Chapter 1: An Odd Animal

Posted: June 11, 2011 - 02:56:15 pm

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Human beings are social animals. For thousands of years, people have banded together for protection. In prehistoric times, people formed nomadic tribes and crossed savannas in groups facing sudden death from lions and other predators. There was nothing worse than being banished from the tribe. It was essentially a death sentence for the individual. Even in modern times the worst punishment, short of death, is solitary confinement.

If a hundred people are put in an enclosed area the size of a football field, within minutes they will start to form groups. People will move around until they find others who share their same interests. It doesn’t take long for one person to reach out to another.

Primates are social animals as well. They travel in troops. Touch is a key form of bonding. They spend hours grooming each other. One primate will spend a significant amount of time picking vermin and parasites out of the fur of the other. It’s not just to eliminate unpleasant pests, but grooming is way for a troop of primates to bond. Grooming is not to be mistaken for a sexual advance. Sexual advances, among the less cultured primates, are a lot less subtle than that.

Humans, like other primates, need to be touched. An infant that isn’t held will grow up with problems socializing with others. Premature babies physically develop faster and will be healthier when held. There are health benefits to being touched.

Adults need to be touched as well. Failure to be touched often enough even has a name – touch starvation. Like a starving person will aggressively seek food, a touch starved person will aggressively seek to touch and be touched. It can result in pushing, shoving, hitting, kicking, and rape. An individual who has experienced touch starvation for too long will become dull and listless. Touching is an intrinsic deep emotional need for adults.

Touch is an intimate form of communication. Intimacy is not to be confused with sexual desire. A father who walks away from a lost ballgame with his hand on his son’s back is reassuring the son. He is saying that he still cares for the son despite the loss. He is saying that he understands how the son feels for having lost. He is reminding the son that he is there. A little shake of the hand tells the son to buck up and know that tomorrow he’ll have another chance at winning the game.

On nice spring days, lovers walk down the street holding hands. Young lovers do more than just hold hands. They brush against each other. They bump hips. There are little exchanges of jostles. It’s a subtle means of communicating and reminding the other that they are there. It’s not necessarily a sexual advance, but a ploy to increase emotional bonding as part of establishing a long-term commitment.

Young children, when frightened or shy, run to a trusted adult and hold them around the leg. It’s a move that announces trust, and a need for protection. The adult will drop a hand down to touch the child on the shoulder or neck, as if to announce their presence and their willingness to protect the child. It’s a simple exchange that is basically innate to humans, as it appears across all cultures.

Some touching gestures are formally established. A handshake is one form of touch that is formally defined within a social context. Some organizations have ‘secret’ handshakes which are used to allow members to identify each other without having to exchange a word. There are occasions when a handshake is appropriate and other situations when it’s not. People shake hands on greeting, on parting, and on sealing a deal. The handshake, which was once the provenance of men only, has transitioned to a gender neutral exchange.

Kissing the back of a woman’s hand is another formally defined gesture. The relationship of man and woman can dictate the way the hand is held, if the kiss is given, and the manner in which the kiss is bestowed. This particular touch gesture has declined in usage.

The ‘air hug’ is a modern touch gesture. It’s almost a parody of a full body hug. An air hug emulates an intimate form of contact without the intimacy. It’s exchanged with a woman on greeting, parting, and sharing of good news.

In some cultures, men greet each other with a hug and kisses on the cheeks. It’s not a sexual greeting, but denotes and announces that a certain level of friendship exists between the two men. It can also be a touch gesture with political implications.

Few areas of formally established touch gestures are as diverse in nature and style as those found in dance. Some dances, such as the minuet and square dances, involve making and breaking physical contact with dance partners. These dances may also involve changing in partners throughout the dance making it more of a party dance than a mating dance. It’s a social activity that encompasses all who participate.

The waltz utilizes specific holds while limiting partners to a single couple. The man holds the woman in a certain way, often in very close contact, and he leads her through the dance motions. Hands hover near, but not on, erogenous zones. In this kind of dancing, a pair will be independent of all others. It’s intimate.

Many modern dances, such as a country and western line dances and the Twist, do not including touching or holding partners. Dancers may face each other as in the case of the Twist or face in a common direction as in a line dance. A line dance is an interesting form of dance in which the dance partner is effectively at the same level with all other dancers on the floor. The key thing here is the absence of touch.

Dancing within a mosh pit involves making aggressive contact with and among other dancers. People bounce up and down before throwing themselves at nearby dancers. It’s violent. It’s also a modern phenomenon. This is not the only form of dance with aggression at its roots. The Maori war dance, a very choreographed set of moves, is directed at an enemy. While the Maori may engage in a dance to convoy strength and aggression, the dance itself does not threaten the other dancers in the manner of a mosh pit.

Cultures, particularly subcultures, often have characteristic dances that help define the group. In a way, the form of dance and touch gestures taken by a culture tells much about the level of intimacy among its members. It’s a good measure of the sociability of the culture. A square dance culture enjoys physical touching while maintaining inhibitions against public displays of affection. A waltz culture enjoys physical touch without inhibitions against public displays of affection. A line dance culture is inhibited with touch and display of affection. A mosh pit culture is violent.

Societies can be characterized as high touch and low touch. In a high touch society, people touch hundreds of times per hour. The touches include pats, laying a hand on the person, holding hands, little brushes of body against body, and hugs. Touching even occurs between casual contacts. High touch societies have low rates of suicide. In a low touch society, people only touch tens of times per hour. These are usually more formal gestures such as shaking hands and the targets are limited by social constraints – families and close friends. Societies that have a low touch culture have high rates of suicide.

In many primitive societies, infants are in physical contact with adults almost continuously. Mothers carry their infants in a sling while performing almost all of their daily activities. Slings for carrying infants keep them in constant contact with their mother. Held in a sling, an infant can experience its mother with all five senses. The infant can taste the difference between fear and pleasure in the woman’s sweat and milk. It can smell her scent. It can feel her skin. It can hear her voice and learn how a voice can change to communicate different moods. It can learn the meaning of some words.

An infant in a sling can hear the reassuring heartbeat of the mother. When the infant’s heart and the mother’s heart are entrained, their brain structures become synchronized. This balanced state is when bonding between mother and infant occurs. This kind of bonding can deepen and strengthen the relationship between mother and child for a lifetime.

In technological societies, infants are separated from their mother most of the time. They sleep in cribs with baby monitors that allow the mother to be in another room. They are transported in strollers and baby carriers. The stroller separates parent and infant at a very important stage in a child’s social development. The child is left alone in the stroller in front of the parent. From what the infant can see, it’s as if it was abandoned. The parent stands back from the child at a distance of three to four feet. They can see the baby, but not the expression on its face. It’s no wonder that babies get grumpy after being in a baby carriage for too long.

Modern society frowns upon touching. In the world of political correctness, it isn’t society that determines if a touch is inappropriate, but whether the individual touched is offended or feels threatened by the touch. The result of this lack of societal standards, is that it’s safer not to touch than to touch. Concerns about inappropriate touching have led to adults backing away from hugging children or even helping children who have been injured. Even touching among children is viewed with suspicion.