Naked Men Talking: David - Gay Men's Therapy
In the conversation, we talk hook-up apps, collective responsibility, and the link to risk-taking behaviours such as chemsex.
For our podcast, Naked Men Talking, I caught up with David from Gay Men's Therapy for a discussion about emotional intimacy.
In the conversation, we talk hook-up apps, collective responsibility, and the link to risk-taking behaviours such as chemsex.
There is a lot that we could talk about, but I wanted today to focus in on a discussion around emotional intimacy. Could you talk us through some of the basics in terms of what is emotional intimacy and what's the difference between emotional intimacy and physical intimacy?
Emotional intimacy is that you allow someone to see you both emotionally and psychologically - allowing your vulnerability to show, allowing someone to see who you really are.
That involves trusting whoever that other person might be and believing that you will be understood by whoever it is you decide to be emotionally vulnerable with.
Physical intimacy isn't just sex - it's also touch, it's caressing, it's being close to someone physically.
When we think about the challenges that queer guys are navigating in their search for intimacy, are the apps - and the hook-up culture that we've built around that - is that a cause or an effect? Is that a symptom?
When I think of the culture that exists for a lot of gay men - going to chill-out parties and going to people's houses and engaging in sex with lots of people, that's a lot of fun. But do friendships develop?
I think the other thing about emotional intimacy is that people can be quite scared of it.
Why do people find that scary? Is it that we're not learning those skills? Is it that our contemporary lifestyle is all about individualism and that we've lost a lot of the community-based stuff, the extended families, that sense of being part of something and learning how to be emotionally intimate with other people? It feels like we've lost those life skills?
I go back to the early experience of people in terms of what they might have seen. Were they hugged as a child? Did they see their parents being intimate - hugging each other and being close? Or did they experience coldness? Did they not see any arguments? Did they just have this rather sterile upbringing?
Then, you bring into it the gay factor - as a young boy, you're growing up and beginning to realise that you're a little bit different and you hold yourself back. You don't have those skills in your emotional toolbox as you start to develop relationships as an adult.
Sometimes in couples' therapy, what you're actually trying to do is to encourage the two people to know how to ask what the other person needs. For example, "how are you feeling today?" If they have a problem and they're really struggling with it and they want to talk about it, a really lovely answer would be, "that sounds really hard". That's empathy - you understand what I'm feeling.
If emotional intimacy is a basic human need and we're not getting that. Does that manifest in behavioural dysfunction somehow beyond loneliness?
Potentially depression, or being very anxious or lacking confidence, and so low self-esteem. These could be the downside.
It could potentially lead to risky behaviours such as drugs.
You could argue that for many men the drugs become a substitute for emotional intimacy?
It's a very distorted emotional intimacy.
That works for a period of time but then, it doesn't.
Do we have some sort of collective responsibility around emotional intimacy? If we're saying that humans need emotional intimacy - as a queer community, do we have some sort of collective responsibility to look out for people who maybe aren't accessing the emotional intimacy that they need? Not necessarily be the one to give them a hug or whatever but just to be a bit more understanding and perhaps try to encourage connections to to anchor them into a more collective existence?
Absolutely. I think it depends on where you land as a young, out, gay person trying to find their tribe and where they fit in.
I do think that the online world of hookups does create a lot of difficulties because it offers something but it doesn't offer the idea of a community.
One of the things that I'm very encouraged by is the proliferation of multitudes of different kinds of groups that cater for all sorts of different things. Whether you play badminton or want to walk mountains or play chess or go to the theatre, there's lots of groups, and they're very welcoming.
If I'm not getting enough emotional intimacy, what should I be doing about it? And is therapy going to help me navigate that path?
Therapy is a very helpful way of exploring what are the underlying reasons. Therapy is about awareness. It's about understanding yourself. It's a place where you can develop the ability to be vulnerable and grow the adult part of that person so that they have more self-confidence and self-worth and self-esteem to be able to project themselves more positively.
Gareth Johnson