"You seem like a good, balanced person judging by your comments, so I was trying to consider what you might have meant, and where I might be misunderstanding something. Perhaps you meant "groping" or "sexual touching" or "lingering touch" not "any touch whatsoever"? That would make more sense to me. As most of successful human mating begins with extremely short and fleeting initial touches as a testing gesture. - The woman does a very fleeting half-a-second touch of the man - He doesn't seem to be taken aback - So she let's her hand linger a bit longer the next time, maybe a second longer - If he seems to like it, she increases the intensity and duration etc, etc... (none of this is ever said to be preceeded by verbally asking for permission, by either man or women, in any of the sexual orientations) And there tends to be a gradual increase in duration and intensity of the touching, if the receiver seems to be fine with each increasing level. I'm guessing when you said "touching..." - Alek