Touch

I love touch. I love to touch and be touched..actually it’s always simultaneous with people isn’t it…maybe better to say, “I love to be in touch”…but touch kind of dissolves personal boundaries so maybe is is more accurate to just say “I love touch.”

Most of my interests and work are about getting into and being in contact. NVC, aikido, dance, my corporate team building – they’re all about contact. Contact and touch are also mental in my world – someone can hug you or look at you and not “be there.” So contact and touch are attentional qualities as well as physical.

Without touch we get physically sick – remember the Romanian orphans – some were adequately fed but didn’t develop mentally and physically because they weren’t touched – poor little critters 🙁

Western (and much of Asian) culture is touch sick – what I mean by this is that touch has become socially unacceptable outside of certain limited domains. Not so Brazil where I loved living and had some serious touch withdrawal when I returned home. If Brazil has an issue it’s lack of consent with touch, which is the balancing factor.

I remember how hard it was to touch strangers when I first started aikido, and how much people still freak out if I reach out to touch them with a genuine from the heart, “How are you?” each day. Ahhhhhh, ruunnnnn home to the the TV…that’s safe!!!!

Bcauase touch of the sick limitations on touch it has become sexualised to the point where when working with children I was not allowed by my employer to hug an upset child lest it be considered molestation. Now that is perverted.

I have recently read “The Joy of Touch” by Russ Rueger, an oldish book that confirms that I am not alobe in my occasional tactile despair and hope for a more touch feely (see the derogatory connotations) world. I will be starting Holistics and play classes in Brighton soon that will involve a lot of platonic touch. We’ll see if Britain has really moved on from the Victorians I guess…

Get touching!