Are personal relationships deeper and more intimate than ever before or are they increasingly empty and structured by selfish individualism? This exciting new book examines the question in a wide-ranging discussion of the nature of intimacy, focusing on key relationships between parents and children, families, sexual partners, couples and friends.
Acknowledgements. 1. Introduction.
A Story of Intimacy?.
The Wider Significance of Intimacy in Personal Life.
Dimensions of Intimacy.
Stories and Story Tellers.
Conclusion.
2. From 'The Family' to Sex and Industry. .
The Making of the Conventional Modern Family.
Visions of the Future.
3. Parenting and Intimacy.
Mothers and Fathers as Intimates.
More Shared Caring Between Mothers and Fathers?.
Parenting: Trends in Intimacy and Democracy?.
4. Are Good Friends All You Need? .
Friends, Kin and Intimacy.
Gender, Heterosexuality, Friendship and Intimacy.
5. Sex and Intimacy. .
Introduction.
Stories of 'Normal Sex' and Intimacy.
The Realities of Sexual Lives.
Stories, Practices and Social Change.
6. The Couple: Intimate and Equal? .
The Heterosexual Couple: Still She the Housewife, He the Earner?.
Domestic Violence and Forced Intimacy.
Same-Sex Couples.
Intimacy and Relationship Breakdown.
7. Conclusion. .
Notes.
Bibliography.
Index.
