The Importance of Touch
6.25.2009 | 1 Comment
One of my favorite classes to teach at E-Sensual Woman is on the importance of touch and how our earliest experiences of touch profoundly affect our sex lives as adults. As Aline Zoldbrod PhD writes in Sex Smart: How Your Childhood Shaped Your Sexual Life and What To Do About It:
When you are examining your feelings about being a sexual person, you should first notice how you feel about giving and receiving touch. Touching isn’t sexual per se, but touch is the foundation upon which your ability to enjoy sexuality is built; it is vital to loving and to sexual expression. To have skin contact with a partner and to feel the warmth of his (or her) body remains an essential component of many kinds of love relationships.” (p. 15).
One of the exercises we do in class is to reflect on the ways that our parents or other caregivers touched us. Were those touches:
- loving (ie. having your hair stroked or back rubbed)
- playful (ie. wrestling, tickling, etc)
- comforting (ie. being hugged after an injury, snuggling on the couch)
Some women cannot remember their mothers or fathers simply touching them in a way that said “I care about you.” If a woman has not experienced that kind of loving touch during her formative years, it is not surprising that she’d find the touch of her partner to be a neutral or negative experience.
For a lot of women, class is the first time they make the connection between the touch they received as children and the touch they give and receive as adults. Once the connection is made, then we can move toward creating new meanings for touch — meanings that make touch a pleasurable and desirable experience.
If you have difficulty touching your partner, or enjoying his/her touch, then I invite you to reflect on the ways in which you were (or were not) touched as a child.
- Were you able to show your love for others through touch?
- Did others demonstrate their love for you through touch?
- What did those early experiences teach you about touch?
- How have those experiences affected your enjoyment of touch as an adult?
If you find that the ability to give and receive touch is an issue in your relationships, I encourage you to address it. Just as studies have shown that infants need touch in order to thrive, adults also need touch to thrive. Some experts say that regular touching is as important to our well-being as good diet and exercise.
So reach out and touch someone tonight! It’s good for you, and for your relationship.
