I’ve had hemorrhoids for like 25 years, so I’ve always been very discerning about my toilet paper.
this entire time, I’ve been using whatever toilet paper I have found to be the softest as facial tissue, to blow my nose, as well. my reasoning being, if this stuff is gentle enough for my hemorrhoids, of course it’s going to be gentle enough for repeated use on my upper lip.
then, a friend turns me on to one of those new “with lotion” facial tissues (my bathroom tissue always has aloe in it) and wouldn’t you know it, my upper lip finds it to be softer than the toilet paper. but, when I try using it as toilet paper, my anus doesn’t find it to be less irritating than the toilet paper.
why do my butthole and my upper lip think that different things are softer? is it just chemistry?
What does it mean if the sensation always seems to be “my finger is touching” vs “I’m being touched by a finger”? I feel like I completely understand what you’re getting at and it’s something I’ve never thought about before so I’m touching myself all over but everything feels like it’s being touched by my finger. I haven’t found a spot that feels like my finger is touching it yet and I really want to.
Well, barring some form of medical issue, chances are that you’ve run into the mind-body connection.
It’s entirely possible to override the filtering the brain does. You can decide to pay attention to the signals from your finger more, and your brain will usually obey.
And it is possible that either your fingers are extra sensitive, or that the places you’re touching are atypically low in comparison to your fingers.
Generally, the two most sensitive spots on the body are the lips and the genitals. But there’s stuff that can interfere with that isn’t abnormal or a problem, but still shift the way the brain processes the signals coming in.
I’d try dimming lights, or even cutting them off, and very gently, with only enough pressure to make contact, move a fingertip, usually the index finger, across your lips. You can also try treating your finger like a lollipop, and wrap your lips around the tip to gently kiss. That gives greater area of contact, which will help if the issue is something like thicker skin on the lips.
And, at the risk of seeming weird, gently touching the glans penis (the head) or clitoris almost always works as the nerve density there is as high as it gets.
For me, my entire face feels the finger, but once I get past the chin or into the scalp, it shifts. Some people only have the lips, nose and sometimes eyes that are more sensitive than the fingers.
I think I might have gotten into my own head with it when I first noticed what you meant when I touched my lips. I touched my genitals after and then went to my thighs. My lips and genitals I can clearly feel that they are being touched by my finger and I don’t feel it through my finger. So I started poking my thighs, chest, back, feet, etc and it kept feeling the same but I think I was pushing too hard or had the experiment in my head too much. After reading this post I can feel the difference testing my lips vs my forehead and from there I seem to weirdly be able to tell my brain is influencing wether I feel the sensation through my thigh or my finger if I do that next. If I go from my lips to my thigh I feel it in my thigh, if I go from my forehead to my thigh I feel both through my finger. It’s like my brain is screwing with me/itself because it knows what I’m doing. I bet if I was less focused on what I’m trying to experiment with that I could do it in a more decoupled way. Such a small but cool bit about myself that I had no idea was a thing. Thank you for explaining and walking me through the process.
Edit: I think I reversed the sensation direction in my first response, my only excuse is that this is kind of wild and new territory for me so I think I struggle communication the different sensations that I never even realized I was capable of until now. Your explanation and guidance was still right on though. Thank you
I’m glad you had fun with it :)
I never cease to be amazed at the way we can shift our perceptions like that.