4.18 Physical Intimacy and Presence

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From the course by University of Toronto

The Arts and Science of Relationships: Understanding Human Needs

93 ratings

University of Toronto

The Arts and Science of Relationships: Understanding Human Needs

93 ratings

This course provides an introduction to: 1. Basic concepts of The Strategies and Skills Learning and Development System (SSLD), their relevance for every day relationships and provide advanced concepts for participants who work in fields of social work and health care . 2. Basic practice principles and methods of SSLD, illustrated by relationship management case studies. 3. The SSLD framework for relationship management assessment; N3C (needs, circumstances, characteristics, capacity) and problem translation. 4. Core competencies in the relationship management application of the SSLD system: Observation learning, simulation, real life implementation, review and monitoring.

From the lesson

Module 4 - Building Relationships that Work for You

This module addresses relationship building based on communication, reception, and expression skills learned in Module 3. Additional topics on relationship problems will also be discussed.

4.10 Intimacy3:43

4.11 Idea of Intimacy 13:58

4.12 Idea of Intimacy 22:08

4.13 Fear of Intimacy3:13

4.14 Fear of Commitment2:43

4.15 Building Intimacy4:28

4.16 The Role of Physical Intimacy3:14

4.17 Intimacy and Sharing of Personal Difficulties2:45

4.18 Physical Intimacy and Presence5:33

4.19 SSLD Strategies for Building & Maintaining Relationships5:21

Meet the Instructors

A. Ka Tat Tsang
Founder of the SSLD System; Professor and Factor-Inwentash Chair in Social Work in the Global Community
Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work

So you promised me that we could talk a bit more about physical intimacy.

A big part of a lot of people's idea of physical intimacy comes down to sex.

And then of course, we have a lot of stereotypes about you know who enjoys sex more,

like you know the male persuasion liking sex more,

people getting into relationships just so they can engage in sexual relations.

Is there truth to any of these stereotypes?

>> Well, I think with any stereotype, there are always exceptions, right?

So obviously, there are a lot of people who,

at least think that sex is the thing that they're after.

And then like in the media, we are also increasing the portraying of

women as active seekers of pleasurable sexual experience,

which in a way is a good thing, but it also falls to another stereotype.

So what is important from my perspective is that people know what they want and

what they need.

And we have already said what you want is not necessarily what you need.

Like some people want sex because they need self-affirmation,

they need to be accepted.

Some people want sex because they need physical pleasure.

Some people want sex because they need to please other people

to get positive feedback.

Some people want sex because they need to get to somewhere or

get something done through having sex with people.

So, you know like the need that's driving the sex can be very varied, and

sex is just one of the many ways that people can utilize to meet those needs.

So, and then it also takes us back to this idea of physical intimacy versus sex.

Because sex is also very difficult to define, you know.

Bill Clinton once tried, without much success, right,

convincing the world that oral sex is not really sex.

And maybe, only genital penetration is sex,

some people still stick to that kind of imagination.

So we have to understand

that physical intimacy actually entails way more than that.

Some people will feel very intimate physically when they are sitting

by the fire side and reading to each other or

like taking a walk in the woods.

Some people would feel like physically

very intimate just by sitting next to each other.

So like the idea of physical intimacy is actually pretty fluid.

And I don't want to say that like sex

is categorically different. No, it is only part of it.

And then of course,

how much physical intimacy is involved in the act of sex itself also varies.

Like when you talk about people who are getting sex from like sex workers, for

instance. They may have sex, but they may not be physically intimate at all, right?

>> Yeah.

So it is important to be able to distinguish between these two concepts.

>> Yeah, I mean, even going off of that,

you can literally not be physically together at all,

but still be engaged in what some people define as sex. So, you know,

People talk about sexting, or cyber sex, or even, you were mentioning

earlier an interesting documentary where people had sex telepathically.

So there really is a range in terms of how we define it, isn't there?

>> Yeah, I think this is actually another good point.

And I don't not want to confuse people, but that's another concept, right,

which is probably not familiar to most people in the social sciences.

It is the idea of presence.

So you can be like in Toronto, you know,

communicating with someone in Ecuador, and there's a huge geographical distance,

but you can feel the person's presence right here.

And for some people,

you can actually say that I actually feel physically very intimate with this person

even though we're just like having a conversation on Skype.

That is totally like comprehensible.

And then when you're talking about people having cyber sex or

sexting, the extent to which it feels physically present also varies.

Like for some people, they are very conscious, we just like this is just the image,

this is just text.

To some people, they actually feel the physical presence.

Some people feel their own physical response.

Some people are better able to communicate a physical response to others through

images and words.

Some people are less capable.

So like the experience, the quality of the experience actually varies a lot.

Yeah, but I think you're pointing out a very important dimension.

So physical intimacy has to be understood within a context,

which is more than physical distance or geographical distance, yeah.

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