Taboo Touch

Human beings have 5 senses: taste, smell, sound, sight and touch. We've got the other 4 down to a science (and I mean that literally) where food is engineered to smell and taste "just right." Music and movies can be digitally enhanced for the perfect sound and images. Those are just a couple examples. Consider video games, magazines, digital photos, the internet, etc. It's possible to connect with people through all kinds of technology such that we don't even have to be in the same room, city, state, or country.

Certainly there are benefits gained from this. We can meet new people and connect in ways previously imagined humanly possible. Those suffering in a distant land are no longer quite so distant. Family separated across a country can be easily reunited by web cams and instant messaging.

What of the 5th sense? What about touch? What happens to community when you artificially or virtually create it and touch is left out of the equation? Scientific studies have shown that babies who are not held or touched do not develop at a normal rate and continue to have developmental problems later on compared to those who are held and touched. Sure, there are loads of issues around touch. If done inappropriately, law suits ensue. I understand the caution. But whatever happened to some positive human contact? As the Blackeyed Peas put it, "where is the love?" Our world, our communities, our families are aching--emotionally and physically--to be loved and seen as real beings who need other people to survive. Individualism as isolationism is no way to live. It's a way to die.

Can we learn to hug without fear? Can we learn to pat each other on the back or shoulder when we hurt without expectations of recrimination? Can we occupy the same space and together thrive or will we divide out of fear and slowly die from the inside out?