(Appropriate) human touch is healthy...

[Atash Hagmahani]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/touching.makes.you.healthier.health/index.html?hpt=T2

Being slightly autistic most of my life I have been averse to casual physical contact. At some point in my life I started realizing that mammals like certain kinds of friendly physical contact--even as most of us have been conditioned to have a cultural taboo against it.

So with my increased capacity to manage my own moods and feelings that I've been developing in recent years, I turned off that aversion to the extent that most of my friends and family are now fair game for hugs and pats.

Beware of situations where you THINK someone is your friend but isn't. That was and remains a situation where the fear of casual touching amplified about 1000x. In public schools there have been incidents where students were arrested or suspended or expelled for consensual hugs, there have been a few situations where pre-school age little boys have been arrested for hugging or kissing girls, and there have been situations in politics where casual touching or friendly jokes have been used as a pretext for political witch hunts. I'm not talking about Clintonesque situations and that is very much the problem: outrageous double-standards.

There have been situations where I have been casually touched by people whom I don't like and I don't think they like me but are pretending to be my friend. I don't like that. Never sued anyone or called the cops, though. I'm not a tattle-tale or crybaby.

[opsec]

I don't like people touching me at all. If somebody can put their hands on me, it means I wasn't paying close enough attention to them and I let them get away with it. Not good.

[Atash Hagmahani]

I would guess your aversion is different than mine was. Mine was because I can not filter out sensory data as much as normal people do and experience everything with the volume turned up.

I have been known to startle when I didn't see it coming. I'm slightly paranoid. Can't sit with my back to an entrance or window.

I am the recipient of a great deal of patting, petting, and hugging. Not just because I am a dad; I always have been. I seem very emotionally non-threatening to most people. I'm also generally fond of and tolerant of children so I often get sat on, pounced on, mustache played with, handed babies while their parents are busy, etc.

[The Future]

I don't recall a situation where someone made contact with me and I deemed it inappropriate but I have been known to intervene when a (friendly) stranger or distant associate is about to make friendly contact with my child.  Hands off.  I don't know where they have been.

The hand holding thing in the article also reminded me of the African men's hand holding thing.  A very interesting phenomenon from a western perspective.  I'm told other cultures (India) have this also from youth all the way to elders.

[Atash Hagmahani]

I don't know about the African hand-holding thing, but I can guess from my familiarity with other cultures: there is probably little or no taboo against adult men holding hands. You'll often see Chinese men walking down the street holding hands...and then it hits you that they look alike and are 1 generation apart: they're father and son.

Those kinds of behaviors are actually the norm until increasing public awareness of the existence of homosexuality results in a culturally-transmitted taboo against heterosexual men showing affection to their adult friends and relatives, despite the fact that there is no causal connection. The analogous situation would be that no matter how much normal dads love and are affectionate with their kids, they're not going to mess with them and have no temptation to do so. Likewise there is a fairly widespread--not universal but common--taboo against dads showing their kids affection, due to the feminist assumption that men are inherently incapable of nonsexual love.

See for example   http://gos.sbc.edu/s/solanas.html  (warning: extremely crude language)

[Beeherder]

WOW  why does she hold back? just tell us how it fells girl!! I bet this woman was abused in many ways as a child, some of them may have been sexual but certainly there was some significant emotional abuse. If a man talks that way about women he is called a misogynist, so what is the descriptive adjective for a woman who so obviously hates men?

One of the most wonderful things about hanging around with hippies is that they hug each other a lot, without regard to gender. Once i am comfortable with a new friend a hug is always used for aloha, whether coming or going. And aloha is such a wonderful word, doesn't matter whether you are coming or going its still aloha brudda.

Touch is just so wonderful it is truly sad so many cultures have built taboos around touching each other. And a thorough deep muscle massage has to be one of the most healing as well as relaxing events one can ever experience. And if you are fortunate enough to experience regular deep tissue massage it will change your life for the better. Congratulations Atash, hope you continue to bee the recipient of much attention and further i hope you are always of a mind to receive this affection.

[opsec]

so what is the descriptive adjective for a woman who so obviously hates men?

That would be a "mysandronist".

I got a deep tissue massage once. It is called "rolfing", and it has nothing to do with drinking to excess. I had to get all the facia to release from years of sedentary abuse before I got back into the gym.

[Beeherder]

Ida Rolf established the Rolfing Institute in Boulder Colorado and as far as i know its still there. I got the 11 session protocol of rolfing in the early 90's from a former instructor at the Rolfing Institute. Great stuff, great stuff!! Then i learned that there are lots of variations on deep tissue massage by working with a different body worker for over 10 years, even more great stuff!! Then i got to take a 5 year hiatus from massage while i recovered from financial near disaster until 4 months ago when i got to start again with someone who specializes in long term pain management. He has returned significant function to my foot and lower leg, just wish the pain would back off. Oh well, at least there is positive change. Now maybe i can get some muscle recovery.

regular massage can change your life, and imo is more effective therapy than any shrink or talk therapist, and possibly more effective than doctors in general. just my opinion

[Atash Hagmahani]

I bet this woman was abused in many ways as a child, some of them may have been sexual but certainly there was some significant emotional abuse.

Yes and no.

In reality, no. Nobody ever touched her.

Your hunch nevertheless is insightful in terms of having zeroed in on the right personality complex. She did fabricate allegations against her father despite never having seen him since the age of 4, and had claimed that this was why she was lesbian and hated men (no, sexual abuse will not change your sexual orientation but I have heard the same claim from other women with BPD). She had severe borderline personality disorder, and one fairly common symptom of that is victimization fantasies. Sylvia Plath (whose father was in no condition to molest her--he was bedridden and dying), Eileen Franklin, Jennifer Bennet (who helped send an innocent man way for 18 years for a crime that was impossible to have happened), the anonymous 9 year old who started the "Wenatchee Sex Ring" hoax, etc. I would also hazard a guess that her mother had it too--it is strongly correlated with heredity.

Andy Warhol spent the rest of his life in chronic pain and slowly succumbed to the damage to his liver that she did when she shot him. That's what eventually killed him. I am impressed that he performed as well as he did in his last years.

There is a rumor that she shot him because he lost or stole the only copy of her play "Up your ___", but that is not true. The woman who wrote the play "I shot Andy Warhol" found 2 copies. I would be extremely curious to see a copy of it, because I know something about the subject matter and I suspect it would provide some very interesting insights. It is known that nobody took an interest in her until after she shot Andy Warhol, and the shooting seems to have been related to a vague belief that he was keeping her from stardom.

In case it's not obvious, she's a cult legend among feminists. NY NOW paid her legal dream team that got her off with a short stint in psychiatric prison followed by a miraculous recovery.

Solanas' last days were pretty horrific. She ended up a junky in a welfare house in San Francisco, supporting herself with prostitution which must have been particularly hellish for someone who really was profoundly misandric. One day the housekeeping staff found her maggot-riddled corpse. Asphyxiated on her own vomit.

A lot of Warhol's "beautiful people" (as they called themselves) ended up in similar situations. Warhol was one of the few (only one?!) who was relatively free of drugs and mental health issues.

[Atash Hagmahani]

I got a deep tissue massage once. It is called "rolfing", and it has nothing to do with drinking to excess. I had to get all the facia to release from years of sedentary abuse before I got back into the gym.

Ah, that could be a form of theraputic touch. Did it help? Was it painful?

I've often thought that it would be good (don't throw things at me guys) for husbands to learn massage. Women love it. Done right it stimulates oxytocin, the "warm and cuddly" hormone.

[Beeherder]

back when i was married it gave me great pleasure to massage (non-sexual) my wife. since i had experienced a true shiatsu massage in a Japanese bath house way back in high school i knew this was good stuff. Nothing like finishing a massage on your most precious partner then leaving her right there to just soak in that relaxation while you go about your bidness until she is ready to say thank you. And oh boy did she know how to say thank you.

get a massage to find out what it is, then by all means, share what you learn with those you care about.

[opsec]

It will hurt if they rub too hard. My facia was so tight that he would have to throttle back sometimes. A lot of the time I would just grit my teeth and let him do what he needed because I wanted to get the most benefit in as little time as possible. I have wanted to learn to massage just so I could do that for my lady.

[Beeherder]

you certainly have lots of options today.

http://www.rolf.org/

my current and all former body workers have all been teachers or graduates of:

http://www.bcmt.org/

and there are without a doubt options near you wherever you live.

IMO regular massage is part of a well integrated plan for life long health, which also includes nutrition and exercise and good ole enjoyment of life. Probably some of you have more than a passing professional interest in life long health and would care to offer additions to my list, please do.

bee healthy

[Lady Lilya]

I have friends who swear by Rolfing.  Too bad it is so expensive. 

[The Future]

I saw something on front street today that reminded me of another group very much into the same sex PDA - british women.  They generally walk arm in arm in public places.  Something to see if u aren't used to it.  The two doing it here though must be fresh off a plane...