Content note: this blog is about a sex positive project & includes sex in discussions of touch languages

In April 2022 I did a residency at Pervasive Media Studio developing my ideas for a haptics project focussing on trans touch & intimacy. Iʼm interested in the relationships between touch, sensation & gender.

Iʼm a non binary / trans masculine artist usually working in performance, sound & video - full bio here.

What do I mean, ‘touch is genderedʼ?

I realised that feeling safe with a partner and working out the types of touch I like to receive, is one of the main ways I was able to accept and process my trans-ness.

Before I did any medical transition, before it was about seeing something more comfortable in the mirror, I could experience my body in a non-dysphoric way through touch.

Reflecting on this, I was thinking – what was it about this touch that made me feel ‘masculineʼ?

My partner found ways to touch me, that reflected traditionally (gay)masculine touch languages. Touch that both looked and felt ‘rightʼ, and affirmed my understanding of myself as masculine, & that my masculinity was desirable. This was revolutionary to me, because in my experience growing up as a female-socialised person, anything perceived as 'masculine' was deeply shamed.*

So, the first lens this came to me through was personal: one particular touch relationship which helped me experience my gender in a positive way. But then I reflected on other types of touch, and the way this happens across society, in less intimate touch contexts too.

Mainly what came to mind, was the types of touch I have automatically offered to men who were my partners – like was I offering to put my arm around them, or was that feeling only open to me as the smaller/shorter/more ‘femmeʼ person? – and how that was based on gendered assumptions which were very limited. How those same assumptions are made when we offer touch in the context of greetings, comfort, and other platonic touch – slaps on the back, handshakes, strong & short hugs. Mainly the touch available to masculine people seems to me, to be quite firm and quite brief and perfunctory.

Then I thought about ways I can be touched which might feel traditionally ‘feminineʼ. There are certain types of touch which ‘feelʼ feminine to me.

(This is where I got to the question – is sensation gendered?)

Light touch, soft touch, meandering & not to the point. All these things feel femme to me. & they can be enjoyable, or there could be negatives to this, for instance I might feel dysphoric when offered those kinds of touch in certain contexts.

Obviously, itʼs a deep deep shame that people might miss out on the full spectrum of touch and sensation, due to how their gender is perceived.

BUT – there can be positives to being aware of this language of gendered touch. I can think of a lot of times in recent years where I have been able to offer a touch language that has helped my partner feel a certain way. And who knows, to be honest, whether there is anything inherent about our experience of touch/sensation/gender, or if its all due to societal conditioning. For me, at the moment, the point is that we live in this world the way it is right now, and by consciously playing with these languages we can develop an awareness, affirm the ways that our friends and partners want to feel, and at the same time start to expand what is possible – so that touch vocabulary is no longer assumed based on anatomy or gender presentation, and people can choose and find what feels good for them.

Haptics

Haptics: ‘The science & technology of transmitting and understanding information through touchʼ, ‘any type of technology that gives you a tactile response eg. when you long press your iPhone and it vibratesʼ [OED online]

Where this comes into my research with haptics, is beginning to look at whether the sensations I personally categorise as ‘feminineʼ or ‘masculineʼ**, share some similar resonance for other people OR whether my ‘touch meaningsʼ are actually very personal.

Then starting to work out how this maps onto the available types of sensation – what are the mediums available in haptics? How do these different types of synthesised touch feel?

This is drawn from the title of a paper: ‘User Experiences and Expectations of Vibrotactile, Thermal and Squeeze Feedback in Interpersonal Communication’, Suhonen, Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila, Mäkelä (2012).

Some of the most rewarding parts of this work so far, have been working out how to talk about personal experiences of sensation between people who have different anatomies (or, just between any two people!). Working with collaborators, some of the language that has come up has been based in sound – ‘speakers panningʼ, ‘applying a filterʼ – & this is an area I want to explore more.

I also remembered Labanʼs Movement Analysis (a way of describing movement in Dance), & the Effort axes which describe each movement eg. sudden > sustained, direct > indirect. Something about the method of identifying sensations on a continuum, felt helpful to me so I made a first draft of an adapted model with some parameters which could be used to discuss sensation:

Some ideas for word-continuums to talk about sensation, based on the Laban Movement Analysis model

Note: we found it is really hard to talk about sensation, not touch! :) but it is really helpful to make the distinction between the two.

Next steps

I'm totally new to this field, although Iʼm experienced in talking about affect and sensation in terms of performance, & looking at embodied experience through the lens of somatics.

I have identified relevant research areas to follow up in the fields of haptics for prosthetics & haptics for VR. I would love to meet and chat with some researchers in these fields.

I also want to continue prototyping ways of creating sensation, to learn in a material way at the same time. Right now Iʼm looking for technologist collaborators who are interested in this field.

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Notes:

*My experience of being a teenager in 1999 where I grew up in a village/small town in the UK, was extremely gender-conforming. Even though my visual ‘masculinityʼ makes me feel gender euphoric now, I still carry the ingrained shame of feeling that masculinity was somehow wrong on my body.

**Just to say – these are of course not the only types of gender or gendered sensation – for instance what about things that feel completely beyond the binary, agender, ‘alienʼ, or plant like? But they are the axes I started with in this particular project, because even though they might feel quite limiting & bring up all these social contradictions, Iʼve had meaningful experiences there.

***& often drawing from film eg. ‘Haptic Visuality’ by Laura Marks[https://www.sfu.ca/~lmarks/styled-7/].

More about the residency structure & accessibility

I was there for a month, coming into the Studio 3 days a week. The part time model was great: because of my fatigue it allowed me to do the project in a gentle-ish way and then recover or switch to other types of work the rest of the time.

The Studio turned out to be a great environment for me to work in (I donʼt always find that with shared spaces). They have a ‘quiet spaceʼ where I sometimes went to lie down, which meant I could stay there all day instead of having to go home and rest.

Working with access support worker Liz Clarke was really a gamechanger - Liz helped me to process both the mundane (travel booking, invoicing) and the expansive, philosophical/ethical themes of the work.

Residency collaborator credits:

Vix Williams, slimetime

Paul Hanson

Martin O’Leary, PM Studio Creative Technologist

Liz Clarke, Access Support

Touch is gendered … is sensation gendered?

How could institutions support artists making work about identity?

Midi residency at Pervasive Media Studio