touch podcast

Johnnie, Patrick & Mark join forces for a podcast on touch. Lovely stuff - esp. the Dad's Army references.

even less touching

A while ago, Patrick wrote about touching. Being an anglo-saxon heterosexual male (I am a member of the dominant elite, go me), who you can touch is pretty circumscribed. You can't touch other men without being a "poofta". You can't touch a woman you are not involved with as that could be misinterpreted. In our culture (tho not others), touching is too tightly related to sex. And yet touch is about so much more than sex. Years ago, I was on a beach on a tiny island in Indonesia. And this old guy with huge hands is giving massages on the beach. And so I have a massage. And it's all innocuous. And I've been travelling for ages and I haven't been touched in months. And it's too much. I have to ask him to stop because I'm in tears.

A couple things happened tonight that triggered that reflection. The bad: a woman cracking a homo gag when I'm working with another guy in circus classes. The good: a Melbourne and a Brisbane poet (both male) having a hug and then bagging Sydney poets for keeping their (physical) distance.

I am one of the dominant elite. Fear me.

But don't come too close or else I might cry.

no touching

Patrick writes about touch. There is a hierarchy of senses in organisations. Sight is number one. Then hearing. Then smell and taste. And finally touch. The further we get from written language (semantic, numeric or diagrammatic) the less trustworthy the senses become.

Touch is the only sense that does not occur at a distance. Touch implies intent - when it's accidental we jump. An intent of contact and intimacy. It is less open to obfuscation than the other senses - "I didn't mean to see/hear that" won't cut it with touch. Which is one reason I think we tend to avoid it within organisations - we often need a get-out clause in our communications.

As Coleman Yee indicates in the post comments, touch can be all about power and abuse - "you have no choice but to accept my physical contact". We want our touches to be accepted by others, so touch can be about risk - the risk of being brushed aside, of our actions being interpreted as inappropriate or just plain wrong.

There's a gender issue here too. Touch between heterosexual men is tightly circumscribed. I'm not a big fan of group hugs.

Patrick, I think touch may be too close for us to handle. Certainly too unpredictable for our rigid change management methodologies and measurement systems.