The following blog-post is a reworking of a letter to an ex-lover who was completely unable to open up and share of themself. It may be useful to others where they or their partners are unable to be intimate.
WARNING! Expressing sexuality is a natural form of intimacy. If however discussion of sex might offend the reader, skip the ‘sexual intimacy’ section.
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Intimacy can be defined as candour, openness and honesty. Any affinity whether child-parent, friendship, couple, lovers, even neighbours and work-colleagues requires some level of intimacy in order to function. Different relationships require different types &/or levels of intimacy. So for example, in the case of neighbours we tend to use intellectual intimacy as a means to develop a bond: we share factual information about mutual interests and community affairs. Generally we keep matters with neighbours very superficial (unless we develop friendships with them), so the level of intimacy is fairly shallow.
I am going to go through each of eight facets of intimacy - on a sphere upon and within which there is much overlap and merging - to discuss why it is needed. The aspects are listed alphabetically so as not to suggest any kind of hiërarchy.
Activity Intimacy
Doing activities together brings people closer to one another. This is one of the reasons why over time we become close to our work-colleagues. This is also why many enterprises support team-building exercises &/or events. We become a knit-together team, a sort of tribe.
Sharing hobbies, whether sports, arts & crafts or other activities, helps us bond with others; that is, we develop intimacy. Planning and preparing for such activities is as important as the activities themselves, for it is all quality-time spent with another or others.
An example would be a trip to the cinema. A discussion often has to be had on the genre as not everyone likes all types of movies. Chats on how to reach the cinema, what to do prior &/or after the screening, and so on are also likely to occur. The travelling, if done jointly, becomes part of the activity. The return journey, a meal or a drink in a bar might be used to discuss the film and share opinions (see ‘intellectual intimacy’ below).
Emotional Intimacy
Emotional intimacy is the sharing of our emotions, our emotional states, with others. The vast majority of folk we meet are never allowed to share in emotional intimacy, or at least only superficially. We only reveal certain culturally-permitted emotions with those we mix with on a quotidian basis. If we have loving close-families, then its members will know most of our emotional range. However, our full emotional stores are only ever shared with those with whom we are extra close, such as a beloved parent, lovers and close-friends.
In order to determine who are those special folk in our lives perhaps consider with whom we might be happy to be vulnerable: whom are we happy to cry in front of &/or with whom would we express our deep fears?
Some individuals never have the opportunity to share emotions due to childhood traumas, dysfunctional families or sometimes, even without bad experiences, simply due to their own contingency.
In my opinion, love is as much action as feeling. Lovely deeds, such as giving choccies or blooms, speak of caring. However, words are also important to reïnforce and iterate emotional intimacy. For example, if one very kindly donates financially to a charitable purpose, that is an act of love (agapē), but it lacks intimacy. If we make the same donation, but do so along with writing a note or letter explaining why the cause is important to us, we share intimacy with the charity. Vicariously we are able to connect with the organisation at a deeper level. The reader feels touched and understood, the donor feels more fulfilled. Validation all round!
Historical Intimacy
Friendships and loving-couples develop bonds by sharing about their pasts. After all, our personal histories led us to be the people we are today.
I have always been fully open about my past with both close friends and lovers. Invariably I answer any enquiries as best I can. I try to hide nothing. I share anecdotes (good & bad) from my childhood, school, university, relationships, work and life in general. Usually such sharing puts the listener at their ease and, thus, develops trust to reciprocate and open up about their own life.
In my life I have encountered individuals who refuse point-blank to discuss anything personal, and, when occasional snippets slip out, never expand upon them. Oftentimes, if one asks about the memory, such a person either avers that they cannot recall or they rapidly switch topics. It is nigh impossible to develop and sustain any kind of deep affinity with such a person.
In such circumstances, where isolated historical fragments are the totality of what is shared, opportunities to deepen mutual bonds are thus ignored or rebuffed. However much more is needed for genuïne friendship. Such hermetically-sealed factoids give no opportunity to be involved with and understand what the speaker went through nor to empathise with them and the hurt or pleasure, etc. they must have felt at the time (and maybe still do). Withholding one’s past is the equivalent of keeping the drawer-bridge raised so one can hide behind one’s impenetrable barriers.
Sharing one’s history is sharing oneself.
Intellectual Intimacy
Most folk share opinions, views, perspectives on issues such as community, current-affairs, politics, the economy, sports, literature, cinema, television, the Arts, and so on. This is common amongst work-colleagues as well as almost all relationships, other than the superficial. (For example, it is unlikely one would engage in intellectual intimacy with a shop-assistant or bank-teller - unless known personally.)
If one always declines to share opinions, then one is effectively blocking opportunities to be known or to be known better. Sharing opinions keeps conversations flowing, allowing us to better understand one another and, over time, grow to appreciate what we have in common.
Mental Intimacy
Our mental states are closely linked to our emotional states and there is much overlap. Perhaps we can differentiate by pointing out that emotions tend to be fleeting whereas a state of mind lasts for an extended period. Being fearful is an emotion which if constantly stimulated leads to an anxious mental state, thus anxiety. Being constantly down and hopeless similarly can lead to depression.
Whilst I suffer both general and social anxieties, and every few years also depression, I mostly consider myself a happy person. Despite my ill-health and disabilities, I have enjoyed a rich, fulfilled life. Of course at any given moment I may not be happy, nevertheless over all happiness is my habitual state of mind.
We might also share our ambitions, our hopes and our dreams. If we are fortunate some of these may be shared and can be pursued via the affinity.
Physical Intimacy
For all types of close affinities (family, amity, lovers) touch is extremely important. It reïnforces bonds. Touch maps (aka touch-area maps, touch space maps) show the parts of our bodies that can be touched by different types of relationships. So for example, a work-colleague in the UK might be permitted a shoulder- or forearm-pat, hand-shaking and on certain occasions an arm across a shoulder. At the opposite end we have lovers who are supposed to be free to touch anywhere.
One of my most cherished memories is being together with a lover after a date in a restaurant. On exiting we walked to the pedestrian-crossing. Whilst waiting at the kerb-side, unsolicited he rested his chin on top of my head whilst coming in for a full, rear body-hug. He held the hug until it was time to cross.
Being with someone who refuses to touch or be touched is like being stranded in a tactile desert. Such indicates that the non-toucher has an issue, perhaps they are traumatised or neurodivergent. It is very lonely to be with someone but remain totally untouched. Touch is a basic human need.
Sexual Intimacy
Sexual intimacy is the true benefit of being lovers. We can be touched where most folk never go - and I am not talking just genitalia! (Refer to relevant touch-area maps if needs be.) If we are lucky, sexual intimacy can lead to a sense of oneness, of union with the other person. I have only experienced this a handful of times in my life, but it was awesome! The memories still resonate…
The sense of union aside, other benefits of sex include creäting the good chemicals in our bodies which make us feel happy, well and alive. Regular sex also iterates the bonds between two people and thus can strengthen them.
Heterosexual and homosexual sex are not very different, especially nowadays with the widespread availability of strap-ons for wimmin who wish to fuck their male partners. There are a whole panoply of options: kissing; deep-kissing; licking; sucking; masturbation; mutual masturbation; frottage; dry-humping; oral-sex; 69 or mutual oral-sex; rimming; inter-crural/inter-femoral; toy-play; light BDSM; etc. I myself am quite happy to fuck (top) or be fucked (bottom) or not fuck at all (side).
I am not averring that both partners must be willing to try every sexual possibility. I personally would never wish to experiment with scat, brown or shit-play. Similarly I would never cruise in a public toilets. In both cases, for myself, the odours are visceral and make me nauseous and light-headed. Exploring why one does not wish to engage in a given activity means we open up about our desires and thus share our inner selves.
Partners have to be willing to experiment, for how can one know what one dis/likes engaging in with the other person without trying? New lovers need to learn their partner’s likes, needs and desires! Excepting where both partners are asexual, such must be considered if the relationship is to develop and deepen.
Spiritual Intimacy
In some ways spiritual intimacy is the hardest to define. And yet, it is perhaps also the strongest. It is the pull of the spiritual that brings folk together and holds them like magnets. We recognise it in those times when we meet someone for the first time, but it feels as if we have always known them. Or in similar circumstances, we are driven to want to know a person more. I have not encountered love-at-first-sight, but perhaps that too is the spiritual aspect pulling individuals to become more than what they are singly.
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So we have encountered eight different types of intimacy.
To be clear, I am not advocating sharing one’s whole life-story at the beginning of getting to know someone; rather, as circumstances arise, one ought to take the opportunity to open up and share.
Of course, a specific area of intimacy might be especially difficult to share in the first instance. However, over time, as trust develops, this ought not to be an issue.
Even so, with friends & lovers, whilst a given area might be slow to develop, other areas of intimacy ought to be developing and deepening.
Being intimate allows others to be intimate with us: this leads, over time, to deepening intimacy within an affinity.
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