The term seems to have been invented by a 'pickup artist' (probably Mystery) because they didn't bother to look up the standard term for communication with touch: haptic communication or 'haptics.'

What a hideous sounding name, at least in the context of doing it to another person. One would hope that if the mistaken word use was not adopted that they just minted a new one for themselves!

kinesthetics is the study of the inner awareness of movement (similar to proprioception), not the study of communication with touch.

The nature of what caused the original error may perhaps be better traced to the concept of kinesthetic learning. While still obviously mistaken in the way it has been adopted, the 'learning styles' categorization is more accessible to popular culture and also doesn't imply inner awareness of the process.