What intimacy Isn’t

Intimacy doesn’t require commitment.

This fundamental confusion comes from our thoroughly messed up beliefs about sex, sexuality and relationships. We can’t deal with sex as, well, SEX, we have to make up all kinds of other names for it: “Doing it,” “wifely duty,” and “being intimate.” And we’ve been doing this for so long that we now believe the word is the thing. But, sex doesn’t need intimacy. Love does’t require intimacy. Marriage doesn’t require intimacy. We mistake physical acts that intimacy inspires from people in a committed relationship with intimacy itself, and then assume that intimacy can only, or should only, take place in some kind of committed relationship.

Intimacy is an entirely, non-physical event, that takes place, in the moment, between two or more people. It is perfectly possible to share an intimate moment with your parents, your children, your siblings, and a total stranger that you meet for a few minutes and never see again. We think it can, and should, be forced: “Kiss your (slimly, smelly, sleazy) uncle Tom! Don’t be disrespectful!”

We like to equate intimacy with sex, so the horny guy can say he want “intimacy” and “commitment,” and thereby cloaks lust in nobility.

Intimacy requires consent, consent to being vulnerable. It took me 50 years to learn that intimacy isn’t in what is said in books or on the screen, in the acts of partners, no matter how skillful, nor in any of the things I though I was supposed to do “in those situations.” Some think that sharing their deep pain is intimacy, but it’s just as easy to hide behind misery as it is a smile.

Intimacy is closely related to some kinds of love, a word that is so overused and abused to have virtually lost all meaning. Being in the moment of being open and totally accepted by another, is experiencing intimacy. Some call that love, but intimacy is fleeting, momentary. There one moment and gone the next, never to return. This is its nature, and its gift. If you want an intimate relationship, it must be eternally re-created, moment by moment, day by day. That’s a lot of work. And it sucks that we are never thought how. Our parents probably didn’t know, so what we were taught came from people who cared little our authentic freedom and happiness.

Intimacy can’t be forced, though it can be faked. That scares a lot of people. Being open to intimacy means being open to being vulnerable, and being hurt. But, with practice and a willingness to be wrong, make mistakes and start over, you can learn how intimacy and vulnerability can empower. Think of something you do well. How long did it take you to get to your current level of skill? How many times did you screw up, make mistakes, have to start over? Relationships are hard, yet we believe that, somehow, they just drop out of the sky, fully formed and perfect. That it’s all so easy that anyone who tries to learn or understand is a pathetic loser. Hence miserable marriages, high divorce rates, hookup culture and the abysmal dating scene. “Intimacy” for ! Just don’t look under the hood….