God help me, if you told me years ago that I would ever write anything about Justin Timberlake, I would have been forced to surrender my man card. I’m still coming to terms with it as I write this post. For the sake of this discusison, which is an important one, I am going to lay aside my disdain for the cult of celebrity.

What constitutes intimacy? That’s really the question here, as Justin was seen holding hands with Alisha Wainwright during a night on the town in New Orleans. His wife, Jessica Biel, is understandably upset. The holding hands issue raises a larger question, especially given that in parts of Europe and the Middle East friends hold hands as they stoll along the street and not a second glance is given.

Suppose we tried to generate an “intimacy scale” that ranked behaviors in degrees of increasing intimacy. I suspect holding hands would be rather low on the scale, while knee rubbing (allegedly Wainwright rubbed Timberlake’s knee under a table at which they were sitting) might rank a bit higher. Where is kissing on that scale? How would we sort out the various sexual acts? Where in the list would an intimate but decidedly non-sexual conversation fit? I would argue that people sharing their most intimate thoughts, feelings, and beliefs may well be an even larger danger to their other romantic relationships than a one night stand.

I worked with a couple many years ago who had engaged in a threesome, and one partner was devastated by the other having kissed the third during the event – nevermind that participants one and three had unrestricted access to each other while numbers two and three, by predetermined ground rule, were to have more limited contact. For this person, kissing was obviously highest on the imtimacy list. I suspect most people who had caught their partner patronizing a prostitute in their car would beg to differ, but it points out that for each of us there is a different intimacy scale at work. I believe that scale may flex a bit from situation to situation.

Then there is the alcohol factor. Timberlake says he had “way too much to drink.” To evaluate this claim, we need to understand what alcohol does. Alcohol disinhibits us as we drink. The more we drink, the more disinhibited we become, until at some point we are disinhibited and throwing up face down on the floor. It most decidedly does not cause us to do things we would never do if sober. It does make it more likely that we will do things that we might consider doing when sober but decide not to do because we see the consequences more clearly when sober.

Some years ago, Mel Gibson tried to justify one of his drunken, antisemitic, DUI rants by appealing to the alcohol. Sorry, Mel, it doesn’t work that way. Alcohol doesn’t put ideas into our head that otherwise wouldn’t reside there, it tends to lubricate the release of those ideas through word and action. Sober Mel might have had enough sense to keep his vile beliefs to himself, drunken Mel clearly did not. Interestingly, he tried to crucify Jesus to make up for it, and his strategy failed. Let’s hope Justin’s apology will make such drastic action unneccesary.

I believe that it would have a beneficial effect on our relationships to consider what out own intimacy scale might be and discuss it with our partners. Questions such as, “what is the most intimate thing you can imagine?” would not only help us understand each other, and ourselves, more fully, they might give us some good ideas for our next date night. You might be surprised to learn that many things offered in response to that question can be done fully clothed and in public without fear of being arrested – especially if you happen to be male.