right a lonely habit, indeed, substituting as it does a cold relatively unsensuous face-to-face relationship for a multisensuous all-around intimacy.
A desire to return to the pack sometimes finds expression in the behavior of psychiatric patients who, when on passes to the city, gravitate toward the thickest crowds in elevators and buses, dangerously to recapture for a moment the pressure and warmth of primitive intimacy.
Level 6: Nakedness
Approximately half-way between complete loneliness and complete intimacy is nakedness. Next to walking upright, the habit of wearing clothes has done more than anything else to isolate human beings. Except in a nudist camp (the members of which adhere rather closely to most middleclass mores), it might be difficult to separate for long the intimacy of nakedness from all the other little intimacies which in the Garden-of-Eden package are tied up with it, such as the semi-unconventional intimacy of unrestricted osculation, the conventional intimacy of generative penetration, the semi-conventional intimacy of spanking, and the unconventional intimacy of nongenerative penetration, all of which are closely interlocked in the aesthetic experience of total sense stimulation.
As a half-way station on the road to complete intimacy, nakedness is of course surrounded by various taboos. Protectors of morals have long regarded the unclad body as a public menace, buttressing their position with Genesis 3:7, "And the eyes of them were opened and they knew they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons." One may wonder why, at a time when emphasis was on procreation, nakedness became taboo. Possibly because of its interference with work. Not until man recognized that he must earn
his living by the sweat of his brow did he repress his inclination for intimacy. The apron was a means of hiding distractions from industry.
Largely because of this emphasis on industry, loneliness has now reached a point where many are beginning to wonder whether the fruits of toil are worth the price. Industry may contribute to survival, but a life of loneliness is without savor. Certainly, to the extent that nakedness actually interferes with the necessary work of the world it is bad. But when man is un-
motivated by the zip nascent in the Garden-of-Eden package, his work may be as barren and dreary as that of a psychotic patient.
Level 7: Generative Penetration
To insure race perpetuation, civilization has attached an exaggerated significance to the alleviation of loneliness through generative penetration. Such overemphasis on the therapeutic value of this one type of intimacy has tended to illegitimatize other types. Civilization has said to man: "Conquer loneliness through generative penetration, or become its eternal victim. In winning the Seventh Level of Intimacy, it is your prerogative to enjoy intimacy on a few of the other levels; but if you take not the Seventh Level as your goal, you must forego intimacy altogether except on a verbal level."
Thus civilization punishes with loneliness those who postpone, cannot attain, or refuse to accept the standard pattern of intimacy permitted in marriage. If loneliness could in this way be eliminated, the punishment might be justified. But the fact is that generative penetration, with its accompanying intimacies, is in many instances incapable of touching the deeper wells of loneliness.
It is believed that a more enlightened civilization would attach less importance to generative penetration and
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