CHAPTER 03

The Magic of Touch

Touch can be life-giving. Early tests conducted on monkeys showed that lack of touch on infant monkeys resulted in depression, illness and premature death.An impressive study on babies from ten weeks of age to six months, found that the offspring of mothers who were taught to stroke their babies had dramatically fewer colds and sniffles, and less vomiting and diarrhoea than those whose mothers didn't stroke them. Other research found that women who were neurotic or depressed recovered much more quickly according to the number of times they were hugged, and the duration of those hugs.  child-rearing and violence, found that societies in which children were rarely touched affectionately, had the highest rates of adult violence. Children brought up with affectionate carers usually ended up growing into better, healthier and happier adults. Sex offenders and child molesters both tended to have pasts characterised by rejection, violence, a lack of cuddles as children, and childhoods, often, spent in remote institutions. Many non-touching cultures love cats and dogs as they allow them to experience touch via stroking and patting their pets. Pet-patting therapy has proved to be a valuable way of helping people overcome depression and other mental problems.

Germaine Greer said,
"'Even crushed against his brother in the Tube the average Englishman pretends desperately that he is alone. '"

 Women Are Touchy-Feely:

The skin is the largest organ in the body  From birth, girls are dramatically more sensitive to touch and, as an adult, a woman's skin is at least ten times more sensitive to touch and pressure than a man's
Oxytocin is the hormone that stimulates the urge to be touched and fires up our touch receptors. It's no wonder that women, with receptors that are ten times more sensitive than men's, attach so much importance to cuddling their men, children and friends
Women love 'staying in touch' and dislike those who 'get under your skin'. They talk about 'feelings', giving someone 'the personal touch', being 'touchy' and annoying people by 'rubbing them up the wrong way'.

"To win points with women, use lots of appropriate touching but avoid groping. To raise mentally healthy children, cuddle them a lot. "

"A woman is four to six times more likely to touch another woman in a social con- versation than a man would another man. "

Why Men Are Called 'Insensitive':
It's not so much that women have super senses - it's more that men's senses have been dulled, comparatively speaking. In a woman's world of higher perceptiveness, she expects a man to read her verbal, vocal and body language signals and to anticipate her needs, just as another woman would do. For the evolutionary reasons discussed, this simply is not the case. A woman quietly assumes that a man will know what she wants or needs and, when he doesn't pick up on her cues, she accuses him of being, 'Insensitive - wouldn't have a clue!' Men everywhere bleat, 'Am I supposed to be a mindreader?' Research proves that men are poor mindreaders. But the good news is that most can be trained to improve their awareness of non-verbal and vocal messages.