Language is sometimes not sufficient to convey meaning. Let us use “love” for our illustration. Love may be felt for your spouse, your baby, your work, your morning tea, your favorite shotgun, your heavenly father, or your country.
Obviously loving your daughter is quite a different feeling from loving your football team. Love for your husband has little to do with love for your new hair style. We love all kinds of things and people, but the emotion is not the same. Love without context does not have a unique meaning.
It’s the same with “touch”. Your laptop has a touchpad. This kind of touch is mechanical without any emotional component. You can touch someone physically. That might be a friendly slap on the back, an aggressive push, or a loving stroke.
A bodyworker can work on you with a clinical touch. Then there are those therapists whose touch makes you feel like you are in heaven. Certain events in our life can touch us deeply.
One word with more than one meaning. Touching has no meaning outside of a specific context – it may be a loving touch or an aggressive touch, a mechanical touch or a sensual touch, a skilled touch or perhaps a rough touch. What determines the meaning of a touch is our intention. Our intentions are generally clear when we touch an object. But that clarity is often not there once we touch people.
When you touch a cat or a dog, they just roll over and enjoy it. It is not a problem for them if you are a man or a woman. They just enjoy it without any second thoughts. This also holds true for infants. They simply enjoy being touched or hugged or stroked. And they also love touching one another quite naturally.
Some years ago a very interesting study was conducted with new born babies. One group of babies was held and touched all the time, and the second group was deprived of all touch. The study had to be aborted because the vital symptoms of the group of babies who were not touched began to deteriorate and the researchers were afraid that they might actually die.
So there is no question that babies and children love to be touched and need to be touched. However at some point things change and suddenly a loving touch is not considered enjoyable anymore, but rather becomes embarrassing and awkward. Why and when do the rules change for touching? It is ‘educated’ out of them, and the adults stamp their behavior on their children.
In the realm of adults we have to contend with issues like religious beliefs, cultural taboos, insecurity and fear, and mental projections. If a man hugs another man, it could be a friendly back-slapping affair. But it can also make someone feel uncomfortable if he associates hugs between men with homosexuality.
Hugs between men and women can be a pleasant interaction or an inappropriate sexual advance. So when we hug people, we are entering the world of the mind. Cultures have their own particular rules regarding touch. It is normal for Arab men to exchange kisses on the cheek as a greeting, but European or American men would be shocked if another man tried to kiss them. In one country hugging is normal, in another it is totally inappropriate.
So what is the conclusion of all those ‘touch complications’? Naturally humans love to be touched, but often they shy away from the experience because of cultural or religious rules, abuse by mal-intentioned people, insecurity, or even legal issues. This is where massage therapy is the one recourse where touching becomes acceptable and enjoyable and where none of the above mentioned limitations apply.