Intimacy

Intimacy is a quality of a social interaction based on the reciprocal interpretation of the actors. While there is an emphasis on the intersubjective construction of this quality, the idea of intimacy depends on the collective representation or the symbolic code on how to define, construct, and express intimacy, which varies in different cultures. In modern societies, it is based on an interaction that is both extraordinarily meaningful to the actors and restricted to a small number of persons. Even though intimacy can emerge in brief encounters, it is regarded more likely that intimacy is experienced in subsequent interactions. This shapes a specific type of relationship, an intimate relationship. Social relations tend to become distinctive in either nonpersonal or intimate relations with only very few types in between.

Intimacy and intimate relationships become crucial for the social structure and the creation of social order. Moreover, there is a cultural appreciation of establishing intimate relationships during the course of life. In fact, the emergence of this form of intimacy is closely connected to the evolution of modernity as described by classical and modern theories.

First of all, intimacy occurs simultaneously along with a sociostructural individualization. Émile Durkheim notes that the division of labor leads at the same time to an increase of both dependency among people and autonomy for individuals. This development provides the basis for intense personal relationships.

Georg Simmel explains individualization by the fact that extended group affiliations and social contacts tend to shape a unique pattern for every single person. Consequently, persons become individualized since they do not share the same experiences. Furthermore, he makes the point that social life in the modern metropolis is grounded in the great number of persons living in spatial closeness. This environment creates both freedom and loneliness and, primordially, shapes intellectualistic, distant, relationships. However, it also intensifies emotions due to the extended variety of external and internal stimuli. Simmel also depicts the dyad as a special social form the structure of which mainly consists of the number of persons involved in this relationship. In a “society of two,” as Simmel puts it, the relationship rests exclusively on the individuality of the two persons and cannot be maintained by any structure for groups of a larger size.

Generally, intimacy is often connected with modern types of gender and family relations. In particular, neo-Marxian and feminist theories stress the connection with the material world of production and consumption. Intimate relationships among members of the nuclear family shape the essence of the private sphere (Jürgen Habermas). However, the value rationality of intimate relationships is exploited by capitalism and social power, because this sphere functions as a resource for both the re-creation of human labor and a consumer market.

Last, the idea of intimacy is enhanced by the spatial (e.g., private family houses) and temporal (e.g., distinction between work time and leisure or individual time) organization of modern life as well as by the impact of mass media (e.g., novels and romances) and scientific methods (e.g., psychoanalysis to analyze the innermost self) on everyday life.

...