Pleasurable Kingdom by Jonathan Balcombe

Author:Jonathan Balcombe
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 2005-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

TOUCH

Making contact with pleasure

…your life a sluice of sensation along your sides

– D.H. Lawrence, Fish

Few who have petted or stroked or belly-rubbed a domestic dog need any convincing that the dog enjoyed it. Dogs seem especially to enjoy a scratch under the collar, where they can’t reach. They close their eyes, go limp, hold their heads still. If standing, their tail may begin to droop as they relax, seemingly focused on the joy of sensation. Dogs solicit our touch, rolling onto their sides, forelegs cocked and hindlegs open, a clear demand for a belly-rub. When we stop they nuzzle our hands for more.

Darwin was one of the first scientists to recognize the importance and pleasure that animals attach to physical touch. He wrote in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals:

Dogs and cats manifestly take pleasure in rubbing against their masters and mistresses, and in being rubbed or patted by them. Many kinds of monkeys, as I am assured by the keepers in the Zoological Gardens, delight in fondling and being fondled by each other, and by persons to whom they are attached.

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