Bex Talks Sex Starting the Conversation
Let’s talk about touch. Not just about the way a hand feels around your cock, or the way a lover’s lips feel at the base of your neck. Let’s talk about how it feels to be held by someone who cherishes every minute they get to spend with you, the way a crushes hand will linger on your hip after a hug, and how comforting it can be just to hold someone’s hand.
Dr. Gary Chapman lists touch as one of his five love languages, “Physical touch can make or break marital relationships”, he says, but touch is about more than just our relationships. A 2010 study found that infants who receive and additional 20 min of touch per day score higher on developmental assessments; and a 2013 study of 509 adults found that people who are touch deprived are more likely to experience depression, stress, mood and anxiety disorders, and secondary immune disorders, as well as just generally having poorer health than their counterparts who receive regular or semi-regular touch.
For me, consensual, deliberate, affectionate touch is like a skeleton key into my heart (and pants). Sexual touch is great, but the images I find myself playing over and over in my mind for weeks after an encounter are not memories of the way I moaned as fingers pushed pushed into me, or the way their dick felt in my mouth.
I almost never fantasize about real life sex I’ve had, instead I think about running my hands across my partner’s back as I massage the knots out of his muscles, or the way he just flopped his whole body on top of me and hugged me when he saw me laying on my belly on the bed. I remember the way it feels to be enveloped securely in someone’s arms, and the way someone touches you when you know they’ve been aching for the opportunity. I think about the electric touches across the table on a date with someone you’re super into, and the way someone you’ve fucked might not-so-accidentally brush against you in a crowded room.
One Valentine’s Day I went on a first date with someone I met on OkCupid. This boy was one of the most conventionally attractive people I’d met online and we had a lot of fun playing Forbidden Island at a local cafe and talking about music but I was not feeling enthusiastic about seeing him again, and I knew exactly why. He hadn’t touched me, not once all night, he had hardly even flirted with me.
I stood closer to him as we left the cafe, letting our arms brush as we walked along the park, and we exchanged an awkward hug when we reached my bus stop that all but confirmed my disinterest. I tried to give it another shot, we tentatively planned another date, but I just never got it together to make it happen, I didn’t feel pulled to him in the way I can to others, my skin didn’t crave his.
I lied and told him the bus I was getting on would take me home and was not surprised when he didn’t offer to join me. Instead I was traveling to meet a group of other friends with no V-Day plans, and another boy who I had a growing crush on. He was cute and all, but we had met in a situation that was not exactly conducive to flirting, so I left it alone. That is, until he started hugging me hello and goodbye each time he saw me, and suddenly it was all about the way his arms wrapped around me like he had been looking forward to it all day, the way his fingers lingered on my hips, and the way he’d keep holding me close throughout our whole conversation.
Now for the elephant in the room, I’m in a long distance relationship. I’m a touch driven human in a relationship with someone I see most often through a screen, and that’s… hard. Yet somehow, I feel less touch starved in this relationship than I did in my last one. Sure, part of that comes with the quality of the relationship, our communication skills, and the fact that our distance is physical and unavoidable, whereas my ex and I were in the same house. Plus, my sexuality is more mental than physical, so our sex life is pretty rad too, even if it primarily exists through screens. I think the saving grace for us though, is the fact that I’m not relying on him for all of my touch.
Men and masculine folk are not socialized to share intimate touch with people other than their partner. They don’t cuddle with each other while watching The Game, and if they embrace each other it’s only ever in a One Armed Bro Hug™. One of the things that scared me most about my transition was the thought of loosing that casual touch that people were comfortable giving me when they perceived me as a woman. Luckily, my friends are badass, and not a damn thing changed, even the straight men that I’m friends with will still joyously wrap their arms tight around me every time they see me. Somehow my transness acts as a loophole that shouldn’t need to exist in the first place.
Men, masculine folks, and people of all genders deserve access to touch in their lives, and that touch shouldn’t have to come from an intimate partner. Cuddle with your friends, hug your pets, hire a pro (for massage, erotic massage, or even just cuddles!) – it’s not weak, strange, or feminine to crave more touch in your life, and getting it might just make you a happier and healthier person.
What are your favorite types of non-sexual touch?