How is 'longing for a relationship selflessly' intimacy? And why is 'peace' intimate?

I don't think you understand what the word means. Intimacy is all about knowledge and understanding. It's about knowing someone or something so well that all its little ways and means are clear to you.

As for your negatives, war can be intimate - the bonds between enemies can be as close as those between friends. Sex is often but not always an act of intimacy. Lust is an emotion, so doesn't really fit in the list at all. Of course lust isn't intimate - we feel emotions as individuals, so they're always at one remove from interactions with others. Emotion is a path to intimacy, not an equivalent.

Longing for a relationship selflessly is intimacy because you are not trying to know somebody for a selfish gain.

War is intimate, but it is also a pushing away. Perhaps hate is a better word. Lust is an emotion, but I've seen people mistake it for intimacy. Sex is physically intimate, but it is not an actual mingling of souls.

Agree with Cacto. I don't think you understand intimacy.

You still don't get it. Intimacy isn't about selflessness or sacrifice. It is nothing more or less than knowledge and understanding. It nearly always seems to be used in conjunction with emotion - so there's that element of feeling as well - but it's the knowledge that's the key. Acting selflessly can be an expression of intimacy - although frankly it's a pretty vague intimacy - but it's far from the only valid expression.



Hate is an emotion bred of intimacy. It's that rage and sadness and fear that you feel when someone or something you loved has failed or fallen in your eyes. It cannot exist unless you were intimate with something, whether it's the target of your hate or something else. Hate is about betrayal, and it's as much of an attractive force as love is. You can't hate something from 10,000 miles away. You have to be right up close, where you can release it properly. That's why war can be intimate. When you see the face of the enemy every day, and you see the hurt and the pain it causes you, and you know that it's for no good reason at all, that's when you can be intimate with an enemy.

DOUBLE POST BECAUSE EDIT DOESN'T WORK ANYMORE

It's like in the Rwanda genocide. Have you ever wondered why so many of the mutilations were fixated on genitalia and other traditional icons of masculinity and femininity? The hate was so strong that it was only because becoming intimate (and viciously cruel) that it could be released.

Funny, I always thought of intimacy as dropping one's guard and opening oneself up to potential injury. Physical or emotional. Which is why the term is always used in conjunction with sex and love, as both require this to some degree. (Unless people have found ways to love without trusting or have sex wearing full body plate armor. )

The grinding noise is kind of a turn off...but you get used to it.

~Zoo

Yeah, but WD40 would serve two purposes then.

I think I will give my 2 cents, just because I am almost positive I do not understand intimacy.

Intimacy is a state of comprehensive knowing. For example, I can have intimate chemical knowledge. Or I can have intimate knowledge of another person. I can intimately know the neighborhood around my building.

Intimacy is not a feeling.

Ew, mental image really not needed.  

Do you have a clothing fetish? Sorry, I just had to say it. Intimacy is a sense of awareness, and, carried into a personal relationship, the wish to see another succeed.