Intimate tourism

From the CouchSurfing Wiki, an informal workspace which anyone can edit.

Intimate Tourism, also known as Emotional Tourism, is a concept created by Paula Bialski, a graduate student in sociology at the University of Warsaw, while studying CouchSurfing, a hospitality exchange network.

Intimate Tourism, is the process in which the individual tours, and rather than just experiencing the tourist-scape environment, experiences intimacy, either in space and relationships. Intimate Tourism is most prominently observed, yet not restricted to, online hospitality exchange networks. Through this network, the individual experiences a kind of relationship without physical or geographical borders – a post-friendship where the personal needs of the individual such as “personal growth,” direct dialog, and human closeness, is met instantly, without taking into account any time-space continuum traditionally ingrained in the institution of friendship. Common approaches to privacy, both physical privacy and privacy of thought, is breached in order to achieve these goals.

Within Intimate Tourism, there are key social processes which assist this mechanism to fully function as it does – factors which allow people to become physically and emotionally close, and verbally intimate after a very brief time. 1. The dichotomy between public and private space within our urban environment can influence our intimacy level - specifically, the fact that individuals are meeting in the utmost of intimate spaces - the private home. 2. The specific goal and mindset of the CouchSurfing individual is crucial as they make use of this previously-mentioned space in order to fulfill their agenda of ‘personal growth.’ 3. Finally, the Internet, which is the crucial key in merging these two worlds and quenching the individual’s need for closeness by providing access to the locality of intimacy – the private home or ‘couch.’