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“The Sixteen Kinds of Intimacy” by Ruby

10 min • 22 juni 2025

John Wentworth recently posted a discussion-inducing piece about how the willingness to be vulnerable is core to romantic relationships. This is not obvious to me as the core thing. I think romantic (and other) relationships are arguably about intimacy[1]. Perhaps intimacy always requires vulnerability? To answer that, and because it's generally interesting, here is a babble[2] of the kinds of intimacy:

Physical Intimacy
- sexual intimacy[3]
- non-sexual physical intimacy (cuddling, touch)
Intellectual Intimacy
- the intimacy that results from the exchange and sharing of ideas and/or doing cognitive work together
- intimacy that results from having the same knowledge or beliefs
  - think of the connection that arises from having read the same book as someone else
Emotional Intimacy
- revealing emotional states to each other
- sharing emotional states (getting in sync somehow, sharing of emotional stimuli)
Values Intimacy
- we have an intimacy born out of knowing we [...]