This is something I recently discussed with my therapist and thought I would share it with you ladies because it was weaponized against me in my most recent relationship.
If you’re not already familiar, in a nutshell the five love languages is a personality quiz which breaks down how people prefer to communicate and receive loving gestures and expressions.
The five languages are acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, physical touch, and words of affirmation.
(I think it might be controversial, but the point here isn’t about the love languages themselves but rather how men will use this against women.)
So the physical touch love language means that a person feels most loved when they are physically close and in contact with the people they care about. So this includes hugging, handholding, cuddling, even just touching feet when sleeping. What this does not explicitly include however is sex, but men, or rather scrotes, would have you believe otherwise.
My ex and I were extremely sexually incompatible, and overtime this lead to him cheating. Instead of owning his actions and communicating to try to get on the same page about sex, he claimed that physical touch was his love language and by not engaging in the sexual frequency or behaviors he wanted I was denying him.
I was showing that I loved and cared for him in many ways, including using my own love language which is acts of service. Additionally, I was expressing physical love towards him like kissing, holding and cuddling … all sorts of things that are definitely included in physical touch. And it’s not like we weren’t having sex. In fact we were having sex on average once a week which was above average for people who had been a relationship as long as we had and at our age. But as LVM do, he manipulated the situation to make it seem like I was committing this cardinal sin for not ducking every day.
Unfortunately like so many resources and languages out there, men love nothing more than to intellectualize and twist all these tools for communication to better relationships into ways of guilt tripping and gaslighting the women in their lives.
This of course doesn’t have to be exclusive to romantic or sexual relationships either. But it’s just something to look out for, men love that women really enjoy these sorts of personality quizzes and tests and are always looking for opportunities to use it against us. I would say be very weary of a guy who expresses interest in the love languages, especially if he claims his is physical touch. Not that all men who are interested in learning about romantic communication are automatically bad, but you’re gonna want to ask the right questions to make sure it’s legitimate because in my experience more often than not it isn’t.
afterthought: you can also see how men respond to you having a different type of love language. I had a male coworker claim that women whose love language is receiving gifts are golddiggers, so if you’re familiar with them you can get creative on how to use this as a vetting tool.
99.9% of dudes say physical touch when asked about love languages and yep you’re totally right it’s code for sex. The amount of guys that said “i’m very sexual” too was so aggravating, like no shit scrote you’re a dude and the sky is blue. I am so over men and their pathetic attempts to disguise that all they want is easy sex.
It's very interesting how they only know those two love languages. Physical touch for obvious reasons but receiving gifts being the other has always been amusing to me. Each language can have their own little stigmas but of course the one where the guy is put in the position of being a giver is deemed "the bad one" (uh oh scary 'gold diggers'). There's no default value to what the gift should be but scrotes automatically assume it's designer bags, a luxury car, & expensive jewelry. It's simply paying attention to what she likes and surprising her with that. No matter the standard of gift, there's undeniable effort and thought behind it that shows love. If a person starts shaming you/women for having this as a main language then it's extremely telling of them. Gift-giving is the other side of the same coin but it's never met with such judgment, I wonder why...
I personally have a few main languages; quality time, physical touch, & receiving gifts (material gworlll~ 💅👜💍💵 lol). Quality time is my #1 but if a man asks me about it then I always go with gifts. His response tells me all I need to know.
yes i learnt this last year when a scrote i was seeing used physical touch against me. since then, anytime i see a man mention love languages on his profile i swipe left. all they wanna do is weaponize helpful concepts against others.
I just say my love language is all of them.. Like when you love someone you do all 5 of those things without having to put too much thought into it. Because the person you love is on your mind you see things you know they will like when you shop. You want to give them little caresses and hugs when you walk past them. You want to tell them how lovely they are. You do little chores and services to make their lives easier because they are on your mind. And you want to go on fun date nights and trips and do special things with them.
YES. Men are so simple that I clocked that early on when dating. I agree that other love languages such as acts of service and receiving gifts are great weed out methods if not what we SHOULD be receiving anyway (useless men suck).
One of my top pet peeves with dating apps and, well, men in general. Yes, of course you want your dick touched. Water is wet. More on the six o'clock news.
Physical touch is my main love language. Sex is an entirely different thing
Yep, spot on. At this point I actually believe if a man so much as mentions love languages he is probably doing it to manipulate you emotionally. To add to this, this is how I've noticed one of my boyfriend's main love languages is actually physical touch (in the non-sexual way):
- Preface: he doesn't say things like "I need X to feel loved" in the first place, and when I asked him what he thinks his main love language is, he said quality time (and this checks out). He doesn't weaponize the concept of love languages, just shows up as he is and is able to talk about his preferences and wishes in a normal way.
- When we walk next to each other, he wants to put his arm around me or hold my hand, which I don't have as much intrinstic preference for, but I don't mind it
- He snuggles up to me (and even caresses me) in his sleep
- Whenever I'm sad or frustrated or we've talked about something serious, he needs a kiss or a hug from me to know that we're okay, whereas I'm fine with purely verbal confirmation in that regard
- Before sleeping he often asks me to rub his arms or back for a few minutes
- Just generally likes to cuddle a ton
- Likes to hold and squeeze my hand when we're having a conversation
- Plays with my hair, lightly strokes my shoulder or thigh when we're sitting next to each other at the table or in the car
- He genuinely enjoys all of these things in and of themselves and neither do they seem greedy nor are they a gateway to sex
He definitely reaches out more for touch than I do, but I obviously like cuddling and kissing him too. I've just noticed that I lean a little more verbal and he a little more physical. Just wanted to add this example of what it can look like when someone expresses and receives affection physically as opposed to "wah wah if you don't service my pp it hurts my fee-fees"
Out of all the men that claimed physical touch was his thing, I've only met one that was actually into it. Never pestered me for sex. He would be content with kissing, cuddling, holding hands, playing in my hair, etc. Too bad he was a nvm 😭
I don't think I have any of these as a love language. Im sick of people expecting service from me, okay, I'm affectionate with the horses I ride (nose kisses and scratches), but I get sick of men and even my parents touching me, I like recieving gifts, but it also makes me cringe a bit, I need alone time, and I'm not sure I want to constantly affirm anyone.
Maybe I'd like service from someone else, but in my experience, they don't do things the way I want them done.