in human experience. This destabilization of identity opens up possibilities for self-expression and connection, creating spaces where individuals can redefine themselves beyond the constraints of societal expectations while still technically under its watchful eye. In essence, the parallels between virtual and queer intimacies underscore the radical potential of both to disrupt and reimagine the norms that govern our understanding of relationships, bodies, and identity. They invite us to question the rigid binaries and hierarchies that structure our society and to embrace the fluidity and possibility inherent in the human experience.</p>
<h2id="digital-comfort">1.DIGITAL COMFORT</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>The only laws: Be radiant. Be heavy. Be green.</p>
<<<<<<<HEAD
<p>Tonight, the dead light up your mind like an image of your mind on a scientist’s screen. ‘The scientists don’t know – and too much.’</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“In the town square, in the heart of night (a delicacy like the heart of an artichoke), a man dances cheek-to-cheek with the infinite blue.”<br/>
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<p>Tonight, the dead light up your mind like an image of your mind on a
scientist’s screen. ‘The scientists don’t know – and too much.’</p>
<p>“In the town square, in the heart of night (a delicacy like the heart
of an artichoke), a man dances cheek-to-cheek with the infinite
