Intimate Touch

A behavioral scientist explores love, belongingness, and fulfillment, focusing on how modern technology can both help and hinder our need to connect. A Next Big Idea Club nominee. Millions of people around the world are not getting the physical, emotional, and intellectual intimacy they crave. Through the wonders of modern technology, we are connecting with more people more often than ever before, but are these connections what we long for? Pandemic isolation has made us even more alone. In Out of Touch, Professor of Psychology Michelle Drouin investigates what she calls our intimacy famine, exploring love, belongingness, and fulfillment and considering why relationships carried out on technological platforms may leave us starving for physical connection. Drouin puts it this way: when most of our interactions are through social media, we are taking tiny hits of dopamine rather than the huge shots of oxytocin that an intimate in-person relationship would provide. Drouin explains that intimacy is not just sex—although of course sex is an important part of intimacy. But how important? Drouin reports on surveys that millennials (perhaps distracted by constant Tinder-swiping) have less sex than previous generations. She discusses pandemic puppies, professional cuddlers, the importance of touch, “desire discrepancy” in marriage, and the value of friendships. Online dating, she suggests, might give users too many options; and the internet facilitates “infidelity-related behaviors.” Some technological advances will help us develop and maintain intimate relationships—our phones, for example, can be bridges to emotional support. Some, on the other hand, might leave us out of touch. Drouin explores both of these possibilities.

From a two-time nationally award winning sexuality researcher - The Art of Intimate Marriage. God's plan for sexual intimacy in marriage is the work of a Master artist and genuine intimacy is like a beautiful masterpiece. Your marriage is going well but you want to make your sex life better and you’re looking for help on how to do that. You want to know what God has to say about how to build a fulfilling sexual intimacy in your marriage. Your sexual relationship has been full of pain, discouragement, and frustration and you need some answers. You have some medical issues that are making sex difficult and you would like to rekindle experiencing mutually pleasurable sex. For these issues and more, The Art of Intimate Marriage provides direction and guidance on how to get there. Creating that masterpiece may mean learning God’s view of sex, gaining life-giving intimacy skills, and figuring out how to work through conflict in a way that creates deeper connection. It may also mean overcoming things in your background, healing things in your marriage, or dealing with those medical challenges. We have the opportunity to have a deeper understanding of God’s loving heart through being deeply known and erotically bonded with our spouse. The Art of Intimate Marriage gives us a road map to experience growth toward a more rewarding, spiritual sexual relationship.

Marriage should be based on love, right? But does it seem as though you and your spouse are speaking two different languages? #1 New York Times bestselling author Dr. Gary Chapman guides couples in identifying, understanding, and speaking their spouse's primary love language-quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, or physical touch. By learning the five love languages, you and your spouse will discover your unique love languages and learn practical steps in truly loving each other. Chapters are categorized by love language for easy reference, and each one ends with simple steps to express a specific language to your spouse and guide your marriage in the right direction. A newly designed love languages assessment will help you understand and strengthen your relationship. You can build a lasting, loving marriage together. Gary Chapman hosts a nationally syndicated daily radio program called A Love Language Minute that can be heard on more than 150 radio stations as well as the weekly syndicated program Building Relationships with Gary Chapman, which can both be heard on fivelovelanguages.com. The Five Love Languages is a consistent New York Times bestseller - with over 5 million copies sold and translated into 38 languages. This book is a sales phenomenon, with each year outselling the prior for 16 years running!

La vida y el ministerio de Jesucristo. Este volumen es el primero de tres sobre el Nuevo Testamento. Abarca la vida de Cristo, desde la selección premortal como el Cordero de Dios a través de Su nacimiento e infancia. Luego seguimos al Maestro durante el primer año de Su ministerio, de como es tentado, bautizado, hace milagros, selecciona a los Doce Apóstoles, y luego enseña con parábolas y en el Sermón de la Montaña durante el segundo año de Su ministerio, Él enseña el sermón del Pan de Vida, se transfigura y otorga las llaves del sacerdocio a los Doce. Termina el segundo año de Su ministerio en Jerusalén, donde se declara a Si mismo la Luz del Mundo, el Hijo de Dios y el Mesías. La cubierta exhibe la imagen clásica de "El Sermón de la Montaña", pintado por Carl Heinrich Bloch en 1890.

This book delves into the notion of intimacy as a defining feature of podcasting, examining the concept of intimacy itself and how the public sphere explores the relationships created and maintained through podcasts. The book situates textual analysis of specific American podcasts within podcast criticism, monetization, and production advice. Through analysis of these sources' self-descriptions, the text builds a podcasting-specific framework for intimacy and uses that framework to interpret how podcasting imagines the connections it forms within communities. Instead of intimacy being inherent, the book argues that podcasting constructs intimacy and uses it to define the quality of its own mediation. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of New and Digital Media, Media Studies, Communication Studies, Journalism, Literature, Cultural Studies, and American Studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a CreativeCommons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Childhood Emotional Maltreatment, Attachment and Later Intimate Relationships addresses timely topics on the effect of emotional child abuse and neglect on the formation and maintenance of intimate relationships in adolescence and adulthood. This collection of manuscripts addresses current theory, research and practice pertinent to the difficulties experienced by survivors of childhood emotional maltreatment. Topics addressed in this volume include: attachment theory, interpersonal problems, codependency and self silencing, and relationship violence and sexual aggression. The manuscripts reflect current research regarding the influence of childhood emotional maltreatment on intimate relationships while suggesting directions for future research on this important topic. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma.

The real life behind Helen Hunt’s Oscar-nominated performance in The Sessions: “A provocative and unusual book about a provocative and unusual profession” (Booklist). For the past forty years, Cheryl Cohen Greene has worked as a surrogate partner, helping clients to confront and ultimately accept their sexuality. In this riveting memoir, Cohen Greene shares some of her most moving cases, and also reveals her own sexual coming-of-age. Beginning with a rigid Catholic upbringing in the 1950s, where she was taught to think sex and sexual desires were unnatural and wrong, Cohen Greene struggled to reconcile her sexual identity. In the 1960s Sexual Revolution, Cohen Greene found herself drawn to alternative sexual paths, and ultimately achieved a rich and rewarding career as a surrogate partner. Sex surrogacy as a profession was first developed by noted sex researchers Masters and Johnson in the 1960s, and since its inception has remained in the shadows. An Intimate Life offers a candid look into the personal and professional life of a surrogate partner, examining the cultural and emotional ramifications of pursuing something most people consider taboo. The memoir opens with Cohen Greene’s work with Berkeley-based poet and journalist Mark O’Brien, who was confined to an iron lung after contracting polio at age six. His short essay “On Seeing A Sex Surrogate” was adapted into the film The Sessions starring John Hawkes and Helen Hunt as Cheryl T. Cohen Greene.