“The Sixteen Kinds of Intimacy” by Ruby

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 [...]

The original text contained 4 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

June 21st, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2XFGR8NyjguohpjbH/the-sixteen-kinds-of-intimacy

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.