We’re living in a time where constant connection has left us feeling more disconnected than ever. Conversations happen through screens, work is remote and dating runs on algorithms. With plasma and pixels keeping us apart, intimacy – real, physical, human connection – can feel harder to come by.

While intimacy is often tied to the explicitly erotic or kinky – think pubic hair and pink, protruding tongues – it also lives in subtler, quieter moments. In these images, sticky, indiscernible fluids and bodily textures hint at something erotic but unseen.

Here are five beauty galleries from the Dazed Beauty archives that explore the full spectrum of intimacy, from the overtly kinky to the soft, slippery and unspoken.

THE CUCA PROJECT, DORIAN ULISES LOPEZ

Mohawks to braids, ponytails to piercings. In this shoot, Mexican menswear fashion designer Bárbara Sánchez-Kane teams up with photographer Dorian Ulises Lopez and hair stylist Mariana Palacios to present a series of intimate portraits of pubic hairstyles. The shoot centres around the empowerment of female sexuality. “Framing the vagina as a temple, a visual space to explore ourselves, it aims to combat the stigma and shame surrounding female sexuality and pleasure,” explains Sánchez-Kane. 

TONGUES, LAILA MAJID 

There’s something about tongues that makes them equal parts alluring and grotesque. While sexual, they also possess a certain quality that can quickly turn the sensual into the disturbing. Exploring this space between the seductive and the repulsive is artist Laila Majid. “The tongue possesses a curious malleability of form,” she tells Dazed. “I am interested in its material slipperiness and fluidity.”

THE FEMININE SENSUAL, JOHANNA NYHOLM

Gooey, sticky and slimy: these are the words that describe Johanna Nyholm’s sensual shoot that she hopes makes you feel “turned on and inspired to embrace your femininity”. Playing with flowers and gel slime, the shoot sees Nyholm use a lot of aloe vera gel and Weleda products to create a “slippery hot, wet mess”.

ANIMALISTIC RAVERS, DANNI HARIS

Centred around evolution, this shoot by Danni Haris sees models morphed into wild, animal-based looks. With mouthpieces by Juanita Grillz, cheeks mouths and tongues bulge and contort in various ways, Harris aimed to incorporate characteristics that visually make humans look more feral and animalistic into the shoot.

THE WATER BROKE, DIPETSA

Wet cloth clinging to nipples, dresses dripping in sweat, and jeans with urine-like stains on the crotches. In this shoot, designer DiPetsa destigmatises the topic of female wetness. “It was an eco-feminist research project into how the way we treat our bodily fluids has an immediate connection to how we treat the oceans and water at large,” she explains.