Gimme skin

SKIN is our greatest superficial organ and it needs consensual touch and comfort a little bit like the leaves on the tree need SUNSHINE.  A heartfelt hug, a massage, a good back rub, a dance or a long embrace, some tickles, strokes on the forehead, to hold hands, to sit back to back, a “skin bath” in bed with a loved one… An intimacy, which doesn’t have to be sexual – in fact the “hunger for skin”, is not primarily sexual, although sex is a frequently chosen way to satiate a need for contact.

And so SKIN is a place where we meet, it holds the sense of TOGETHERNESS, it is solid ground for relationships. It is an interface between the inner and outer worlds, SKIN contains us, mediates us, supports our PSYCHE. So we don’t crumble !

It is not just about healing this or that condition through touch (although touch does help heal, notably depression): To touch and be touched is to be HUMAN.  No-touch is torture (and solitary confinement is to be abolished, do read Chelsea’s statement).

The article shared below proposes to reflect about the vital sense of touch and the detrimental effects of a lack of thereof on our bodies and minds,  a “condition” psychologists call “skin hunger”.

>> > The life of the skin-hungry : Can you go crazy from lack of touch ?