Words by Sinope

Thank you for your thoughtful feedback.

I do regret if this sounded like I was asking for special treatment for women (let alone for abuse survivors!). For what it's worth, I'm writing as someone who identifies as a woman but not an abuse survivor, and these are considerations that I would want for myself. Also, as another commenter pointed out, nonconsensual touching can be a problem with women touching other women or men. My post focused on this particular gender combination for the reasons I mentioned above, but I did not intend to imply that it's a way that women or abuse victims/survivors should be treated differently from men, and I'm sorry if it sounded like that.

The reason I brought up the possibility of abuse is that my friends who're abuse survivors (one of whom beta-read this post) often (not always!) have particularly negative memories associated with unwanted touches. But that was only a side possibility to my main point: you don't know how violating someone's personal space will make them feel, so it's more respectful toward all people to ask permission.

Some people are uncomfortable with being touched in certain ways. This can derive from any number of factors of personality, past experiences, situation and environment, etc. Respecting that range of possibilities doesn't require treating everyone I meet as a victim. It just means striving to base my behavior on my knowledge of their specific preferences, which I can only know if I ask.