Touching

This post is, I suppose, influenced by Big Brother (although not by the hideous debacle of bullying and prejudice currently surrounding Shebhaz). BB follows a pattern and this year, as with every year, one of the young men has expressed his discomfort at being touched by a fellow male housemate who is gay. This year it was Glyn but it is an issue that invariably arises in every series.

Overtones and undertones of homophobia are a deliberate part of this show, which chooses participants with extreme personalities and beliefs in order to generate conflict. This isn’t great and it’s another reason why I know I shouldn’t watch this terrible programme.

However I have to say that I am generally opposed to excessive touching. I don’t think proclaiming yourself to be a tactile person should allow you to invade other people’s space and make them feel uncomfortable. Everybody should have a right not to be touched. The issue is interesting on BB because it arises when men who are unused to unwanted sexual touching experience it for the first time. In comparison the women in the show have a much worse deal. They are pawed and petted, poked and prodded from the minute they enter by the predatory heterosexual males. However, as women, they are used to this. More than that, they have been encouraged by society to accept it.

I do empathise with the men who are made to feel uncomfortable by those around them but I also feel like shouting ‘see that’s what it feels like’. When I have discussed my own experiences with unwanted sexual touching, the men who I am friends with have been almost disbelieving. But it is true. As a woman I am regularly touched by men in an invasive and intimidating manner. I have felt someone’s hand inside my pants at a gig (it’s true!), random men do put their arms round my waist in the pub, I’ve lost count of the number of times I have been pinched and ‘playfully’ slapped.

This is something that most men simply do not experience. There is no reason why women should have to experience it either but we do. Again this is one of those issues where any objection is treated as a lack of sense of humour, where the person with a legitimate complaint is treated like they have done something wrong. It is an example of objectification, of exerting power, of sexual offences being normalised. So I really can empathise with those men on the programme who suddenly experience this horrible invasion but I think that perhaps they should look around them and see what the women in the house are experiencing because this is more extreme, more invasive, and passes without comment.