What is an Anyship?
We have friendships and relationships of several kinds, but we know now that there are only a few acceptable kinds. “Friends” are expected to behave in certain ways, just as a “couple” relationship, a “family” relationship or a “married” relationship each have their own expectations. We each grow up learning about these boundaries, levels and categories.
After understanding why we might break out of those strict definitions of relationships, the next question is obvious: Where can we go?
Some people have been thinking about this already, and there are concepts out there like romantic friendships. But most of these alternative forms of relationships rely on the original five categories: start with “friends” and add “romantic”. While there’s nothing necessarily wrong with this approach, it also seems limiting—if we’re sailing out into uncharted waters, why bother referencing those original categories at all? And what about friendships that don’t have a romantic component, but are still somehow eccentric and not generally accepted?
Relationship anarchy (or “RA”) goes a step further than most, and advocates for free choice in relationships unhindered by those traditional categories. But many of its supporters have started adding new rules and restrictions to RA, like the idea that people must treat all of their relationships equally, regardless of feelings or chosen levels of intimacy. That rule and some others that have emerged like it seem unnecessary and counter-productive, so we’ll focus on the ability to customize your relationships in any way you and others consent, and call this ability an “anyship”.
An Anyship
In order to customize your own relationship with another person or people, it helps to first know what there is to customize. We’ll consider four types of intimacy and the spectrum for each:
- Physical
- Emotional
- Intellectual
- Experiential
Physical Intimacy
Physical intimacy is about your bodies: how close they are to one another, which parts are touching and how, and whether sexual activity takes place. There is a vast spectrum of options for physical intimacy in a relationship: from explicitly avoiding all physical contact, even spoken words (think pen pals), to close physical touching and sexual experiences.
The possibilities for choice and negotiation along that spectrum in between are endless. Two people could decide that their only form of physical intimacy will be spoken conversations, or only communication over the Internet. Three people could decide to keep from touching one another except for hands on one anothers’ feet, to give foot rubs. Two others may decide to hold hands when in public, hug during greetings, and nothing else.
Two different people might decide to have sexual intercourse, but avoid kissing or touching each others’ heads. Four people may decide that two of the members want belly rubs from one another, and back scratching amongst the remaining set is great, but that none of them should ever touch another’s feet.
The point is not to be “weird” for the sake of being weird, but to illustrate the broad set of choices in physical intimacy available to people who decide to start a relationship together.
Emotional Intimacy
Emotional intimacy revolves around your needs, desires, fears, joys, and vulnerability. If you feel unguarded about sharing your feelings—and especially sharing those things which make you feel most emotionally vulnerable—with a person, then you have a high degree of emotional intimacy together.
Three people might decide to share their every fear with one another, holding nothing back and achieving a deep intimacy together. Two other people could decide to never speak, send substantive text or look one another in the eyes, thereby creating a relationship with minimal emotional intimacy, even if they have a high degree of physical intimacy.
Because emotional intimacy is achieved mostly through opening yourself up and increasing your vulnerability to other people, it often takes more time and trust to achieve, and also carries a high potential for abuse or neglect, even unintentional. It might be the slowest intimacy to develop between people, and might also take the most unexpected path, depending on each person’s lived experience and emotional history.
Somewhat unlike physical intimacy, people negotiating about emotions will often not be able to adequately describe a boundary, or might not think of a topic that will make them uncomfortable. For instance, if a person has endured a past trauma, that particular subject might be something they don’t wish to revisit or share with anyone, but that may only be clear if someone accidentally stumbles on the topic.
Developing emotional intimacy often takes a lot of trust and patience from all people involved, but it can still be helpful to customize your relationship by setting boundaries and guidelines early.
Intellectual Intimacy
Whereas emotional intimacy is about your feelings, intellectual intimacy is more about your thoughts. Everything from your opinions on politics, religion, sports, and entertainment to what kinds of questions you like to ask, or topics you prefer to talk about.
A high level of intellectual intimacy with someone could involve lots of talking (or writing & reading) and comfort questioning one another’s opinions. People inclined toward studying philosophy are likely to enjoy this type of intimacy.
On the other end of the spectrum, someone may wish to avoid sharing ideas with another person, whether to avoid certain topics or to increase the relationship’s focus on other kinds of intimacy.
Many people may find that those people with whom they have a high level of physical and emotional intimacy will not also have the same degree of intellectual intimacy. This is usually because it’s more difficult to find a good match physically and emotionally, whereas intellectual partners are easier to find. It makes sense, then, to avoid putting physical and emotional intimacy at risk for more intellectual intimacy with the same person.
Experiential Intimacy
Lastly, there’s experiential intimacy, which is all about what you do with someone: what kinds of activities you do together, places you go, people you meet, and experiences you share.
Two people may decide to travel the world, or three people may adopt a pet together. Or two different people may only meet in the same coffee shop every week, preferring to avoid any other experience for their relationship.
You can imagine how you might negotiate this type of intimacy: “These are the types of activities I’d like to do with you…” Different from both emotional and intellectual intimacy, experiential intimacy is often easy to create and share boundaries about what types of experiences we do and don’t want to have with someone.
Now Combine Them
Thinking about these four spectrums of intimacy, you could now have a conversation with someone (or someones) to create some boundaries and goals for intimacy in your relationship.
At a very high level, it’s like a few control bars where you can pick how much Physical, Emotional, Intellectual, and Experiential intimacy you would like in your relationship. The other people involved can do the same, then you can discuss how to reach an agreement and start working toward those goals.
Of course it’s not as simple as that because humans are complex and things like history and context can affect relationships a lot. But it can be a starting point and an illustration of how you can define your own relationship together, apart from the traditional rules and roles you’re expected to fill.
This is just the beginning of an exploration of this new approach to relationships, and hopefully it gives you a few new ideas, or a new way to think about creating your own happiness through fulfilled, consenting and customized relationships.