by Mary Anne Mohanraj
I am touch-starved these days.
This is, I know, an odd thing for the editor of a sex magazine to be saying. People often assume that when I'm not having wild, passionate sex with my long-term partner, I'm off at a friendly orgy, or at the least exploring a threesome. And if you know me at all, you know that I've done all of those things at one time or another -- but I haven't been doing them lately.
This is mostly my own doing, actually. I've moved from the Bay Area (where the people I met were exceedingly cuddly) to Salt Lake City for a new job. And frankly, although I've been here since June, I still don't know how cuddle-friendly people are around here -- for the first time in almost a decade, I find myself afraid to even try hugging people. I'm not talking about dragging them into bed -- I'm just talking about goodbye hugs after dinner, as they're heading out the door. The atmosphere here is very different from anywhere I've been, and I've become hyperaware of how easily I might offend someone. I suspect I'm being over-cautious...but I'm afraid to find out.
I hate feeling this way.
The only person I'm on hugging terms with out here is Kevin, my long-term partner. But we've been doing some re-evaluating of our relationship, and taking a fair bit of time away from each other, and while I think that's a good thing, it leaves me touch-starved. He's also away at conferences fairly often. I'm finding that it drives me crazy to go a week feeling like there's nobody within a hundred miles that I can ask for a hug.
Yet people handle this all the time. I know that many of the people who read Clean Sheets may be in a similar position. I certainly hope that all of you have lots of friendly, loving, affectionate people in your lives -- but you may not. And even if they're in your lives, they may not be nearby. Maybe your job, or theirs, has separated you for a time. Maybe they work long hours, and you rarely even run into each other. Or maybe the people you love just aren't very touch-focused. Maybe you've lived with the kind of hunger I'm feeling, this itch under your skin (I notice it most in my arms, to the point that I sometimes hug myself, but it's not the same) for weeks or months or years. And maybe, like me, you don't know how you stand it.
So we reach for connection. I have been spending hours on the phone, ignoring my rising phone bill, closing my eyes and listening to the voices of friends and letting them wash over me. It's almost like a hug. Almost. I sometimes write long letters, sometimes to people I haven't talked to in years. Talk to me. Connect with me. Write back, dammit. And most of the time, I'm too busy to write back to them, so I feel guilty, but the letters help, they keep me connected, keep me in touch.
Many of my friends keep online journals, and I read them compulsively. If I can keep up with what's happening, on a daily, minute level, in Columbine's or Karen's life, then I'm not quite so alone. It's almost as if I'm with them. Even the lives of strangers -- I've never met Pamie, but I feel as if I'm sharing her life, just a little.
There are, of course, good things about being alone. I knew when I chose to come out here that it would be like this, and I thought it would be a valuable experience for me, and I was right. But it's also good to be in touch, to be touching other people, to be touched. And when we can't...well, perhaps it's good to read about others touching. Maybe losing ourselves in a story or a poem, or even a nonfiction account of others' touchings...maybe even touching ourselves while we do -- perhaps that helps too.
Much has been said about the distancing effects of the net --scare stories about how it will contribute to the separation between people. But perhaps it also helps to remind us of ways we can connect, ways we can be near each other. Through e-mail, and chat, and articles, and stories -- maybe we can in fact start to counteract some of the distancing effects of our nomadic society. Certainly the pieces we've chosen to publish here have been chosen in part to arouse, but I hope some of them have also touched your heart and mind.
If, in our first year of publication, Clean Sheets has helped to counter just a little of the loneliness, then I'll be well content with what we've accomplished here.
