Intimacy

Intimacy

Intimacy is one of the most precious aspects of life in my opinion.
Intimacy of thought, intimacy of silence, intimacy of togetherness, intimacy of mind, body and soul.
Intimacy with someone that you care for and wholly connect with, intimacy with yourself; the knowledge and understanding of your being.

Intimacy can be intense, even frightening because of the extent of its oneness. Intimacy can bring such harmony but can also bring despair when its brilliance appears tarnished from time to time.

Intimacy is not about possession or falsehoods in feelings. It is a genuine connection of the highest order. It should not detract from privacy or be a burden that challenges liberty.
True intimacy requires intelligence; recognition of individual needs, appreciation of the self, acceptance of balance and rationale. True intimacy is intuitive to the point of seeming instinctual. It requires empathy, passion, selflessness, selfishness, honesty.

The dictionary, when describing intimacy offers words like closeness, familiarity, amorous, comfort, privacy and of course sexual intercourse.
It implies serenity, calm, togetherness, contentment, transparency.

It’s big!

To find intimacy in one’s life is a blessing but it is vital that it is realistic and accepting in the need of each and every one of us.

When thinking about intimacy recently, I was drawn to my usual habit of searching through the internet to read about others thoughts on intimacy and to see how the word is used and quoted throughout the ages. I will look individually at the quotes later.
Wikipedia, or its specific contributor, does a better job than me in defining intimacy but nobody should rely wholly on such definitions. They should consider what intimacy actually means for them, and in some ways, it is a very personal interpretation.

In reading something like Wikipedia, one should consider, think and hopefully react to some of the statements viewed. This is precisely what I have done.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intimate_relationship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intimate_relationship

There are some statements within this piece of writing that I completely agree with like this one – “Intimacy requires an ability to be both separate and together participants in an intimate relationship”. For intimacy to be pure, it is vital to recognise this fundamental aspect of balance between separate and together. You cannot and should not expect intimacy to be a continual connection. Intimacy absolutely recognises the needs and desires of another but real intimacy isn’t about one person doing this. It is about two people doing this. That mutual appreciation and selflessness is key to maintaining intimacy, eradicating destructive emotions and being truly harmonious.

It is interesting though that the very first sentence used in the Wikipedia definition gives me cause to debate.
It says, “Intimacy generally refers to the feeling of being in a close personal association and belonging together”.
Luckily it continues to define this much more carefully but I worry about the word “belonging”.
Intimacy shouldn’t really have to “belong”.
Belong implies possession, holding, even stagnancy; none of which should be part of a true intimacy. There is no need for the word “belonging” in intimacy. In some ways, it goes without needing to be said. In others it is quite detrimental to intimacy to suggest that “belonging” is some ultimate motive for developing intimacy with another human being.
I don’t want to belong through intimacy. I don’t want another person feeling that they are beholden because of the intimacy that we share.
Intimacy just is.

In order to be completely intimate, there has to be some inward thinking too. How can you be transparent, honest, loving, giving if you have not had time, opportunity and willingness to look deeply within yourself? Intimacy of mind needs an individual to have a good look at themselves.
How can you expect someone to have an intimate relationship with you if you don’t understand, know and appreciate yourself? How can you share yourself before knowing what you are and who you are?

Of course, intimacy is also about sex.
There is sex and there is sex.
There is the raw need for penetration and there is the desire for something that connects on a completely different plane.
There is a difference between intimacy of the physical and intimacy of the mind within sex. When these run in parallel you can get pretty explosive mind-blowing sex where the soul and the spirit are driven to blissfulness by the ultimate wonderment of the physical, the thoughtful and the loving.
I like that sort of sex!
With sex though, that dual and triple intimacy can be separated on occasions.

Sexual penetration is pretty intimate in itself, even without the aspects of emotional intimacy.
One could argue that even the porn stars who fuck one another for money are being intimate in one way. They have lost all inhibitions about their physicality. I think diving into one another’s bodies is a pretty intimate thing to do. I think showering cum all over the place is a pretty intimate thing to do but maybe there is a need for a word that is different to “intimate” because fucking doesn’t really encompass it.

I actually feel very humbled by the sort of sex I described earlier; the one where the intimacy goes beyond the physical and makes that complete connection. I’m not convinced that everyone has experienced it, and in having done so myself, I feel, as I said, extremely humbled, even honoured.

But then intimacy is an honour in itself.

Can everyone have intimacy? Is everyone capable of intimacy? Can intimacy grow in unlikely places? Can it diminish as quickly as it has arrived?
Is it possible to give intimacy a universal definition or can this only be done by the individual or indeed the people within each unique relationship?

I’m not going to answer these but I am going to look at some of the comments from people to try and consider my own thoughts about intimacy. I don’t intend to come to any conclusions.
I just enjoy thinking and my comments are just those that are here for the moment. Tomorrow might bring completely different interpretations.

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“Genuine intimacy in human relationships requires dialogue, transparency, vulnerability and reciprocity” – Wikipedia
These are good words which is why I have included them in this short essay.
It is impossible to have intimacy without dialogue. You cannot know, understand and appreciate the depths of another human being without dialogue, without words and as importantly without listening. Dialogue is not a one way street. It needs two people to talk and listen, and then use this to think and consider.
Intimacy is absolutely about transparency. Without transparency you cannot be completely intimate and this does not detract from the need to hold onto something that is completely yours. Even with the most intimate of relationships, there is a desire and even a need to hold something back that is uniquely your thoughts and feelings. Transparency in intimacy does not and should not be interpreted as a giving away of one’s self but an ability to be honest. There should not be the unexpected in intimacy but then there should always be the opportunity for surprise. I love how complicated things can be sometimes in life.
Because of this total transparency and also, by default, a lack of it, there is bound to be some vulnerability in intimacy. It hovers there and unexpectedly challenges you from time to time.
Have I been too intimate, too giving of myself? Have I held back? Do we really have the intimacy that I thought we had? Has being this honest left me open and vulnerable?
Intimacy is only vulnerable when it becomes something that we rely upon. Intimacy becomes vulnerability when it is practised as an absolute attachment – back to belonging. Intimacy is perfectly able to exist in a non-attached way; in its purest form this should be the only way to exist harmoniously and intimately with another being.
If that is done then there has to be reciprocity. Intimacy, by very nature, cannot be one sided. If one person thinks that there is intimacy and the other deems this just as a positive closeness, then it is not real intimacy.
Intimacy is in that unspoken togetherness.


“Among men, sometimes sex results in intimacy; among women, intimacy sometimes results in sex” – Barbra Cartland
Good old Babs! Pink and fluffy to the last! Mills and Boon’s Queen of Misunderstanding!
I would take offence at this if I could be bothered to be offended by a woman who has lived a completely surreal existence so far removed from the realities of everything I know about human beings as is possible. This is the woman that believes in some “happy ever after” scenario of Cinderella style stories, where fairy tales of love and connection are eternal, and that the world is full of perfect being meeting perfect being. I wonder if she ever ‘got’ Wayne and Waynetta that Harry Enfield so brilliantly portrayed. I wonder if those characters ever considered their “hintimacy”?
Disregarding the sexism, there is some purpose in including this statement.
Sometimes sex results in intimacy and sometimes intimacy results in sex. Sometimes they almost happen together if that is possible. Sometimes the intimacy grows with greater sexual contact, sometimes the lessening of inhibitions and thus further intimacy results in even greater sexual experiences. To equate one to men and one to women, though, is utterly absurd.

“It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy, it is the disposition alone” – Jane Austen
The quote goes on to say that intimacy is not dependent upon how long you have known someone. Obviously, intimacy can develop and deepen as time goes on.
I sometimes have the impression that I have a deep connection with someone that really could not possibly be more intimate, and then something happens to make me think that what I had previously thought as total intimacy was a mere shadow of the intimacy now.
There is, according to Austen, the possibility that two people can be intimate almost upon meeting one another. Maybe this is where the notion of love at first sight comes from. But love and intimacy are different, even though there is possibly a need for one to develop the other.
And maybe Ms. Austen is confusing intimacy with the potential for intimacy. Is there a possibility that when two people meet and there is this irrational connectivity that is unexplainable, it is not a sudden rush of being “in love” but a ephemeral glimpse of the feasibility of something far more potent and real than the simplicity and fleetingness of being in love?

“Games are a compromise between intimacy and keeping intimacy away” – Eric Berne
In real intimacy there should be no games. In real intimacy there should be no tricks or dilutions or plans or contrive.
Those who “play” intimacy are on very dodgy ground. Those who pretend an intimacy with another are, in my opinion, bordering on evil. The notion that someone can pretend to be intimate in order to keep intimacy at bay is quite disturbing, even if the game player is not entirely conscious that this is what they are doing.
This is why it is really important to look at a personal intimacy alongside and before entering into an intimate relationship.


“The true feeling of sex is that of deep intimacy, but above all of a deep complicity” – James Dickey
I liked this statement. Sexually, this is the type of thing that we should be saying to young people and to those who are thinking of entering into a sexual relationship.
Sex is so incredibly vital and important that it should not be entered into lightly or irresponsibly. If you are to experience the essence and total enjoyment of sex, I do believe that you have to have that “deep complicity”. You can enjoy sex without it. You can have bloody good sex without it but it isn’t the all-encompassing divinity of the real thing.

I waited for months to have sex with my lover, even though I think it was quite apparent to both of us that we were going to have sex and that we both wanted it.
From the moment that he slipped his clever little fingers into my pussy, I wanted him to fuck me. If I am honest, I probably wanted it even before then.
We could have had sex before we did. There were opportunities and they could easily have been taken but I’m glad that we didn’t.
The anticipation of when it finally happened created an intimacy in the first moment of penetration that was, to me at the time, almost inexplicable.
Of course it is complex. When you are intertwining the body, mind and soul, it bloody well should be!

“Intimacy is open access to your loved one’s mobile phone” – anonymous
It makes you think though, doesn’t it – albeit a totally made up and contemporary statement.
My mobile phone remains at my side at all times. It is not to be touched by anyone else. Nobody has access to it and there is only one person in my life who could, if requested, have complete access.
In the modern world then, if Kim Grove and her 60s comic strip of “Love is….. never having to say sorry!” (something that was made into a tagline for the “Love Story” film of 1970) were still in existence then maybe this is one that could be developed. “Love is……letting your lover have access to the personal phone”.
Love, of course, is different to intimacy.
And intimacy is very different from a denial or prevention of privacy.
I did think about this though the other day. I realised that I could, at any point, be perfectly happy to share the contents of my phone and my emails with just one other person in my life. I don’t think there is anything there that I have not shared with him already. Yet hidden somewhere, in moments of despondency, doubt or desolation, there may be some hidden writing that might annoy or upset him.
You cannot have total immersion in intimacy. You need to hold onto something of yourself, even those parts of you which you are least proud of.
Still, I would be happy to share my phone with him. But this is a personal choice.

Reciprocation was a word that was used earlier. Therefore, does it mean that because I am prepared to share the contents of my mobile phone with him that, by nature of our intimacy, he should be prepared to share the content of his with me?
The very simple answer to this is no.
It is no for a very serious reason.
At no point should intimacy pervade into another person’s privacy. Intimacy rather respects another person’s privacy. Intimacy understands the reasons why someone might not want to share the contents of their mobile phone, not because there is incriminating evidence or information but merely because it is their personal item, theirs and theirs alone.

If a person chooses to share the contents of their phone, that is entirely a different matter. If they choose to explain the secret thoughts, if they choose to share the communication they have with others then that is wonderful but ultimately it is their choice and in not doing so does not in any way negate the intimacy of the relationship.

On the other hand, if there is an intimacy within a relationship which means there are no significant secrets, then the sharing of emails and mobile phones would not cause any specific problems.
As I said, it is a choice thing.

“If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who passes nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good breeding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust” – Lord Chesterfield
Sad but possibly true.
How do you maintain intimacy?
Unfortunately, I don’t spend enough time with my lover to degenerate the intimacy!
That is a deliberately flippant and provocative statement, and clearly not true.

Intimacy is about respect. In many cases, there is complacency in intimacy that completely negates it. In some cases, there is too much giving of one another that makes continued intimacy seemingly impossible. In other cases, people forget to nurture and reconnect which means that the intimacy dissolves unnoticed into the ether.
Relationships need work, even if it is subliminal. Relationships cannot always have that peak of intimacy. They, like people, like thoughts, ebb and flow. Real intimacy can do this too. It fluctuates in extent but never disappears altogether.
Intimacy is a fundamental essence of life for me. It does not have to degenerate into contempt but that requires an honesty and an openness that many are neither prepared nor able to give.

Can you love two people at the same time? Yes, I think that is possible, and when I am talking about love, I am talking about sexual and emotional attachment.
Can you be intimate with two people at the same time? I’m not sure, though clearly polygamists might think differently. I suppose it has something to do with the definition of ‘time’.
Maybe intimacy is all about the now – not the past, not the future, not the day before, not the day after tomorrow.
Intimacy is as much about the moment as it is about the longevity of connection.
True intimacy, however, I think almost surpasses time.

“I’m certain that most couples expect to find intimacy in marriage, but it somehow eludes them” – Dr. James C. Dobson
Or add a simple letter ‘d’ somewhere to get a completely different interpretation!
Rum pie, her peas – I giggle extensively at word play – a real human joy!
Intimacy in any long term relationship can be elusive if you are complacent about it. That is quite obvious and the terminology of marriage is an irrelevance. Most ‘couples’ most people in relationships possibly hope for an intimacy, some may even expect it but it doesn’t nurture and develop itself.
Put that ‘d’ in to the sentence and you have something else. Delusion is a serious problem too.
Some people are deluded into thinking that just because they have a long-term or alleged strong relationship, then intimacy just comes along as part of the equation.
Wrong, wrong, wrong!
Sometimes, the intimacy itself might be delusional too. I’m certain that some couples expect to find intimacy in relationships, but it somehow deludes them. Such intimacy is clearly not intimacy at all. Such “intimacy” gives them false security, makes them feel infallible, makes their relationship appear indestructible. Nobody should be that complacent.

“My friends tell me I have intimacy problems, but they don’t know me, so who cares what they think?” – Garry Shandling
I chuckled considerably at this when I first read it.
On second reading, like all good comedic statements, it is based in a rawness of truth that gives the humour brilliance when the momentary quip has had its time.
Shandling is making the point, whether knowingly or not, that other people cannot possibly pass comment on another person’s need for intimacy. Furthermore, nobody can understand intimacy without looking at themselves and knowing themselves. How can you possibly expect to be intimate with another if you have no idea as to who you are?
He is also stating the fact that some of his friends think that they know him and therefore can make judgments on his needs but in actual fact, they only know a small fraction of the person that he is. That is no intimacy at all.
Who does care what they think? Why should he care what they think if they have the rudeness to assume that they know what is right for another human being?

“Interestingly, the best way to promote intimacy is to demand it” – George Weinberg
I’m not sure about this statement. I don’t think you can demand intimacy. It should develop of its own accord and certainly shouldn’t be manufactured. However, there are ways of demanding.
If you replace demand with “require” then that is slightly different. If you require or need intimacy and that is reciprocated by another, then all’s well and good. The promotion of intimacy will happen, but replacing the word “demand” with “expect” cannot work.
You cannot demand intimacy as much as you cannot demand that someone loves you. And yet, there is something in this sentence that makes some sense.
Maybe a personal demand of intimacy does promote it. Maybe the expectation of intimacy nurtures it in itself.

“Intimacy, as I am using it, is sharing my reality with you” – Keith Miller
I really like this statement because it is so simple and sums things up rather succinctly.
I share my reality with you therefore that is my offering of intimacy.
Being truly close and intimate with another human being has to be about sharing. But it goes way beyond the sharing of a bed, or the sharing of a mobile phone or even the sharing of thoughts.
To share oneself whilst respecting the need for personal privacy is the ultimate in intimacy.
How do you balance this? It is difficult.
However intimate you are with one person, can you really share absolutely every particle of yourself with another? Should you even want to do that? Isn’t intimacy about sharing a reality yet keeping something of yourself for only you?

I share my reality with my lover. I possibly do it too much. It sometimes gets me into trouble (with myself as well as him). But that is just who I am. That is about my need and not his.
He shares his reality with me, or at least some of it. I like the fact that there is still more sharing to do, and I still have more sharing to give.
It is a pathway and a road to sharing that intimacy enables. It is the sharing and the walking of the pathway that gives intimacy.


“Passion is the quickest to develop, and the quickest to fade. Intimacy develops more slowly, and commitment more gradually still” – Robert Steinberg
Interpret this on an emotional level and it makes sense. Interpret it on a sexual level and there are lessons to be learned.
Natural highs are the ultimate form of satisfaction. Passion is the quickest to develop and if there is obtuse and unrealistic expectations on passion, then it can fade. But passion, like other things, can and should fluctuate. An intense passion for something in life can be a constant but it can raise at one minute and dissipate the next. The essence of the passion does not disappear just the extremity of it. Intimacy is different from passion in the same way that it is different from love but you cannot really have intimacy without passion. One of the most wonderful things about intimacy is the sharing of individual passions. The more shared passions, the deeper the intimacy. Learing about shared passions increases and sustains the intimacy. That is the greatest commitment, that is a real commitment.

“The value of the personal relationship to all things is that it creates intimacy……and intimacy creates understanding….. and understanding creates love” – Anais Nin
How can you add to such statements? If love in its utter and most purest form is an ultimate aim then the intimacy of sharing and understanding will help to develop and sustain it. Values, truths, honesty, understanding – they all contribute.


“Enlightenment is an intimacy with all things” – Dogen Zenji
And finally, we have the statement that in some ways makes the previous writing nonsensical and redundant because intimacy is far greater than an intimacy with one human being, one individual, even oneself.

To be enlightened means sharing with all things. Enlightenment means having that connection with all things and not just a chosen few. Enlightenment is an intimacy with all things without a reliance on them. Enlightenment is a freedom from everything and a bond with all.

To talk about intimacy in the way that I have done is to talk about intimacy of relationships, of human relationships but real intimacy goes far beyond this narrow interpretation.
Intimacy is about oneself and the connection with the world. Intimacy is about making no demands and having no expectations. Intimacy is about the opening of the mind, the development of the self, the creation of the spirit,
If you manage to get these in an intimate with a special and loved person in your life, then you are a very fortunate soul indeed.

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It leaves me with nothing to say other than a brief explanation as to why Zenpuss has written about this rather than the more explicit sexually focussed writing.
Or does it need explaining at all?

Sex should not be uncomplicated and without thought.
In understanding one’s sexuality, one should consider the more intrinsic aspects of love, sex, honesty, intimacy.
In developing one’s attitude to sexual liaisons and relationships, one should be mindful of the complicated parts of life.
As far as young people are concerned, I think we should be very explicit about the fact that when you have penetrative sex you are feasibly penetrating far more that the physical conjoining of organs!

Sex is vital for me in a way that intimacy is. Sex and intimacy combined is integral for me and my understanding of the person that I am and the relationship that I can give and receive.