The Innocence of Touch

Title: The Innocence of Touch

Author: astrobean

Summary: A few thoughts on how the meaning of touch changes with sexual maturity, and how asexuals can be left behind.

Word Count: 700

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PART 1: Love Languages

My brain whirrs at a mile a minute, and it never settles down. As a writer, I am constantly narrating the lives of my characters (or dramatizing my own experiences, or imagining interviews with famous people). The best way for me to fall asleep at night is to take whatever character I’m narrating, send them some place quiet, and let them fall asleep. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, that character is snuggled with someone who makes them feel safe. My love language is touch.

In Gary Chapman’s book “The Five Love Languages,” he puts forth a theory that people express love in one of five ways: touch, gift-giving, encouraging words, quality time, and acts of service. I can see how this is true when I watch my sister and her husband. Her love language is acts of service and his is quality time. She feels loved when he randomly finishes some of her chores; he feels loved when she hangs the chores and just sits with him and talks for awhile. In general, we use them all the languages, but there are certain times when we are stressed or in need, and it becomes important that the other person use our own language, because we will not interpret anything else as love.

I have a propensity for writing characters whose love languages are touch. I have studied people and their love languages and learned that not everyone is as comforted by a hug as I am. Touch means different things to different people. It doesn’t carry a universally standard weight.

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PART 2: Childlike Innocence

As asexuals, we are often forced to define what kind of touching we are comfortable with. For many of us, this line is not drawn from preference, but from fear. I love being held, hugged, and cuddled, but I find that it is not safe. Somewhere along the way, those around me abandoned the innocence of touch, and I have been left behind.

When you’re a child, touch is important. Holding someone’s hand, sitting on someone’s lap, resting your head on someone’s shoulder--all of these are natural expressions of love and trust. None of these actions have sexual overtones.

As people mature, touch loses its innocence. You can’t snuggle up to your best friend anymore and rest your head on his shoulder without your intentions being questioned. As an asexaul, I never lost that innocence, and I crossed boundaries by accident. I was forced to retreat and draw lines to protect myself. Because I lacked understanding of the changes other people were going through, I couldn’t predict simple responses, and consequently I could not fulfill my basic needs.

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PART 3: Plenty of Fish in the Friend Zone

The current lingo criticizes the “friend zone” as a land of rejected, horny men. They say that once you’re in the friend zone, you can’t get out (except perhaps by divine intervention). When I still believed myself heterosexual, I always assumed that I would pull a mate from this friend zone, because that was where I’d find the guy that I trusted enough to let near me. I never understood how people could parse their friends from their dating partners so quickly, because I never felt sexual attraction. I always assumed the distinction came from getting to know the person.

In college, I learned to fear kisses because no man I was with was satisfied to stop at kissing. I wouldn’t even allow a platonic kiss on the cheek. By grad school, I learned to fear hugs too. I can’t touch someone until I am sure of their intentions toward me, and until I am reassured that they will not misread my intentions toward them. For someone whose love language is touch, it is cruel irony. I want nothing more than to be safe and to be held, but it is not safe to let someone hold me.

This is the dilemma I face going forward. Now that I’m out to myself as asexual, I have defined and given context to my boundaries and my desire for physical contact. My fear is that I can’t fulfil my desire, so long as I am surrounded by people who don’t understand or appreciate my innocence.

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Source: http://www.asexuality.org/en/index.php?/topic/78764-innocence-of-touch/page__p__2237107#entry2237107