While working on another project, I stumbled across something that was a cause for pause. I was looking for examples of movies for an upcoming piece (sorry folks, it will have to wait until January 2020) that were good quality examples of healthy relationships; relationships that exemplified and reinforced the real and true meaning of “intimacy” in a relationship. What does “intimacy” really look like? So utilizing the internet, and the most notable search engine in the world, Google, I searched for the most intimate movies of all time. Please note, if you go do this same search, you’ll probably receive similar, yet not identical, results as the database engine for Google is very dynamic and changes every microsecond, if not nanosecond, so your own results may vary, albeit I can’t imagine it would change by much.

With 119 million results, the top listing, produced by Time.com, under the heading “These Are the Most Sexually Provocative Movies of All Time” were Last Tango in Paris (1972), Risky Business (1983), 9 1/ 2 Weeks (1986), Henry & June (1990), Basic Instinct (1992), Boogie Nights (1997), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Y Tu Mama También (2001), Secretary (2002), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Black Swan (2010), Nymphomaniac (2013), Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013), Gone Girl (2014), and Fifty Shades of Grey (2015).

Hmm, interesting! Did I make a typo? Did I mistakenly do a search for “most erotic movies of all time”? Perhaps “most sensual movies of all time”? What about “most sexual movies of all time”? Yeah, it must have been one those last two. After all, they managed to yield the exact same results as the first one, the one I actually did search for; the “most intimate movies of all time.” Incidentally, I changed the word “intimate” to “intimacy” just to humor myself, though I really didn’t anticipate any difference, repeated the search again, and sure enough, the results were the same. So back to my original search, the next five search result headings were:

  • Most seductive/sensual movies of all time by IMDb
  • The 15 most erotic movies of all time by IMDb
  • THE BEST MOVIES WITH LOVE MAKING EROTIC SEX SCENES by IMDb
  • Most sensual and Erotic movies !! by IMDb
  • The Sexiest Movies of All Time by Time

I’ll address the IMDb and Time results in a moment. The further you scroll down, the more discouraging it becomes. Turns out, I was utilizing the wrong term. I should have to conduct my search utilizing the term “romantic” instead of “intimate” since obviously there is mass media confusion as to what the term “intimate” actually means. Interesting, considering I used the very same internet, the very same Google search engine, to find out what the real definition of “intimate” was, at least as far as the internet was concerned. It is “closely acquainted, familiar, close, personal and private, and a very close friend” according to dictionary.com.

Well what do you know, not once was the word “sex” used as a synonym for “intimate.” Neither was “erotic”, “sensual”, or “romantic.” So how in the world do we come up with an inaccurate, grossly and inappropriately defined use of the term “intimate”? I will address this in a moment as well.

Here’s the thing:

“If a million people believe in a dumb idea, it’s still a dumb idea.”

In this case, there were at least 119 million of them considering there were that many results to fill the pages of an unsuspecting individual trying to conduct a simple search to find what they are looking for, in this case, movies that exemplify “intimacy.” I decided to settle on utilizing the term “romantic.” The same website, dictionary.com, does not display “romantic” as a synonym of “intimate”, but it does show “intimate” as a synonym of “romantic.” Confused? You should be. I’m perplexed by it all.

As I’m scratching my head, “now what?”, I decided to continue my research, and narrow down the field for what I am genuinely interested in and looking for. It does take some database savvy, and it also helps to understand Boolean algebra and how to effectively use it to filter out what you don’t want, ignore what is irrelevant, and capture what you do want to yield the optimum results. Unfortunately for most people, they’re scratching their own head, “Boolean algebra?”.

First, the few things I want to address from above. Often times, businesses pay for the privilege, in the form of paid advertisements, to have their promotions bumped to the top of search engine results. These can easily be identified with an  Google-Ads-Icon  symbol promptly displayed in the results. To me, it is as annoying as the “pop-up” advertisements that grace the screen interfering with whatever it is I’m trying to see, hear, and read. Any time I see those, I just ignore them and scroll down past them until I reach the first results that do not exhibit an  Google-Ads-Icon  symbol.

Second, Time and IMDb, and so many other businesses that are far too numerous to count, have mastered the art and science of bumping their high stakes results to the front of the line and atop of the Google search engine database results. There is an art and science behind it, so much so, that there is also at least 12.5 million search engine results to show you how to accomplish that too, including YouTube videos.

Third, in their “Web of Lies” series on the Today Show, there are “click farms”. Click farms are set up to deliberately perpetuate a fraud by setting up large groups of low income paid workers to click on the links of paid advertisements, fake news, and likes on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and others. There is no shortage of Google responses to purchase social media views, likes, and create a much better ranking such that the appearance of “going viral” exists where none is otherwise present leading people to believe there must be something to it if it garners so much attention. In many instances, it is designed to create false statistics for the purpose of soliciting paid advertisers and promote political agendas.

Google isn’t really at fault here. Google can only produce results as good as the information provided to them. Google isn’t in the information production business. They’re in the information, data mining, and retrieval business (I realize they have other businesses too, but for this purpose, we’ll restrict it to their search engine). If you’ve ever heard of the phrase “garbage in, garbage out”, that’s precisely what Google is doing with the information and data indexed in their databases. They’re only collecting all of the garbage amassed out on the internet, and recycling and repackaging it in a way that you can find it utilizing their proprietary search engine algorithms to do so. And sometimes, we actually get some meaningful information back that we can use. But make no mistake, those who have mastered it are only doing so to gain a competitive advantage, manipulate the search engine results, such that theirs is what the individual making the keystrokes receives first. Most people won’t bother to look past the first page of results, myself included, unless I’m looking for something very specific and have already filtered it to the max. Now that you have a glimpse of how it works, there are tools, tips, and tricks to get the most out of your Google search, and there are at least 250 million results to show you how to do that too.

I really did want to find movies that genuinely demonstrated the true meaning of intimacy. After all, we do have, and you’d think with all of the movies ever produced, that at least one could teach us a lesson, or two, or ten about intimacy, where sex may or may not be a component of it at all. Anybody can have sex. Not just anybody can have intimacy. Intimacy is much deeper, an emotional bonding and connection, whereas sex is, well, just sex. I was OK with it if it had a sex scene, as part of the script, but it had to be built upon a foundation of intimacy above all else. Some of the most intimate movies of all time had no sex scene at all. I’m not going to list them here because as I stated above, it will have to wait until January 2020. I did write a DATA (Data Aggregation Triage Algorithm) to save, sift, and sort out hundreds of sources on the internet. As such, you may be interested to know, and this certainly is a SPOILER ALERT:

The #1 “Intimate” move of all time is The Notebook

I’m sure that it was a real surprise to some, and not so much to others. It, along with one other movie (sorry, it will have to wait until January), toppled by just a few points, nearly tied for first place, beating out all the remaining contenders by more than 37%. Nonetheless, The Notebook reigns as the #1 leading contender of all time for the coveted top spot. If you don’t happen to agree, don’t shoot the messenger. It is what it is.

But this exercise revealed something much more enlightening, compelling, and troubling. If our searches yield these types of results, it only serves to demonstrate and reinforce that what we don’t allow them to infiltrate, indoctrinate, flood our minds with patronizing us, we allow them to censor.

I’ve experienced censorship first hand so many times commenting on articles, I just don’t even bother to comment anymore, as it is abundantly clear, they’re not interested in the truth. They’re only interested in controlling and setting the narrative and delivering their own propaganda to support it. It’s extremely difficult for me to believe that this level of ignorance over “intimacy” and “sex” could be that enormous, if not deliberate by design.

In a word, we have been “programmed” that way and for it. So what’s happening here? We have evolved to a state where our technology has so exceeded our ability to keep up with it, that those with a predisposition to exploit it, also utilize it for much more patronizing, manipulative, and sinister intentions. What appears on the surface to be a simple search on the internet, is in fact, a complicated process to isolate that which we are really looking for beneath the entourage of information overload covering it all up.

“Sex” is such a sick, twisted, and perverted hijack and use of the term “intimacy.” I so often stumble across phrases like “We had a very intimate one night stand” and “after foreplay, we became intimate until we climaxed.” I think they actually meant “sex!” I often wonder why they don’t just say “we had sex” with one another and be done with it, for intimacy had nothing to do with it. It was purely, unequivocally, and without question, all about sex. Intimacy wasn’t, isn’t, and never was any part of the equation.

If we have been programmed to view intimacy as the same thing as sex, then we too begin to contribute to the misinformation that is garbage in, garbage out. We tend to replicate that which we see.

“Don’t believe anything you read, hear, or see unless it is something that you already know to be true, or you have taken the time to research it for yourself.”

And to be clear, doing a Google search, as this exercise demonstrates, isn’t enough. It doesn’t constitute research. It constitutes discovery. It’s up to us to do a sufficient and thorough search, enough so that we can consume as much information as possible, filter, ignore, and capture it, so that we can much more effectively and efficiently find what it is we are looking for. 

You want the absolute best sex imaginable and possible? Sex? Forget about it! You have been programmed and conditioned to shoot for the wrong target, pardon the pun. Pursue intimacy, and let the cards fall where they may, and I assure you, you will have no shortage of the most incredible, mind-blowing, and life-changing sex you could ever imagine possible. All you have to do is make intimacy your priority, and while sex is not a guarantee, you’ve just increased your chances of getting it astronomically. The key is not to try to convince your Partner to have sex with you. The key is to do that which entices your Partner to want to have sex with you. You didn’t capture her heart with bait and a hook when you were courting her. Try courting your Partner, for that was what lifted her spirit, spoke to her mind, and captured her heart in the first place. Like virtually every troubled relationship I know of, we’ve forgotten how to court our Partner.

Sex is a function and product of intimacy. Intimacy isn’t, and never will be, a function and product of sex. Once you understand that and act accordingly, sex just falls into place on its own. If you want a strong healthy relationship that includes an abundance of sex, you will give up this pursuit of sex, and pursue intimacy instead.

There are several lessons to be learned from this exercise, and contrary to popular opinion, intimacy does not mean sex, and sex does not equal intimacy. Take whatever you find on the internet with a grain of salt, for what you perceive as salt, may in fact just be nothing more than sand. Understand that while the internet is such a huge repository of information and data, it is also a minefield of it, and just because you read it on the internet, doesn’t necessarily make it so. As we have become so accustomed to instant access to information and data at our fingertips, we have also become incredibly lazy at processing it. We do so to our own detriment. A little due diligence goes a long way.

Look for my publication of the list of most intimate movies of all time in the coming months. I wasn’t so surprised that The Notebook ranked so highly, but I was surprised that it was #1, so a lot of credit goes to Nicholas Sparks, the creator and writer, and Ryan Gosling (Noah) and Rachael McAdams (Allie) for their extraordinary performances. It is a true intimate masterpiece.

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