Tuesday in "Sans Rendez-vous", the sexologist and psychoanalyst Catherine Blanc answers the question of a disappointed listener not to receive enough hugs and caresses from her companion.

Are hugs, kisses and other taste buds essential in a couple?

Tuesday, in the program "Sans Rendez-vous", the sexologist and psychoanalyst Catherine Blanc addresses this problem after a question from Samantha, listener of Europe 1, visibly sad not to receive enough marks of tenderness from her boyfriend.

The explanation could lie in the lived experience of childhood when signs of affection were restricted.

Our columnist invites us to verbalize but also to ask the question of the origin of this need for physical proximity.

>> Find all sexo questions in replay and podcast here

Samantha's question

"My boyfriend is not kind to me. At first I didn't mind but after six months I badly need affection. Should I part with him or will he change?"

Catherine Blanc's response

How to define the lack felt by Samantha?

Samantha needs to be touched.

We are mammals: we grew up being caressed in the mother's womb and we continue to be so when we are hugged, pampered, etc.

We therefore naturally seek physical contact like all mammals.

The fact of not being touched lets us think that we are not welcomed, heard, in our visceral need.

Are boys less fond of petting?

Boys are often denied the freedom to express this need and go so far as to deny it.

Sometimes, for them, the penis centralizes all the caressing needs: it must be touched, retouched and retouched.

But signs of affection are essential for them, as much as for women.

We usually have to go back to childhood to understand this reluctance.

Certain injunctions come to curb this need: "to be grown up is not to be a baby constantly asking for tenderness".

Or the man did not learn this physical warmth from his own father.

Many men do not kiss, even in the family circle.

After six months of relationship, should Samantha be resigned to this situation?

Everyone in the romantic relationship can, in the name of love, open up the possibilities.

Samantha hopes to be able to change her companion, to unleash him, to see him open up.

Samantha is very patient, but maybe she should have verbalized and said "stroke me, touch me".

Does requiring caresses first imply that we give it?

You cannot demand from others what you do not give yourself.

She has to show him how much she appreciates being touched.

If you touch a man who doesn't touch you back… Mass is said.

But she must also ask herself why she consents to get involved in a lasting relationship when she says she suffers cruelly from this lack.

Perhaps this is the repetition of a personal story: she projects onto a man a lack of tenderness that she has already experienced with other people, starting with her parents.