"Touch" full transcript

LAURA CRUCIANELLI: I often say that touch is really my favorite sense. Touch is very important for the way we perceive our own body and we perceive the boundaries of our body. 

ALLISON BEHRINGER: This is Laura Crucianelli. She’s a cognitive neuroscientist and experimental psychologist who researches touch. Her work explores how touch can create a feeling of body ownership — the feeling that our body belongs to us. That it is us. Traditionally, the theory goes that this body ownership – this sense of self comes first. And then we have to learn how we relate to other people. But Laura and others have developed the opposite theory:

LAURA: Before birth, we are really a body within a body. So after birth, we need to learn the boundaries of our own body. As newborn, thanks to the touch of other people, we gradually are able to recognize what is self and what is other.

ALLISON: Touch is the only sense that is always reciprocal. You cannot touch without being touched. Like, when we touch someone’s skin, we can’t help but notice our own. For our first episode of this season, we’re sharing a handful of stories that explore the ways that touch can build our relationship with our body. And the ways it can act as a bridge or a barrier between us and the world.I’m Allison Behringer, and this is Bodies.

SHANA REDMOND: I am Shana Redmond. The last time I saw my father before he was moved to the prison was at the verdict at his trial. I was 13. There was no touch then as he was being let away in cuffs.

That was the beginning of, of what would be almost a decade of us building our relationship through the prison. Visits were never as often as either of us would like, but I tried to get there every few months. The more I got used to it, the more familiar I became with the protocols, you know, a big hug at the beginning of the visit. This was one of the two hugs allowed during the visit. 

It could not be prolonged because the suspicion was that there was some kind of exchange happening. You know, he would hold a hug too long. The guard would say, “Redmond!” And then there would be a release. 

In hindsight, I recognized he was regularly kind of pushing those limits, especially around intimacy and touch, because he needed it. He was desperate for it, and so was I. I did want hugs. I did want caresses on my back. I did want someone to literally wipe my tears away. And when my father went to prison and when my mother fell into a deep depression, those things were no longer a part of my equation.

In some respects it made me feel orphaned. I recall being in the grocery store and seeing children with their fathers, where they would be playing around or being picked up and carried around. Those moments really stung. 

JESSE REDMOND: It's not normal to come see your father and hug him for three seconds, and then watch him go away and never see him again till the next month.

My name is Jesse L. Redmond Senior. I'm the proud father of Shana L. Redmond. I had to condition myself to put a clock in my head that once I embraced her – 1001, 1002, 1003. And then I have to pull away from Shauna. 

Touching is everything to a human. Touch is – you don't notice it as much when you’re not withdrawn from it, but it's all associated with loneliness, depression, all these things. Touch in penitentiary is discouraged. We didn't hug each other. We didn't embrace each other. No, no, you can't conduct yourself like that in the penitentiary. That would only trigger a clear sign of weakness. It adds another layer of punishment to it. To be deprived of some basic human need. Your only contact with the outside world is your visitation. You live all week for that kind of thing. 

SHANA: So, during the visiting hours, we would sit at square tables. We'd have to sit across from each other. We would decide it was snack time and he and I would get up from the table. And I would put my hand in his, and we would walk the ten or fifteen feet to the vending machine. I would take my free hand, put the quarters into the machine, receive the treat, we'd still be holding hands. We would never let go, and we would walk back to the table looking at one another and talking all along the way, whatever little secret I had to tell him. That was my chance. That's when we could be alone just a little bit, he and I.

JESSE: When I held her hand, I could feel the warmth of her hand. I could feel the blood circulating. I could get a better sense of how she felt. She trembled sometime in our conversations. 

When she talked her hand would just tremble because she was fighting back emotions. And I would clench her hand a little bit harder to let her know it's okay. To try to give her comfort and you know, something to hold on to. Trying to parent in a short amount of time is very difficult. Holding her hands up to, to the vending machine and back was all I could do.

SHANA: There was so little option for me to actually be his child, which is to say to be small next to him and in the comfort of him. Those moments reminded me that I was someone's child. That there's someone here who knows me, who loves me, who believes in me. When I would have to go weeks and months without seeing him, I again started to feel loss all over again. 

Thankfully he was released my junior year of college. He had changed, I had changed. 

JESSE: Well now, she was a woman. We wanted to reopen our relationship and pick up where we was right then. But it was uncomfortable at first on my part because I was conditioned to pull away in three to five seconds. But eventually I was able to overcome that.

SHANA: A lot more hugs, walking arm in arm, um, you know, pinching my cheek like I was a little kid, but I'm a 20 year old, right? And he could hug me a really long time. We could sit right next to each other. We could do all of these things that had for so long been regimented or withheld. Every time I hug him, I do think about how lucky I am to be doing so.

JEN HARTLEY: Everybody craves that loving touch. But we're afraid of it now because everything associated with our burn injury hurt. Pain is a constant, so we even just think, oh, if somebody hugs us, it's gonna hurt. 

I'm Jen Hartley and I am a nationally certified massage therapist and I train massage therapists and burn unit staff how to work with adult and pediatric burn scars. My mom was very young when she had me. She got pregnant with me at 15, had me at 16. I was 15 months old. And my mom, being a young mom, was giving me a bath in the kitchen sink.

We were really poor. We didn't even have a phone in our house. And so the next door neighbor came over and told my mom she had an emergency phone call. She left me unattended and in her absence I actually bumped the hot water faucet. When she heard me screaming, she came running back over there. And that water was so hot that when she lifted me up, the skin literally fell off my body.

The parts of my body that are scarred are waist down, front and back. When I was growing up, I didn't touch my scars probably as much as I should have. I think it made me more scared to be touched or hesitant to be touched. I tell people touch is the one thing a burn survivor craves the most. But it’s also what we fear the most too.

It's important for a burn survivor to massage their scars because it's gonna help with pain. Itching's a very big factor for burn survivors, so it definitely helps with the itching. Massage is also important for the pliability of the scar tissue. It helps with range of motion, because it can get hard and kind of like, stuck, for lack of a better term. And so with massage, it really helps loosen up that scar tissue.

My mom would change my bandages and my mom was very loving and affectionate person. But you know, she didn't really massage me because she had a fear of hurting me. I didn't really massage myself either because I was a little self-conscious back then and I was just like, no, it's too much work. I'm burned 56% of my body. I felt like it was gonna take too much time. And I really didn’t want to touch it ‘cause it reminds me I'm different. 

When I went to massage school, when I signed up, I knew I'd be working on other people, but it never once dawned on me they were gonna have to touch me. That I'm gonna have to strip down and get on this massage table for people to practice on me. 

And so when we did our first hands on, on the table, I was literally trying to make time run out. I told one person, I said, “No, you get on the table first.” You know, and then I'm like, “Oh, no, you go next.” Praying we ran out of time, so I didn't have to face it until the next day. 

But of course, we didn't run out of time and it was my turn. So I excused myself and I went to the bathroom and I shut the door. I thought I was gonna throw up. I was sweating. I mean, I was a mess.

That whole thing comes back up. That little girl who, you know, got made fun of when she was a kid, cuz she was different. Or the little girl that saw people stare at me, you know, when I'm out in public. I managed to pull myself together. And I went and got on this table. 

Trevor was this young guy, early twenties. I don't know how he always ended up paired with me, bless his heart. And he could see that I was struggling. And so before he did anything else, he just took my, my scarred foot in both his hands and he just cupped them and he held my foot for the longest time.

His touch wasn't hurting me. I think what I felt the most was acceptance. That he wasn't judging me and he wasn't grossed out by me. And as he was holding my foot, these big tears just came out of nowhere. I'm just laying there on the massage table with tears streaming down my face. 

And the owner of the school came over and she put her hand on my shoulder and she leaned down to my ear and whispered. She goes, “Do we need to stop this?” And I told her, I said, “No.” If I can push through this, then I'll be able to tell other burn survivors who are having an emotional release on my table “You know, hey, I know exactly what you're going through. How can we help you get through this?”

So if you were coming to me and, and you are a parent of a new burn survivor, you're gonna be nervous, you're gonna be scared. And uh, knowing me because I'm Southern, the first thing I'd do is probably try to hug y'all to make you feel better. 

Find an area on your burn survivor. If, if the hand is burned, hold the hand for a minute. If it's the foot. Do like Trevor, hold the foot a minute, get that connection. Let you and your burn survivors’ breathing become in sync together because that right there creates harmony and relaxation.

And then we would just start with basic, slow gliding techniques that are very light, almost like a feather touch until your burn survivor can get used to the touch. Go slow, not working deep to give your burn survivor the power to stop when they're ready to stop.

And so once they get used to massage therapy and they build a trust, they are able to touch their own scars and I believe that’s where self-healing begins.

ALLISON: We’ll be right back, after these messages, with more stories about touch.

ALLISON: And we’re back.

CLANK: My name is Clank. I'm a person who's blind, so I often look at things with my hands. In the early mid nineties, I found myself single and as an enterprising person, I decided that I would simply ask every woman that I met to go out with me just on a social date. That sounds so cheesy. I should be more embarrassed than I am. 

And it ended up that there was one week I went out with eight different people and it was all really sociable. Nobody, we didn't, uh, no exchange of body fluids, nothing. And it was super fun. But there– there were a couple of the folks that came out in this dating frenzy that thought about it in advance and actually wore textured clothing just for this man who's blind, who was going out with them. 

One of them wore velvet, which has a lovely texture, and another one had this kind of thermal underwear textured things with all these little tiny bumps all over it. Almost like little springs of fabric that poke up like little pyramids. And they specifically said, “Oh yeah, I thought you might like it.” And I thought that was extremely fabulous and I appreciated that they were that thoughtful. 

You know that, ah, here's a blind guy. I'm gonna wear this spiffy velvet outfit. We often hear people say, seeing is believing. Well, to have the physical contact, it’s kind of like a way to believe that this is real.

LOUISE: Hello, my name is Louise. I am 50 and I live in the UK. I was diagnosed with autism just before I turned 49. And getting that diagnosis was the last piece of the puzzle that I’d had for – well, for 49 years.

I remember that when I was ill as a child, to comfort me, my mom would kind of lightly rub my forehead, but it wasn't comforting at all. Light touches would feel prickly and, and tickly, and my stomach would go in knots. It would feel like I had caterpillars or bugs in my stomach moving around.

Being raised as a girl around other girls, there was this kind of ritualistic play around brushing each other's hair and giving each other different hairstyles and being very gentle with it. And this was meant to be huge amounts of fun and it just creeped me out. Stop touching my hair. Why would you wanna touch me? Why would I wanna touch you? 

It just felt like everything was contracting inside my body in this really painful, uncomfortable way. So I cut my hair off because if I didn't have hair, I couldn't, I couldn't be part of the game.

It was just another thing that got added to the list of reasons why I'm weird and not normal. 

Growing up there was this, this overriding theme that a good lover was a gentle lover. Somebody who would treat you like you were a delicate flower, um, not brutal and brutish. 

It's all about light touches, you could open up any book or magazine, and the narrative would be something along the lines of, you know, he gently traced his fingers over her skin. And this idea of somebody kissing somebody so gently that their lips barely made contact with their skin and things like that just make me itch. They just make me squirm.

And to me that's just like, UGHK, that's so gross. It makes me cringe when I look back, just with the amount of stuff that I tolerated because I thought that I had to and just wanting to fit in and not be different.

I fell into the kink community because I met lots of, um, bisexual people who were very open about their involvement. And my understanding had been really limited to things I'd seen in the media, which was very much talking about, like, a businessman who likes to be a baby at the weekend.

And that seemed not very relatable. And then I met all of these people who like to go out and have fun and sometimes that fun ended up being play. For me, kink is – oh, it's such a wide range of things. It's a way for people to safely fulfill desires that might be a little bit outside of the norm. 

Uh, but it's all very much based on consent. Everything is pre-negotiated. Um, I've had people who've presented me with a three page questionnaire to go into the specifics of what I like, what I don't like. What's an absolute yes, what's an absolute no. That felt incredibly liberating. 

Being part of that community, my sexual literacy improved massively because I was learning things that I hadn't had language for before. It's absolutely okay in that community to say, “These are my needs. Can you meet them?”

A pivotal moment for me, um, with my current partner was quite early in our relationship at the time when it's just constant animalistic sex. We, we were, we were having sex. Somehow we traveled from the middle of a very large bed to the edge, um, and one of my legs started to slide off the bed.

So I was, “Quick. My leg’s falling off the bed.” Um, and he just leant down and grabbed my leg quite firmly and pulled it back onto the bed. And it, it was, it sounds like a cliche, but it was like fireworks went off. It's just like, “Oh, that touch feels really good.” He kept holding on and it just got pretty explosive. I felt amazing. I didn't want that to stop. So I said to him, “Hold me down.” 

Firm touch for me, sometimes it's like music starts to play and everything gets a little orchestral and intense, but at other times it feels like the complete absence of anything else. Like on those mornings when you wake up and it's snowed outside and all of the noises you would normally hear just aren't there.

Everything's been blanketed, and that's the kind of calm that can come over me in the moment. The other thing about firm touch is that it keeps me in the moment, I feel very grounded. I can focus on what's happening, and it can help the rest of the world fall away.

I think there's a really common myth that autistic people do not like any kind of touch at all. And I think the problem with that is nobody has considered asking autistic people how they would like to be touched. And if they did, it would normalize how quite a lot of people feel about contact.

I think there's a real risk if we expect children to accept touch that they're not comfortable with, if children are told, “You must hug Uncle, otherwise you're being rude.” We’re actually normalizing people accepting touch that they don't want. And in the context of intimate relationships, that's essentially teaching people that they have no agency over their own bodies. 

Being able to articulate my desires and particularly my desires around how I'm touched it's incredibly powerful.

ALLISON: Thank you to all the people who shared their stories. If you want to learn more about the people featured, go to kcrw.com/bodies. You’ll find links to Laura Crucianelli’s research about touch as well as Shana Redmond’s essay “A Family Like Mine,” where she writes about the prison industrial complex and the rights of incarcerated people. You’ll also find resources for burn survivors and where to find Jen Hartley. 

As always, we’ve posted a transcript of this episode and a link to the Bodies facebook group, where you can share your own story and find support for whatever you’re going through. You can follow Bodies on Twitter and instagram at @bodiespodcast. And if you like Bodies, tell a friend about the show! 

This episode was produced by me, Allison Behringer, Lila Hassan and Hannah Harris Green. We got story-finding help from Reese Piper and tape sync from Eva Krysiak.Transcription help from Nisha Venkat. Story editing by Mira Burt-Wintonick, Cassius Adair, and KalaLea. Transcription help from Nisha Venkat. Special thanks to Camila Kerwin, Kristen Lepore and Caitlin Pierce. Original score by Hannis Brown. Mixing by Nick Lampone. Theme music and credit music by Dara Hirsch. Episode art by Neka King. Cover art by Sarah Bachman. Bodies is supported and distributed by KCRW. Our executive producer at KCRW is Gina Delvac. Thank you to the whole KCRW team. I’m Allison Behringer, the host and executive producer of Bodies. Thanks for listening. See you next week.