July 29th, 2026
It’s impossible to touch without being touched. -Maurice Merleau-Ponty
We have been conditioned to believe that no one should touch us, especially in communal settings like work – and as a woman who has experienced her fair share of inappropriate moments – i get it; but I also think it may be time to unpack the unintended consequences of the overcorrection which has now become the cultural norm: the near absence of consensual, everyday touching.
As social creatures – has sterilization stunted our capacity for interpersonal connection? Has retreating from touch diminished our emotional development, inhibiting our ability to experience pleasure? And – if we zoom out a bit, has the transition from communal to transactional touch – the kind we schedule with our body workers and call ‘self-care’ – flattened our capability – or even interest – in social bonding?
Elite athletes understand how touch facilitates trust and cohesion. A well-cited study from 2010 across 30 NBA teams observed that fist bumps, high-fives, shoulder/back taps, and butt-slaps were stronger predictors of success than preseason expectations or player status. Touch was the secret sauce – if you will. Touch more, score more.
(IF YOU DON’T GET THE PUN, YOU CAN STOP READING NOW…)
Touch is one of our strongest senses, and given that occupational therapists specialize in sensory processing and dancers make a living from touching strangers… Drumroll, please!
In the clinic, occupational therapists spend a lot of time analyzing the sensory system, you know that data gathering branch of the nervous system that provides input for various areas of the brain. Those undies – or their contents – need adjusting? Tactile. The patchouli your office mate has on got you wanting to bury your face in their musky, hairy chest? Olfactory. You get it.
When we think about sensory, it’s not binary, it’s more a dynamic experience of being. Our nervous system (aka – the long arm of our brain) doesn’t just process input, it sends flares that more or less sensory information or a new environment is needed. It’s like – when your device goes into shut down mode, it either needs input or the battery is dead. In both scenarios – the metaphor is fitting. Human operating systems function similarly.
As clinicians, we often turn to the sensory system to identify something that may be out of balance – reaching for sensory scales to treat specific profiles. But, if the sensory system forms the foundation for how we process the world (emotionally, physiologically, and cognitively), then does dysregulation in adulthood affect our ability to be sensual beings, to experience pleasure or joy, and to feel gratitude?
Over the last twenty-plus years there has been a dramatic shift in the type of sensory input we receive on a daily basis. Our sensory systems are hungry – hungry for certain types of information that we aren’t giving them. The feeling of a pencil on paper, the moisture of earth beneath our feet, the warmth, weight and texture of another person’s hand.
The famous stress ball is essentially mimicking a low-frequency version of interpersonal touch. It’s attempting to recreate the sensory feedback we get from holding a hand, hugging a friend, or being held by someone.
Call me old school, but just as I would rather marry a person than a chatbot; I would rather squeeze a butt than a stress ball. Period.
Just keeping it real people.
So what you about you? Even the tactile defensive folks out there? What do you choose?
We seem to have forgotten that skin is our largest organ. Ignore the elephant in the room long enough, and eventually it begins to undermine the entire system.
I continually return to dance as an intervention because it provides a container for the human experience that I intimately understand. Dance and music have been a part of the human ritual experience for millennia. However, containers come in many different forms: sports, kirtans, speed walking, drumming circles, pick your flavor… they all give us ways to engage, commune, perceive, and relate to one another through shared space, time, and movement.
As a true Gen Xer, I came of age in the era of Dirty Dancing. The scenes showcasing the staff dancing together – the very up close and personal mambos – like the pelvis-on-pelvis kind, were burned into my brain from a very early age. I innocently wondered: is this what partner dancing would be like for me someday? I secretly hoped so!
As I consider my own children’s future and attempt to reconcile the disparities between the activities that dominated my childhood vs. those that fill theirs, I ask myself the slightly terrifying question: does their future offer any possibility of this sort of sensual engagement?
Overt but not perverse.
Communal touch and mutuality through physicality will only persist if we decide it is important enough to preserve.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a 20th century philosopher, believed that the human experience begins with the body. Rather than thought alone, Merleau-Ponty identified the body as the vehicle for lived experience and embraced a holistic anti-Cartesian point of view. Instead of seeing the mind and body as split – as in Western medical models – he saw them as two inseparable parts of a whole.
Merleau-Ponty’s final work The Visible and the Invisible explored reciprocity of touch, noting that when the right hand touches the left, the left touches the right in response. The act of touch is a lesson in mutuality, and one perhaps we all need to revisit.
Sources:
Gillioz, E., Gentaz, E., & Lejeune, F. (2025). Screen habits and effects on sensory profiles in 6- to 36-month-old toddlers. Pediatric Research, 98(6), 2117–2126. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-025-04024-x
Tekeci, Y., Torpil, B., & Altuntaş, O. (2024). The impact of screen exposure on screen addiction and sensory processing in typically developing children aged 6–10 years. Children, 11(4), Article 464. https://doi.org/10.3390/children11040464
Kraus, M. W., Huang, C., & Keltner, D. (2010). Tactile communication, cooperation, and performance: An ethological study of the NBA. Emotion, 10(5), 745–749. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019382
Montagu, A. (1971). Touching: The human significance of the skin. Columbia University Press.