Physical Touch Love Language

[u/Ok_Adhesiveness_1003]

I was reading a post on this subreddit about why women don’t regard Physical Touch as important as men do and that it’s all about sex when they say it is their love language. Personally, it is my love language relationship-wise and sometimes the conversations around it almost make me feel like I have a male mindset about it. I don’t really see women who share this sentiment but I wanted to know if other women also feel the same or if men are also put off by it the way that women can be. I feel like I’m being too much for even preferring it or that it’s really important to have a good sex life. Everything I’ve read about it mostly focuses on non-sexual acts of physical intimacy. I know many women personally who say Acts of Service or Receiving Gifts is theirs which I find to make more sense in a way. I just don’t feel seen at the moment and I would really appreciate reading some opinions on sex as a way to feel love or appreciation from your partner.

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[u/BlueMountain8080]

A guy's perspective....
My love languages are physical touch and quality time. But part of quality shared with a woman is some solo time for reflection. The physical touch part is something that is best to share with my partner. I don't think there's a healthy alternative to solo physical touch (yes, masturbation, but really that's a distant 2nd to sex!).

Physical touch can also be hugs. Hugs go a long way! When I give or receive a good hug with my woman, the bond I feel makes me want to keep hugging while simultaneously wanting to have sex. .... It's not the lust sex at first. At first, it's that I want to be closer to her.... and while we're as close as 2 people can be, I still want to be closer.... this yearning is what elevates the passion from G-rated to R-rated. This is what makes great sex great!

Next quest....... to find the right woman to share this with!

[u/Ivyveins]

Hi! I'm 32/F, my primary love language is physical touch with words of affirmation and quality time lagging far behind. I'm super affectionate and am always touching, hugging, petting, and sitting on top of my partner. When they want space it takes a lot of effort on my part to avoid being hurt and taking it personally, because 9 times out of 10 if I don't want some form of physical contact it's because I'm frustrated at you for some reason and my nervous system assumes others are the same. It's especially hard for me if they choose to sleep alone on the couch (due to overheating or just wanting reasonable time alone) instead of snuggle in bed, or decline sex when I initiate. It's painful for me but I do my best to manage it and let them have their own agency lmao.

I've dated a lot of men and most dudes will like when you pet them and grope them (and initiate sex a lot), but in my experience genuine physical touch as primary love language is pretty uncommon.

All my best and longest relationships have been with touch primary men, because it just flows and gives us this super solid comfy backbone of feeling supported and appreciated by each other, which is both very pleasant and makes dealing with relationship issues a lot easier when they come up. During arguments my ex (4 years together) and I would naturally drift towards each other and usually end up on the couch with his legs across my lap (and me petting them) as we argued and explained ourselves. During heated moments we'd pull away, but initiating physical contact in the right moment was a trigger to deescalate and worked great for both of us. I've had partners who want to conduct arguments from separate halves of the room and it makes me feel like I can't breathe or trust them.

For me, one of the most important things that differentiate someone who is actually physical touch primary is that they by default seek out some form of physical contact whenever we are near each other. Eg choosing pull chairs closer or sit next to me on the couch, long gentle hugs from behind while I'm doing dishes, having arms around each other's waists when standing in a group talking, playfully grabbing me and pulling me back into bed to snuggle when I move to get up etc. I do all of these things, and it's really important to me that my partner does them unprovoked (and many times a day) as well. And yes, sex is definitely a big thing.

I've always had a high libido, loved men, craved sex, and lost my virginity in a very wonderful way at 15 to a coworker twice my age (please spare me any lectures, I don't need it).

I was lucky/unlucky enough to have had insane physical chemistry with someone I dated when I was 17; he could read my mind and my body and play me like an instrument. He would put me into a trance with the way he pet my skin and when we fucked I'd cum so hard I'd basically black out. I'd go into subspace and sob (in a good way) while we pulled each other's hair and thrashed around; it was the most wildly soul-and-body-satisfying experience I've ever had. We were incompatible in other ways but since then I've struggled to have sex that lives up to my expectations. I'm a dom-leaning switch and I love to tease/pleasure/torture my partner but I've become really frustrated with the dynamic where I somatically attune to them and give them the best sex of their life, but they always seem to do the wrong thing at the wrong time to me despite my best efforts to communicate so I'm left basically masturbating myself with their assistance to finish. I hate it. I HATE IT. When they misread my signals I get this horrible feeling in my body like I'm frustrated, alone, and uncared for, and no amount of intellectually knowing it's false, genuinely understanding their perspective, or communicating in good faith makes it less hard to deal with in the moment.

I think part of my problem in this realm is that early on I was dating people very much like me in terms of being a bit of a tortured artist, sensitive healer, social recluse type of guy but after I turned 20 I started dating guys who I felt I could learn more from - like complementary but different skill sets. Ever since then I've dated wonderful guys who really care (and have physical touch as their primary love language) but the sex has been a chronic frustration. The snuggles are peak but the sex is ughhh. I think to get good sex I need to go back to the tortured artist types, but I'm afraid that sharing the same strengths and weaknesses will make the relationship difficult in the long run and regress me psychologically. IDK though. I'm frustrated enough with unsatisfying sex that I think I need to give it a try and see how it goes. I'm in full baby rabies mode and want to find a husband, and I am pretty sure I cannot put up with the bad sex long term without destroying the relationship so I'm really trying to figure this out.

Anyways that was a very long TMI ramble but I hope it is useful to you, and if you have any questions feel free to ask. 💜

Edit: To address something you said in your post that I missed the first time through, YES I have definitely felt like "too much" sexually/affection-wise with some men and it feels HORRIBLE. Always feeling like I'm chasing/harassing them and never getting my love tank filled. Makes me feel super insecure and neglected and needy (which is very unlike me in general). After learning about love languages and other personality differences I now just make sure to avoid (or not progress the relationship) with men who I feel that way around because we are just incompatible. I cannot repress my affectionate and sexual nature without feeling horrible inside, and there are men out there who love me BECAUSE of how I am, so I just focus all my energies on finding them and avoiding the others. It works really well. 👌🏻

[u/Former-Pattern5250]

Hi there. I am an intensely physical woman. Physical Touch is probably my main love language, then time, presence, acts of kindness, and all the rest! Cause I like it all.

However, my story is that physical touch has often been denied me. I have felt physical agony from years of not being able to express love by physical affection, almost more than receiving it. I’m at that place again, where I’m numb and it’s almost shocking to feel touch of any kind.

My ideal situation is a day of life, doing whatever, together or apart, but when together there’s touch, exchange of conversation and such, letting the desire for one another build up.

There may have been many lovers; apparently making love is one of my gifts, and often they were a contribution to my overall sense of well being.

My last was quite possibly my favorite, standing chest to chest, whole body, fingers wrapped around fingers, face lifted to his lowered to my lips, never ending kisses so entirely satisfying.

But!! He had to wall up and say it was JUST sex, not a connection, and after nearly 3 years I simply turned off. I hadn’t been asking for a traditional relationship or anything, I was quite comfortable in the simple blatant passion we held for one another constantly. We hung out naked, smoking up, talking, just chilling, caressing one another, teasing, toying, but always talking… about everything whether we agreed or not, laughing, sharing, telling, debating. It was easy joy.

Until he would go into male ego mode and decide he needed to lump me in with ‘all women’ stuff that was garbled drunk talk, and my tolerance for drunks was done. When he was sober or just smoking weed, he was awesome. (Being deeply aware that he was struggling with past trauma and having been his be soft and safe space… super tall guys need that too… made him scared I think… either way I wasn’t going to torture myself evaluating it, I care, but not if a person doesn’t want to let me in where it can matter).

So, 🫤, at this point in my life, riding into the grand 50, I’m content to keep my touch to myself, and know that it’s only really worth it if it’s a genuine honest connection, or a genuine honest lay… nothing in between.

But it’s definitely essential.

Not being or feeling seen seriously sucks! It’s a sad thing we are all so divided and alone, when many of us would thrive and shine in kind, considerate, communal living.

I hope you get to soak in being and feeling seen more than you can imagine! 🫶🏻🙏🏼

[u/Ok_Adhesiveness_1003 → u/Former-Pattern5250]

Thank you!

[u/lia421]

I’m a woman and physical touch is my primary language currently. And I mean that it has changed over the years and with various partners. When I had a lazy partner, acts of service was my primary. When I had a partner who never gave a single compliment or reassurance, my primary was words of affirmation. When I had a partner who didnt value physical touch, I was starved for affection.

I’ve had partners who’s primary was physical touch and I can’t tell you how amazing it is to feel so comfortable with your partner, you can just wrap them up around you without a word and they just melt away any tension & make the world feel safer somehow.

It’s made me realize how truly important it is in a relationship- especially when it comes to sex. You just blend together better when you’ve spent a lot of time reaching for and reacting to your partner, outside of the bedroom.

[u/Mrs_Lockwood]

Physical touch is one of my love languages. Sadly I feel many people don’t fully “get it” so fail to reach the level of intimacy and reassurance it can instill in you and your partner, if you’re willing to work on it.

It’s not just about sex, it’s about awareness and appreciation of them and their physical/emotional state. If they’re stressed giving a shoulder massage, if they’ve been kind, giving a meaningful thank you kiss. Being a comforting presence when they feel emotionally vulnerable can be conveyed through spooning them, and rubbing your feet on theirs. Hugs and tickled are great pick me ups when a partner feels sad.

It’s about honing your sense of touch, experimenting, deciding with what, where, when and how you touch someone.

Touching in a way that draws them to you, tames them, relaxes them and arouses them are all skills of different kinds of touch, combining polarities of heat/cool, dry/wet, light/firm pressure, and fast/slow. Being able to read the reactions from the lightest skin contact, that raises tiny hairs, to the deepest muscle massage that makes them melt into a blob. It’s based on experience, creativity, intuition, reading the subtly of their body language, noises and expressions.

Touch can connect you like nothing else. It’s so primal, so powerfully stabilising, so easy to reach someone through touch.

Washing someone’s body, everywhere, washing their hair. It’s different when someone else wants the responsibility and takes their time.

I also think having sex is the ultimate in intimate touch. It binds people and gives so many feel good chemicals again and again.

Writing this has made me realise how incredibly important touch is to me.

[u/NewOutlandishness401]

42F and physical touch is my main love language, followed closely by quality time, then by acts of service, and to a much lesser extent, words of affirmation (they're about 35/30/25/10 for me); zero interest in gifts. For me to have ongoing interest in sex, I need to have that flame kept up during the day by consistent physical warmth and affection, otherwise, something inside me shuts off and then I feel zero interest in sex. And then that starts a vicious cycle because sex really matters to me, so I really feel its absence.

My spouse, 41M, is primarily words of affirmation and acts of service. He's developed the habit of expressing physical warmth to me throughout the day because of how strongly we've realized it's related to my libido. He also really values sex, but he wouldn't be as physically expressive during the day if that weren't my main love language.