I've had limited experience with intentional communities. Been in one for a while, hung around the fringes of a couple more, read about still others, both real and fictional. The catch is: a group structure may be in place to promote intimacy; participants may go through the motions of intimacy; but whether you actually have the experience of intimacy is still up to you.

It gets worse. You could participate in one community; not experience intimacy even though it was demanded of you (or more likely, because it was demanded); move on to another setting where there was less stress on intimacy but actually more room for it; and find yourself contributing all your pent-up intimacy, as it were, from the old setting to the new one.

The only thing that's ever worked for me with regard to intimacy has been not to follow these rules or those rules, but to follow my weird.

Hope this sheds some light on the subject; or if darkness, at least interesting darkness.