If you’ve been around The Missionary Position community a while now, you’ll know that intimacy doesn’t equal sex. Intimacy is so much more than any physical act and is something we can experience in lots of our relationships in lots of different ways!

Some relationships feel deeply intimate on many different levels whereas others can feel the same but to a lesser degree. Knowing the different types of intimacy and being able to identify which we share with others in our lives can be a great way of assessing where we’re happy with our intimacy levels and where we might want them to grow or change.

All these types of intimacy can be experienced whether you are looking at your romantic, platonic or familial relationships.

So, let’s take a look at the five types of intimacy and how we can experience them in our relationships:

SOCIAL: Social intimacy looks like shared interest or quality time spent together doing something you enjoy. Going out for meals with your partner, taking a Pilates class with friends, after work drinks. Sharing community together on a social level. Most relationships start with social intimacy and become more as you experience more times of intimacy together.

PHYSICAL: Physical intimacy is anything from affectionate touch to sex. It can be holding hands, hugging, kissing, touching someone’s knee as they talk. Physical intimacy isn’t ringfenced for romantic relationships. Physical intimacy builds feelings of closeness between people.

INTELLECTUAL: Intellectual intimacy is about healthy curiosity and learning from one another. It might look like sharing a love for politics or history but can equally look like listening, learning and changing together.

SPIRITUAL: Spiritual intimacy refers to shared beliefs, values and experiences around spirituality. This could look like praying for one another, sharing encouraging words based on a spiritual belief or spending time with someone that openly talks about and shares with you.

EMOTIONAL: Emotional intimacy requires trust and vulnerability. It’s a safe environment to speak, to be heard, accepted and challenged. This openness building closeness in the relationships you have.

Take some time to think about the relationships in your life one by one.
– Which types of intimacy do you share with those people?
– Are there any areas that you’d like to work on to experience a new type of intimacy with them?

P.S. We can experience these five things without sharing intimacy. Intimacy refers to our depth and innermost; as we start to experience these things with someone more frequently and in more depth- that’s where intimacy builds.