Vulgar Language
Have you every heard of the five love languages? Apart from being a series of books, its also a theory that there are five different ways that people express and receive love:

1. Words of affirmation
2. Receiving gifts
3. Quality time
4. Acts of service
5. Physical touch

I'm not sure how widely accepted this is in psychological circles or if it is just Dr. Chapman's pet theories that he's been able to spin to a money making series of books (yes I am cynical), but I definitely am the physical touch type when it comes to receiving and expressing love and affection. Words of affirmation or encouragement would be my second most common.

(Funnily enough, Sophie is an acts of service kind of person — sometimes opposites really do attract!)

I was thinking about this this morning. Hmmm... physical touch and words of affirmation... two things that really get used the wrong way when you are sexually abused. I wonder if these are my love languages because they were really hammered badly when I was nine years old — many parts of my psyche still forming — or if the they have been (or would have been) my love languages all along.

Dic. H.