Reclaiming Intimacy
Why being known is not the same as being sexual
In the contemporary imagination, intimacy and sexuality have become nearly synonymous. To speak of intimacy is to imply desire; to remove clothing is to assume invitation.
The result is that both ideas—once sacred, subtle, and layered—have been flattened into a single dimension of performance and risk. The Practice of Peace seeks to restore their original meanings.
The word intimacy comes from the Latin intimus—inmost, most within, or to make known inwardly. It describes a movement toward presence, not toward sex.
To be intimate, in its truest form, is to allow oneself to be known—first by oneself, and then, perhaps, by another. It is a gesture of revelation, not seduction.
Modern culture, uneasy with stillness, has come to fear this kind of intimacy. It is safer to equate vulnerability with sex, because sex at least provides a script—a sequence of acts, a set of expectations, an end-point that can be managed.
But genuine intimacy has no such map. It asks only that one remain open, undefended, and without an outcome. That is why it feels dangerous: it cannot be controlled.
To be naked, likewise, is not inherently erotic. It is merely the absence of covering, the return to an unmediated state of being.
In a world that treats concealment as modesty and exposure as provocation, simple presence without artifice has become radical.
Yet it is this very unguardedness that allows a man to encounter himself without disguise—to feel his own existence unfiltered by performance or comparison.
In the context of the Practice of Peace, intimacy is redefined as truth made visible. It is the quiet courage to be seen as one is—clothed or unclothed, speaking or silent—without the mask of certainty or the armour of irony.
Such intimacy is neither given nor taken; it is recognised. It does not demand reciprocity; it simply invites awareness.
To be intimate, then, is not to move closer to another’s body, but to move closer to one’s own being.
Intimacy as the Foundation of Peace
Every element of the Practice of Peace—the stillness, the conversation, the touch, the quiet—rests upon this redefinition of intimacy. Without it, the practice could not exist.
The man who enters this space is not being asked to reveal himself sexually, emotionally, or spiritually, but authentically. He is invited to meet himself without pretext or disguise. This, paradoxically, is the hardest and most intimate act of all—to be known without the shield of charm, humour, or control.
Within this frame, intimacy becomes the medium of learning.
Stillness shows him how to listen; conversation listens to him speak truthfully; touch tells him how to inhabit his own body.
Each element works to dissolve the false association between exposure and danger, between honesty and weakness.
By unbinding intimacy from its sexual tether, the practice restores it to its rightful place as the living language of presence—a language that says, “I am here, as I am".
True intimacy is not an escalation of contact but a refinement of attention. It begins with oneself and radiates outward, quietly, without possession. It is the soil from which peace grows.
