Everyone Needs to be Touched
Because touch-starvation is a thing.
Do you know about Harry Harlow’s monkeys? Harlow used infant rhesus macaques in studies to prove the importance of a mother/child relationship—something I’d think was pretty obvious, but that’s science for ya. His methods were cruel & unethical, but the results of his experiments became the basis for attachment theory ⬇️
We’re born with a biological need for contact & comfort.
The surrogate mother: The babies were given a choice between a “mother” made of wire or one made of soft cloth, switching the food back and forth between them. Both groups were left paralyzed by fear having not had any biological contact, but the rhesus macaques stuck with the cold, wire mommies suffered more, unable to self-soothe for example, the kind of thing you see in kids who grew up in orphanages.
Given the option, the baby monkeys chose a cloth mommy even when the cloth mommy had no food to offer.
In other words, having to chose between a comforting touch or food, they chose touch.
Harry raised another group of little rhesus babies in complete isolation for two years. Two years. He broke them. Denied any kind of warmth & touch, they lost their little baby monkey minds, turning into, well…rhesus pieces
.
Can you die from lack of touch aka touch starvation?
Indirectly, yes. Touch deprivation can cause anxiety, depression, and immune system disorders for a start. Without a doubt, it hastened the deaths of HIV+ men in the early 80s when even medical professionals were afraid to touch them.
We need to be touched.
Skin to skin contact. It helps babies bond with their parents, it increases the production of oxytocin, decreases cortisol levels. It’s why having someone else brush or wash your hair, feels so much better than when you do it yourself.1
Mom has lost most of her sight and hearing, all of her taste and sense of smell. Touch. That’s what she has left.
I run my hand through her short white and strawberry blonde hair, petting her like a kitten, essentially. And she moves her head like a cat, giving me this side, then the other, in the same way that when we are pressed head to head we roll our around in a forehead version of an eskimo kiss. We both do it, instinctively, and only with each other. Not so much a mind meld, but our hearts touch in that way, our spirits, our joy or pain.
My father was not a natural hugger, yet, even when they were in their biggest arguments, the worst phase of their marriage, when they slept, they touched, even if it was just their toes under the blankets. He’s dead and she’s demented so it’s too late to look into who initiated that or who got more out of it.
He used to say women gave sex to get love and men give love to get sex and yeah, he was a jerk, but maybe that little touch was his way of giving love. Or getting it.
Honestly, raised with that sentiment, I believe a lot of the sex I “gave” was just for the touch, the only time I could tolerate being held, because the minute it was over, I wanted to be gone. I was not a post-coital cuddler. In the late 70s, after my live-in boyfriend fell asleep, I’d slip out & go sleep on the couch, alone.
I’m still not crazy about being hugged, especially socially by people I’m not close to. I’m not crazy about it from people I am close to either. When I used to wonder about marriage, I fantasized a Woody Allen / Mia Farrow arrangement—the living on opposite side of Central Park part, not the my husband screwing my adopted daughter part. But I love to hug you and hidden inside me, what I’ve never admitted before, is the sincere belief I can relieve you of emotional & physical pain. Simply by touching you with intent, I can draw it out of you. Also, being the hugger, rather than the huggee is about control. In the same way I’d rather visit you in your home than have you visit me in mine, because if you’re in my house, when I’ve had enough, you’re still there! But, if I’m in your home, I can just leave. Irish exit if necessary, but the key is, once I’m uncomfortable, I can end it. I choose when any intimate contact is over.
But all that’s a subject for an entirely separate essay, n'est-ce pas?
Enough about me, let’s get back to Mom
At 94 and spending most of her time in an alternate universe, she still craves touch.
The other day she totally Helen Kellered my chest and face and cracked both of us up, but that kind of haptic behavior might be where we are now. She’s lost a lot of her sight, most of her hearing, all of her sense of smell. She’s lost any sense of proprioception, so when I’m touching her, she feels the touch, but doesn’t know where to look for me. I hold my hand on her shoulder when we’re out with the wheelchair, or rest my head on top of hers as I push her along the avenue. I take the opportunity, when I can, to fit myself into the hospital bed when she’s sleeping and grab a nap next to her—okay, that one I do for me, but it counts, even if she doesn’t know where or who it’s coming from, she knows someone who loves her is there.
She plays into it, pretending to still be ticklish when we know she’s not anymore. But the pretend laughter encourages more touch, more tickle. It’s win/win. We get the touch, the laughter, a small, very intimate exchange.
We, she & I, have always been this way with each other. The fuzzy photo of her head on my lap during the DC protest march when she had an excrutiating sinus headache from the winds on the open plaza. The picture I hate (I hate all photos of me at that age) of us, my head on her shoulder. The one I love but can’t find, my head resting on her ass at the beach as we both read our books.
The other day, she sat on the bedside commode, and I was beside her rubbing her lower back. She reached her long spider monkey2 arm out & around my shoulder. She rubbed my back, kissed the top of my head.
In that second, she broke me, just for that second we were us again. She was the mommy, again. I hadn’t realized how long it’d been since she mothered me. And then she was gone again. But for that second, she broke me open and exposed the human need, the mother/child relationship.
My spider monkey mom touched me, and turned me into one of Harry Harlow’s rhesus monkeys.
I can attest to that, having just come from the salon (beauty parlor? what the hell are the kids calling it these days?) for a wash and cut.
She’s shrunken to 5’4” from 5’9”, but her arms & legs are still those of someone five inches taller than she is now. Hence, the spider monkey look. 🩵
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The tenderness you show your Mom is so moving. I can't imagine accessing that part of my heart to care for my mother the way you are caring for yours. It's a beautiful thing. So much love to both of you.
oh yes.