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Do blind people actually touch people's faces?

Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 5:03 pm
by Forever_ambivalent
I found Lilly touching Hisao's face sweet but very odd. Lilly's arc manages to represent blind people relatively well (even including the difficulty they have with computers) but they do have a few odd moments every now and then. One of the strangest things I found in Lilly's arc was when she touched Hisao's face so that she could uh imagine him?
I have a blind friend (who is very similar to Lilly in personality. entirely coincidental.) who has never done such a thing. When I asked her about it she told me that it wouldn't help her have an image of anyone and that it would be pretty much useless.

However that is one blind person that I know. She is very polite and would never request to touch somebodies face unless she was incredibly intimate with somebody (a boyfriend or family member). And she just confirmed that she doesn't find such an act useful in any way. It could be that she is just an exception (although I doubt that). It may be a rather normal thing for blind people to do. I just want to confirm whether this is actually a normal thing to do or whether this is a little mistake or something that was added in for some romantic effect.

On a different note, I find the difference between how Hisao treats Lilly's blindness and Shizune's deafness quite annoying. It almost gives off the impression that blindness is worse than deafness. Dealing with deafness isn't just learning sign language and boom all problems solved. But it almost seems that way with how Hisao deals with it.

Re: Do blind people actually touch people's faces?

Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 5:21 pm
by metalangel
As a hearing, sighted person, I have often softly touched the face of someone to express affection.

Sign language didn't solve all Shizune's problems either.

Re: Do blind people actually touch people's faces?

Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 5:31 pm
by Potato
Forever_ambivalent wrote:Dealing with deafness isn't just learning sign language and boom all problems solved.
It is on his end.

Some Google research and Youtube videos of a blind man suggest that it is at least somewhat a misconception (of those who do so, they all seem consistent in noting that it's reserved for close friends or family, as opposed to the common media version of "HELLO I'M BLIND AND WE JUST MET NOW LET ME FEEL YOU!"). I'd imagine it would be useful to get a slight idea of one's profile or something for whatever reason. Or to see if they're bald or not.

There's also this which involves touching the face but isn't for 'seeing' people so much as a form of lip-reading for deafblinds.

As for Lilly'...Well, it is an intimate gesture with or without sight, and she also may have simply been playing to the misconception.

Re: Do blind people actually touch people's faces?

Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 5:55 pm
by KeiichiO
I knew a blind girl in elementary school. She touched people's faces.

Re: Do blind people actually touch people's faces?

Posted: Wed May 21, 2014 6:18 am
by emmjay
Potato wrote:[As for Lilly'...Well, it is an intimate gesture with or without sight, and she also may have simply been playing to the misconception.
Or maybe that's her version of copping a feel.

Re: Do blind people actually touch people's faces?

Posted: Wed May 21, 2014 11:38 am
by Kutagh
Forever_ambivalent wrote:On a different note, I find the difference between how Hisao treats Lilly's blindness and Shizune's deafness quite annoying. It almost gives off the impression that blindness is worse than deafness. Dealing with deafness isn't just learning sign language and boom all problems solved. But it almost seems that way with how Hisao deals with it.
You have to keep in mind that you're seeing Hisao's perspective and not Shizune's. From Hisao's perspective the apparent problems are communication and understanding Shizune's character (which implies understanding a bit of Deafness, not all of it since no Deaf individual encompasses the entire Deaf culture). Communication between the two of them is being solved by Hisao learning Sign Language and during her route Hisao slowly starts to understand her a bit (not that he really understands her, just enough for the phase of their relationship).

If you were hoping to see Shizune's struggles in the world, the only way that you would see that from Hisao's perspective is either being with her when she clearly comes across such a problem or when she tells Hisao about her problems. The latter? Knowing her character, not going to happen. She does not really like talking with others about her problems, never mind the ones directly related to her deafness because she is the sole expert on what she can and want to do. For example in the route, she is carrying a cell phone with her and knows how to call someone (mind you, this refers to just ringing their phones to attract their attention, not actually conversing with someone using audio). She also does receive texts on them, but barely checks them (which is apparent when Jigoro comes to Yamaku to update her since he just got a new number). This indicates that someone else ascertained a problem (in case of emergency what should she do?) and the Hearing world decided on a solution that is easy for them, not a solution that she likes. And before you are going to reply with "but it is for her own good", that is what our governments try to do in various ways too (taxes, fines, regulations etc etc, they're all for our own good) and we usually don't like that. Does she ever talk about it? She keeps her head high and knows she has that resource, but doesn't talk about whether she likes or hates it and only because of Hisao being observant at that point he and thus we know that she doesn't like that phone.
As for seeing her struggles with the hearing world, some of it is actually in the story hidden between the lines, such as the issue above of cell phone which was forced on her.


All this above does not mean that her struggles aren't there... Most of the deaf community does not really talk about it with the Hearing world exactly because the Hearing world tend to reason from their own perspective (feel free to refer to the other thread about the article on Cracked, including the recent enough bad memories about the school of Bell). And even I, a 22 years old deaf individual having adapted to the Hearing world, have anecdotal evidence of the Hearing world not being very accommodating to the 'hearing impaired' portion of our population (OV-chipkaart which is a RFID card for public transport in the Netherlands, during the design phase of the check-in/check-out machines it has been pointed out how Deaf-unfriendly it was and how easy it was to tweak that, yet that did not happen whatsoever and that was a recent implementation of less than ten years ago... Luckily there are two kinds of machines of which only one has this flaw, the other is IIRC more recent but not everywhere and especially not in the bus that I frequently travel with).
Or how about subtitles? Even now there is still plenty of TV programs not being subtitled (BBC is an exception as they subtitle almost everything and as long as it is not live subtitling it is of a pretty high quality). That is even more apparent with digital/webbased services as for example a lot of webepisodes aren't subtitled. Or how about services like iPlayer (the Dutch version of that, I've seen several cases where there was an issue with subtitles on live TV and they NEVER bothered to fix that even on Uitzending Gemist, despite people complaining).
Or how about even recognizing the Deaf community? The Sign Languages legally recognized by their country totals just 24 world-wide (depending on how you interpret the list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_reco ... _languages it changes a bit but still wouldn't go over 30). I really liked where that list mentioned the European Parliament urging the member countries to legally recognize their national Sign Language as an official language of the Deaf TWICE, once in 1988 and then again in 1998 and in 2014 the Netherlands still has not done it at all, which is iconic of how useless the European Union is with just an illusion of power...
I'm still curious as to what the status is in other countries with being able to reach emergency numbers using your cell phone without audio. Because here it is starting to improve but needs paid software (covered by health insurance in theory) to do this currently, instead of being able to at least text them (not possible because of possible abuse? :? ).

So if we make our problems apparent, usually they're either ignored, solved in a half-assed way or takes ages to even get remotely satisfactory changes in. Not to mention how stupid the Hearing world can be at times with their misconceptions, some of them even being self-perpetuating (Deaf education being usually crap and based on the teaching principles for the Hearing world with Hearing teachers not fluent in Sign Language or even needing interpreters... That's like having English as your native tongue and a basic understanding of German yet being expected to follow high school / college level education in German at the normal pace: Obviously that does not work well, even if you have an interpreter to interpret it to your native English. So why would that work with Sign Language, considering that it is even a bigger step than between two spoken languages?).

With this information, are you really surprised that most Deaf individuals are keeping up a facade towards the Hearing world, including Shizune? That it looks like there are no problems anymore at the end of her route? Because the illusion of no problems tends to be the best way to keep the Hearing world from meddling when they shouldn't meddle.
Off Topic
If you're (people in general, not directly aimed at you Forever_ambivalent) going to write with capitals where appropriate, Sign Language should be capitalized as per the notion that all names for proper languages, dialects and families of languages should be capitalized, such as the language Latin, the Germanic family of languages etc. This is because Sign Language actually refers to the world-wide family of languages using hands to converse with many similar elements such as indexes, positioning etc (this family does not include systems like Signed Exact English as that is not really a language but a translation/depiction system like Romaji for Japanese).
As for Deaf/Hearing vs deaf/hearing, this is a convention that appears mostly in discussions related to the deaf/Deaf culture, indicating the difference between the physical ability of hearing or being deaf and the cultural background of being Deaf or Hearing. For example CODA (Children Of Deaf Adults) are usually Deaf but hearing: They can hear normally but their cultural background is strongly influenced by the Deaf culture.

Re: Do blind people actually touch people's faces?

Posted: Wed May 21, 2014 12:16 pm
by brythain
Kutagh wrote:With this information, are you really surprised that most Deaf individuals are keeping up a facade towards the Hearing world, including Shizune? That it looks like there are no problems anymore at the end of her route? Because the illusion of no problems tends to be the best way to keep the Hearing world from meddling when they shouldn't meddle.
Your entire post is very helpful for me as I try to understand people in such situations. The section quoted is particularly poignant. Thanks for all of it!

Re: Do blind people actually touch people's faces?

Posted: Wed May 21, 2014 1:59 pm
by Forever_ambivalent
Kutagh wrote:
Forever_ambivalent wrote:On a different note, I find the difference between how Hisao treats Lilly's blindness and Shizune's deafness quite annoying. It almost gives off the impression that blindness is worse than deafness. Dealing with deafness isn't just learning sign language and boom all problems solved. But it almost seems that way with how Hisao deals with it.
somnywurds
Thanks for taking the time to post this. I was never sure about the difficulties of deaf people as I am busy with other subjects that I need to study and I don't know anybody who is deaf. I am quite naive when it comes to the lifestyles of deaf people.
When I heard that there isn't enough interest in Sign language I was shocked. In my school there is a sign language club that is very popular and has a few dedicated sign language teachers. There is a lot of disability awareness in my school. I even remember seeing a almost fully paralyzed girl who could only move her fingers and face (not her head) as far as I could see. She seemed to have lead a relatively normal life (considering her condition of course) and seemed to have quite a lot of friends. I never saw anybody being scorned or insulted for being physically disabled. My blind friend has a very happy school life and has even managed to get to Cambridge university ( a very hard to get to university that requires some amazing grades). Makes me sad to think that I will not see her anymore :(

It's sad that my school doesn't share the same dedication towards mentally disabled people. If you are mentally disabled you do not get much positive support. Actually my school are using mentally disabled kids who are rather normal (such as I. Most people think I am a perfectly normal 18 year old although I am much younger :roll: ) to get money from the government (the government funds the school for support teachers to support disabled kids but my school only uses those funds for those who seriously need it). It's quite abominable. My school basically reaps money from mentally disabled people who do not need the support. Although I (and many other mentally disabled kids) do not need the support it is quite displeasing to have my school take money from government taxes in our name. It is a type of fraud I believe.
Problem is, is that my school is actually one of the better schools. Most other school's do not even give support to those who need it. And at least I know that my school is probably funding disable awareness charities and try to support physically disabled people as much as they can.
To deal with the bullying that I had suffered in my first year of middle school, I had to (quite literally) flaunt my disability and show others that I was just the same as them. I do like my extra time for exams though. It helps relieve a lot of stress.
I try really hard to be as normal as possible. I would hate it if anybody treated me as a special case (although I can definitely tolerate it if it means I get to relieve some dangerous stress from exams :D ).


TL;DR I am stupid and know nothing about deafness and really appreciate your post.
My school can be a douche towards mentally disabled people but is particularly good with physically disabled people.

Re: Do blind people actually touch people's faces?

Posted: Wed May 21, 2014 11:46 pm
by Atario
Kutagh wrote:For example in the route, she is carrying a cell phone with her and knows how to call someone (mind you, this refers to just ringing their phones to attract their attention, not actually conversing with someone using audio). She also does receive texts on them, but barely checks them (which is apparent when Jigoro comes to Yamaku to update her since he just got a new number). This indicates that someone else ascertained a problem (in case of emergency what should she do?) and the Hearing world decided on a solution that is easy for them, not a solution that she likes.
That's a pretty big leap to make. Did Jigoro force the phone on her? It's not stated. If he did, it's pretty clear that it would only have been in service of making her talk, as he refuses to read anything on his own phone. Emergencies and other practical matters are clearly the last thing on his mind. But leaving aside the sinister oppression of the hearing world for a moment, there are plenty of useful things modern phones do that have nothing to do with audio. They're more useful for a deaf person than at any time in history. If it represents a solution she doesn't like, just what would she like? The closest she comes is wishing she could snap her fingers instead. Not exactly a well-thought-out plan.
She keeps her head high and knows she has that resource, but doesn't talk about whether she likes or hates it and only because of Hisao being observant at that point he and thus we know that she doesn't like that phone.
Er, she explicitly states she doesn't like using it.
With this information, are you really surprised that most Deaf individuals are keeping up a facade towards the Hearing world, including Shizune? That it looks like there are no problems anymore at the end of her route?
I thought the usual rap on her route was that there was dissatisfyingly little resolution to various problems, not that it looked like there are none anymore.
Because the illusion of no problems tends to be the best way to keep the Hearing world from meddling when they shouldn't meddle.
I have news: everyone puts up a façade, for everyone. Not just Deaf people for the hearing. When someone greets me with "How are you?", I don't dare bring up any of the many problems I have in my life. I say "fine" and move on. Same with a million other situations and levels of interaction. Actually genuinely discussing one's problems is rare enough that there are special terms people use for it. And little else can be expected — can you imagine being completely open about everything all the time by default? It would be exhausting!

Re: Do blind people actually touch people's faces?

Posted: Thu May 22, 2014 1:20 am
by Velitation
I haven't met a blind person in my life; I have only seen them walk by. I can only imagine that deaf-blinds would benefit from 'lip-reading.' Otherwise, I would assume it would just be for gestures or affectionate contact.

@Kutagh
That's unfortunate about the transit system there. The RFID system for public transit that's being put in Vancouver (Same type in Chicago and other areas) has LCD displays and produces sounds to accommodate, though it is having other problems.
As for accessibility on websites, there are rules and regulations, but they vary country to country. The only one that I'm familiar with is The US Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act which was used as a guideline for the World Wide Web Consortium Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. That being said, not many follow what W3C has outlined. Overall, not a whole lot of congruency on the Internet.

Re: Do blind people actually touch people's faces?

Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2014 10:37 am
by Xolf
I infer that it's not necessarily common, but it's not unknown either; see this Yahoo Answers where a girl (who happens to have burn marks on one side of her face!) is asking advice because her blind boyfriend wants to feel: https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/i ... 044AAclDwd

In this case, Lilly happens to be someone who sometimes wants to touch a friend's face. She is who she is.

Re: Do blind people actually touch people's faces?

Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:09 am
by d2r
Last edited by Silentcook on Wed May 21, 2014 7:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Holy overquoting, Batman.
To go off-topic for a tic, I just wanna say that stuff like this is why I love these forums. :lol:

Also, I'm with Xolf on this one. People have their own idiosyncrasies. Even people who can see have varying degrees of touchiness when it comes to friends.

Re: Do blind people actually touch people's faces?

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 3:51 pm
by Bruxae
I think it probably depends on the individual.