This isn't your average pandemic thriller; here, the infected meld with inorganic material in their surroundings, until their outward contours and their personhood are gone. Thibault Emin's film starts with a little whiff of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro's Delicatessen. After their one-night stand, hypochondriac Anx (Matthieu Sampeur) and impertinent Cass (Edith Proust) find themselves bunkered up in one corner of a madcap apartment block.
"Radical honesty" has become a cultural badge of honor. Across social media, couples proudly declare that they do that without filters, without private corners, seeing honesty as a black-or-white concept—full honesty or no honesty. The promise is appealing that "if we are completely transparent, our relationship will be strong and unshakable." But is total disclosure really intimacy? Does honesty contradict other values? Does radical honesty come at a cost, with other negative implications?
Twenty years ago, a woman sat opposite me on a train and quoted the first line of the book I was reading to me. We talked and talked about books, architecture, family, relationships and haven't stopped since. I assumed I'd never see her again, but she gave me her number and after texting furiously for a week she invited me to stay with her, and our instant intellectual connection became an intense physical one.
Dating advice often casts intimacy as a tightrope pull back too much, or push for more. Either move is read as a red flag. Between discussions of incompatible attachment styles, the importance of boundaries and the dangers of love-bombing, it's easy to get the impression there's a correct level of closeness to aim for. In truth, intimacy isn't one-size-fits-all and comfort levels vary not just between individuals, but across their relationships.
What they say instead is something softer, more nuanced: " I just want space." They describe feeling overwhelmed when their partner asks for physical affection, quality time, or emotional closeness. Not because those requests are unreasonable, but because they feel they have nothing left to give. What can look like withdrawal from love in fact often seems more like emotional exhaustion.
As we traverse an era dominated by algorithms and driven by the impulse for efficiency, we increasingly sacrifice our ability to feel. In this "age of emotional poverty," highlighted by philosopher Byung-Chul Han, our emotional landscapes grow flatter, our pains diluted, and genuine intimacy replaced with a sterile digital façade. However, in Gulu's evocative imagery, the body emerges as a resilient space of resistance, pushing back against a world that demands we conform to neat, predictable narratives.
Caring is usually seen as an unquestioned virtue. We admire the devoted partner, the endlessly patient friend, and the person who is always available in a crisis. But in adult relationships, caring can sometimes become more than a loving response to another person's needs; it can become a relational pattern, a central way of organizing intimacy, identity, and self-worth. When this happens, it becomes a psychological role.
I had some messed up ideas around a woman's role and the influence of porn on that Jake was my first. I was 17 and he was 18. I lost my virginity way later than all my friends; sex had been so far out of my comfort zone. For me it was like social currency and I put a lot of pressure on myself to get it done.
In a stunning new photobook, La Isla, Argentinian photographer Matu Buiatti invites us into a profound exploration of intimacy, trust, and the human body, framed through the lens of analogue photography. This 18-month project transcends mere image-making; it is a beautifully crafted dialogue about human connection, where the photograph emerges not as a starting point but as the culmination of shared experiences.
And unlike any other chore or fitness enterprise, you conceive it more as self-indulgence than self-improvement, and as such, even if you're already in a relationship, it's hard to find that chin-out determination to get it done. Yet sex is an appetite like any other, a necessity like any other, a nourishment like any other. If you let it go dormant the effect on your relationship might be as if one or both of you are on a permanent diet and also lonely.
I can never be upset about anything. Anytime, and I mean ANYtime I bring up something that upsets me, it gets turned around into how whatever she did that upset me is my fault. I end up fuming, but then ultimately apologize so that I can keep some semblance of peace. I'm not respected. I'm not desired. For a significant portion of the year when she coaches, I'm invisible. I try to express what I need physically, and it's usually ignored. Need I go on?
How your partner interprets silence is one easy way to tell how intelligent they are. Some might see a partner's silence as a personal attack and immediately default to panic, while others reserve judgment and are more inclined to give space. That small difference between taking things personally and seeing them in context is the essence of relational intelligence.
When desire fades or the bedroom grows silent, we often point to the surface- boredom, stress, a lack of spark. But let me tell you, sexual problems are rarely about sex alone. Sometimes, they're about unresolved trauma -a quiet force that shapes how we love, touch, and connect. It's the shadow we don't see, but it moves us all the same. It makes decisions for us that we're not aware of.
On the second day of a workshop I'm teaching, called The Art of Letting Go, I've planned a discussion of the yogic practice of releasing our tendency to over-control situations. My intention is that people will recognize how much pain they create when they try to control every little thing in their lives-and that they learn how to let go.
My wife suffers from health issues that make sex painful. I never pressure her, and her wellbeing is always my top priority, so for years I've "taken care of myself." However, she also isn't a "touchy-feely person," while I love cuddles, holding hands, and kissing. As the years have gone by, I've grown resentful. I feel undesired and unloved. I no longer initiate any sexual moves.
Located in the vibrant neighborhood of Bali, Sipat & Sauh Villa redefines the idea of a rental property by bringing the intimacy and warmth of a private home into a hospitality setting. The client's brief was simple yet challenging: to design a pool villa for rent that feels deeply personal-"homey"-while still making a strong architectural statement. The design began with an exploration of what was missing from most rental villas on the island: the sense of familiarity, softness, and spatial intimacy that makes a house feel lived in rather than staged.
It is impossible to talk about cancer without invoking another Big C: cliche. Illness and pain, journeys and battles, finding appreciation for life while reckoning with death these are the building blocks of cancer stories, at once uniquely devastating and devastatingly common. The poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley, romantic partners for over a decade, took divergent approaches to the Big C. As a writer and editor, Falley strived to eradicate cliche; Gibson, as Falley put it, would instead double down.
Aphids toiled brittle stems as we met the dike to rob snakehead buds of their fruit. I gathered persimmons, podgy maypops. You puckered, sucked seeds, tannins, the half-ripe pulp half-glossy, sicksweet. Down lying in crowds of dry grasses, your warm legs pile beads of sweat. Even our silken fruits offer their wet to afternoon sky. Oh darling, this impartial land has grown strange in our rocky
"Parallel play is when two people do unrelated things together in one space at the same time without really talking to each other," Monica Lynne, a relationship and sex therapist with the dating app Flirtini, told HuffPost. "In romantic relationships, it shows two partners can be in the same space, do their own thing and remain connected through attunement to each other."
