As the article states at the end, “those who have had little physical contact over the years might become hypersensitive to such touch, so that they found it physically uncomfortable”.  What a depressing thought! However speaking from personal experience I can relate very directly with this.  Please do not read my personal experience with any sort of judgment or pity.  I am simply relating the experience that I had as it is a first hand account and the effect that it had on me from there on. 

In what I call my previous life with my ex, I was not shown any sort of physical contact, especially in the beginning.  There was touching during sex and well, that was it.  No hand holding, hugging, kissing or anything outside of the bedroom.  Now that is not to say that I wasn’t constantly trying to seek some sort of touch, but every time I did I was pushed away.  This built into our relationship a very sick sort of result, in which the only thing I knew was that when I went in for a hug I was rewarded with a shove and thus I shoved back.  Let me tell you that this developed into us having shoving or hitting matches in public.  And there was laughter of all things… and bruises. Many of my readers have actually witnessed this first hand, this strange behavior.

Once we moved in together I tried to demand things change and every time there was violence that we switched it to kissing or cuddling, but that is a very slow process when there are years of this negative re-enforcement to contact.  We tried therapy for a number of issues, and I will admit that many were mine, but overall the foundation was of teenagers and not compatible adults.  This is incredibly hard to write, but the last straw for me was when I tried to kiss his tummy and I was thrown off the bed.  I landed so hard that I was winded and had a massive bump on my head from it hitting the dresser on the way to the ground.  I never slept with him again and he move out a few weeks later.  

So in summation I learned first hand the anti-seduction of touch.  Breaking down that wall and hugging my friends and having physical contact was actually a stretch for me for many years.  My emotions were closed right off and it wasn’t until recently that I even put two and two together.  But I have learned the hard way just how important human contact is.  The euphoric effect of skin to skin contact, and the amazing results this can have on your health and happiness.   When I started writing this blog earlier this week I had no idea the journey it would take me on, but as in this case sometimes you have to go to a darker place to find the real joys in new discoveries.  I will be writing part II shortly which will not be as dark and soul searching, thanks for reading.