‘A short while before moving to Brussels, I met B. The relationship was brief. The ending, abrupt. That evening, immediately after returning home, I was unable to remember his face. It was the first time that had ever happened to me. B is also the first man toward whom I felt desire, arousal, while he was standing there, next to me. It happened only once, the night we kissed for the first time.’
True Love Leaves No Traces questions my desire — or rather its absence, as a demisexual person. How does one (re)connect to it when growing up in a society designed by and for men, where the male gaze is omnipresent? I question and attempt to dismantle this persistent belief that I exist fully and solely through the male gaze. By positioning myself behind the camera, I shift from object of desire, a role I have so far never truly been able to embrace, to desiring subject.
