TOUCH
HEALTHY TOUCH HEALS!
TOUCH is like water for all relationships. Without water we would die. Likewise, touch is the most important of the five senses, and the most neglected. We can live without sight, sound, taste, or smell. But we cannot survive without touch as infants and children, and we cannot thrive without touch as adolescents and adults. Many of us are unaware that we need to be touched many times a day. Research shows that healthy touch increases our overall sense of well-being, reduces stress, promotes happiness, improves health, increases work productivity, and creates a brighter future.
The TOUCH section in Healing Humanity reveals the truth about our touch-deprived, sex-obsessed, emotionally hungry lives, and offers life-changing skills and practical exercises for lasting change.
We are born with skin hunger as infants. Those who did not securely attach or connect to their parents or primary caregivers in early infancy and/or childhood, require more touch as adolescents and adults.
Most people seek sex to fulfill this primal need for bonding, belonging, and attachment. The problem is that sex never fulfills this basic need, because it is the need of a child, not an adolescent or adult. Therefore sex obstructs the very thing that we are looking for—to belong, to bond, to be loved for who we are, not for what we do or how we look. Only healthy touch produces a sense of calmness, connection, and wellbeing.
Because there is great confusion between sex, love, and intimacy, we have been denied the natural benefits of healthy touch in our daily lives. The topic of touch is so “touchy,” even with our own children. The Puritanical heritage of the USA taught us to equate touching with sex. This has created generations of detached, oversexed teens and adults. Today, many people are imprisoned in their skin because of touch deprivation or inappropriate touch in infancy and early childhood. Because of cultural taboos, we are then prevented from fulfilling these unmet love needs in healthy, non-sexual relationships, and therefore act out sexually to fulfill these early bonding needs for love.
As Queen guitarist Brian May said in the movie Bohemian Rhapsody,
“Americans are puritans in public and perverts in private!”
We are massively touch deprived, and yet, there are also massive inhibitions for non-sexual touch among family and friends. Yet, ironically, many have sex just to be touched. If our primal love needs went unmet in early childhood, we may spend the rest of our lives looking for love in unhealthy relationships or behaviors—porn, erotica, and hooking up for sex.
Men think it is normal to view women’s bodies in a sexual manner, lusting after their breasts, butts, and other body parts. There is nothing normal about this. Of course, appreciating beauty is wonderful, while sexualizing is demeaning. Beauty or handsomeness is to be appreciated. But when we sexualize another person, we are objectifying him or her, turning them into sex objects. If we bonded successfully with our parents, grandparents, and other relatives, and thus internalized their love, then we would have no need to objectify another human being. That would constitute disrespect for our loved ones.
Touch deprived women may read romance novels, hook up with many partners, and/or use erotica and masturbate. Sexualizing men (or women) represents a false attempt to fulfill childhood needs for love and bonding. Women want and need to be cherished by a man. They need to internalize daddy’s love, grandfather’s love, uncle’s love, and brother’s love. If not, they shall continue to seek acceptance by offering their bodies to men.
Touch deprived men hunger after breasts, butts, and vaginas. They seek their mother’s love and acceptance by sexualizing women. Other men may hunger after men’s bodies and penises. They are simply seeking their father’s and/or same-sex peer’s love and acceptance. If only sex healed those needs for real love. However, it always interferes with the fulfillment of one’s true desire, because again, it is the desire of a child, not an adult.
Most men, as boys, were taught not to feel, or else they were teased, mocked and called names on the playground of life. Then as teenagers and adults, they become dickheads. You heard me right, many men are dickheads! They have sex on the brain much of the time, because they are shut down between their genitals and their brains, where we experience our emotions and feelings (in the region of our stomach, solar plexus, and heart). This emotional disconnection is neither normal, nor natural. We need to re-educate men to feel, and touch is a simple vehicle to achieve this goal. Real men feel!
The United States has 5% of the world’s population, yet consumes 80% of the global opioid supply! We are numbing ourselves through medication, porn, erotica, romance novels, compulsive masturbation, and affairs largely due to touch deprivation. It is epidemic and pandemic. The #TimesUp and #MeToo movements have blown the lid off the culture of sexual power, as Hollywood moguls, political giants, business tycoons, and religious leaders are being outed daily for sexually abusing and misusing men, women, adolescents, and children.
Standing up against abuse and harassment is a great place to start, but who is promoting the next step? How can we stop this epidemic of sexual misconduct? These depraved and abusive acts are centuries-old, and like all unhealthy behaviors, driven by unhealed wounds and unmet needs. Healing those wounds and meeting those needs through the healing power of healthy touch is the ultimate solution.
The TOUCH section offers simple solutions for separating Love, Sex, and Intimacy—which have become all “meshed up” in our society and culture—through the power of healthy touch. Here you will find:
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Mind-blowing statistics about the billion-dollar porn industry; research on the impact of porn on our brains, behaviors, relationships and attitudes toward sex and intimacy. The Romance Novel and Erotica industry outsells inspirational books, science-fiction, mystery or literary novels, and 84% of its readers are women.
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The Science of Touch—facts about its effect upon our physiology and psychology, and the emotional and physiological impact of touch deprivation.
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How to resolve compulsive masturbation and unwanted sexual behaviors; understanding the meanings and messages of our sexual fantasies; addressing infidelity and recreating intimacy.
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Exercises include: healthy touch for married couples; the Art of Healthy Hugging; how to help your man get back “in touch” with himself and his heart; healing from abuse or neglect in the safe arms of a loving mentor; healthy touch for families and children; healthy touch at work, places of worship, and in the community.
I can see it now. Hearts can be healed, and the flames of hatred extinguished through healthy touch. No more terrorism. No more powerful men or women falling so far from grace. No more employees being subject to sexual harassment. No more students being bullied. Teaching healthy touch is the antidote to sexual misconduct. Healthy touch can start a process of reconciliation that can end the wars, heal the world, and recreate a caring global family.
