Extimacy, when intimacy becomes public

We live in a reality in which the intimate frequently manifests itself in the public sphere.. Almost without realizing it, we have become everyday voyeurs of other people’s lives, those that are voluntarily published on social networks. Extimacy, understood as that act in which the private becomes public, is completely transforming the way we understand the world.

Let’s admit it, it’s becoming less and less difficult for us to publish that thought we just had, what we’re having for breakfast, or the music we’re listening to now. If everyone does it, why not us? New technologies have built a common and shared sphere in which we are all innocent voyeurs and discreet exhibitionists.

Disclosing, sharing or publishing private information is not just a way to create community with those who also do it. Making the private public makes us visiblegives us presence in a technological and digital scenario in which it is often understood that if you do not appear, you do not exist.

Extimacy is here to stay. Let us understand, therefore, what this concept consists of, which, as curious as it may seem to us, is not exactly new.

Extimacy, what is it and how does it manifest?

The word extimacy It was coined by the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.. For him, this concept represented a state in which the human being is defined by having certain very intimate areas that only make sense in the external world. The unconscious, for example, is an internal psychic state, but it does not end up being expressed outside.

However, The French psychiatrist Serge Tisseron took this Lacanian term a few years ago to apply it to current modernity.. Extimacy today is not a state, it is a process in which new technologies encourage us to show a part of our intimacy and psychic life to the public sphere and, specifically, in the digital world. Now, does this perhaps mean that we have suddenly become exhibitionists?

Not quite. We are not in broad terms because everyone chooses what they want to show and often, what we publish is not even real. We are select, in fact, on average we choose very well what to show, how and when. We are not everything that is seen on networks, we are what we choose to be seen.

Extimacy, a resource to achieve genuine connections

We like to look, it’s true. We are interested in looking into the lives of others to discover, see, understand, yearn, admire, learn and even envy. However, what we also like is to feel emotions. Extimacy is an ideal resource to create emotional impact on those who observe us.in those who keep their eyes on the peephole of their screens to enter into otherness, into the other world.

Big brands, network gurus and Instagrammers know that one way to attract followers is by revealing small intimacies. Thanks to this, people we don’t know suddenly become close to us by revealing things about their lives to us, by opening the door to their well-chosen privacy. Suddenly, we identify with these strangers, they generate empathy in us and we are attentive to their publications.

However, let us remember, this approach that defines extimacy does not mean at all that we are seeing what a person is with authenticity and sincerity, We see rather what they want to represent.

Share what is private to make ourselves visible and reinterpret ourselves

The digital scene, networks, media and everything that is contained behind a screen forms another reality parallel to ours. The mobile phone, email, chats, messaging systems, social networks… All of this creates a scenario in which we also want to have a presence and to do so, we must project ourselves, practice extimacy.

Making the private public places us in that alternate world where we can create a new self., where to have a presence like almost everyone else. Because if you are not on that plane, you do not exist and those who more and those who least want to be part of that new culture, of that sphere that has greater relevance every day.

Extimacy and fixation in immediacy

Extimacy is defined today by a very particular characteristic: immediacy. “Having breakfast with my partner”, “already on the train to work”, “meditating”… When you open your mobile phone, extimacy is revealed through what happens here and now. That’s what matters most. What happened yesterday or the day before yesterday is irrelevant.

In current times, what most of us long to “consume” or see is what happens in this very second.

The stolen intimacy or the intimacy that we reveal without knowing

Most of us publish our photos, videos, ideas and thoughts voluntarily.. That is, the most common thing is to consciously make small pieces of the private universe public, but filtered at all times. Now, sometimes we overlook that there is another type of camouflaged extimacy.

Electronic devices have a camera and microphone. The applications we use and the social networks we register on have algorithms and bots that analyze everything we do in these digital worlds. We are observed, listened to and analyzed.

Our privacy becomes public due to the inherent danger of a technology aimed at collecting maximum information about us. and thus be able to sell it to large companies. The private not only becomes public, but it is marketed with it.

We have reached a point where the intimate and the public are becoming excessively diluted and something like that has its risks. Let’s keep this in mind, let’s reflect on the extent to which extimacy benefits us or harms us.

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