See me, feel me, touch me, heal me

Learning how your partner likes to be touched increases the likelihood of having a long-term relationship It also feels good.

In a class I was teaching this week about sexuality and the senses, I was amazed that the students didn’t seem to be able to relate to sex and sensuality. When I asked about what kinds of things cause them to get aroused, I got a lot of blank stares.

As it turns out, sensory experience, especially touch, is essential for satisfying sex. Touching, cuddling, holding and caressing release the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin is known as the cuddle hormone. It’s the hormone women secrete during breast feeding. It’s also released in both men and women during orgasm. Oxytocin imparts a feeling of well-being. It also increases bonding behaviors, not only between mothers and children, but between spouses. Not only humans, but animals, such as the prairie vole, that mate for life, secrete higher levels of oxytocin.

New research on sexuality has shown that the body is primed for arousal. Sights, sounds, smells, and touch stimulate arousal even before people are consciously aware of it.

So if sexual arousal from sensory stimuli proceeds desire, it makes sense for couple who want to keep long-term love and lust alive, to enhance sensory experience. While couples can vary in their preferred sense modality, for me it’s touch.

I once heard physician Rachel Naomi-Remen talk say that a mother’s touch sends the message “live” to an infant. Researcher Tiffany Fields, Director of the Touch Research Institute has shown that massages reduces stress, increases immunity, reduces depression, and makes infants grow faster. In other words, touch is healing. Massage also releases oxytocin.

One of the best ways to keep your juices flowing for a long term is to become sensitive to your own as well as your partner’s body. Everyone knows that you can become aroused through stimulation of the primary erogenous zones, although there are more of them then the obvious ones. The inner thighs, lips, tongue, perineum, anus, and navel are all extremely sensitive and when stimulated can create as much excitement as when the genitals or breasts are stimulated directly. Yet, secondary erogenous zones are found all over the body: the back, hands, feet, back of the knees, scalp, and armpits are all potential arousal sites.

If your goal is to stay in a long-term loving, lustful relationship, then try massaging your mate. Take time to find out what feels good to them. Explore their body. Let them explore yours. Tell them what feels good. Use the massage time to relax and release stress. Let your muscles start to feel loose and warm. As you let down your body armor, you can open to receive the loving energy your partner is giving you.

Sensuous touching, pressing, skimming, kissing and petting is a prerequisite for the arousal of sexual energy. Toe-curling orgasm is the result of joyously including touch in your foreplay.

Lovingly used, sexual energy is healing energy.