Desdemona’s skin, Othello said, was “smooth as monumental alabaster”. However, it might have actually been as rough as sandpaper.
Your lover’s skin is not as soft as you think, but touching it creates the illusion that it is, to make the experience more pleasurable for you and enhance bonds in the relationship, scientists say.
In a series of studies, people consistently rated someone else’s skin as being softer than their own, regardless of whether it really was. Researchers from University College London said this could point to a phenomenon ensuring humans are motivated to build social bonds through touch.
Earlier studies showed softness and smoothness could stimulate parts of the brain linked to emotion and reward, they added, so the illusion that other people are