Key Messages
- We each have the right to decide where our limit is in every relationship.
- Intimacy can mean different things to different people.
Learning Intention
To explore issues relating to relationships, intimacy, personal boundaries and communication.
Time
40 minutes
Required Resources
- A set of intimacy scale cards per group
Teaching Notes
This activity allows students to examine their attitudes and values and how they might respond to real-life situations where they need to make safe choices. It generates a lot of discussion, so it is important
to allow plenty of time for each step. It can also be conducted as a class activity where each student is given a card and asked to place him/herself silently on the continuum. Explanations of each person’s
choice and discussion, as outlined below, would then follow.
Note that there is no right or wrong order to place the cards. There may be discussion of how older generations perceive different levels of intimacy for some sexual activities than young people.
Procedure
- Ask the students to define ‘intimacy’. Allow them time to develop a definition, with a partner, and discuss, as a class, until a consensus is reached.
- Explain that a dictionary definition of intimacy is: a close, familiar, and usually affectionate or loving personal relationship with another person or group.
- Broaden the definition of intimacy by briefly discussing if it is possible to be physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and sexually intimate.
- Divide the class into groups of four to six students, giving each group a set of Intimacy cards.
- Ask students to place each card on a scale from ‘Most Intimate’ to ‘Least Intimate’. Students do not have to place all cards on the continuum and may decide that some are not relevant to what they would participate in within a relationship.
- Each group must try to come to agreement about the placement of the cards. Allow plenty of time for group discussion.
- Ask a spokesperson from each group to report back the four most intimate and four least intimate activities and the group’s reasoning.
Questioning
Guide discussion to be inclusive of all types of relationship.
- Where/ who can you go to for help or information about relationships and decisions?
- How do individual perceptions of intimacy affect the placement of cards?
- Does everybody have a right to decide where her/ his limit is at any given time? How is this expressed?
- How is the context of each activity relevant to the degree of intimacy involved?
- What influences your decisions about how intimate you are with someone?
- What happens when two people in a relationship want different levels of intimacy at the same time?
- What happens if we try to pressure someone to be more intimate than they are ready for?
- Where does a relationship start and how does it continue?
- How are our beliefs/ attitudes about intimacy formed?
References
Adapted with permission from Mackay, L and Cleland, A 1994, Challenges and change: a sexuality education program for adolescents, New Zealand Family Planning Association, Auckland.