The Evolution of Trust and Affection Through Human Touch

We are in an age of connection

We are connected by digital electronic signals.

We leaves messages for one another, but what happened to human communication through touch?

Everyone goes nuts over seeing a baby they want to hold. Except strangers who know it’s impolite. Except women with infertility heartache. Except people who have lost children. Except anyone who knows we’re in a pandemic age. Except many people who see touch as too intimate because they have been hurt by exploitation. Except homophobes, or xenophobes, or fundamentalist fanatics, or anyone who has been taught that touch is taboo.

Generally, when we may feel compelled to reach out, we keep our thoughts and our hands to ourselves.

Because we are enculturated with stories about what is moral, what is taboo, and what is sexual, we have strange attitudes about touch.

All other primates, and most other mammals — even birds — know the power of touch and how it creates and sustains community.

But consider this: what does it say about our trust issues and insecurity among one another that a natural inclination must be repressed because we have been socialized to see men as predators, women as prey, children as unworthy of keeping their innocence, and all touch as being more thought of as sexual, threatening, or intimidating because we’re taught that?

Because of the vast influence of advertising and consumption, we also learn that no matter who we are we are unattractive and inadequate. What does it say that we must buy a zillion products to attract the touch that never comes?

It says we are really dumb and messed up bunch of love-deprived monkeys, that’s what it tells us.

From lands of hugs to the land of hate

Having learned that what earth is for is exploitation, it is entirely natural to have people learn that touch is a no no. Those being touched are victims because oppressing weaker places and people — often inappropriately — is what conquest is all about.

Not everyone is this pessimistic, though. There are still cultures where touch is employed. Even embraced.

But, here in the West and more and more due to our global influence, touch and warmth is being discouraged.

I am not just talking about capitalism, btw, but about any ideology — religion, patriarchy, supremacy over the ‘primitive’ people who have no Victorian ‘morals’ and even the idea that people are superior to any other natural organism considered given to us and therefore, meant to be man-handled at will.

We got here slowly. Our forager ancestors and most cultures made time for human connection for eons. And eons. And then hugs became something that would should shame and separate us. This is mostly due to the rising of a priestly, and/or an elite class.

This is one of the biggest tragedies in the world. The ‘superior’ in thought, religion, ‘higher’ culture, language, and ethics accidentally severed us from our very best bonding tools.

Some cautionary words on bands and bonding

Like every other thing that humans tend to go all binary on, the popular version of oxytocin (the cuddle chemical) and other hormones and neurotransmitters is over-simplified.

Oxytocin, especially, must be seen as bonding chemical that signals not just affection, but trust, in the brain.

When we truly trust, care, and feel concern, we can touch.

Until then, we must become wary of those who wish to touch us, while at the same time, become aware that we must once again think of touch and connection as human, compassionate, cooperative, sensory, and signaling.

Babies, of course, need lots of touch. But so do little children, single people, lonely spouses, and the elderly. Touch is what primates do to communicate — or at least, it’s what we used to do.

We need to get back in touch.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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From The Good Men Project on Medium

What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean?

My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me

The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex

The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence

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