Intimacy

[she_is_my_addiction]

What is intimacy to you? Do/did you ever have trouble with intimacy? When did you finally realize what it was to you? What made you realize what it was? Was there ever a point when you confused sex with intimacy? How did you change your view/fix your view?

Answers to these questions would help me a lot.

Thanks

 

[neonlyte]

I'm writing about this at the moment, it is a theme of great interest to me.

I completed a draft of a story for Nano and I'm now on the re-write, first task was to switch tense to first person, I need to speak this story to convey the intimacy. The story is about a relationship that confused sex for intimacy and ends in divorce followed by a period of abstinance before discovering sex through intimacy.

It is difficult to abstract my feeling about the relationship between the two - probably why I've chosen to explore it through a novel length story - I'd summarise (at this stage) by suggesting intimacy to be a stage beyond sex, compatibilty of the mind and body.

 

[sharingfantasies]

To me:

Sex is the physical act. Two people meet at a bar, go home and have sex.

Intimacy is emotional. Two people in love or getting there, they are connected through friendship, knowledge of each other, the desire for more than just the sex. Intimacy could be holding hands while sitting on the couch comfortable together in the quiet, it is about the emotions.

at least for me

 

[rgraham666]

What is intimacy to you?

That's almost like trying to define love. Everybody has their own definition and we can argue endlessly over it.

For me at least, intimacy is when I share core personality traits with another, we like those similarities and we spend much time and effort communicating and supporting those similarities and that liking.

Do/did you ever have trouble with intimacy?

Always. I tend to confuse it with power. Being intimate with someone is a form of power after all.

And almost everyone who has had power over me has misused it.

When did you finally realize what it was to you?

Sometime after I went insane and put myself back together. I had to do a lot of thinking about who I was and what I wanted.

What made you realize what it was?

My illness. A big trigger was my alienation from the world. Without intimacy, I have no anchors to the world.

Was there ever a point when you confused sex with intimacy?

From the time I first discovered sexuality. Our culture tends to confuse the two.

How did you change your view/fix your view?

The Socratic Method, asking myself endless questions about myself and my behaviour. Like most people, I had a lot of assumptions about who and what I was. Most of them wrong. By taking a long look at myself and coming to a better understanding I became more content.

Not to say my journey is anywhere near complete. I doubt I'll ever completely overcome all my problems. But the point isn't to be perfect and normal, but to be yourself and happy with who you are.

Answers to these questions would help me a lot.

Thanks

My answers may not be your answers. But I hope I can help you find your own.

You're welcome.

 

[AppleBiter]

Intimacy is hard to define. For me, it is feeling closer to another human being than to anyone or anything else in the world. It is sharing things with another person that have never been said, only kept private inside of this shell, and knowing that he will not judge me.

Before, I didn't have any trouble with intimacy. Now, for reasons known only to J. and I, I have some great difficulty with trust issues.

I guess I first realized what intimacy was to me when I first truly experienced it and it was like nothing I had ever known.

I haven't confused sex with intimacy, but the two do tend to be interwoven sometimes.

Hope that helps.

 

[Honey123]

Intimacy comes in many different forms. Although, I believe you can't have intimacy without love.

You can have sex without love, yes, but then there is that intimacy element that would be missing which I think would eventually make the relationship end.

I mean, you can have an intimate setting, i.e., candles, music, perfect dinner, which would more than likely lead to sex, but if you don't feel intimate for that person...that leads you right back to SEX...not making love.

There are so many emotions that go hand in hand, but I think loving someone and feeling intimate with them is a strong bond.

Am I rambling?

 

[SeaCat]

How can I define intimacy? It's almost impossible to define to someone who hasn't dealt with it.

To me intimacy is the feeling of trust in a relationship. You trust your partner enough to share your deepest feelings, your dreams, your fears, and yes your emotions without the fear or feeling that they will be used against you. It is the act and feeling of sharing without reservation.

I know, this didn't help, but it's what I believe. (Can you make a person blind from birth understand the feeling of seeing a rainbow?)

Cat

 

[she_is_my_addiction]

How can I define intimacy? It's almost impossible to define to someone who hasn't dealt with it.

To me intimacy is the feeling of trust in a relationship. You trust your partner enough to share your deepest feelings, your dreams, your fears, and yes your emotions without the fear or feeling that they will be used against you. It is the act and feeling of sharing without reservation.

I know, this didn't help, but it's what I believe. (Can you make a person blind from birth understand the feeling of seeing a rainbow?)

Cat

Actually this did help. Greatly. I've read every response I've gotten so far, and they were all helpful...but SC's response seemed to break it down in laymen's for me. So now that I have this answer, I have another question, silly as it may seem. Here we go:

How does one begin the process of being intimate? There's no time like the present, and I'm not willing to mull over why I'm scared of being intimate because of this or that. I'd rather jump in and give it a try, because I know me, and if I don't do it that way, then I'll put it off and put it off. What's the ideal situation to become intimate? During a regular conversation? While having a serious discussion? No letter writing. I want to be face to face when I do this, however nervous I might be. I'd rather talk and let my nervousness be seen rather than pretend to be brave in a letter. So how do I go about this? While laying down? Going for a walk? Should I start the conversation with something about intimacy or being intimate?? These are honest fears and questions here, people.

Additionally, I'd prefer not to be told that maybe I should have put this on the "how to" section. I don't know people there...I posted here because I have friends here.

Your help, once again, is appreciated.

 

[sharingfantasies]

Actually this did help. Greatly. I've read every response I've gotten so far, and they were all helpful...but SC's response seemed to break it down in laymen's for me. So now that I have this answer, I have another question, silly as it may seem. Here we go:

How does one begin the process of being intimate? There's no time like the present, and I'm not willing to mull over why I'm scared of being intimate because of this or that. I'd rather jump in and give it a try, because I know me, and if I don't do it that way, then I'll put it off and put it off. What's the ideal situation to become intimate? During a regular conversation? While having a serious discussion? No letter writing. I want to be face to face when I do this, however nervous I might be. I'd rather talk and let my nervousness be seen rather than pretend to be brave in a letter. So how do I go about this? While laying down? Going for a walk? Should I start the conversation with something about intimacy or being intimate?? These are honest fears and questions here, people.

Additionally, I'd prefer not to be told that maybe I should have put this on the "how to" section. I don't know people there...I posted here because I have friends here.

Your help, once again, is appreciated.

Wow, when is even harder than what. Intimacy happens on its own, when you feel comfortable enough to share yourself with someone else. It might be walking in a park, sitting on the couch, driving in the car (a good place if you are not into eye contact, you can actually feel safer ), it isn't the place that matters. It is the level of comfort and trust you feel in that person. You might share something you did that was dumb or funny or embarrassing. You might share a poem that has meaning to you. It might be talking about your family and laughing about things they have done. It could be just talking about your future dreams or goals. Intimacy is sharing who you are deep inside. Not just the superficial things we talk about with each other like the weather or who won the ballgame or what would be good for dinner, but who you are inside. When you find someone that you are comfortable enough to share YOU with, then intimacy will build from that.

 

[she_is_my_addiction]

Wow, when is even harder than what. Intimacy happens on its own, when you feel comfortable enough to share yourself with someone else. It might be walking in a park, sitting on the couch, driving in the car (a good place if you are not into eye contact, you can actually feel safer ), it isn't the place that matters. It is the level of comfort and trust you feel in that person. You might share something you did that was dumb or funny or embarrassing. You might share a poem that has meaning to you. It might be talking about your family and laughing about things they have done. It could be just talking about your future dreams or goals. Intimacy is sharing who you are deep inside. Not just the superficial things we talk about with each other like the weather or who won the ballgame or what would be good for dinner, but who you are inside. When you find someone that you are comfortable enough to share YOU with, then intimacy will build from that.

I want to get it right this time around, and I pray that I can fix my mistakes.

SF, I can't tell you how much this has helped me tonight...

 

[The_Fool]

Sex is about pleasure. Intimacy is about trust. Trust offered and received.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Intimacy, at least physical intimacy, is more important to me than most things. I would say there have even been occasions where it has superceded love in importance.

 

[sharingfantasies]

I want to get it right this time around, and I pray that I can fix my mistakes.

SF, I can't tell you how much this has helped me tonight...

I am glad

 

[Dar~]

I never slept around with the many many men I have dated. The primary reason for htis in hindsight is that I didn't trust them. When I met my husband, we had sex within two weeks and it was b/c I felt such a conection that I could release my hold on the feelings I had stored up for so long while searching.

I find that my definition of intimacy is also my definition of love. I trust implicitly and therefore I love. In my life, love has been a hard to find thing and often love was shown in a form of abuse b/c the person I loved didn't know how to express themself in any other way.

My dearest friends who know all my fobiles and love me regardless are friends that I am intimate with. I share my dreams, my secrets, the worst and the best, and they know the goofy me and the insecure me. Still they call me and hang around me and treat me with respect. These are friends I love.

My husband and I met and within hours were completing each others jokes and sentences. We found that we value many of the same things and we love fiercely and fast. I knew within moments of meeting him that I wanted to be with him. It was right. I felt like a silver ribbon attached our souls. What I felt he felt, what I thought he thought. To this day we can still anticipate what the other is going to say to the point of saying it for them. If I roll over at night and slightly wake, he is there looking at me through sleepy eyes. Middle of the night hand hold ing sessions are the best.

I told him I loved him within a week of us dating and I meant it. I loved him with a ferocity bordering on pain. He told me not to jump to fast b/c he didn't wan tme to end up regretting telling him that I loved him. He was worried that I would fall ou tof love with him and regret having told him b/c He felt the same about me but would have never admitted it so soon.

We spent every waking moment together. He met me after school and I stayed out until 10 or 11 walking around town talking with him.

There was passion and eventually sex, but there was so much more. We both were virgins when we met and we both held each other after the first time and cried at how amazing it felt for us to be so close that we were one person. I think in our six years of marriage (on Aug 2) we have achieved being that close without being physically that close. I know when he walks in a room by sensing him and I can tell its him and not someone else.

There is something about lying in bed with your 2 year old daughter between you and the person you love and seeing that unbelieveable tenderness in his eyes and knowing without a doubt that there is nothing in the world that could make you happier at that moment. Nothing. Still I can look in his eyes and see how he loves me. Still he knows by a single touch of my hand as we are walking that I am his totally and completely though I am still me and that is my definition of intimacy.

I belong to him yet I am still my own.

 

[minsue]

Sex is about pleasure. Intimacy is about trust. Trust offered and received.

Exactly

 

[pellso27]

intimacy

What is intimacy to you? Do/did you ever have trouble with intimacy? When did you finally realize what it was to you? What made you realize what it was? Was there ever a point when you confused sex with intimacy? How did you change your view/fix your view?

Answers to these questions would help me a lot.

Thanks

The exchange of bodily fluids and yes I like to know someone really well before doing this as you never now how they will respond so many are clingy for me I knew when my first girlfriend would not let me out with my friends without her or she would swear I was shagging another No as sex is intimacy just not all the time but that is up to you to decide I changed my view by pleasing myself as I never get to caught up with who I am doing or what is the result Good luck try having a few drinks and talking with her about it

 

[R. Richard]

Sex is between genital organs [well, at least most of the time it is genital]. Intimacy is between two people.

JMHO.

 

[rgraham666]

Having thought about this for a bit, I would like to make another point.

Before you can be intimate with others, you have to be intimate with yourself. If you don't know yourself well, trust yourself and like yourself, it's going to be very difficult for others to feel the same way about you.

 

[sophia jane]

Having thought about this for a bit, I would like to make another point.

Before you can be intimate with others, you have to be intimate with yourself. If you don't know yourself well, trust yourself and like yourself, it's going to be very difficult for others to feel the same way about you.

I have to agree with this. Someone once told me that if you don't love yourself, no one else can love you either. I'm not sure if that's true, but I do know that if you don't love yourself, you will find it very difficult to accept that anyone else loves you. That's something I have struggled with for many years, and something I am hopefully finally overcoming.

SJ

 

[rgraham666]

I'm still working on that myself SJ.

 

[SeaCat]

Old Quote: "If you don't love yourself you can't love somebody else."

As for when to become intimate with somebody else, and how to become intimate with them. Not real sure how to answer this.

Sometimes the intimacy grows slowly over time. You have no choice in tha metter, it just grows in the relationship. After being with someone you start to feel yu can trust them. Sometimes it hits you all at once when you first meet. You feel you can trust that person from the time you say hi. It's all about trusting that person and it doesn't make sense. Then again neither does love.

I can only offer two examples but maybe they can help.
My first love I met through her brother, one of the guys on my team in Germany. Our first date was damned near a disaster, we went out to a street fair and it started raining. (Sorry, it started pissing down.) We were soaked by the time we reached the subway station. We got to her place where she decided to dry off before I left. While she was in the bathroom she asked me to hand her a blouse out of her closet, which I did. I didn't try to peak when I handed the blouse in through the doorway and this must have impressed her. (I was an eighteen year old American in Germany, we didn't have that great of a reputation even then.) She stepped out of the bathroom wearing a smile. My night was looking up. When she told me to take off my clothes so she could dry them I just knew my night was going to be interesting. Indeed it was interesting, we sat around on her couch and talked for most of the night wearing absolutely nothing. By the time I left the next morning I had learned a couple of things. I was in awe of her body, almost as much as I was in awe of her mind. Although I didn't know it then I was also falling in love with her. She taught me about trust and the difference between love and lust. (We didn't have sex for almost a month after that even though we often saw each other in the nude.) It took us that long to lower our barriers enough to trust each other with our bodies, and more importantly our dreams. This was in January of 1984.

The second love of my life I met in 1990 in college. We didn't like each other at first, hell we couldn't stand each other. I was a long haired redneck with a full beard and a cowboy hat who had absolutely no interest in knowing a woman other than to get laid occasionaly. She was a prissy little Momma's girl from the city. I wore jeans and plaid shirts while she wore long skirts and long sleeved blouses with high collars. (I later found out it was because of her scars.) After a while we started rubbing off on each other and decided to go out for a date on her 21'st birthday. It didn't matter to me she was seeing someone else, I could have cared less. At that point we were just friends. (Yeah her boyfriend objected to me taking her out but he didn't say anything to me about it. Instead he took it out on her by threatening to beat the crap out of her if he saw her with me again. I paid a polite social call on him. He had a hard time saying anything after that. ) That seemed to break the ice between us. We started seeing each other a lot more and after six months of dating she lost her virginity to a half crazed boy from the sticks. (I was drunk, she wasn't. It was the first time anyone other than her parents and her doctor had seen her nude.) It still took another year before we were married but wed we were. It took her quiet patience to get through to me. It took a long time for either of us to open up with each other, and even longer for us to trust each other. She didn't trust men, she had been raped at 17. (I don't count that towards losing ones virginity.) I couldn't open up to women, I couldn't face the pain again. As of July 4, we've been married for 13 years.

Cat

 

[elsol]

Don't like it.

I like my emotional distance kept, thank you very much.

ps. I don't consider that 'having problems/trouble' with intimacy... it's the same as my desire for physical distance from people. Arm's length unless you're a female I'm sleeping with, and she only gets to come close in a crowd.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[SeaCat]

Don't like it.

I like my emotional distance kept, thank you very much.

ps. I don't consider that 'having problems/trouble' with intimacy... it's the same as my desire for physical distance from people. Arm's length unless you're a female I'm sleeping with, and she only gets to come close in a crowd.

Sincerely,
ElSol

ElSol,

That's something entirely different, it's called personal space. (Okay the pysical aspect is called personal space, I have no idea what the emotional distance is called.)

Emotionaly if you keep everyone at arms length it means you haven't found the person you are willing to share yourself with. You don't wish to let anyone inside for whatever reason. It's understandable, I did it for too many years.

As for personal space, my wife knows I don't like people too close to me. I like/need to have some room to move around in. It's just a personal thing.

Cat