Expressing feelings and emotions through touch can strengthen communication and intensify sensuality in a relationship, Tina Kahn, Center 4 Yoga massage therapist said.

As part of Olin Health Center's Healthy Sexuality Week 2006, Kahn demonstrates to students how massage doesn't necessarily have to lead to sex.

"Between loving, consensual adults, massage can definitely increase communication and understanding and sensitivity," Kahn said.

Healthy Sexuality Week 2006, co-sponsored by Residence Halls Association and Olin, is a weeklong event emphasizing the stimulation of senses between partners, said Olin health educator Erin Williston.

Each day's theme is based on one of the five senses: touch, smell, sight, hearing and taste, Williston said.

In healthy sexuality, promoting sensual communication between partners can increase a connection, Kahn said.

In a 90-minute workshop, Kahn guided partners through a sensory awareness exercise to focus on increasing perception of the other four senses, Kahn said. One partner closes his or her eyes; the other person "explores" the partner's head with his or her fingers.

The sensory awareness exercise aims to develop sensitivity in hands and fingers to connect partners through the sense of touch, Kahn said.

The chair massage technique concentrates on the head, neck, shoulders and upper back to get couples to focus on each other to stimulate circulation, she said.

"We are so visually stimulated that we don't even realize how important touch is," Kahn said. "Our other senses get downplayed, but they can cue us into stuff that maybe isn't that apparent by our vision."

Deirdre Guenther, prenursing sophomore, attended Monday's massage event because she's always wanted to learn massage techniques.

She said since she's a prenursing major, it'll be helpful for her future — and if she doesn't go into nursing, it'd be helpful in her future relationships.

"Touching is part of intimacy, and if you aren't intimate, your relationship isn't strong," Guenther said. "Holding hands … is a form of nonverbal speaking.

"And there is less distance between you physically and mentally with your partner."

Neuromuscular massage therapist Lindsey Braverman said healthy touch between couples is a key part of a nourishing relationship.

The ability to communicate on more than a vocal level can help tune into the emotional state of a couple, she said.

"If they've had a rough day, its easier to pick up something through touch," Braverman said. "When you have massage or contact and touch, you can sense and can calm their fears or anxieties."

Every living being senses touch as its primary sensation, Kahn said.

"Touch is critical for life, even as adults," Kahn said. "Very few people get touched often enough so touching can bring you back to yourself and help you connect with another person."

Healthy touching can create an awareness of the other person and can be satisfying without leading to intercourse, Kahn said.

"The real key is that in massage as you are learning to work with someone else, with healthy touch, you are listening to them in what they need and want," Kahn said. "It frees people from always having to end with intercourse."

But promoting sensual communication between partners can lead to better intercourse, Kahn said. Without sensuality, communication or connection, sexuality will be nothing, she said.

Americans have a tendency to lose a lot of the sensuality in sex, Kahn said.

Along with communicating, a connecting energy is felt between two people, she said.

"Touch is the one sense where you literally connect with the other person's energy," Kahn said. "At that point you are unified at some level.

"You become one with them at some level."