This morning in New York City a giant billboard featuring another provocative Calvin Klein ad for underwear graces the people passing by, and not without stirring a bit of controversy. On the other hand a news station featured people of all ages looking at the new billboard and finding it perfectly alright, cool even. The billboard features a well known model/actress in a see-through bra and skimpy panties looking hot and sweaty, entwined with a male model who is equally damp and preoccupied with anticipation on his face as Eva Mendes begins to pull down the waist band of his briefs.
The fact that more and more individiauls are becoming so used to these ads and precursors that were even more racy has become the norm. People in NY City however are not the only ones more accustomed to seeing, hearing and speaking about sexual intimacy in all the many forms we are exposed to today and some people have become almost blase' about it. While this ad falls into the sexual intimacy category, in day to day relationships, intimacy takes on many forms.
In Beth Le Poire's book on Family Communication, Nurturing and Control in a Changing World, on the topic of human intimacy in general, she discusses emotional intimacy, which is described as a sense of closeness that you have with others on an emotional level. It represents the extent to which you can confide in the other person about your emotions and the extent that they can do that with you. Intellectual intimacy then is the extent to which you feel connected because you share a similar worldview and ideas of how things should be. It’s easy to talk about your thoughts with one another. You might find yourself on the same page all the time or feeling like you can read one another's thoughts.
We often don't hear the term recreational intimacy, but it represents the extent to which you and another enjoy time together in recreational activities. This could be sports, video games, walking in a park, fishing, and other kinds of mutually shared activities. This is shared not just in coulples, but in friendships too.
Social intimacy includes sharing social networks and doing things with others as a family. This can be a married couple going out to dinner with friends, your own family reunions. Overlapping can occur and the more it does –the more opportunity for social activities in and outside of the family. A new phenomena on Facebook (social networking media) is Farmtown, an innocuous game in which people can pretend they live on a farm and they can buy or gift animals, plants and other farm-like items. They can have neighbors as well and have a "pretend life" in this virtual location. Long hours are spent by people addicted to the fun while they interact with one another. Communication is taking place in a virtual make believe world.
Of course physical intimacy refers to how comfortable you feel being physically expressive with another. Physical intimacy is not just sexual intercourse. It can range from feeling ok about a touch on your arm, giving a hug, all the way to sexual intercourse. Sometimes there are physical expressions though without intimacy (a warm hug from a friend, or closeness that you sense or a kiss on the cheek from grandma). It’s how the behavior is interpreted and understood that represents the importance of that behavior in establishing, maintaining and reflecting intimacy.
The Klein billboard depicts physical intimacy and the visual suggestion that greater intimacy is about to happen. Certainly it stirs up feelings, both emotional and physical in viewers. Does it make you want to buy Calvin Klein underwear? Does it make the evening news thereby giving the clothier more advertising exposure? Does it condition us to more and more risque' or nearly nude advertising, movies, pictures, visual displays of all kinds? All the answers are problaby yes to those questions. What then is the impact, as time progresses , on the way couples perceive intimacy? Where will lines be drawn or not on what is acceptable ? Will this wreak havoc on establishng agreements for marital couples? Will it be a matter od discussion before getting married even?
We live in a world that is constantly changing and society continues to dictate for the most part what is acceptable and what is not. As the public accepts more and more freedom from the media and advertisers, are our norms within our marriages also going to shift into greater openess about intimacy?
In the upcoming months, articles regarding sexuality and intimacy will be offered here, as preparation advances for the publishing of my forthcoming book: Adultery is Universal, But I'm Getting Married Anyway (What To Know Before You Do).
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