It doesn't have to be all about intercourse.
Roman intercourse with India especially led to the extension of geographical knowledge.
An embassy from the Parthians now came to solicit alliance with Rome, and Sulla was the first Roman who held diplomatic intercourse with that remote people.
The first public teacher of Cartesian views was Henri Renery, a Belgian, who at Deventer and afterwards at Utrecht had introduced the new philosophy which he had learned Spread of from personal intercourse with Descartes.
In all the upland valleys of the Abruzzi snow begins to fall early in November, and heavy storms occur often as late as May; whole communities are shut out for months from any intercourse with their neighbours, and some villages are so long buried in snow that regular passages are made between the different houses for the sake of communication among the inhabitants.