I always liked touch even if I didn't realize it consciously. Thinking back on it, from early on I found touch soothing, and I associated touch with safety. I also found it exciting, intriguing, and I was enchanted by it. I remember a warm summer evening; I was playing a computer game with a close friend, we were maybe eight or nine years old. We were wearing shorts, our legs touched, skin on skin, and not just momentarily. I liked the feeling: the closeness, the warmth, the grazing of the little hairs on my skin; I also felt a little sheepish and maybe embarrassed about it, wondering if he didn't notice — I pretended I didn't, so the moment could last. We just carried on, lost in the glow of the computer screen, like nothing happened, our shins touching. It gave me a kind of a thrill of a very welcome sensation; like satisfying a need I didn't know I had. Back then, instead of going "Wow, I enjoy touch, can we do more of it?" this experience prompted me to feel ashamed and made me wonder whether I'm gay (spoiler alert: I'm not). It's interesting how such situations can be confusing for a little boy, and perhaps for many adults reading this. And that's because we don't talk about touch, nor do we do it. Let's think about it for a second. When was the last time you:
Talked with someone about touch and the experience of it?
Experienced the comfort of a reassuring hug?
Felt the joy of holding someone's hand?
Have you ever done any of these outside of your romantic relationship? How about with the person of the same gender? Touch is a taboo, and in our touch-starved culture, it's easy to forget about touch, and about how essential it is to our wellbeing.
It's a shame, really, because touch is not only a bonding mechanism but a universal human need and has profound consequences for our well-being. It goes even beyond humans: all mammals evolved a capacity to co-regulate each other. When we are around other mammals we feel safe with, not necessarily humans, we get calmer. You might have noticed how petting a dog or a cat takes the tension away, and makes your breath deepen, and so does being with a close friend. That's because co-regulation takes us away from the fight-or-flight or freeze state and puts us in the rest-and-digest response of the nervous system. And non-sexual touch is one of the most effective ways of co-regulation: it releases oxytocin, which has all kinds of stress-reducing and mental-health-promoting effects. One of the starkest examples of how important touch is is this: human babies that are not touched, die. Babies are not able to regulate their own emotions and rely on others to co-regulate, and a big part of it is through touch. In the absence of touch, babies experience chronic stress, their immune systems fail, they stop growing, and they may develop various mental health issues. In adults, the lack of touch is associated with social isolation, and some speculate that the loneliness epidemic that we have, especially among the older population, reduces life expectancy quite a bit.
Academically, I've been aware how important touch is. I also knew for a long time that touch is my main love language — and not just with my romantic partners. I love holding hands, cuddling, caressing, petting, embracing, hugging, giving back rubs, you name it. I also enjoy accidental forms of touch: you know, when you walk with someone and occasionally your arms touch, or when you sit next to someone and your shoulders lightly press together. But I had no idea how powerful touch can be for my wellbeing. That's because I've never really received much of it. And no wonder, who does?
It wasn't until my travels in Peru (a bit more about that here) that I started going to Salsa classes, and I quickly noticed I tend to feel better for a few days after each class. Initially, I connected it to erotic energy that tends to wake up in these classes: dancing with and touching women can have that effect. I thought it was about being physically close, intimate, aroused; that maybe it's about a sense of validation I'm getting from the opposite sex that way. Back in London, I started going to Forro classes (a Brazilian dance a bit similar to Salsa, but with a closer embrace) to get some of that energy. Since Forro is not quite as popular as salsa, the groups were smaller and sometimes not very well balanced gender-wise: I found myself dancing with men. Once or twice I even decided to follow instead of lead, which meant dancing almost exclusively with men. That meant that there was no erotic tension, no excitement about what might happen. Instead, there was more space to focus: on movement and yes, on touch. To my surprise, I found that I enjoyed these sessions just as much, if not more, than regular sessions where I danced with women. Whoa, that's wild, I thought. How could that be? I cannot be sure, but as with most of these things, the answer lies in childhood. My dad was never good with touch, and when I was about five, he started working in another city and I saw him maybe two days a month, essentially growing up without a father. I had never known male touch, and, as I realized, I was starved of it.
There's something else I learned about touch through dance. Touch is a means of communication that is much more ancient than language; it's about listening and signaling; exchanging messages on a somatic level. Can I feel what she wants to do? Does she respond to increased pressure pulling her to the left? Can I feel how tense she is? That she had a bad day? Or a good one? Touch, unlike words, doesn't lie; it's much more authentic: it broadcasts the core of our being. Similarly to touch, movement is also a form of communication, and they're both better suited to expressing what happens in our bodies than language is. They can unveil things that we're not even aware of. That's why through touch and movement you can establish an emotional understanding that is close to impossible to reach via words alone; you can also understand yourself better. Incidentally, I think that that's part of the reason why sex, which is also a form of touch and movement, is so important in romantic relationships: because it fosters communication on deep emotional and somatic levels. And that's perhaps why decreased sexual satisfaction is like the canary in the coal mine: it signals an emotional disconnect.
The more touch I have, through dancing and otherwise, the happier I am. With more touch, I tend to feel safer, more relaxed, and better grounded; I start feeling that I belong. I wish we were more touch-positive as a society. In the absence of that, we can take steps to have more touch in our lives. Dancing is a good place to start looking for it, and if you're more adventurous, there are some touch-positive communities that meet up to cuddle. I've been to a couple of these meetups so far, and I must say that the effects are incredible. After two hours in a structured cuddle-puddle, I'm so high on oxytocin that I can barely move. At the end, I tend to need 5-10 minutes of alone time, being completely melted on the ground, before my brain starts coming back up online and I can stand up and go about my day. That is how relaxing non-sexual touch and closeness with other people can be. I cannot afford to not have that in my life. Can you?
Funny enough, this morning I overheard a conversation in a sauna, where a guy was complaining that some other guy was too close to him in a previous session; that he kept getting closer and closer, kept invading his personal space. Yeah, that's important. Touch is nice, can be very pleasant, and has lots of benefits, but only if you feel safe with the other person, and if you're ok with it.
Love this honest reflection on touch, thanks for writing it. I have also thought throughly on the role of touch in my life and have worked hard to disentangle touch from sex. they are not the same even though society focuses on one type of touch. Platonic touch is great!