What is physical affection? Is it merely touch, or a deeper part of the expression of love language? When you’re in love, the ways you show it always include some form of physical touch. For many, physical affection and physical touch are integral aspects of intimacy. For others, touch is a part of a deep friendship or bond.
What Is the ‘Love Language’ Theory?
Gary Chapman, a Baptist minister and marriage counselor, first detailed the love language theory in 1992 when he authored The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. Briefly, the five love languages are how individuals express and receive love.
What are the Five? How Does This Love Language Fit?
The five love languages include:
- Words that you speak, affirmation
- One-on-one quality time spent with your partner
- Physical touch expression of love
- Acts of service you or your partner perform
- Receiving gifts
How Physical Touch Fits with Love Language
The language of love differs from one person to another. Some people connect through touch. It is also a way for them to feel connected. When you care deeply about another, you want to express and receive love in the most rewarding and fulfilling manner.
This Love Language Explained
No one has a single love language. Their preferred way to give and receive love typically encompasses several of the five love languages. However, you or your partner may regard physical touch highly, but not to the exclusion of other love languages. Remember that communicating to your partner how you want to show and receive love is essential to a healthy, vibrant, and loving relationship.
What Does Physical Affection Mean?
What is physical affection to you? Is it always being greeted warmly and genuinely by someone you care about? You may secretly long for a more profound, intimate caress over a casually given handshake or pat on the back. On the other hand — and this involves other love language touch ideas — you may be OK with occasional soft touches as long as they’re interspersed with different forms of physical touch.
Furthermore, the pleasure hormones triggered by skin-on-skin contact are strongly associated with love.
Giving This Love Language
Suppose you are the giver of love language. What is physical affection to someone who appreciates physical touch as a way to receive love? To be effective, you’ll want to show your love in the manner most likely to be well received.
- Your partner may be introverted and uncomfortable with overt displays of love, including frequent physical touch.
- They may prefer a warm, cordial handshake with another hand extending to the arm over a welcoming kiss.
- However, if your partner tells you they value a lingering kiss, or a warm but brief kiss, upon waking or first seeing them, that’s how you give the love language of physical touch.
Receiving This Love Language
When your love language is physical touch, it doesn’t exclusively mean that sex is the only way to express love. For you, love language touch ideas can run the gamut from a tender caress to a brief but warm kiss and extend to an intense and intensely romantic physical expression of your love during sex.
Remember, what physical affection is to a longtime friend may differ from yours. However, you can tailor your interactions with your friend to include their physical touch and love language.
Examples of Love Language Touch Ideas
Hugs are the most common form of physical touch as a love language. Hugging another person is universally regarded as a way to show love, comfort, support, and happiness. Yet, what is physical affection to me may be more in the line of hand-holding or cuddling than the (to me) casual hug.
Whose Love Language Is It? Yours or Your Partner’s?
For new relationships, there’s often a learning curve during which each finds out what the other likes and dislikes. This includes determining their preferred love language touch ideas. But how do you know if this is your love language or your partner’s?
Briefly, you talk about what’s important to you and your partner. Ask how and why certain expressions of love are essential to them. Be honest about what you want and tell your partner you feel loved when they touch you and how you want to be touched.
Examples of giving physical touch as love language include:
- Love touches may demand your full attention, such as a back rub or foreplay before sex.
- On the other hand, love touches may be implicit and brief. You put your hand on their shoulder while pouring coffee or affectionately rub your body against theirs as you pass in the kitchen.
- Small gestures, such as placing your arm across your partner’s shoulders as you watch TV or holding hands in public, also count.
- You deliver sweet kisses spontaneously and randomly and love the smile on your partner’s face.
