Enjoy gay touch more – why touching for pleasure can be harder than it sounds

In many western countries it’s got a lot easier in the last few decades for gay guys to enjoy touch with each other more openly.

But the reality is that there are still many circumstances and places where it’s not accepted, or safe. And there are still many countries where it’s illegal, even punishable by death.

This, coupled with centuries of oppression, mean that for many men touching another man comes with a great deal of weight, even if we may not be consciously aware of it.

And all that comes on top of the fact that touch can be a pretty challenging experience for most people, regardless of who they’re attracted to!

Here are some of the other reasons why touch can feel so challenging

Most of us tend to think of our hands as tools for achieving tasks. We use them for ‘doing’ not for ‘feeling’.

As a result it’s often hard to break the habits of a lifetime, and actually start to notice what feels enjoyable when your hands are touching something.

So it can be helpful to understand some of the things that are happening in your body when you touch.

You have a direct route of pleasure…

There’s sensory data coming into the nerve endings in your skin all the time when you’re touching something – which is a direct route for you to experience pleasure (and you don’t need anybody else for this because the experience of pleasure is actually happening in your own body).

But most of us have become disconnected, to greater or lesser extent, from this direct route by the experiences we’ve had as we go through life – trauma, shame, fear and cultural conditioning can all contribute to this disconnection.

…and an indirect route of pleasure

If you can’t easily feel pleasure directly from sensation in your own body you become more reliant on getting your pleasure through an indirect route – such as seeing someone else’s pleasure when you touch them.

Both the direct and indirect routes are great ways of experiencing pleasure, and one is not better than the other.

But if the indirect route is the only one you can access easily you’re missing out on a whole world of possibilities for pleasure in your own skin – not to mention risking putting your partners under pressure to perform for you when you’re touching them, because you need their reaction in order to feel pleasure!

Here are 5 tips to help you access your direct route of pleasure, and enjoy gay touch more

1. Close your eyes. Touch like you’re touching something for the first time.
2. Don’t touch to do, touch to feel. Instead of trying make ‘sense’ of whatever you’re touching focus your attention on what you notice about the shapes, textures, temperatures you’re feeling.
3. Slow down. The slower the speed of your touch, the more chance the millions of nerve endings in your skin will have to take in data, and the more you’ll be able to feel what’s really there (as opposed to what you think ‘ought’ to be there).
4. If you’re touching someone else’s body pretend you’ve never felt a body before. Instead of thinking ‘this is a chest’, or ‘this is a leg’, get curious about the structure, the soft parts, the bony parts, the different textures where there’s hair and where there isn’t.
5. Get curious. Rather than trying to achieve an outcome or a reaction with your touch, try being more exploratory and playful.

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If you want to build some skills without having to worry about touching someone else try this short solo touching for pleasure practice or get in touch to find out more about coaching sessions with me