PHYSICAL CONTACT IN A SOCIAL SPECIES

No pictures this time. For what will become obvious reasons.

I have been following the news regarding sexual assaults committed by various politicians, businesspeople and celebrities - including, at least according to his own admission on a recording, The President - and, like many people, am being forced to confront some dark secrets of my own.

The public outrage is understandable in most circumstances. Bill Cosby. Harvey Weinstein. Recently, Kevin Spacey. The list goes on and is quite a sad one.

But...

These are allegations only. With the exception of Cosby few of them have been fully investigated by authorities, and so the court of public opinion has been having a field day destroying the careers and reputation of anyone with even a whiff of questionable behavior. Although additional accusations have come forward since the first claim, actor Kevin Spacey was pilloried and his career destroyed virtually overnight by - at the time - a single allegation of a single incident more than thirty years ago. Spacey said he didn't even remember (he was, by both his and the accuser's accounts, extremely drunk) and was horrified.

And he was pilloried. Not only for the assault, but for his comments surrounding his apology.

It was sad to watch. The public outrage, which has since been justified, was swift and vicious. But it happened before so much as 24 hours had elapsed, and before anyone -- anyone -- knew the full story. Guilty or innocent, he'd been fried by the public. I have no doubt Spacey committed an unacceptable act thirty years ago. But it's public castration that occurred afterward as thousands of uninvolved bystanders jumped on the bandwagon to express their outrage.

Less than a week later, actor Adam Sandler was accused of assaulting a woman on a talk show merely by placing his hand on her knee to emphasize a point. Again, the outrage of the internet struck, until the actress in question stated, matter of factly, that she didn't have a problem with anything he'd said or done. He was, in fact, not assaulting her, but merely touching someone.

(On that same program the host, who is quite the outrageous personality, air kissed and hugged virtually all of the people on his show. But - fortunately - no one seems to have been shocked by that. Only Sandler's gentle and non-sexual touch of a knee offended the internet's sensibilities.)

There are now dozens of examples of people making unwanted advances, and they are now being outed by their victims. Which is terrific.

But there's also a lot of payback going on. If people don't come forward and condemn the actions of the abusers they themselves begin to fall under the public's accusatory eye as "enablers". The rush to judge has been astonishing and brutal, to the point that anyone who has touched anyone else must now reflect on whether it was appropriate or not. I'm not referring to actual assault, where someone was sexually threatened or abused. I'm referring to more casual, less predatory contact.

Which brings me to my point: Are we becoming a post-affection/post-tactile society?

Is it becoming socially unacceptable to even touch another human being? Even in a gentle, affectionate manner?

I am a tactile person.

I've been touched and have touched without incident for five decades, including quite a bit of intimate contact.

Are we now becoming a society where men, and women, are so afraid of being pilloried that physical touch is unacceptable? That any contact might be grounds for lawsuit, retribution or - worse - personal destruction? Do we run the risk of revenge accusations, real or imaginary?

By jumping on every and any person who is accused, we're creating a social weapon to be used on anyone, at any time. And that's as dangerous as allowing genuine predators to go unpunished.

Looking back over my life I have touched people in intimate ways even in non-intimate circumstances. If offense was taken I was never advised, but would have stopped immediately had I known. And it's always with someone I know, have a level of trust in, and can be open with.

There are never excusable grounds for unwanted contact. No means no.

But in order to get to "no", sometimes you have to take a chance and reach out and touch someone. If our society is becoming one in which people must ask permission for every contact it's tragic. Worse, it's forcing the human animal, a social beast reliant upon physical contact for emotional and mental well-being, to conduct ourselves in a way on contradiction to how we as physical beings should operate.

And as much as Cosby, Weinstein, Trump, Spacey and others have put us in this situation, it ought to be okay for the rest of us in the human race to shut them down and move on with our lives. If a person tells me no, I stop. That's the rule. But otherwise, the neoPuritans need to be told to stop. Mind your own business. If two adults consent (consent and adult being the operative words), then butt the fuck out.

Because it really offends me that I - and millions of people like me - are made to feel badly over a gesture of affection. Or worse, hold back and not express that affection to someone who might really need a loving gesture.

Physical affection - the gentle public kind, not the bedroom stuff - is an important part of our psychological well-being as a species.

The accused should be dealt with. The practice of abuse is intolerable, under any circumstances. Any person who touches another person after being told no is guilty of assault. This includes the most powerful businessmen, the most popular actors, and even the President of the United States.

But if we allow our terror of assault betray and deny our natural tendency to touch one another, we lose a part of ourselves in the process. We develop what cartoonist Berkeley Breathed once referred to a "Offensensitivity". That anything, no matter how mild, sets off the masses.

Actor Matt Damon just a day or so ago was vilified for making exactly this observation: there are degrees. That there is a difference between a man making a woman uncomfortable by complimenting her looks (and plenty of women who would be complimented instead of uncomfortable), and Donald Trump's "grab 'em by the pussy". Both are offensive, but two very different levels of betrayal.

And it's that Offensensitivity which will deny us even the most casual and bonding forms of contact, lest we offend the wrong person.

I'm a hugger, but that will likely change going forward.

And that is the truly sad story here.