Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

What is imagined by “intimacy” as a quality of relationships is often associated with particular ways of behaving ( Davis 1973 ). Intimacy is sometimes defined narrowly to mean the familiarity resulting from close association. In this sense, domestic life across much of the life course in all societies is intimate. Living arrangements that involve sharing domestic space, a “hearth and home,” the caring activities associated with bearing and raising children, and other forms of routinely giving or receiving physical care necessarily provide familiarity and privileged knowledge. Sometimes the term “intimacy” is also used even more narrowly to refer to sexual familiarity with another person. In everyday current usage, intimacy is often presumed to involve more than close association and familiarity, for example, also involving strong emotional attachments such as love. However, in both popular and academic commentaries, intimacy is increasingly understood as representing a very particular form of “closeness” and being “special” to another person founded on self-disclosure. This self-disclosing or self-expressing intimacy is characterized by knowledge and understanding of inner selves. Privileged knowledge gained through close physical association is not a sufficient condition to ensure this type of intimacy. People living side by side can feel trapped together as strangers who know ... log in or subscribe to read full text