As an example of the long term dialectic quality of privacy regulation, the Pygmies periodically separated into small family groups and lived apart from others for up to 2 months. Over time, Turnbull observed that they began to long for communal life and sought out larger encampments. It was as if the Pygmies oscillated between periods of separateness and togetherness, a cycle they followed year after year. Thus, a highly communal society that at one level seemed to have little ability to regulate privacy did, in fact, have behavioral mechanisms-some environmental,
some involving long-term withdrawal-to regulate and pace the flow of their social interaction. Especially interesting from the perspective of the present article is the suggestion of a dialectic approach to privacy that not only involves the simultaneous presence of forces and mechanisms for being open and closed to others but also includes oscillating cycles of openness and closedness over longer periods of time.