Intimacy as freedom: Friendship, gender and everyday life. (February 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Blatterer, Harry
• Is Part Of: Thesis eleven. Volume 132:Number 1(2016:Feb.)
• Page Start: 62
• Page End: 76
• Publication Date: 2016-02
• Subjects: Cross-sex friendship -- freedom -- friendship -- gender -- homosociality -- intimacy -- masculinity -- ordinary coupledom; Social sciences -- Philosophy -- Periodicals; 301
• DOI: 10.1177/0725513615619503
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0725-5136

Abstract

Friendship arguably offers itself as the freest of all human associations. A weakness of cultural prescription opens a terrain in which intimacy can be lived in a trust relationship that personifies equality, justice and respect. Friendship's 'relational freedom' enables the mutual development of selves; it is generative. Therein lies 'the beauty of friendship', as Agnes Heller has reminded us. But the freedom of intimacy is limited. Embedded in a society that attributes different repertoires of intimacy to women and men and privileges male homosociality, friendship's freedom is curtailed. Especially cross-sex friendships continue to show evidence of persisting tensions. 'Erotic friendships' that seek to realize sexual intimacy but eschew the commitments of coupledom continue to face normative-practical challenges. In this paper, I view central aspects of heterosexual intimacy through the small world of intimate friendship, a prism that refracts gendered tensions in the world at large.