“We are living in touch deprived societies and this is having a profound impact on our wellbeing. Touch has almost become a forgotten aspect of our lives and cuddle therapy is the perfect way of addressing this.”
The concept of Cuddle therapy or renting a significant other, is a more recent phenomenon that has been very popular in countries like Japan and America. In an article by Authority Magazine, Rebekka Mikkola, CEO of Nordic Cuddle explains, “In western countries like the UK and the US, we are living through a touch deprivation crisis and a stigma has arisen around touch.” The need for people to have reassurance and a sense of safety is so important, so much so that people will actually pay a professional for the experience we all naturally crave.
I believe that this new craze highlights how alone & alienated people are feeling in their daily lives and it has become increasingly difficult to meet people who are like-minded. I’ve been researching how normalizing intimate touch with others can strengthen the sense of connection with one another. Touch doesn’t always need to be sexual. Oxytocin that is released from taking part in non-sexual intimacy like hugging has shown to create a deeper bond and sense of trust within individuals. I feel that many individuals idea of what is appropriate touch has been warped due to a sex oriented society. Communicating our needs and finding a safe space to learn what we feel comfortable with is very important.
My aim with this short book is to bring awareness to different ways touch affects us and how the language can be lost in translation having not been exposed or taught about it. The initial concept for this short story was for it to read as an abstract dream or near dystopian future, where like spa treatments that not many can afford or access, futuristic simulations to experience touch are used for people who desperately want to remember a world where people used to feel less alone/isolated. Instead of talking from experiences I wanted a setting where the reader follows a character living in this futuristic, upgraded world. I’ve never tried to write and illustrate a short story book so I wanted to challenge myself to create something that sparks ideas for a project I could possibly develop. This is by no means the finished result.
Over the past few months, I found myself establishing a bond with two German strangers who became close friends of mine. We all have very different backgrounds and understandings of touch but the more we talked about it the more we agreed that it is an extremely necessary part of being human and that not a lot of people are open to learning about non-sexual touch. In the same way meditation gives us a sense of awareness and feel present, touch can have the same effect mentally and physically. The heart beat is steadier, our senses heighten and we are taken into a trance-like state. I wanted my expression of this subject to feel abstract as the feeling can be difficult to describe. I wanted to use synesthesia in my short story by finding the connection between certain feelings and how they could be translated into illustrations. By gathering information about how touch makes us feel and how our bodies react to it I started visualising how goosebumps and electricity running through the body feels to me.
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