The privacy of our bodies is an important public concern these days. Children are taught that their bodies are not to be touched by others, and that they have the right to say "no". When I began studying Therapeutic Touch years ago, the teachers emphasized that we should ask permission, before beginning a session, to touch the client. It was a formality, but one that gave appropriate power to the client. Here are two stories about touching.
One of the tales we were told when I was growing up in an Irish Catholic family is that nuns were not allowed to bathe naked. Whether this is/was true, I have no idea. But the way I heard it is that a nun covered her body with a thin muslin garment while bathing, so as not to be disturbed by (excited by? amazed at? curious about?) the sight of her naked body exposed to her own private gaze as she lay in the warm waters of her bath (cold waters, more likely). She soaped herself through muslin. Or so we were told. And you can just imagine the prurience such ultra-chaste bathing provoked in an impressionable child's mind.
But to return to my moutons. That was my background. Added to this were all the other societal prohibitions about touching a stranger without prior approval.
I went to a lingerie store looking for new bras. I was dissatisfied with the brand I had been wearing and felt I needed some help in finding a bra that fit well. Though the store was a large discount lingerie store, service was available for those who needed it. A young saleswoman helped me to choose several possible styles and I retired to the dressing room. Curtain pulled shut, I tried on one of the bras.
"How's it going?" called the saleswoman from the other side of the curtain. Then she peeked her head in. "No," she said, "that style does nothing for you. Try this other one." She ducked out of the space again, which I appreciated. I needed a little privacy.
So I took off one and put on the other.
"How's it going?" she called.
"Well," said I, "I think I like this one." She stepped around the curtain and looked at my bosoms critically. "Yes, that's better," she said.
And then, before I even was aware of what was happening, she inserted one small warm hand into the bra, cupped my breast, and moved everything around until, I guess, she felt I was properly filling the space available.
I was shocked. Not so much as a "by your leave" before she invaded what had heretofore been a fairly private space. She obviously gave it no thought at all. I assume that she actually spent her day adjusting soft breast tissue to fit its surrounding fabric. Her little hand was in and out in seconds. I bought four of the bras.
My second breast story demonstrates how extraordinarily naive I was even as recently as ten years ago.
It was a warm, muggy summer day, threatening rain. I walked to the Village to shop, but I took an umbrella, not wanting to be caught unprepared.
And a downpour indeed arrived as I marched up the final hill on the way home. I always walk briskly, and even more briskly when I'm being pelted by hard raindrops. It was cozy but noisy under the umbrella.
Being a fast walker, I overtook an older man going my way. He had no rain protection, and I couldn't bear the thought of his being soaked while I breezed by him, umbrella'd. I slowed to his pace and said, "Can I offer you some shelter?"
He smiled a little and accepted. He was about my size, small for a man. I said, "Hello." He said nothing but gestured as if he didn't understand English.
"Parlez-vous francais?" I asked, thinking that Canada's other official language was the next best choice.
No.
"Ukrainski?" I queried, ungrammatically I'm sure. Our Village is a hotbed of Ukrainians.
Still no response.
I paused, stuck with my grand gesture and just seeking to make conversation as we plugged along in the rain.
"Sprechen sie deutsch?"
No response. I imagined him as the aging father of some youngish couple in the neighbourhood, brought to Canada to be with family, but too old to begin to learn the language.
He had reached over at some point and was helping me to carry the umbrella, which I didn't mind, because an umbrella gets heavy to hold when you can't switch hands.
I was racking my brain for additional languages ("Pa russki?", "Hablo usted espagnol?"), still intent on being a companionable neighbour, when all of a sudden his hand left the umbrella and circled my breast.
I was in shock. Had he mistaken me for someone who might enjoy being fondled by a stranger? Or was he just curious as to what this idiot Canadian thought she was doing, offering to share the intimacy of an umbrella during a rainstorm?
I was incensed and speechless. In what language could I chastise him? None, obviously. My legs shifted gears and I motored away from him, hugging my umbrella handle to my bosom. I was moving so fast my legs must have looked like a running cartoon figure whose legs become wheels.
"Monsieur!" I sputtered as I pulled away from him. "Monsieur, vous etes . . . vous etes . . ."
I couldn't think of a word, but it was all right because by then I'd left him in the dust (or a puddle) and he could no longer hear me.
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