This blog is a response to:
English 279: I wonder how important physical touch is for a per...: "I wonder how important physical touch is for a person mentally and physically. I guess being a very touchy person myself it is hard to..."
I'm responding to this blog of a very personal level. The above blog post refers to the Ship Who Sang, and how she cannot physically touch people, because, for all means, her body is literally a ship. Sure, she can "experience" touch, but, it's not really with her body, and thus, it is not satisfying. We can see this when she thanks a woman for crying for her.'
Anyway, I wanted to go out and state that physical touch is EXTREMELY important for intimacy. I have been in a long distance relationship for around 4 years now, and I can tell you that there is something lost when you don't have that physical touch aspect. Even being able to give a hug to someone, look them in the eyes, or the rest a hand on their should allows a special form of intimacy that cannot be reached without touch. When that touch is lost, there's a sort of need for it. And while it's possible to cope and find other ways to try to replace that, eventually, it ends up making your relationship suffer. This is why it is recommended to LDR couples to see each other every other weekend usually. It allows them to keep this intimacy. I also cannot imagine never having physical touch. Only having it occasionally it hard enough but, I think it's built into the body to NEED it. So...never having it, must be unimaginable. The only thing that must be stopping Helva from destroying herself with this knowledge is her conditioning.
I agree physical touch is an important thing but i don't neccessarrilly(totally know i mispelled that) think a relationship is doomed without it. As you said you have been in a long distance relationship for 4 years and my hat is off to you for keeping that going i can only imagine how difficult that must be not to be able to see the other person. I think it all depends on the strength and commitmment of the person who is in that relationship and that will ultimatley be the determinign factor in that relationship. As for Helva i know its crazy right to nto have physical touch, the poor girl doesn't even get any sleep and she is devoid of touch as well. I know she can feel heat and perhaps that has replaced touch and i know heat has mostly replaced what you or i would describe as touch, but that must be hard i think a thing like not having touch and perhaps being isolated in a shell could definitely cause development isuues for a person. When you really think about it Helva is an extremely bright person who has to deal with alot of issues ona daily basis that we never even think about.
ReplyDeleteThe question might be then can conditioning really make it okay for a mind to go without touch or sleep?
ReplyDelete