The New Male Sexuality (40 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Touching

I wasn’t touched much as a child, even by my mother. My father only touched when he spanked. The result is that I don’t touch my wife or kids much. It upsets her, and I’m sure it’s not good for the kids. I know touching is good; I like it when they touch me. But it isn’t easy. I have to keep reminding myself to touch and hug them.—
Man, 41

We still have sex sometimes, even though it’s difficult because of my medical problems and hers. But touching is the main physical thing we do, touching of all sorts, and it means a lot. It makes us feel close and keeps the loving feelings alive.—
Man, 41

Although the word sex usually conjures up images of genital-to-genital contact, our hands and lips are usually more active in sex than our penises. Hand-to-skin (as well as lip-to-skin) contact usually precedes more explicitly sexual activity. If that touching does not go well, there may not be any further activity. Many women report that if they don’t like how a man touches and kisses, they figure they won’t like sex with him either and therefore terminate the proceedings then and there. And even during explicitly sexual acts, the hands are usually busy. Touching is crucial if you want to be a good lover. But touching is also important in other ways as well.

Unfortunately, our culture is ambivalent about both sex and touching. Since touching is an integral part of sex, and since we’re confused and ambivalent about both activities, it makes sense that we would tend to confuse them. We have sexualized touching to the point where all but the most superficial types of touch (handshakes, pats on the back) are thought to be sexual invitations.

Touching is a vital human need, from infancy through old age. Studies of a wide variety of animals, including humans, have demonstrated that
without touching, the animals tend to die in infancy or grow up to be quite peculiar in all respects—and this goes for humans as well.

Although it seems that America has become a more touching society in the last thirty years, it still has a long way to go. And before the last thirty years, there wasn’t much touching at all. I’ve been amazed at how many clients can barely recall even a few instances of physical affection between their parents. As usual, the exceptions prove the point. I have a friend whose parents have always been affectionate. They often hold hands, hug, and touch each other. When other people see this, or hear my friend’s report about it, they are amazed. Common reactions are: “They must really be in love,” “God, I never saw my parents hug at all,” and “I didn’t even know if my mom and dad liked each other.”

If the child does see his parents touching, it is often followed by embarrassment or by their going off to the bedroom, telling him they don’t want to be disturbed. And the media, from which he learns so much, reinforce the message. People hug, then kiss, then they have sex. Slowly but surely, the child acquires the societal understanding about touching: It is sexual.

Boys fare worse in this drama than girls. Females of all ages get more touching than males. Mothers and fathers know the masculine model and fear that too much “mothering” may make sissies of their sons. And even mothers, who are much more in tune with the need for touch than fathers, may fear that their sons may interpret touching as sexual and that this may lead to psychological difficulties. So the boy is weaned early from such “childish” or feminine practices.

Fathers, having lived in a culture that is terrified of affectionate physical contact between males, don’t touch their sons much after infancy. Since it is the father the boy will emulate, a powerful lesson is transmitted by this lack of touching. The boy also does not see other males touching.

Boys learn that physical contact is acceptable only in sports, in roughhousing, and in sex. There are no taboos on touching if you are playing football, wrestling, boxing, or in some other way being rough. One cause, as well as result, of this notion can be seen in the way fathers handle their sons. They often seem uncomfortable just holding or cuddling their boys, being more at ease when throwing them around or engaging in mock wrestling bouts. Since roughness is what we learned, it’s no surprise that we often show affection by being rough, by wrestling with our lovers and playfully punching our friends. And it’s no surprise that we’re often rough in sex, less gentle than our partners would like.

The equating of touch and sex also gets in the way of physical contact between both same-sex and othersex friends. Men who have been friends
for twenty years are often afraid to touch one another because that might suggest sexual interest to someone. And to touch a woman friend might be construed as sexual by her, by you, and by God knows who else. The link between sex and physical affection even works to keep lovers from touching each other. Since touching is seen not so much as a thing in itself but as the first step toward intercourse, many people won’t touch unless they feel ready and willing to “go all the way.”

The taboo on touching except as a part of sex confuses us about what we want and how to get it. Ashley Montagu, author of the classic study
Touching
, says that “it is highly probable that … the frenetic preoccupation with sex that characterizes Western culture is in many cases not the expression of a sexual interest at all, but rather a search for the satisfaction of the need for contact.”

Because girls are allowed much more freedom to express and explore their desire for physical contact, they learn to differentiate their needs for support, comfort, validation, and connection from the need for sex. In fact, given the way girls are brought up, sex is the one need they have trouble noticing and expressing. Boys, of course, go in the other direction. Wanting sex is legitimate, even encouraged, while wanting to be held or loved is unacceptable.

These needs do not disappear in boys and men. They simply go underground and get reorganized and relabeled. Wanting a hug or to feel close to another sounds too feminine, but wanting sex is the epitome of masculinity, and in sex you can get some of these other things as well. After years of practice, the man just never feels a need for closeness or comfort or support. All he wants is—sex. Whenever he feels something that might be called warm or close or loving, he reads it as indicating a desire for—sex.

While this may seem like a brilliant feat of engineering, the result too often for too many men has been a confusion about what they want and therefore an inability to meet many of their needs. One place where this is especially evident is in relations among men. Many men are realizing that they want something from other men: closeness, understanding, support, and so on. But as soon as they start getting any of these things, they often pull back in fear and sometimes come into therapy to discuss their “latent homosexual feelings.” This is especially true of men who have engaged in some physical contact with other men and found it pleasurable. Because of the link between sex and touching in their thinking, they decide that what they really want from other men is sex, and because that is unacceptable to them, they should stay away from any physical contact with men.
What they fail to see is that touching need not be sexual, any more than feelings of love or closeness or caring need be sexual. One can hug or cuddle a man, woman, or child, or even an animal, for that matter, and not have sex.

But can’t touching lead to sexual feelings and erections? Of course it can, but that in itself doesn’t mean a lot, nor does it imply a necessary course of action. Erections can be caused by lots of things that do not necessarily indicate a desire for sex. Your erection need not run your life. For example, John frequently rode on buses as a teenager. The vibrations of the bus, sometimes combined with adolescent sex fantasies, often produced arousal and erection. Despite the sexy feelings and the erection, John somehow managed to contain himself and never became a bus-fucker!

Even if your feelings about someone are clearly sexual, you don’t have to act on them. It is possible for all of us to be turned on by many different people and things. I’ve talked to men who became aroused and erect while stroking a child or pet, and to some who were aroused while listening to music or watching a sunset. And neither they nor you have to do anything about such events except appreciate and enjoy the good feelings.

It is becoming clear that all of us, men and women, need different things from different people. Men need men as well as women, and many feel incomplete unless they can also relate to people much older as well as those much younger than themselves. It seems a great tragedy if we separate ourselves from those we want to be with because of our fears about what being close and touching imply. They need indicate nothing more than what they obviously are, and I don’t mean sex.

Men need physical affection as much as women do, but many men don’t get as much as they need. This is partly the result of not knowing when they want touch and partly of not knowing how to get touched even when they know they want it.

Ask yourself if you’re getting as much touching—holding, hugging, kissing, cuddling, massaging—as you’d like. Ask your partner the same question. If either of you wants more, you have some work to do.

Touch can do all sorts of things. It’s one of the best sources of comfort known to human beings. When you’re feeling defeated or crushed, when something terrible has happened, being held or getting a hug won’t necessarily solve the problem, but it sure can make you feel better. Some men have trouble accepting a comforting touch or hug, perhaps because it reminds them of when they were small and comforted this way by their mothers. Some men even push women away when the women try to hug
or hold them. If you are in this category, you might want to consider accepting a hug next time it is offered. It really can make a difference—it can make you feel you have the other person’s support, understanding, and love. Touching can also be a great facilitator of conversation. When someone is talking about something difficult for them, a brief touch on the hand or arm can help them continue.

Touching between parent and child is extremely important. Children need to be touched and hugged, and so do parents. You might want to ask yourself if you’re touching your children, whatever their ages, as much as you want and as much as they want. If you think more would be better, why not gradually increase the amount?

THE SECRET OF PLEASURABLE TOUCH (AND SEX AS WELL)

Much of the touching we do, even with lovers, is perfunctory and meaningless. A man kisses his wife as he leaves for work, for example, but his mind is elsewhere and he could just as well be kissing the lamp. Often in sex there’s a similar situation. The man is hugging his partner or kissing her, but his mind is on what he hopes will come next, not on what he’s doing now.

The only secret to pleasurable touching and sex is to be fully present, to be alive in the moment
, even if the moment lasts only a few seconds. The difference is immediately noticeable. When you’re really present, the touch means something, no matter how brief it may be. When you’re not present … well, you’re just not present. You can’t experience something if you’re not there when it happens.

Being present takes no more time than being absent. But to be fair, I need to say that it will take a bit of effort to change how you touch, at least for the first few weeks. If you want, just decide that tomorrow when you kiss your partner good morning or goodbye or whatever, you will focus on what you’re doing for the few seconds it takes. Let go of your concerns about work or whatever else may be on your mind by focusing on the feel of your lips on hers or on how your bodies fit together in the hug. Focus on your body, on the sensations and feelings evoked by the touch. And do this with the ideas and exercise offered in the rest of the chapter. In the underground science-fiction classic of some years ago,
Stranger in a Strange Land
, the heroine is asked what she means about Michael’s being such a great kisser. Her answer says it all: “Mike doesn’t have any technique … but when
Mike kisses you he isn’t doing
anything
else. You’re his whole universe … and the moment is eternal because he doesn’t have any plans and isn’t going anywhere. Just kissing you. It’s overwhelming.”