  A number of commentators defend views of privacy that link closely with accounts stressing privacy as required for intimacy, emphasizing not just intimacy but also more generally the importance of developing diverse interpersonal relationships with others. Rachels (1975) acknowledges there is no single answer to the question why privacy is important to us, because it can be necessary to protect one’s assets or interests, or to protect one from embarrassment, or to protect one against the deleterious consequences of information leaks, to name just a few. Nevertheless, he explicitly criticizes Thomson’s reductionist view, and urges that privacy is a distinctive right. On his view, privacy is necessary to maintain a variety of social relationships, not just intimate ones. Privacy accords us the ability to control who knows what about us and who has access to us, and thereby allows us to vary our behavior with different people so that we may maintain and control our various social relationships, many of which will not be intimate. An intriguing part of Rachels’ analysis of privacy is that it emphasizes ways in which privacy is not merely limited to control over information. Our ability to control both information and access to us allows us to control our relationships with others. Hence privacy is also connected to our behavior and activities.