Brain Fertilizer

*sigh*

While this is certainly not up my alley, I am disappointed that Malkin didn't delve into this further. People who participate practice saying "NO" to the question "May I kiss you?", clothing is NOT optional, it is a very un-sexual activity.

In this world of being hyper-connected, there are people who are lonelier than ever before. While interning at the hospital many years ago, I was asked if I could just hold someone's hand. Abandoned by her family, no one had communicated with this woman for years, and here she was dying, just wanting someone to finally pay her some attention...to hold her hand. In many ways, we're an emotionally deprived world. We're perfectly willing to let people go without being touched or talked to if it doesn't suit us.

Well, here's a group of people who just decided that there was a way to help them feel better, where they could connect with another person. Like I said, this is so far from "up my alley" it's not even in the same neighborhood. Frankly, even holding a dying woman's hand made me uncomfortable. But for a woman like Malkin, who is a wife and a mother, to ridicule people who want the kind touches she probably receives ten times a day? I think that's pretty self-centered.

You could make the exact same argument about sex (and many do), and yet most people consider paying someone for sex and 'swinging' groups to be reprehensible.

I understand the importance of touch. Once, on my own for a year without dating anyone, the first touch I had in several months was someone cutting my hair who squeezed my shoulder once. I nearly cried.

But the answer is not to go pay someone to touch you, because without the emotional involvement, it is still as empty of intimacy as going to a prostitute. The answer is to go and develop relationships. There is no one who can't do that. All it takes is giving of yourself.

Most of these involve no payment. The article in question just happened to find one that did. Drudge reported on this a few weeks ago.

And the fact is, a lot of people have friends who aren't into "touchiness", as a collective it seems we're just not into hugging these days. So, these people have gone elsewhere.

I don't understand why she invokes "9/10 indulgence", either. So, did a terrorist attack symbolize the end to us seeking personal happiness? I didn't get that memo.

O.K. I just read about this in either Newsweek or Time and I was unnerved. "Cuddling parties?" The word and idea invokes intimacy, who wants to be touched (and from the article and pictures, this isn't just a shoulder squeeze or a touch on the arm) by complete strangers? Practicing saying no? Isn't that what one does in dating? Or even in high school hallways and classrooms on a daily even hourly basis?

This was just bizarre!

Hmph. I thought being touched by a complete stranger was sexual harassment.

...unless you pay them to, obviously.