Intimacy, loneliness and connection — Navigating the complexities of modern relationships

27 Feb 2025

Dr Eve, a family therapist, sex therapist and expert in intimacy trauma, brings years of experience and academic training to her therapy room. In this column, she offers a candid exploration of the deep-seated issues surrounding intimacy, loneliness and connection in today’s world.

With insights drawn from her sessions, Dr Eve unpacks the impact of digital consumption on real-life relationships, the rise of disconnection and the societal pressures shaping sexual health and well-being. From the rise of online intimacy to the disturbing trends of rough sex and consensual non-consensual (CNC) role-play, she urges a return to meaningful, safe connections as the key to healing trauma and building happy relationships.

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My name is Dr Eve – as a clinician in private practice, a public educator and an academic, with 35 years of experience as a guest on the radio, who specialises in “intimacy trauma”, I am privileged to be exposed to many relationships, intimacy and sexuality trends in my therapy room.

I’m an avid consumer of culture, politics, literature, music, film and art — yes, even Love is Blind, unapologetically.

Through this column, I hope to welcome you onto my therapy couch, sharing insights from the many sessions I have with people and the important things I have learnt along the way.

In 2020, Vivek H Murthy, former US surgeon-general, published his book on loneliness titled, Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World.

In it, he brings attention to loneliness, calling it a public health concern, “a root cause and contributor to many of the epidemics sweeping the world today, from alcohol and drug addiction to violence to depression and anxiety”.

Covid-19 intensified loneliness and triggered an unprecedented awareness of mental health concerns such as anxiety, depression, suicidality, disordered eating, substance abuse, and intimacy distress and dissatisfaction.

The Covid-19 years increased our digital consumption and many people found intimacy, comfort, connection and betrayal online.

The desire to escape loneliness has driven more people to turn to pornography, dating apps and social media. This shift has resulted in a decline in real-life sexual activity, along with rising dissatisfaction as individuals pursue the idealised bodies, relationships and sexual norms promoted by social media.

Dr Laurie Santos, the Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon Professor of Psychology and Head of Silliman College at Yale University, who is behind the podcast The Happiness Lab, highlights the misconceptions we have about how jobs, money, possessions, good looks and love affect our happiness. Instead, her research shows that our happiness comes from a connection to people (and animals) we feel safe with.

I am in the business of connection – of working with people who have experienced childhood trauma, neglect and disconnection, and long to be safely connected to their intimate partner, and yet, struggle to connect in an adult intimate relationship.

Only when one can tolerate this kind of intimate connection, can one feel safe to be sexual. Perhaps that is why infidelity is a common way of managing anxious and avoidant attachments.

In my therapy room, I am particularly interested in this form of connection. Infidelity is a deeply traumatic experience of betrayal for all involved, and gives me clues as to the human experience of yearning, even injudicious yearning, for safety and connection.

In our country, it is a challenge to be safely connected sexually.

Without belabouring the well-known statistics of gender-based violence and childhood sexual abuse, one cannot underestimate the negative impact this sexual violence has on women’s sexuality. Talk about fear of intimate connection...

To add sexual burden and pressure to an already overburdened, highly pressurised sexuality, a new trend has emerged, called “rough sex”.

In 2023, my colleague, Dr Debby Herbenick, Provost Professor at the Indiana University School of Public Health and director of the Centre for Sexual Health Promotion published her book, Yes, Your Kid: What Parents Need to Know About Today’s Teens and Sex.

She defines “rough sex” as the act of “choking, hair pulling, and spanking, slapping, punching, and making someone have sex”.

Her follow-up research published most recently, has highlighted a new category of sexual interaction, which she called “Consensual Non-Consent (CNC)”; it is often enacted as role-playing sexual assault. Both choking and CNC were related to alcohol use as well as a history of partner violence.

So in addition to you – as an adult – trying to manage your own intimacy and sexuality, you also need to be aware (very aware) of your children’s mental health and sexuality.

Whatever you currently have on your TBR (To Be Read) books on your nightstand, I highly recommend that you place these two books on top of your pile: The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt and Debby Herbenick’s Yes, Your Kid: What Parents Need to Know About Today's Teens and Sex. DM

Have a question about intimacy, relationships, or connection? Send it to Dr. Eve, [email protected] – she may answer it in an upcoming column. You are welcome to indicate if you would prefer to remain anonymous.

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