The Meaning of Intimacy

Is it just the physical closeness between 2 individuals? Does 2 persons having sex mean that they are intimate? 


For the innocent and naive, maybe.

Through my years of flying, acting, meeting different people, hearing different stories, I have come to realize over time, otherwise. Can one really separate lust from love and deal with it as a separate entity? For some, maybe. That is, if they don't wake up the next morning feeling guilty, like they have done themselves, or their partners back home, god forbid, wrong. If they can live with it without having any form of conscience attack. 

From when we were little, we have this gut instinct about what is right and wrong. If we do something wrong, we somehow feel it, that nagging guilty feeling, that it would be bad if someone else found out. We know, from when we were little, how to differentiate what we should and should not do. If we do these things often enough, unfortunately, these nagging feelings slowly diminish, and we blur the line between our instinctive right and wrong. 

I say instinctive right and wrong because I feel that most rights and wrongs are set by people. Like jaywalking (who the hell uses traffic lights back in the 1930s?), or wearing too-sexy clothes (Cavemen wore ONLY loin cloths, if I historians are accurate in their findings), or guys having long hair in school (hair naturally grows, and if haircuts were never invented, everyone would have butt-and-ankle-length hair). What is right could just be a social norm so deeply ingrained in us that we know it is not nice to do these things in our society, not that we as young untainted, or uneducated, kids instinctively feel.

As we grow older, we start becoming immune to the things we used to think were wrong. Maybe we've seen too much, maybe we've done too much. Or maybe, we start to try to put ourselves in someone else's shoes, and think deeper into why people do the things they do, that blur the lines.

Just like physical intimacy, I know of people who sleep around behind their partners' backs, habitually. The thing is, I'm sure these people feel that guilt the very first time the crime is commited, and would haunt them for days after. As they do it the second, third, fourth time on...that inner voice that used to scream at us that it is wrong, gets softer and softer, until it is drowned out in numbness.

When we were younger, sex is a sacred act. Well, when we were KIDS, sex was almost taboo, as some adults would make it seem to you. What I mean by younger is when we first fell in love, sex is something that we want to leave for just that one person we commit our hearts to. That it should be something that is mutually exclusively, that is special, that brings your relationship to the next level of intimacy, intimacy as a whole, not just emotionally but physically as well.

Now? Somehow sex doesn't mean as much. Not saying it doesn't mean much to me, but that it doesn't mean much to many people. (To me, it has to come as a whole package, a good relationship with mental and emotional closeness thrown in as well.) Physical intimacy may not be what it seems. A couple may be having sex, but a member of the union, or both, may not feel that bond in the relationship anymore. Going through the motion, one might call it. Which is sad of course, but it happens out there. 

2 party-goers may end up in bed, and then it's Wham Bam, Thank You Ma'am! Doing but not kissing. No tender cuddles, no morning kisses. Wake up, possibly feel a tinge of oh-god-what-happened-last-night??, dress up, and leave in a hurry. Most probably the case. Some may have breakfast together, some like nothing happened, like it's a normal thing, like taking a bus, or having coffee. 

I don't get how people can do that without feeling empty at the end of everything. If it's a rebound, they probably end up feeling worse than they did before.

An actor and actress may be holding hands, cuddling, kissing, or lying on top of each other in a bedroom scene. Physically, they seem intimate. On film, they appear real. In real life? Most times, there is nothing. No love, no butterflies in the stomach, no inner flights of fancy after the lights go off and the crew head home, no silly smiles looking at text messages which will never come in. 



 Can you tell just by looking, which picture is the real couple?
The first is Justin and Selena. The second - a scene from The Notebook.

Many people think that actors fall in love with each other because they 假戏真做 (when what is reel becomes a real emotional attachment). Truth is, it is all a show, scripted by the writers, directed and acted for believability, so that the audience feels the story. We stop acting when the director says "Cut!". I don't. I can't.

2 individuals can feel intimately close without physically touching each other; bring in sexual intimacy and it usually brings the relationship further, tightening the bond between the 2 people. 2 persons behaving intimately, unfortunately, may not have any mental and emotional attachment. 


Intimacy for me? Not just physical, please. I want something deeper. Like I mentioned in my previous post about mental sex, I would like my partner to mentally, and emotionally, engage me as well.



And the search goes on...

Comments

  1. I know exactly what you mean. Perhaps more so in the previous post about that crazy euphoria that just seems to happen when you meet the right people.

    Perhaps its just that we've met so many people in life that they begin to fit certain preconceived archetypes. And because of that, we fail to engage fully on a one on one level. Or perhaps its simply because as we grow older, the peers we meet of our age become just so much busier, and we begin to shut off our true selves from the people we barely know.

    Either way, I hope you enjoyed the shoot today, it was a pleasure talking about blogging (amongst all that innuendo)

    J, the guy with the big 'tool'.

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  2. Hi, I find this blog interesting & in a way,an epiphany to some.
    Although I'd like to mention that the actors in the movie you mentioned, "The Notebook", Ryan Gosling & Rachel MacAdams were probably having eyes for each other while filming this. They were reportedly dating for 2 years after the movie. That probably explained why they act so naturally head-over heels in love on-screen. . Coz they actually were!!!

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