skylight.
The reason for the model’s reaction reveals an interesting generalization about intimacy. When she went to the Ecole that day, the model had expected to be seen in the nude by strangers. But she had only agreed to her body being viewed by artists. She had not consented to any other process—certainly not theft—nor to any other consumers. 22 The same goes for the woman in a scenario offered by legal scholar Richard Parker. He asked his readers to consider the case of a man who, after leaving the bed of his lover,peers back through the window in order to see her once more in the nude. The man knows that his lover’s body has not changed, and that she has not had time to put on her clothes. His look threatens the woman’s control, but control over what? “It is,” Parker said, “a loss of control over who, at that moment, can see her body.” 23
Trust
There is one case in which information may be worth a great deal more if donated in confidence than if learned by accident. It concerns an important component of intimacy—trust. People tend to divulge little in the way of personal information unless, as Bloustein suggested, they feel that it cannot circle back to hurt them. How do they develop the confidence that it will not? One way is to reveal one’s feelings, and to expose one’s inner self, in degrees, waiting for reciprocal acts before continuing, or before any increases in intensity. Mutual disclosure of this kind tends to build trust while, paradoxically, making trust less necessary, since each party possesses the tools to hurt the other.
In their privacy, the insiders were more intimately exposed than ever before—to their fellow insiders. In the case of family members, this was undoubtedly beneficial, but not everyone living under one roof was genetically related. One morning in 1680, Nicholas Manning of Salem, Massachusetts got in a great deal of trouble. It began when three female servants walked through his bedroom en route to the kitchen. They did this not because they were rude or poorly trained or disoriented. It was because they had no other way to get there.
Manning’s house had no corridors, but this was hardly a distinguishing feature. When houses were first built, the residents were clearly concerned about privacy, but the privacy they sought was against outsiders. As a consequence, little thought was given to the idea of building
interior walls
that would separate parents fromchildren, or one lodger from another. The corridor, Raffaella Sarti has written, was a fairly late invention. 24
When the servants walked through Mr. Manning’s bedroom, he was in bed with his sister. This, by itself, was less strange than it might seem, given the tendency of family members to bed down together. But, peeking back through the bedroom door, which remained slightly ajar, the servants noted that the rapidly disembedding Mannings were stark naked. This came out in a public trial—a trial for incest.
People spent many centuries living in homes before they got the idea or motivation to create private areas
within
homes. In the sixteenth century, according to Philippe Ariès, the wealthier homeowners in France began to build private halls, stairways, and vestibules. 25 Privacy was becoming a value, but there was something else. People were beginning to think of themselves as individuals, as people who differed in important ways from all others, and they sought spaces that would reinforce these differences. 26
Individualism
Earlier, I suggested that privacy fostered truer, deeper, and more emotional forms of intimacy, not just whatever feelings may have been produced by shared occupancy. It also contributed to an aspect of personality that would favor intimacy. This was individualism, a sense of one’s own personal boundaries and distance from all others. Having one’s own space would help to mold this separate being, enabling individuals to make a unique, and uniquely intimate, contribution to
The reason for the model’s reaction reveals an interesting generalization about intimacy. When she went to the Ecole that day, the model had expected to be seen in the nude by strangers. But she had only agreed to her body being viewed by artists. She had not consented to any other process—certainly not theft—nor to any other consumers. 22 The same goes for the woman in a scenario offered by legal scholar Richard Parker. He asked his readers to consider the case of a man who, after leaving the bed of his lover,peers back through the window in order to see her once more in the nude. The man knows that his lover’s body has not changed, and that she has not had time to put on her clothes. His look threatens the woman’s control, but control over what? “It is,” Parker said, “a loss of control over who, at that moment, can see her body.” 23
Trust
There is one case in which information may be worth a great deal more if donated in confidence than if learned by accident. It concerns an important component of intimacy—trust. People tend to divulge little in the way of personal information unless, as Bloustein suggested, they feel that it cannot circle back to hurt them. How do they develop the confidence that it will not? One way is to reveal one’s feelings, and to expose one’s inner self, in degrees, waiting for reciprocal acts before continuing, or before any increases in intensity. Mutual disclosure of this kind tends to build trust while, paradoxically, making trust less necessary, since each party possesses the tools to hurt the other.
In their privacy, the insiders were more intimately exposed than ever before—to their fellow insiders. In the case of family members, this was undoubtedly beneficial, but not everyone living under one roof was genetically related. One morning in 1680, Nicholas Manning of Salem, Massachusetts got in a great deal of trouble. It began when three female servants walked through his bedroom en route to the kitchen. They did this not because they were rude or poorly trained or disoriented. It was because they had no other way to get there.
Manning’s house had no corridors, but this was hardly a distinguishing feature. When houses were first built, the residents were clearly concerned about privacy, but the privacy they sought was against outsiders. As a consequence, little thought was given to the idea of building
interior walls
that would separate parents fromchildren, or one lodger from another. The corridor, Raffaella Sarti has written, was a fairly late invention. 24
When the servants walked through Mr. Manning’s bedroom, he was in bed with his sister. This, by itself, was less strange than it might seem, given the tendency of family members to bed down together. But, peeking back through the bedroom door, which remained slightly ajar, the servants noted that the rapidly disembedding Mannings were stark naked. This came out in a public trial—a trial for incest.
People spent many centuries living in homes before they got the idea or motivation to create private areas
within
homes. In the sixteenth century, according to Philippe Ariès, the wealthier homeowners in France began to build private halls, stairways, and vestibules. 25 Privacy was becoming a value, but there was something else. People were beginning to think of themselves as individuals, as people who differed in important ways from all others, and they sought spaces that would reinforce these differences. 26
Individualism
Earlier, I suggested that privacy fostered truer, deeper, and more emotional forms of intimacy, not just whatever feelings may have been produced by shared occupancy. It also contributed to an aspect of personality that would favor intimacy. This was individualism, a sense of one’s own personal boundaries and distance from all others. Having one’s own space would help to mold this separate being, enabling individuals to make a unique, and uniquely intimate, contribution to
Similar Books
