ABSTRACT
Intimacy means many things to different people, but there is little to be gained by being fussy, legalistic or too particular in definition. Intimacy embraces much and implies more. We call intimate that relationship which, with a satisfactory degree of mutuality, includes most of these eight qualities or characteristics. It need not include them all.
It seems for most to require something like “equality”in status, power, and vulnerability. Therefore, intimacy does not easily exist between employer and employee, between parent and child, between teacher and student, between warden and prisoner, between officer and enlisted rank, or in other relationships of large inequality.
Intimacy is found in a relationship oflove. Love is wider and broader than intimacy but intimacy seems to be based on love. However, it should be noted that love need not, and usually in its higher, more developed levels, does not include intimacy. Love comes in many varieties, for example; Eros, Philia, Fraternity, Patria, Agape.
Intimacy is found in a relationship ofaffection—of mutual positive regard and reciprocated delight.
It is found in a relationship ofcloseness, nearness, and proximity—both emotional and physical. At times it is measuredin centimeters; it nearly always has an outer limit in kilometers. It is very difficult to initiate, or even to maintain an intimate relationship if one of the pair is in Chicago and the other in Budapest.
Intimacy is found in a relationship ofvulnerability and openness, the obverse and reverse of the same coin. In these relationships it is easy to wound or to be wounded. We are tender in both meanings of that word: our own sore spots are revealed, and we are solicitous of the sensitivities of the other.
It is found in a relationship ofunderstanding, acceptance and patience. The old-fashioned word is “long-suffering.”
For many it is almost necessarily found in a relationship ofloyalty and its counterpartexclusivity.
It is found in a relationship that is open to all the richness and varieties of expressions ofsexuality.
