TRANSCRIPT
Someone recently wrote me asking about the value in platonic touch. He noted in his email to me that I have written and spoken a lot about the value of celibacy, but he wondered about platonic touch. Is this a need that we have? Is this something that we can use to help us grow?
And it’s something that I’ve actually thought about a lot. It’s not easy for me to talk about publicly, but I think that’s probably all the more reason for me to try to explore the subject.
When I started trying to formulate this video in my mind, a story from my own history came to mind. It happened when I was celibate. At that point, it had been probably almost 10 years, and it was back when I was a therapist. I had ulcerative colitis. My colon was out of control. I was bleeding all the time. It was hard to go to the bathroom constantly. It was terrible, debilitating, even disabling in some ways.
Well, someone suggested maybe massage might help. I had been trying just about anything I could try, including medical doctor interventions. I thought, well, massage? That certainly can’t hurt me. I hadn’t been to a massage in probably more than 10 years at that point, so I thought, why not try?
So I went down to Chinatown. I was living near Chinatown in lower Manhattan, and I went into one of these Chinese massage parlors. They assigned me to a male massage therapist. They said, well, do you want female or male? I said, I really actually don’t care. I lay down on the massage table, and this man, who didn’t speak English, he actually spoke Mandarin. I spoke some Mandarin, and he was actually really surprised that I could speak some Mandarin at all.
But he started massaging me, and it was probably the first time in years I’d really been touched at all by anyone. As a therapist, I had a lot of boundaries, physical boundaries with my clients, and so I wasn’t touching. Maybe a handshake was about the most that we exchanged. I didn’t really have any friends with whom I was sharing physical intimacy in any way, in a platonic way, and I was celibate for a long, long time.
Well, this man started massaging me, and it started first with my thoughts—all these wild thoughts of just like, oh my God. And then I realized that I was thinking how good it felt, how wonderful it felt to be touched in a respectful, gentle way. He kept asking me. He was asking me in Mandarin, is this okay? Am I—is it too hard? I was like, no, no, it’s okay.
And then the emotions started upwelling, and it caught me really by surprise. I started crying, and then it just came out like a flood. I was weeping. And it really, like, I’m someone who feels like I know myself pretty well. I would say that I do. Even back then, this is going back 13 years or so, 14 years, I was pretty self-aware. I mean, some of the videos I have on YouTube I had already made by that point.
And it really—so it’s like things that totally caught me by surprise were not expected, and it really gave me pause to think. And that’s really where I kept crying, and I kept thinking, oh my God, this is something that I’ve desperately needed, desperately. And that I think, to universalize it, this is a human need. And I knew that anyway. I think by that point I had already published or was just about to publish my book, “Toward Truth.” In my book “Toward Truth,” I wrote about this psychoanalyst named Renee Spitz, an Austrian-American psychoanalyst who in the 1940s and 50s did research on orphans in foundling hospitals—children who had been given up by their parents or their parents had died.
I believe in South America, but primarily his research was in Romania, from what I remember. Look it up, see if I’m correct. But what he noticed is that these orphans, especially in these Romanian hospitals where the children were given—the little babies were given everything they needed in terms of cleanliness. They were given medicine, they were given food, clean clothes, a safe, sterile environment. The only thing they weren’t given was human affection. They weren’t given touch, or if they were given touch, it was absolutely minimal.
I think part of it was that there were so many children in these hospitals and not a lot of staff, but also I think that the staff really wasn’t aware of how much children need physical affection. Babies need physical affection. And the results that he observed, what he saw, was stunning. These little babies, these little orphans had massive problems in their lives. First of all, right away, lower intelligence and also very high rates of death. The children were shriveling up inside emotionally. They were having failure to thrive.
And what this showed is just how much babies need to be touched. They need physical affection. They need platonic touch. And how different really are we from babies? We’re the same species. I think underneath it, we’re all babies in a way. We all have the same needs that babies have. We need to be loved. We need to be seen. We need to be valued. We need affection. Yes, we need food. Yes, if we’re sick, we perhaps need medicine or at least care. But that physical touch—something so important.
And I wonder, maybe—certainly when I was being massaged and I was sobbing, this poor massage therapist, he was nervous. He kept asking me. He switched totally. He knew a few words in English, but he switched to Chinese. Are you okay? Are you healthy? Do you need something? Shall I stop? And I’m like, no, no, no, this is exactly what I need. I kept telling him thank you, thank you, thank you. But I think he was shocked. I don’t know if he’d ever seen anyone cry so much and so deeply.
I cried for probably a full half an hour, and it brought to mind, it’s like, oh my God, I do need this. And I universalize it again—we need this. We need to be touched. And then I think of how this plays out in the modern world. Well, first with me, did I get sick from lack of touch? Maybe. But I think it was mostly because of unresolved trauma, because of all the tension in my life, the tension also of being a therapist.
But when I think about how wonderful it does feel to me on a deep emotional level, not just on a physical body level, but on an emotional level to be touched, it’s like it’s something that I try to give myself now, but it’s still not easy. I mean, now I’ve been celibate for, well, seven, seven and a half years. Sex, romance—not a part of my life, and I think that’s good for me still. But how do I get these touch needs met?
Well, probably first of all, I probably don’t get them met enough. But I think, well, when I get a haircut, that’s one way that I get touched. I actually kind of love that, especially when I’m traveling out in the world. It’s like, oh, you know, it’s not expensive to get a haircut. Even sometimes, I was thinking recently, a few months ago, I was in a country where a lot of men go and get a shave, and it was like not expensive. I could afford this. It’s not like New York where you have to go and spend thirty dollars to get some guy to shave you. It’s like, no thanks. But here it was like cost very little, and getting shaved, and it’s part of the cultural process for many men.
And it was like, oh, I like this—just the physical attention, the physical affection. Totally celibate, totally platonic, no weird tension at all. And it’s like, oh, it’s really nice. I can see why guys are going in once or twice a week to get their hair cut and to get a shave. I also do get massages from time to time. Well, in America, it’s pretty much, unfortunately, beyond my budget because I live a very low-budget life. But when I’m traveling out in the world, sometimes I can get a massage, and it’s great.
And I noticed, yeah, I don’t cry anymore. I think because I get touched more than once every 10 years. But actually, going back to that story in Chinatown, I went right back there the next week.
Like, you know, I’m gonna spend the money if it’s going to do this to my body and bring out all that emotion. I’ll go again. The poor fellow saw me when I came back the next week. He was like, “Oh, are you gonna cry again?” But I was like, “Even if I do, it’s okay.” And I’m explaining it to him. Also, I gave him a really nice tip because I felt like, you know, this guy deserves money for what he’s just done, right? Into his hand. Not a little, not a little the little percentage the company gives him to give a massage, but cash into his hand. Well, I had the second massage. I didn’t cry again. It still felt really good, but I think that first massage was just such an incredible relief. But then I think, what do people in society do to get their physical affection needs met? What do adults do? Well, I do think that many people play out their physical need, and I will say need because I believe it’s a need, even for adults, for affection. They play it out through sex, through sexuality, through romance, through touching their partners. I think, unfortunately, playing it out through the sexual lens—I know it, I’ve seen it, I’ve heard enough stories about it. I’m a product of this with my parents. I think when people play out their physical affection needs, also their emotional affection needs, through sex, yeah, it can create a lot of problems. Unwanted children, a lot of dependency needs between partners, a lot of expectations, a lot of pressure. A lot of people aren’t very loving in sex. Diseases. And then I think about, well, people sexualizing a lot of other needs. I think that’s very common in our modern world to transfer those emotional needs, the needs for actual just attention and love, and also the physical needs, the needs that we have to have our bodies touched and noticed and seen. They can transfer this into sex, and I believe that’s a real misuse of sex. I’ve certainly seen and heard no lack of stories about that—people feeling really taken advantage of through sex, hurt through sex, manipulated through sex. So I still do stick with the idea of celibacy as a real value for growing and knowing ourselves. But, hmm, what about this need for platonic touch? Well, I think I see a lot of people, especially in New York City. They have pets. They don’t have a romantic relationship. They don’t have anybody who touches them. They’re not close to any family members often, but they have a dog who sleeps in their bed. Often men and women. A cat who sleeps in their bed. Often I know some people even have rabbits, pigs, even other animals, birds that they can have some physical affection with. I think it is trying to get that basic need for touch met. I think a lot of people also get that from their children. That’s something that gives me mixed feelings because I think a lot of people take advantage of their children. I certainly know in my own life, while sleeping in my mom’s bed sometimes when I was too old for this, was this to meet her needs for physical affection? I’ve seen that with a lot of other people, heard a lot of stories. But I think, yeah, sometimes parents can take advantage of their children in this way and a lot of other ways. But I can also certainly understand it because, well, children also have these physical affection needs, and often they can get them met through their parents. Not necessarily a bad thing. I think in the ideal sense, it’s wonderful for children to have a physically affectionate relationship with their parents. It’s a basic way to express love and intimacy, non-sexual love and intimacy. Yeah, well, I was—I’m kind of debating about talking about something messy or talking about something healthy. Well, maybe I’ll start with the messy and then I’ll get to the healthy. Messy. Well, then I hear stories of people who have relationships of physical affection that are on the surface non-sexual but involve things like cuddling and things like that. I’ve even heard of cuddle therapists—people who you can go pay money to just to cuddle with them in an affectionate way. I’ve seen them on the Internet advertised. Even there was a big news story about one woman some years back, and I looked at her picture. She was actually a beautiful woman, and I think a lot of the guys were going to her. Well, a lot of the people who went to her were men, and they probably were attracted to her. But she was very strong about her boundaries, at least that’s what it seemed in the article. But I’ve also heard about that with some men and women, heterosexual women and heterosexual men, who just cuddle with each other. I’ve had friends who tell me about this. “Oh yeah, I cuddled with this guy who I was friends with.” I think that can get very messy, though. I mean, cuddling in a bed, a lot of physical affection. I think a lot of times it really—well, sometimes it just overtly does become sexual. Sometimes its setup is just platonic, whereas really they both do have some romantic desire for each other, and often it can become sexual pretty quickly. I don’t think that’s always so honest. But then I’m going to get into the messy part. We live in a society that’s so sexualized. Turn on the television, it’s constantly being sexualized. Instagram, YouTube, it’s just advertisements—everything sexual, sexual, sexual. Women are sexual objects, men are sexual objects. Granted, women are considered much more often sexual objects. Their bodies are just considered inherently sexual. I think it makes it very hard for men to have any sort of platonic physical relationship in terms of touch with a woman because they’re just inherently considered sexual. I think it’s even hard for men and their daughters past a certain age. How can you touch your daughter when she’s five or six when it’s like being blasted at you that females, even young females, are considered sexual objects? How confusing to just touch your daughter in a normal way. I certainly know daughters grown up to be women who have told me many times, “And I felt very uncomfortable at a certain point. My father just stopped touching me.” And I like would touch him, and he’d get all uncomfortable, and I was only five. It’s like, what was going on there? And what deprivation did the daughter suffer? And boys too—similar stories I’ve heard that many times. To some degree, I experienced it myself where it’s like my dad just stopped touching me at a certain point in a loving way. Then it just became more aggressive touch after that. I also—well, nothing. Maybe it’s a good time to go into the messy thing. I know when I was little, I held hands with my friends who were boys. We would walk to school with our arms around each other. I actually mostly forgot that, but then at some point some years back, I saw a picture—15 years back or so. I wish I had the picture. Maybe I could even put it up if I had it, but I don’t have it. But I remember with a picture of me walking to school with my best friend. I was in kindergarten or first grade, and we had our arms around each other, and I thought how lovely. Then at a certain point, that stopped. I don’t know why it stopped. I don’t know exactly when it stopped, but I can speculate probably somebody said something, or my parents said something, or some teacher said something, “Don’t do that.” And I probably didn’t understand why. I just knew it was something considered shameful to touch in that way as boys—years almost a decade before puberty even came into my life and those thoughts even came into my mind. But then I think about a recent trip I had to Africa, and then seven, eight years ago, I went to Africa also and experienced the same thing where there was a lot of physical affection allowed between men—adult men, boys. Certainly, I saw it all the time. But men—men walking down the street, large African men, grown men with their arms around each other, holding hands. And it happened to me in Kenya. A guy I became friends with, an adult man. I was in my 40s, I think he was in his 30s. We had a great conversation, and suddenly he started holding my hand. He had a child, he had a girlfriend, but he was holding my hand.
I told him because we had such an open conversation about life. I said, in my culture, we don’t do this. Everybody says, “you’re gay, blah blah blah.” He says, “no, no, no, no, no, it’s okay, it’s okay.” And I was so uncomfortable because of this ingrained homophobia of my culture. But when I got over that being uncomfortable, and even in spite of being so uncomfortable, I remember how wonderful it felt to just be able to hold hands with a friend.
I saw that in my last trip to Africa. It happened—well, the physical affection happened in Zambia and in Namibia—where just suddenly I’d be sitting with a guy and he’d have his arm around me. And I’d be like, “whoa, this is not sexual at all.” It’s like, trust me, the last thing on his mind. But he has his arm around me and he’s like giving me a squeeze because I said something that he really liked or respected. Or someone would have their hand on my knee, and it’s like, “whoa, this is something that’s beautiful and wonderful that my culture lost.” I would tell people all the time when I was there, “I’m here to explore things that are better in this culture than in my own.”
Now, I’m speaking as a man. I think in America, certainly in a lot of places in the world, it’s much, much easier for women to have physical affection with each other. Strangely, a strange paradox that women are so sexualized, yet they can still have physical affection. And I see that a lot—women touching each other here in this culture, but certainly more in other places in the world. Women touching each other, touching each other’s arms, shoulders, legs in a very loving and affectionate way. Wonderful for their mental health. I wish I could do that with anybody in a non-sexual way. I think it would be great for me and a lot of people.
I remember, well, six, seven years ago, traveling in Brazil. I’m seeing if I get this word right, if I remember it, because it’s been a while, but “kafune,” the idea—this word representing women lovingly stroking and touching each other’s hair. And they even have a word for that, that loving stroking each other’s hair—kafune—and that it’s considered totally normal and acceptable and positive in that culture. And I saw that, and I just thought it gave me such longing. Like, gosh, I wish I could be a woman in that culture and could touch and be touched like that with no sexual thoughts at all, just for physical affection.
Now, I’m going to take another real leap. Even outside of humanity, I think of baboons that I saw in Africa. I saw them in Namibia, I saw them in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia. And you just watch them when they sit. When they’re not hunting for food, often they’re just sitting and touching each other, holding each other, scratching, taking bugs out of each other’s hair. Well, monkeys are certainly very closely related to humans, and well, it’s great for bonding, great for feeling part of a group, feeling connected with others. And humans, we’re pretty close to this. I think in a lot of ways we are a social species. I think it would probably do us very well to have so much more physical affection, not just for our mental health, but now I’m going to take a leap for our social health.
Here’s a funny thought I had. Imagine—imagine if countries at war, for a while, this is just a ridiculous, stupid idea, but maybe not such a stupid idea—countries at war, the men could just be allowed to take a break for an hour and all go and give each other massages. The guys who are otherwise killing each other. I wonder how much crying would happen. I wonder how much sobbing would happen. I wonder how much unresolved trauma would be allowed to come up when enemies were allowed to touch each other in a loving way, build bonds, remind each and all of us that we’re not just isolated individuals on islands, but that we are part of this species of human beings who need love, who need caring, and who need to give love to each other also.