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poetreeRomantic intimacy is a tricky subject. It's hard to even agree on what it means. Is it sexual? Emotional? Platonic? Can it be all three at once?
Nikki Giovanni might say so. I do not have permission to repost A Poem of Friendship, but it can be read at that link in its entirety, as will the other two poems discussed in this post.
A Poem of Friendship blends at least three different kinds of intimacy into one: platonic, emotional, and sexual, all combined in romantic intimacy. Interestingly, it defines intimacy by absence, what it is not. It is not "love we make," it is not "laughs we spend," it is not "what we do." Intimacy, according to A Poem of Friendship, is what is not. It is "the words we never have/to speak." To be intimate is to not need to make love, or to laugh. It is to not need to say words. To be truly intimate, you do not need to be lovers, you only need to be together.
I would tend to agree with Giovanni. Of course, as an asexual person I have a stake in declaring that romantic and sexual intimacy are not the same thing, and that it is possible to be emotionally and romantically intimate without adding sexual intimacy into the mix. Still, sexual intimacy need not be absent; I would simply argue that it is the most shallow of the layers of intimacy.
I think Judith Viorst would say the same. True love is another name, I think, for the deepest of emotional connections, for two people who no longer need to say or do anything to connect. Viorst's poem True Love is about two people whose time together has deepened their understanding past the point of discussion. The speaker dresses up purely for her husband and watches football for him; little things, simple things that perhaps mean nothing to us and everything to him. Her husband refrains from "I told you sos" and ignores unironed clothing, which means everything to the speaker.
Both speaker and lover even understand that sometimes being intimate, being in love, means you don't like your partner at all, and that too is part of intimacy. Just because you understand the deepest things about your partner does not necessarily mean that you will like what you understand. Viorst thinks that's okay. So do I.
There's another note at the end of True Love that struck me: "Despite cigarette cough, tooth decay, acid indigestion, dandruff, and other features of married life that tend to dampen the fires of passion..." Years and age may remove sexual passion from the relationship, assuming it was there in the first place. What does that do to intimacy? I think you can guess my answer: nothing.
Adrienne Rich might agree with me. Her poem Memorize This is similar to True Love in that it describes an intimate relationship of long standing, but it is different in that there is very little of the relationship actually described in the poem. Nor is it a passionless relationship, though it comes at this point in the post. Memorize This, I would argue, is about a relationship that has moved beyond the need for passion, though not the desire for it.
It is intimate as Giovanni's poem describes, in the sense that there is no longer any need to discuss things: "One oils the hinges one edges the knives/One loses an ear-ring the other finds it." The path is well-worn and easy, well-known to both parties. Both, like Viorst's couple, are familiar with the other's routines and desires: "One says I'd rather make love/Than go to the Greek Festival/The other, I agree."
And yet it isn't boring or stale. Neither party is tired of their relationship and their familiar lives. The final stanza is, I think, perfect, so I'll just post it by itself to close out this discussion of emotional intimacy in romantic relationships:
Sleeping with you after
weeks apart how normal
yet after midnight
to turn and slide my arm
along your thigh
drawn up in sleep
what delicate amaze
It's familiar and it's new, at the same time. It's unspoken, but not unknown. It's romantic intimacy.
Nikki Giovanni might say so. I do not have permission to repost A Poem of Friendship, but it can be read at that link in its entirety, as will the other two poems discussed in this post.
A Poem of Friendship blends at least three different kinds of intimacy into one: platonic, emotional, and sexual, all combined in romantic intimacy. Interestingly, it defines intimacy by absence, what it is not. It is not "love we make," it is not "laughs we spend," it is not "what we do." Intimacy, according to A Poem of Friendship, is what is not. It is "the words we never have/to speak." To be intimate is to not need to make love, or to laugh. It is to not need to say words. To be truly intimate, you do not need to be lovers, you only need to be together.
I would tend to agree with Giovanni. Of course, as an asexual person I have a stake in declaring that romantic and sexual intimacy are not the same thing, and that it is possible to be emotionally and romantically intimate without adding sexual intimacy into the mix. Still, sexual intimacy need not be absent; I would simply argue that it is the most shallow of the layers of intimacy.
I think Judith Viorst would say the same. True love is another name, I think, for the deepest of emotional connections, for two people who no longer need to say or do anything to connect. Viorst's poem True Love is about two people whose time together has deepened their understanding past the point of discussion. The speaker dresses up purely for her husband and watches football for him; little things, simple things that perhaps mean nothing to us and everything to him. Her husband refrains from "I told you sos" and ignores unironed clothing, which means everything to the speaker.
Both speaker and lover even understand that sometimes being intimate, being in love, means you don't like your partner at all, and that too is part of intimacy. Just because you understand the deepest things about your partner does not necessarily mean that you will like what you understand. Viorst thinks that's okay. So do I.
There's another note at the end of True Love that struck me: "Despite cigarette cough, tooth decay, acid indigestion, dandruff, and other features of married life that tend to dampen the fires of passion..." Years and age may remove sexual passion from the relationship, assuming it was there in the first place. What does that do to intimacy? I think you can guess my answer: nothing.
Adrienne Rich might agree with me. Her poem Memorize This is similar to True Love in that it describes an intimate relationship of long standing, but it is different in that there is very little of the relationship actually described in the poem. Nor is it a passionless relationship, though it comes at this point in the post. Memorize This, I would argue, is about a relationship that has moved beyond the need for passion, though not the desire for it.
It is intimate as Giovanni's poem describes, in the sense that there is no longer any need to discuss things: "One oils the hinges one edges the knives/One loses an ear-ring the other finds it." The path is well-worn and easy, well-known to both parties. Both, like Viorst's couple, are familiar with the other's routines and desires: "One says I'd rather make love/Than go to the Greek Festival/The other, I agree."
And yet it isn't boring or stale. Neither party is tired of their relationship and their familiar lives. The final stanza is, I think, perfect, so I'll just post it by itself to close out this discussion of emotional intimacy in romantic relationships:
Sleeping with you after
weeks apart how normal
yet after midnight
to turn and slide my arm
along your thigh
drawn up in sleep
what delicate amaze
It's familiar and it's new, at the same time. It's unspoken, but not unknown. It's romantic intimacy.
Poll #13733 Kudos?
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4
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Thoughts
Date: 2013-06-22 09:07 am (UTC)I agree. Those are all different aspects of intimacy, and may separate or stack as people wish.
>> Still, sexual intimacy need not be absent; I would simply argue that it is the most shallow of the layers of intimacy. <<
Sexual intimacy can be shallow, or it can be deep. That depends on how people use it. Some people feel their bodies to be intensely intimate; for them, sex is a deeply meaningful and intense connection. Others have a much more casual feeling and enjoy just the physical sensations; they may have "friends with benefits." I know at least one person who has found casual sex so unfulfilling as to be pointless. There different ways, and that's okay.
And the same is true for those other intimacies: a person may care intensely about one but not another, or may find one unappealing or even off-putting. That's okay too. Another haggis shortage averted!
no subject
Date: 2013-06-22 03:38 pm (UTC)Thanks for the lovely post!
no subject
Date: 2013-06-26 12:33 am (UTC)“Desire” as it seems to be understood popularly is nearly 100% WANTING. There is a thing out there that you don’t currently have, and it’s appealing and attractive, it draws your attention, it excites you… you desire it. That’s wanting. It’s smelling Local Burger as you walk down Main Street and spending the whole day fantasizing about it, and then you get there and bite into it and it’s AWESOME.
Boy skippy can it be enjoyable.
(What happens next, inevitably, is habituation tied to satiety, and it gets less awesome with every bite.)
But there are other things to enjoy, beyond the experience of wanting.
Imagine you’re a gloriously long-term couple, and it’s Friday night. The two of you have this thing you do every Friday night, where you cook a glorious dinner together – you drink the wine that was meant for the sauce, you end up feeding each other half the strawberries that were intended for dessert (if you’re honest with yourself, those berries were never destined to make it that far), you sit down to a meal you made together, for the thousandth Friday night in a row, and you look into your partner’s eyes, and what you see there makes your heart flip over.
That’s liking. Enjoying. No “desire.” Just pleasure.
(What happens next is that every bite is as glorious as the last, you go slowly… and yeah, you eat less.)
Which is better? Neither. It’s not about better. They’re DIFFERENT.
Our culture seems to emphasize and pedestalize desire, and I think maybe people who lean more in the direction of pleasure than desire have to make some choices, untangle some cultural knots, make some individual choices about how they want to experience and express sexuality. But they’re different ways to enjoy.
(Sorry, I just couldn't not post ALLL the smart blogging about wanting vs. liking.)
It seems to me that the kind of intimacy these poems talk about (and perhaps that you gravitate towards?) is a lot of pleasure/liking. Old, familiar knowing-of-each-other. I am having a hard time untangling my view point from these concepts, because me default is "of course intimacy = pleasure/liking, rather than desire/wanting! Desire/wanting is about something you don't have that draws your attention and attracts you! Whereas pleasure/liking is about appreciating the something you have that is familiar and good!" But maybe someone else can see/experience ways that desire/wanting can be intimate.
On the other hand, I disagree with your comment:
Years and age may remove sexual passion from the relationship, assuming it was there in the first place. What does that do to intimacy? I think you can guess my answer: nothing.
I am not sure if it is a "different strokes for different folks" thing, as
So I think for some people the loss of desire/wanting and/or sexual intimacy over time is not a big deal, and for others it is, and that's okay. (Although, good lord, culture, stop it with the DESIRE IS EVERYTHING, because freaking out about not having enough sex according to "cultural standards" is good for no one's actual relationship.
If you're in a romantic relationship, I'd love to hear more "negatives that equal love" from people's experiences romantic intimacy, if they feel like sharing.
For my relationship, love exists in fighting without defaulting to thinking "we're breaking up." It exists in having more free time to spend with other people, because I know I'll come home to my partner at the end of the day. For us, it's not asking each other most of the time before making plans with other people, because we know we are committed to strengthening our non-romantic friendships. It's T. not having to drive unless I ask him to, because he hates driving and mostly I don't mind. It's me not having to cook.
Interestingly, though, this is reminding me that relationships are work, and that some of love is "I will let T. know when I've posted a large check, because we both tend to assume that the other isn't spending money out of our joint account and then we go into overdraft." Or "even though I don't ask before making plans, I do let T. know what those plans are in advance." There are a lot of scripts in our relationship for day-to-day things so that we no longer have to talk about them, but there are also a lot of things that need to be communicated, and I think that's romantic too, but unconventionally so. "We both will always ask 'May I kiss you?' instead of just leaning in or making a 'kiss me!' face" as a house rule doesn't sound romantic, but man, it makes me feel loved.