Questions about intimacy, heavy cycles, and medication safety

[lol34@ciderloon]

Hi, I am looking for a real human educator to help me with some deep questions. I am single, not dating, and navigating a traditional Asian family dynamic where I cannot ask for advice. Lately, I've been using AI text generators to simulate intimacy scenes to see what it feels like, but I want to know from a human: What does physical intimacy actually feel like when two bodies are next to each other? How does arousal feel physically?
Additionally, I want to make sure I understand my body safely. I have regular but heavy periods at times. I also have a unique medical history: I manage a seizure disorder, pre-diabetes, pectus excavatum, and a benign heart murmur. I take Keppra 500mg (0.5 pill in the morning, 1 whole pill at night) and experience an ongoing symptom my neurologist classifies as a "hallucination."
How does intense physical excitement or intimacy interact with a nervous system on Keppra? Since I am exploring this conceptually and want to join my campus Planned Parenthood club, what baselines should I know about my body?

[Heather]

Hi there, and welcome to the boards.

Before anything else, I'm always going to make a pitch asking anyone reporting using generative AI to consider stopping, or at least wildly limiting their use. Beyond the plagiarism it engages in by design -- plagiarism that has happened with our content here at the site, including so many of these conversations, as well as plagiarism of books by authors like me -- the terrible effects it has on our environment, and the fascist techbros it puts so much money in the hands of, it also just does a terrible job at most things people use it for. It certainly cannot tell you what physical intimacy with a partner feels like. It doesn't know, because those are not experiences a machine has had or can have, but it also doesn't have for-real intelligence to factor in facts like that how physical intimacy feels isn't something that feels the same way for every person with every partner.

How it feels to be physically intimate with another person has so, so much to do with what is going on in the dynamic between you and how each person in it feels about and in that dynamic, feels in their whole body, what their unique history with touch and intimacy and sex is, the works. Each and every interaction we have with any given person will tend to feel different. Some interactions, for example, might feel highly charged in a way where sex or other touch feels more like wrestling or play, while another can be very quiet, soft and tender, feeling more like how it can feel when we're laying in bed cuddling with a pet. Ultimately -- separate from the general sense of things we can get from reading the kind of thing I just typed for you there in work and words by actual people who have actually had these experiences -- the only way we're going to know what it feels like to be physically intimate with another person is by being physically intimate with that person.

Arousal is a little less unique than that in terms of how it feels but it still just isn't something that is the exact same from person to person or experience to experience. But generally, it tends to feel a lot like being excited in other ways about other things feel: we'll tend to get a quicker heart rate and feel charged, feel a hungry sort of desire for things we want not just in our heads but in our skin (the desire to be touched is often called "skin hunger" which is a pretty good description of it), feel a sense of anticipation, and other things. You can read more about that and other aspects of the human sexual response cycle here: https://www.scarleteen.com/read/sex-sex ... sers-guide

Heavy periods don't mean anyone need to take any kind of special sexual precautions, if that's what you're asking about. They don't make touch or sex less safe for you or anyone else. I'm not sure which side effects of your anti-seizure med you're asking about, but I suspect it might be about some of the more intense mood impacts it's known to have sometimes? Regardless, only your neurologist will know what they mean when they are talking about your medication in the way they are, so you'll probably need to ask them to explain what they're saying.

I'm not sure what you're asking for when you ask about "baselines" of your body, nor how that's relevant to volunteering with a Planned Parenthood affiliate. I suspect this is also super specific information that only you are likely to know from the experience of living in your body, but if you want to try and clarify what you're asking, we can see if we can answer it for you.