Please note the title of this post is specifically not "Touching Myself." :-) This is not about that...it's about a femme-tip Christina gave me when we were having coffee after the Falmouth Goodwill shopping spree. She said that one supposed difference between men and women is that women touch themselves (non-sexually, just in daily life) more often than men.
Fascinated as I am with gender norms and differences, I started paying attention to this, and she's right. The women around me play with their hair, give themselves one- and two-armed hugs, fiddle with jewelry and fingernails, self-consciously caress their waists and hips, sit with their legs crossed thigh over thigh...and the men cross their arms.
I started mimicking the women I was watching. Some of the moves felt unnatural to me, but some felt nice. I gave myself permission to start touching myself more, in male and female mode both...not forcing it, just doing whatever feels natural and good. Self-touches I seem to like so far include the one-arm hug and the legs crossed thigh over thigh, and also: lightly massaging my solar plexus with an open hand, or pressing the heel of one hand there with the other; half-consciously running my hands down over whatever parts of my legs are bare, especially soon after shaving; lightly stroking my lips with a couple of fingertips; and a combo fingers-through-nape-hair and neck caress.
This is not the first time I have found that acting more femme just plain feels good. The posture which works best for passing when I'm dressed involves a yoga-straight spine, relaxed shoulders and lower back, and chin held high. After decades of clenched man-slouching, it feels so fine! And walking femme gives me the same pleasure as dancing.
Raised by physically undemonstrative parents and having been married for sixteen years to an uncuddly woman, I sometimes feel a tremendous yearning, a lifetime's worth of ache, for tender touch. I would love to find, and am actively looking for, someone who might occasionally feel moved to give me a little physical affection... but in the meantime, it never occurred to me until now that I could supply some of it myself. How very cool.
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