TOUCHY SITUATIONSA doctor may place an arm around the patient's shoulder as
he breaks the bad or good news, but the patient usually does not
touch the doctor. A lawyer may touch a client, but it is difficult
for a client to touch a lawyer.
It all boils down to status. People who are richer, older, or
higher on the corporate ladder may acceptably touch those who
are poorer, younger, or subordinate. Children are reluctant to
touch adults they don't know, but adults may touch children.
Adults must be careful, however, not to assume an inappropriate
familiarity with children they don't know. Respect children's needs
for personal space.
Equals may touch each other. Some years ago, during the Camp
David peace talks between Egypt and Israel with President Carter
mediating, Anwar Sadat frequently put his hand on Carter's knee.
The subtext of the gesture was warm friendship, but there was
also a subtler subtext, an announcement to the world that Sadat
was Carter's equal.
This brings up the question of where to touch. To Sadat, touching
the knee was culturally appropriate. In the United States, a forearm
can be touched with impunity, but a knee or a thigh is a different
story. Sometimes a woman, touching a man's thigh as they sit
talking, can send a subtext of concern. At other times it can
become a sexual advance. A man touching a woman's thigh in
the same situation almost always sends a sexual subtext.
THE ULTIMATE TOUCH
In spite of the care we must take in touching, we are, in many
ways, a society starved for the subtext that touching sends. The
love-ins and the awareness and encounter sessions of the sixties