LW poses some intereseting challenges, and operates with a clear understanding that he has not all of the information about what configures and influences his emotional reactions. Some random thoughts from someone whose sexual abuse memories returned at the age of 42....

LW is right to be concerned in the here and now about his own sense of boundaries and his own ability to establish them. As an adult, living at home notwithstanding, he has every perogative to define an adult/adult relationship with his father. That may involve a sit-down, a confrontation or a series of mild interventions as his father moves into his touchy-feelie stage. Or, it may involve a discussion with his father about his father's behavior. What motivates dad, and what is it that Dad is trying to achieve? Is dad trying to compensate for not being physical during LW's youth? Is his behavior driven by darker forces? A conversation may smoke out Dad's overt and possibly reveal in profile his covert agenda. If his overt agenda is affection and intimacy, then that discussion may be a radically freeing one. If, on some level, that conversation is stilted, didactic and arbitrary, Dad may be concealing some of his own feelings, as much from himself as from his son.

If indeed, dad is a safe person, and his intentions pertaining LW are genuine, it may be that there is a real opportunity, not just to stop one behavioral habit, but to replace it with another. Perhaps Dad's touchy-feelie stuff is too much, but perhaps Dad and LW can go to a movie togheter, share lunch out together, engage in some mutually acceptable activity together that gives them a genuine opportunity for a certain safe level of companionability. If Dad has a choice - "I would rather go out with a movie and talk about it afterward than have you giving me neck massages"... may be a dooable deal, particularly if dad really wants to get close to LW as an adult.

As to the "repressed memory" potential - they are never lost memeories, they are simply displaced for a time, until an adult has time and personal safety for them to be overtly processed. Certainly, LW's behaviour is utterly familiar to me, and only time will tell whether there is more there. In addition, I would note that the actiosn of the "family friend" may well have far more significance than LW is willing, at this stage of his therapeutic journey, to acknowledge. Sexual abuse need not be endemic, need not be violent, and need not be repetetive to have massive impact on an impressionable child - it can be far more subtle than the scenes from "Prince of Tides" for example.....and still have profound impact on a young child's sense of self. As LW unfolds his therapeutic journey, a good therapist will work with him to unfold that history (while not projecting, I note), and exhume the tightly bound emotions that may be contained. Until then, behaviorally, and in the here and now, LW has the perfect right to insist that he and his father work together to establish a level of physical communication that is within LW's parameters.

The very act of establishing safe boundaries of phsical contact, the very act of processing emotions in the context of work with a skilled and empathetic therapist may well smoke out the history behind LW's feelings. Boundaries are negotiable...and can be renegotiated over time. During the first years of my confirming, processing and moving through the dark feelings that come with childhood sexual abuse, I was unable to sustain much more than the social handshake. Now, with a clear understanding of my adult safety, I can be physically relaxed with my wife and close friends. I can engage in sports, walk into a locker room and change clothing, engage in an active physical life - clap a friend on the back, give a close friend (of either gender) a hug when appropriate, and lead a more physically anchored life. That path has not been simple or short, but has been one well worth taking.