This is the second in our five-part series of posts exploring the languages of love and our recommended resources and gifts for connecting more intimately with your partner based on which ones are strongest for them. You can also check out our post about gift-lovers.
“You touched me like there was more to me than skin.”
This quote from poet Emma Bleker stresses the importance of touch. Today on the Blooms blog, we’re continuing our Love Languages series with a exploration on pleasurable touch.
As a Relationship and Sexuality Therapist and Lotus Blooms Sex Educator, I’ve always found that touch has fallen into this weird no-man’s land. In my training under Marriage and Family Therapy, the importance and pleasure of touch was a footnote, a glossed-over thought along the lines of “some people hug when they love each other.” On the other end of the spectrum, I have folks coming into the store that are very into touch — as long as it’s sexual and focused on the genitals. These extremes baffle me. Your skin is the biggest organ of your body, yet it is only coupled with sex which then becomes either the only goal or the behavior-which-must-not-be-named. Let’s take a cleanser and some delicious sugar scrub to our assumptions of touch!
You can get pleasure from touch and it doesn’t have to be sexual.
Our understanding of how touch receptors work is continuously evolving. What we do know is that you have different receptors for different sensations and the distribution of these receptors is not uniform. This is why light scratches feels good in some places while a deep kneading sensation feels better in others. The response to type and location of touch is also deeply influenced by context; this is where touch becomes a love language. For some people, touch means the world to them by means of connection and communication. Partners who speak the language of touch look for any excuse to physically connect with us.
So what’s the best thing to get someone who speaks touch as a language? Here are our suggestions:
Spend time obsessing over touch. In Sex Therapy, we call it sensate focus. It is an exercise that takes place over many weeks and deliberately removes sexual intercourse from the equation. (To clarify, this was a practice designed for relationships struggling with low arousal and desire. If that’s not an issue for you, a celibacy contract is not required.) Even though it’s therapeutic, we’re suggesting it as a fun, exploratory alternative to your normal patterns, one that offers so much that’s crucial for great touch.
The point of sensate focus is to spend specific time focusing on the sensations given and received to every part of the body. For more specific instruction, there are many options. First, check out The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability by Miriam Kaufman, M.D. I love this book, even for those who don’t have a disability, because it includes exploration of fabrics, light, and other sensations in addition to touch as part of their sensate focus instructions. Second, there are some resources online, which can be hit or miss (our top choice is this PDF from Counselling Matters). Third, you an attend one of our sensuality-based classes, such as our popular workshop Sensual Massage Techniques with guest educator Ché Monique, our go-to local massage therapist extraordinaire. Many of our other in-store workshops include sections on genital and non-genital touch as well.
Highlight touch by resisting touch. It sounds so counterintuitive, but stay with me. Frequently, when our customers talk about touch and sensations, there is this underlying theme of reciprocity: If I ask my partner to do this, than I have to do the same for them. Don’t get me wrong, finding a balance of give and take in sex is crucial and also sometimes complicated. But when it comes to touch, we’re urging you to really find those sweet spots for your body as well as your partner’s, which may not be the same at all. Restraints are my favorite tool for these discoveries. When restrained, you have no option but to focus on the touch you are feeling. Further, as the restrainer, you can take all the time to delight in your captive’s body, while they have the chance to fully receive sensations and feel their body’s responses to your touch.
If we’ve struck an enticing nerve, we recommend our cuffs, which come in a variety of textures and sensations (our favorite is the Venom Padded Leather Cuffs). If restraints raise anxiety about being helpless, we suggest our BoundAids Soft Cuffs because you can wiggle out of them if you release the tension — no keys required. Then, of course, there is my favorite restraint AND sensation: rope! (You can catch my next Intro to Rope Bondage workshop on Sunday, March 4th– and watch our calendar for my other rope classes as well.)
Try different positions. One of the biggest challenges to touch once you’ve found all those sweet spots is how to access them during sex! Positional guides like Sex Positions for Every Body by Dr. Jill McDevitt (see also our book review) are complete with pictures and tips for finding what works. Try to discover the angles which make your legs the most stable, freeing up hands to wander. For example, lying down or standing up plants you more firmly than kneeling on a bed. We also love the Liberator collection because the cushions support your bodies so your hands and arms are free for — you guessed it — touch!
I hope that these tips (there’s a joke in there about fingertips but I guess I’ll let that slide…) helped you explore that person who communicates love through touch. Does your partner communicate love in other ways? Stay tuned! We discussed receiving gifts last week and we have 3 more love languages to go from here!
