What Are the Effects of Touch Hunger?
Learn more about an invisible issue with very real consequences.
Your skin is your body’s largest organ and is the primary vehicle for one of our most vital senses: touch.
“Which sense would you rather give up, if you had to pick one?”
Would you ever voluntarily give up the sense of touch? Probably not. While losing any of the other four senses would be difficult, our sense of touch is completely vital to our survival.
After all, how could we have evolved if our ancestors didn’t feel discomfort in extreme temperatures, when bitten by a snake, or when attacked by someone unfriendly?
The importance of touch wasn’t limited to our survival and physical evolution: it played a key role in our social evolution, as well. Before language, touch helped us convey intentions, desires, and emotions. That much is still true today. Though contact norms vary between cultures, no one is confused by the intention behind an aggressive shove or a gentle hand on the shoulder.
It’s no surprise that touch is closely linked with our emotions. As babies, frequent displays of affection through touch are crucial to our healthy development. Studies have shown that infants who do not receive adequate touch from caregivers are more likely to grow up to have mental health concerns like anxiety, depression, and attachment disorders, as well as cognitive delays and deficits in attention. In fact, babies who receive no physical touch at all can even wither and die.
The necessity of touch for our wellbeing isn’t something we outgrow. Loneliness is said to be as harmful to you as excessive smoking. Lonely people over the age of 50 are at a higher risk for early death than their socially fulfilled counterparts. We now have data to show an epidemic of “loneliness” around the world, in small part due to the isolation of living virtual lives without human contact, especially without human touch!
You can’t argue with the benefits of touch. A good handshake can break the ice before an interview, prolonged hugs reduce cortisol and increase oxytocin, and of course, sex is one of the most beneficial physical, mental, and emotional experiences you can enjoy.
Many of us suffer from what psychologists call “skin hunger” or “touch hunger.” Unfortunately, so many people are starved for touch because it isn’t always available. It’s amazing how easily a normal day can go by without any human touch at all, especially for those who are single. Thank goodness for pets!
It’s getting easier for us to accidentally miss our daily serving of human contact. We don’t have to consult with the people around us for interaction when our entire social network fits in the palm of our hands. Our in-person social skills go underused, stunting our ability to connect. And the less effectively we communicate verbally, the harder it is to appropriately express ourselves through touch.
Luckily, we’re solution-oriented here at Sex Coach U. If you want to help your touch-starved clients, there’s plenty you can do. Here are some exercises to get you started.
Touch evaluation: How comfortable is your client with different kinds of touch?
- Create a list of different kinds of contact. This list will depend entirely on your and your clients’ comfort levels. “Entry-level” contact could include holding hands, having hands on the shoulders, hugging, or the friendly taps and nudges that accompany expressive conversation. More “intermediate to advanced” touching could include touching foreheads together, being held, caressing the head, face, or body, or using appropriate physical pressure to express levels of desire. If you prefer, read or re-read Dr. Patti’s spin on the Continuum of Touch for the 5 distinct types of levels of touch that she advises her clients to use: Healing, Affectionate, Sensual, Erotic and Sexual. These are found in The Art of Sex Coaching: Expanding Your Practice.
- You can have your client rate their comfort level with each type of contact. Discuss what went into their rating: previous experience, lack thereof, positive or negative associations, etc.
Touch & relationships: When it comes to different kinds of touch with different people, how do social customs affect your clients? Could it benefit them to examine and question certain beliefs?
- Invite your clients to consider the role that touch plays — or doesn’t play — in their relationships, sexual or otherwise. Ask if they can find any correlation between the overall quality of the relationship and the amount of touch involved.
- Work with them on how they can use this information to repair, improve, and reinforce their relationships.
And, of course, recommend self-touch: Not just masturbation (although we’ll assume you’re already recommending that, too, when appropriate). Guide your clients in how they can show themselves physical affection through hugging, caressing, or kissing themselves. Encourage this and help your client to eliminate shame around it, should they feel any.
You can also take this opportunity to refer out to another helping professional, like a massage therapist or a sexological bodyworker. Check the WASC directory if you need some suggestions.
As sex coaches, we have the opportunity to spread awareness of the need for touch, destigmatize the struggles that come with fulfilling it, and come up with creative ways to help. Among us all, we should have more than enough love to take on world touch hunger.
