Hugs and Hookup Culture
- Alexis Garcia-Irons
- Nov 21, 2025
- 7 min read
In 1965 there was an experiment done now known as the "Harlow's Monkey's Experiment". If you're a psych major this is probably ringing some bells. Harlow made two monkey "mothers" for infant monkeys to choose from. One was a mesh wire "mother" that had a bottle accessible for the monkey to get its food from. Not far was another "mother"
that was also mesh wire, but it was covered with a soft cloth that made it much more cuddly than the other one, but no bottle for food. What ended up happening? Would the baby monkey choose to stay close to the one with food for survival or choose the more snuggly "mother"? What they found was the baby monkeys spent much more time with the cloth "mother" than the one with the bottle, concluding that there is an intrinsic pull to physical touch that is built into us and much more a part of our survival than we may first realize.
You could do a general Google search and find article after article, study after study, backing up these findings specifically for humans as well. The same conclusion is drawn time and time again: we need physical touch and it is tied to our overall mental and physical well-being. Yes, we are even healthier physically when we have physical touch in our lives. And there was a time in the not too distant past that really brought this research to the forefront. Remember a few years back where we had to quarantine away from everyone around us? And if we did go out for necessities, we had to be 6ft apart from each other? Essentially, no physical touch at all. And if you were quarantining with other humans, family, roommates, etc., you had the benefit of maintaining physical contact in your life (potentially, I know all relationships are different haha). But compare that to people who ended up quarantining alone. The experiment with Harlow's Monkeys was on full display.
We actually do worse and feel worse when we don't get regular physical touch. This is what scientists call "touch deprivation". The effects have been seen in studies on children in orphanages who do not get regular physical touch due to the orphanage being understaffed. The children who were deprived of this physical touch had developmental delays and issues with cortisol levels. Studies also show the regulating effects physical touch has on newborns within the hour that they are born: reduced heart rate, regulated temperature and breathing as well as a decrease in crying. There's also calming benefits for the mother as well.
And the benefits are just as prominent for adults. An article from Psychology Today (linked below) states:
"Since Harlow’s experiments, research has uncovered an astonishing number of poor health outcomes that result when we are deprived of touch. The correlation between anxiety, depression and stress and touch is large and inversely related. It has been found that touch calms our nervous center and slows down our heartbeat. Human touch also lowers blood pressure as well as cortisol, our stress hormone. It also triggers the release of oxytocin, a hormone known for promoting emotional bonding to others."
Needless to say, physical touch is important. So, what does this have to do with singleness? Well, typically (every relationship is different) a key aspect of a romantic relationships is physical touch. For some, this is really the only place where regular physical touch happens. On top of that, think of US culture. In the U.S., our culture as a whole is more individualistic and values personal space, so physical contact between people is not as constant as in high contact cultures like in Latin America and the Middle East. So, if you live in the U.S. this probably means that your friendships don't naturally have a lot of physical contact either.
This then means that if you are single you don't have that romantic partner with whom you would more regularly have physical touch with. And for some, that's super hard! Maybe your love language is on the Physical Touch spectrum, so not having that regular physical touch and the emotional connection is really hard to be without. But even if you aren't a big physical touch person, our whole bodies are actually wired to operate best when physical touch is a regular part of our lives.
This can be one of the things that leads singles to get swept up in the very "normal" flow of hookup culture. And there are many puzzle pieces to the whole sociology behind hookup culture, but for the purpose of this post I just want to highlight the need that hookup culture is trying to fill when it comes to physical touch. It's a human need, and hooking up involves both physical touch and some sort of connection, even if it is short-lived. But this becomes an issue if you are a Christian single, committed to living by the sexual ethic that Jesus did and that Jesus taught: sex is only meant for the committed, loving, covenantal marriage relationship between one man and one woman. Outside of that, sex is a no-go. And not because sex is this inherently bad, gross thing that should be avoided until marriage or something like that. But actually because it is so good and so powerful AND so capable of causing pain and hurt and destruction if used outside of the way it was designed to work. (For a longer form exploration of this take a listen to the sermon "The Sacrament of Us: Sexual Desire" by pastor Dan Braga on my Resources Page :)).
And let me level with you here. Yes, I believe this because I believe the Bible and its teachings to be true for my life and everyone's life. I believe Jesus lived this and taught this. And I believe God is good and knows much better than I do how my body and relationships and flourishing works. And I also believe this because before committing to follow Jesus, I lived the hookup culture life, full-stop. And I wasn't in church so it's not like I was rebelling against church teaching or something. I was living the way I wanted to and as long as things were consensual then things were ok. I lived this way for years and really thought nothing of it. It's what everyone around me was doing, it was so normal. But as time went on the shine began to tarnish, so to speak. The shallowness, the emptiness the relational brokenness and the shame began to catch up to me. And after I completely blew up a few good friendships and hurt people due to my choices (to put it mildly), THAT'S when I decided to give church and Jesus a try. It was actually because of the brokenness I experienced from hookup culture that caused me to take a step back and reassess my life because the love and intimacy I was searching for in hookups was like grasping at straws. So, I believe God's reality of healthy sex and sexuality because of both His Word and experience.
And so then coming to Jesus, finding that deeper love, the start of healing and fully learning the sexual ethic of Jesus, I had to figure out what to do about this physical touch thing. As some of you might also be trying to figure out as a Christian single. The "touch deprivation" I experienced was there and I had to rewire the way I thought of physical touch. And if you notice a few paragraphs up, the physical touch that was being mentioned that's beneficial for our health and mental health wasn't sexual in nature. We get all the benefits of physical touch whether its sexual or not. SO, what does this mean? It means to be a full and flourishing human, based on stats and the Bible, you don't have to engage in hookup culture. You can wait until the marriage relationship to open up the physical touch that includes sex. And if you don't get married? You can still be a full and flourishing single without sex. I know that may sound wild, but look at Jesus. Completely single, completely faithful to God's design for sex and physical touch and He is our example for how to live a fully human life.
Recently, I've found a really fun and unexpected way to have physical touch in my life through dancing. Salsa and Bachata to be specific. Which if you don't know, these are partner dances, with a lead and follow, usually male and female. It started as just a general "I want to try something new" thing, but ended up being so fun and so healing. The culture of the dance classes/events is with the expectation of respectful physical touch. Obviously, there are some guys now and then that test boundaries, but on the whole my experience has been great. I think it's something that can help rewire our brains away from sexualizing every physical touch encounter with people, especially the opposite sex. It teaches us to respect each other in so many ways. Now, dancing may not be your thing (but I really encourage you to try it! :)), but here are some other ideas that can help you increase the physical touch in your life:
Hugs! Men, you too ;) And not just quick side hugs, but hugs that have more warmth and care to the. Channel your inner Olaf! ("Hi I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs.")
Getting massages. This was actually a big discovery after quarantine for people!
Cuddling pets (yours or someone else's)
Holding/snuggling a baby (added benefit of giving your parent friends a break!)
Getting a manicure and/or pedicure regularly
Holding hands ("...PET scans have found that the brain quiets in response to stress when a person’s hand is held.", article linked below)
Weighted blankets. Obviously not human, but can mimic some of the benefits of physical touch.
What else??? Get creative :)
So, I know a post like this can open many cans of many worms, but I hope its encouraging and thought provoking. I'm living this reality of celibate singleness and can genuinely say there's flourishing here. Trust Jesus with His vision and definition of life, there's no better way :)
As always, please share your thoughts and comments here or in an email! That let's me know what you are enjoying and what you are wanting to read more about.
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