Examination of both everyday lay accounts and professional social scientific accounts of intimacy reveals that they all tend to make the same kinds of assumptions about intimacy. For everyday conduct this is wholly unproblematic. However, by taking the recognizability of intimacy for granted they miss how interaction that might be called intimate is actually accomplished. Thus the grounds for many expert claims regarding intimacy are open to question. In this book intimacy is respecified as a topic for investigation. A close analysis of the testimony during the Clinton-Lewinsky affair is...