There are thousands of students on college campuses seeking the fundamental things college life has to offer; met with a tremendous amount of freedom not only can students explore extracurriculars and networking opportunities, but they can also equally prioritize their social lives and sexual preferences.
I’d like to focus on these questions:
Do college students feel they have a connection to the word intimacy? What does it mean to be intimate? And lastly having been able to experience intimacy, in what ways did students find they did?
According to Dictionary.com, intimacy means, “a close, familiar, and usually affectionate or loving personal relationship with another person or group.”
In college, you have to understand that whether a relationship is intimate or not, relationships are forever changing because everyone’s on their own path of growth. Intimacy isn’t always about spending time together, it’s more so about knowing that someone has your back and appreciates your presence on a deeper level. After a conversation with my friends, Gracie and Ellie, we concluded that a number of boys translate sexual rejection as a falsehood of projected intimacy. But of course, we must take into consideration that there’s a flip side to every situation, even intimacy. Both Gracie and Ellie believe that they have been fortunate enough to find intimacy in their newfound friendships on campus. To offer more insight Gracie adds, “I know sometimes people oversexualize opposite sex close friendships and I think that’s so stupid…I can be just as affectionate with a male friend, to who I have absolutely no sexual attraction, simply because I love and resonate with the energy they bring to a room.”
Hypersexuality!~ drugs and hormones;
With our bodies rapidly changing, a handful of individuals feel that only sexual pleasure really satisfies their need for intimacy.” When we add drugs to the equation…well things tend to escalate,” said a first-year student. If this sounds familiar, now you know you’re not alone. Even though the feedback was gathered from St. John University students, it’s certainly not limited to them.
A male student expressed that having a girl that he can connect with on a more intellectual and emotional level is crucial before considering forming a serious intimate relationship. “We already lack feelings of seriousness with the boys, and I can speak for most of us in saying that we have only found intimacy with the girls who are quick to have sex with us.”It’s honest and for some squeamish conversations like these, that help us understand how we are all getting by.
Intimacy is normal, necessary, and never limited to sex or gender. Having same-sex heterosexual friends who cuddle at least five times a week, I gathered that it’s all in the spirit of comfort in affection, in other words, intimacy.