Does Quality of Touch Matter?
Cathy: Does quality of touch matters when you’re on a date or hooking up? I’m Cathy Vartuli from from http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com
Yoni: I’m Yoni Alkan from http://www.ElementsofSexuality.com
Liz: I’m Doctor Liz from http://www.SexPositivePsych.com
Caroline: I’m Caroline Carrington from http://www.JewelInTheLotusCoaching.com
Sexy Librarian: I’m also the talking librarian who is off screen.
Liz: She’s a sexy librarian.
Cathy: Yes.
Caroline: Sexy, Sparkly librarian.
Liz: So sparkly. So sparkly.
Cathy: And so it’s New Year’s Eve and we were having straight conversation while we’re like eating outdoors.
Liz: Die in a fire 2016!
Cathy: Yeah! And we want to capture some of these thoughts and ideas and we were talking about how how you were saying that quality of the touch helps you indicate what you want to do but I think there’s a lot of people out there, I know I’ve dated some of them that don’t that no one has ever help them connect the dots who were kind of were kind of expecting we just know. You get a little education behind the bleachers in 7th grade someone’s reading. I literally remember the course teacher’s daughter had one of those dirty books, it was like romance book with dirty scenes in it and we were all reading it, like trying to figure out sex and that was the whole of my sex education besides the birds and the bees talk. How do people know how to give higher quality touch.
Yoni: Oh don’t worry guys learn from porn. That’s way better.
Cathy: Yeah
Liz: And a lot of young women these days learn from porn to. And it’s, you know the thing I’ve heard said by a lot of sex educators is learning how to have sex by watching porn is like learning how to drive by watching the fast and the furious and like, yeah technically they’re driving but most people don’t drive like that.
Cathy: Hopefully.
Caroline: Right and they’re acting in porn like nobody has sex in those angles.
Cathy: Do they even get foreplay off screen?
Liz: Yeah, their foreplay is off screen. Like, having been to a…
Yoni: Editing.
Liz: Having been to a party at [Inaudible 00:01:52] ..com, right? When they have their upper floor parties, you get to see what actually happens when they’re filming a porn. There are all sort of breaks that they take, like have a snack, drink some water, chat with each other [Inaudible 00:02:04] said hello, right? So it’s not what you think it is.
Cathy: You mean, people don’t just jump the pizza guy?
Liz: No, unfortunately. I mean I have a pizza guy that I would have dropped, but no, that is socially unacceptable.
Cathy: So how do you define quality of touch from your being romantic or sexy with someone?
Caroline: Well, in our previous video we were, I was actually differentiating between the intention behind the touch and the quality of touch. So for me there are touch touching without intention it’s just I mean you
Liz: You just put your hand on.
Cathy: Yeah!
Caroline: Yeah and it’s just not going anywhere and there is no finesse behind it and when I teach them, I’m talking to people about looking at how firmly or how lightly you touch them. Are you ready for the [Inaudible 00:02:51]
Liz: Actual energy. Hello!
Caroline: I didn’t ask permission before we started, I feel bad.
Liz: It’s good! You got a yes. She’s on record.
Caroline: But you know do you want to put until he run intention to you do you mind if it’s sexual intention behind your touch or do you want to put more of a mothering, I not good with the, I’m not good with the sexual [Inaudible 00:03:12]. It’s really hard with this beautiful being sitting next to me. You can put, you can put you know when I’m with my students sometimes what they need, even though they’ve come for a super sexy session with me, that isn’t what they need, they need to be held and nurtured, so thinking about what the person needs or what it is you want to offer them, I think that really helps with the intention and then actually going and learning how to touch somebody coz you’re right, nobody teaches you. It’s all just magically expected to know
Cathy: And there’s some really good classes out there. But I think the first thing is just to put your presence and your intention in your hands, as supposed to in my, I used to always like what do I, I remember reading a book and I got to touch this way and I’m supposed to do this for three seconds, I was in here, up here, there wasn’t any presence and then when you’re in you’re just letting your fingers enjoy touching someone, it can be really sensual.
Liz: Yeah, I think for me too. When I’m touching, what I’m thinking about as well is like what depth am I touching? Am I touching jus the surface of their skin? Am I trying to touch a little bit deeper? Am I trying to give them a touch that goes all the way through, right? That makes them feel seen and heard and held? And that don’t necessary to be different firmnesses or hardnesses of touch, because you can touch someone that way goes through all the way through them with your intention without putting a lot of pressure unto their skin or their muscles.
Yoni: And we both do partner dancing.
Liz: Yeah.
Yoni: And in it, one of the things that I love learning was about the connection that you make and basically you make connection with whichever body part that you connect with. It could be hands holding hands but but it could be shoulder to shoulder or whatever and the idea behind it is that not only do not only am I touching her back of her hand, she is touching me as well and this is reciprocal and and if if I keep just a dead hand like not a dead but like a stiff hand, then this doesn’t feel right, we need to live and be
Cathy: Be open to like…
Yoni: Yes. This is organic, we move against one another.
Liz: It’s an interaction. It’s a conversation.
Yoni: Exactly.
Liz: You know the same way Cathy and I talked about kissing, being in conversation, being a dance, touches that same way the way that you receive touch also impacts the way that someone touches you. We’ve all been in the situation where you touch someone and they kind of lean in to the touch and you can feel that they want that touch and then that time when you touch someone and they’re kind of like pulling away from the touch and you can tell that they don’t really want that touch. Right? Or they tense under your touch and the way they are receiving the touch tells you a lot about where they’re at and how that interaction is going as well.
Yoni: Yeah.
Caroline: Something else that I find that can really be fun to play with is you can be like in a giving role and somebody else was receiving, but what if you blur those lines a little because so often we can be like, oh well it’s their turn and then it’s my turn, so we can give for somebody else’s somebody else’s pleasure, but what if we dial into how good it actually feels as we give into somebody else on our skin. So even as givers, the quality of the touch changes. I’m enjoying this far too much for a video. The quality of the touch changes when I dial into how good it actually feels on my skin.
Liz: And when I let myself be fully present to the touch, it feels different for her, than if I’m distracted. Like if you were to continue touching me, while I’m talking here and pay attention here and I’m distracted, it’s not going to be the same for her because.
Caroline: I have to work harder.
Liz: She has to work much harder to distract me, to bring me out of that and it’s the same way a lot of people have had the experience where they are touching someone and it feels weird and they can’t figure out why and a lot of times it’s that disconnect where you’re not being present to or they’re not being present to the touch or you’re coming at it with different intentions.
Cathy: Or sitting there thinking, oh I got to take out trash, oh I have to get the groceries and
Liz: The mental checklist.
Yoni: And were you mentioned earlier both of you different intensities of touch but basically there are so many different variations on touch because it’s not just hands we have our whole body, each body part, hair if you have facial hair, if you have head hair, every part of your body can touch and you can touch different parts of the different bodies again depending on concent
Liz: [Inaudible 00:7:45]
Yoni: Of course. And they you can think about scratching rather than just light caresses or gossamer caresses.
Liz: Ooohh.. I like that. [Inaudible 00:7:58]
Yoni: Yes.
Caroline: Gossemer [Inaudible 00:7:58]. I didn’t know that word.
Sexy Librarian: Gossemer from the foreigner.
Yoni: Exa.. Gossemer from a foreigner. So basically butterfly touch, just barely touching.
Caroline: Yeah, I like that, that’s good. I’m really glad we shoot this video, I think I really needed to do that again.
Yoni: Yes. I agree.. But I I
Cathy: What was that again?
Yoni: I will say one more thing though, that there is a huge difference if we touch skin to skin or if we touch over the clothes
Caroline and Liz: Oh yeah.
Yoni: Or if we touch with wetness or with dry whether via
Caroline: How much longer is this video?
Liz: The last thing I would say as well is that I think a lot of people don’t know what kind of touch they like to receive because a lot of people have spent most of their life touching others to try to try to give that other person pleasure and not tuning it to their own pleasure and what they like receiving so in exercise I have people doing some of my classes is practice giving touch to another person where you’re actively soliciting or giving feedback, right? And what that does as the person who is having to give feedback is being touched is you have to figure out what it is you actually want done differently.
Cathy: It’s kind of tuning in and pay attention to it.
Yoni: Could you give an example?
Liz: So the way that I teach people to give feedback when you’re the one receiving touch, if you’re the receptive role is to start with something that’s working then tell them specifically what it is you want them to do differently phrased in a positive way. So not what you want them to stop but what you want them to do. As many stops as possible
Cathy: Coz if you get to many stops doing it, you can kind of freeze up and like’s oh, nothing’s working.
Liz: Well and if you say like, stop touching me so lightly, does that mean stop touching at all? Does that it mean use my nails, does that mean massaging motion? I have no idea, all I know is what not to do and there’s a giant infinite level of possibilities. So you need to be very specific. Like oh, your fingers feel very warm on me, I would really love if you touch me more slowly, oh that’s really lovely thank you and then you give feedback right? Thank them for paying attention to the change, right? As the one receiving feedback it’s also helpful if you can remember to thank them, because how awesome is it when people tell you how to make you feel good.
Cathy: When they are being honest, yeah.
Liz: Yeah.
Caroline: I already really like how everything was language positively and you started with an appreciation and that feels really good and I might be using my own words
Liz: Yes, sure.
Caroline: It would feel even better if you include when..
Cathy: Or could we try?
Caroline: Or could we try. Yeah
Cathy: Yeah. The nice things is you have like an experimental date, I love to encourage my clients to do that like just spend an hour it doesn’t need to be about orgasm but it’s about, oh wow it feels really good, just discovering coz you may not know what you like doing. I’m not as articulate when you’re doing that. It’s probably a good sign.
Yoni: So I’ll just pick this up. Oh, you continue, No, you continue. And say that, oh no, that that will not go well. That that..
Sexy Librarian: He’s going to lose all words.
Caroline: This is the mind [Inaudible 00:10:58] video.
Yoni: So I will say this though, if you want to practice touch, you have professional cuddlers. I’m with http://www.cuddlist.com/ , you can go check it out. You have cuddle parties where you can go, wehre I’ll soon be, I’m working on my certification. Go and cuddle with people with consent. Go cuddle with people and learn.
Liz: Somaticas.
Yoni: Yes.
Caroline: [Inaudible 00:11:30] Dakinis
Liz: Dakinis. Right, there are so many different professions that will help practice your touch.
Cathy: And you can practice that, the cuddle parties don’t have to be sexual.
Liz: No.
Cathy: You can be, just enjoying the touch. Learning about your body and whether at a cuddle party or being sensual, I love to try playing with energy like you can do inhale and exhale just like you would inhale your breath or exhale your breath you can be like giving energy or taking it, pulling it or kind of gently pushing it into the skin. So you can play around with that and see what feels good to you. In different moods, I like one or the other or a mix of both.
Liz: Right? And then again I think like learning how you like be touched, learning how you like to touch is so helpful like the same way that everyone should masturbate, so you know what feels good in your genitals.
Cathy: So you can tell somebody else.
Liz: Know what feels good all over your body. You have all sorts of erogenous zones and hot spots you didn’t even know you have.
Caroline: And it makes you a good lover to be able to share with your partner coz most people wants to know that they are doing a good job and they probably want to please you, that’s why they are touching you in the first place.
Liz: Right? Like I bet if I could ask each of you right now, wouldn’t you love it if every person you had sex with told you exactly what to do to have a hottest sex possible, most of you would say yes. Right?
Cathy: And then you would feel like a rock star.
Liz: It would make you feel like a rock star. It’s like you get the cheat code to their desire. So you have to know your own cheat code first.
Yoni: I would actually love to hear from you guys, what what kind of touch makes you you ohhhh… Like shuts you off like, Cathy and I did.. Yeah.. You go.. Continue..
Cathy: Talk amongst yourselves. Thanks very much. Leave comments below.
