Blog post: Tridimity: Intimacy

Daughter. Niece. Granddaughter. Goddaughter. Parent. Aunt. Grandparent. Friend. Neighbour. Spouse. Lover. Colleague.

It is not unusual for an individual to occupy each of the above roles simultaneously. In fact, in reality, the number of one-on-one relationships will be very much greater since, for example, a grandparent may have multiple grandchildren, and each of those relationships will be unique. Consensus opinion asserts that a moderate to large number of such relationships, and a diversity of relationships, promote psychological and emotional health for all involved. To some extent, this is true, but the corollaries are worth considering as they encroach upon the one hallmark of any meaningful relationship: intimacy.

For many, childhood friendships represent the optimal relationship since the self-disclosure and discretion of childhood is so natural as to go unquestioned at the time, resulting in a very intimate and happy relationship. This idealisation benefits from the perspective of hindsight and the safety of idolising a time that is distant, inaccessible, unchangeable and therefore unwaveringly primed for veneration.

Depending upon the context of the relationship, intimacy may be of the sexual, emotional or intellectual variety – and most complex relationships contain a combination of two or more of these. Arguably, intimacy can be considered as the capacity and opportunity to know a person more thoroughly and in a way that is impossible for other people to know them. The impossibility is facilitated by a greater or lesser degree of exclusivity – the thoughts and experiences shared between individuals A and B are different to, in content and possibly quality, the thoughts and experiences shared between individuals A and C or B and C. Problems arise when the exclusivity of relations between two people are compromised between one or both parties, leading to the divulgement of personal secrets, a breakdown of privacy and the death of intimacy. There are a number of ways in which this may occur: engaging in sexual intercourse with a partner who is not part of the mutually exclusive relationship; the sharing of one partner’s own innermost thoughts and feelings with a person who is not their partner; and, worst perhaps of all, the sharing of the innermost thoughts and feelings of a person’s partner to others outside of the relationship. Similarly, the proliferation of a person’s professional and social roles, can be regarded as a potential threat to the intimacy of the main relationship in that person’s life. For each role that a person occupies, their personality and responses will be slightly different, according to their human environment. The corollary is that that person’s main partner effectively is denied access to a part of their loved one’s persona, and so loses out on a bit of knowledge about their partner – and, with increasing roles and responsibilities, the less they know about their partner and the more they are at risk of finding themselves cohabitants with a person they once knew, a stranger alienated, with whom they no longer have the keys to access their innermost thoughts and feelings. It may be argued that the ethics involved in cases in which both or all partners in the relationship give informed consent and agree upon some degree of openness will be different to cases which demand absolute fidelity, as in traditional marriages. Undoubtedly there is truth in this point – a person who is involved in an open relationship may have sexual relations with multiple partners without inflicting harm in the sense of breaching agreed commitment levels. However, it is difficult to imagine how a high quality relationship can survive in the absence of some degree of intimacy as secured in exclusive relationships. All instances represent a betrayal of trust and the concept that such ‘out-sourcing’ of sexual, emotional and intellectual connection is harmful to the primary relationship, is not new.

The current media coverage of French President Hollande's reported affair with actress Julia Gayet re-surfaces the topic of intimacy. Hollande effectively breached the intimacy of his relations with his official partner Valerie Trierweiler and the press has likewise intruded on the intimacy of all three concerned.

Potential solutions to this problem might include spending more quality time together, although I suspect that the success of this strategy may be limited as the problem is one of containing knowledge and not only of rationing time and energy invested in relationships. Neither is it very helpful to suggest that the person restrict their emotional and intellectual capacity when engaged in professional or social functions – a policeman, for example, who shows no emotion or empathy when faced with the victim of a crime, will not be able to perform their job satisfactorily. Perhaps one solution is for both or all participants in a relationship to restrict their professional and social roles as far as possible so as to contain private information and experience within the relationship as a means of fostering intimacy. The challenge is to be able to achieve this balance between private and public life without inciting jealousy in partners and without compromising the utility of each person in their participation in society.

We live at a time when more information than ever is being actively collected on our thoughts, feelings and agendas, since the revelation of mass communications surveillance of citizens by the US National Security Agency (NSA). Indeed, it has even recently come to light that the offline activities of some 20 million US citizens has and is being accessed by the NSA – the contention that such attention is bestowed in a targeted fashion hardly seems credible. Some have argued that law-abiding citizens have nothing worry about with regards the mass surveillance – except maybe the fact that the US government now essentially has the tools to falsely accuse, humiliate and even incarcerate victims who are unable to defend themselves or to state their case in a fair and balanced manner. There is another danger imposed by the flippant spying – intimacy in any relationship is now at serious risk. So much of our thoughts, feelings and intentions are communicated online and by phone – rather than in person or by post – that citizens no longer can be confident that their message is being received only by the eyes for which it is intended. The absolute breach of privacy represents a very real threat to any and all meaningful, intimate relationships.

The illusion of personal privacy is officially over following news reports of pan-surveillance by the NSA

George Orwell had the genius and foresight to predict the surveillance state as outlined in '1984'

We have entered an era in which the mind is the only safe refuge and my own personal favourite solution comes into its own – hermitry. Contrary to consensus attitudes in the contemporary Western world, introversion and self-reflection are unexpendable states and means of achieving intimacy with one’s inner self. Arguably, these states are prerequisites for successful and meaningful relations with others – without knowing ourselves, we cannot hope to engage meaningfully with others. A final potential solution is to choose to relate to a higher cause rather than to any one individual – for example, to dedicate one’s life to Science and the alleviation of humanity’s suffering.

Joh Locke once stated, ‘Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.’ Perhaps the most important property of all is self-knowledge and control over self-disclosure.
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