I’m legally blind but I usually don’t tell people that. I wear very strong prescription glasses that well don’t make me see 20/20. (It is so hard explaining to people that at some point glasses don’t give you perfect vision) Anyway I took my glasses off at lunch to clean them real quick one day. And my friend was all like you should feel my face so you know what I look like. So I said ok. And I pretending for a few seconds like oh yea wow your eyebrows are nice. Then I felt her cheek and smacked her in the face and told to stop being a idiot.

I have no idea why they think we actually do that.

Luckily I've never had to deal with this. Yet? (Learned to always accept there's a possibility with these kinds of things)


I don't actually know how I would react if someone grabbed my hands and put them on their face. Like I know I'd be horrified. I'm usually pretty good at being polite but I'm pretty sure that would go out the window.


Maybe I could convince them to let my guide dog feel their face instead haha

It's Hollywood bullshit.

There's a blind artist who makes sculptures of people by feeling their faces and a video about them went viral many years ago on Facebook. I'm guessing that may be where they're getting the idea. Maybe not. Still weird tho.


Edit: I tried to find the clip, but I can't find it. Was probably on some kind of page like Now This or something

People think we can picture what they look like by touching their face.
P.S
We don't know how you look by doing thatand it doesn't work. I also remember some blind girl doing it in Family Guy.

I was out to eat with my mother, aunt, and cousin once and one of my mom's coworkers came up to me. She was the generic perky 20-something with a degree in early childhood ed and a minor in psychology, with a name like McKenna or Becky or something. Just the most stereotypical basic white girl, with the "omg!!!!!!!!!" voice to match.

She squealed about seeing my mom and pretty much immediately grabbed my hands from the table and forced them on her face.

I'm pretty sure I made a "wtf are you doing?" face before I reigned it in, but I let go as soon as she let go of my hands with something like "Uhh I remember what you look like...."

I had a few exes ask me, and I've felt some people's faces just to try and make some rough idea of what they look like, mostly as a joke, but I feel like I do have a somewhat firm grip on what my boyfriend looks like even though we met after I went blind.

There are numerous pivotal scenes in all the early and mid-century Hollywood movies that featured blindness or someone going blind, where the blind person does face-feeling.


These pivotal scenes often were part of a major plot turning point (learning to finally communicate or finally falling in love), so they make a huge impact on the audience.


Since most people have never met a blind person (which is impressive considering that this is not a really rare thing), they fall back on what they've learned from their culture as the truth they need to apply.

I was hanging out with sighted friends and this came up. She asked me, so why have you never asked me if you could touch my face... I responded without missing a beat.... “I’d rather touch your boobs.”
It was all in good fun.

My dad and uncle are both blind . My Uncle was a face toucher (he passed) . He said he wanted to feel people’s smiles. It was uncomfortable to say the least.

I only went blind 5 years ago and was hyper-visual before the vision loss. I've never had someone randomly make me touch their face out in public, but I have touched people's faces in private to give myself a sense of what they look like. I'm always curious to hear how people describe themselves physically since it gives me an imagined visual mental map of them. I used to be bad with names but I'd always remember faces when I could see, so listening to description and face touching is probably my brain's attempt to make up for what I lost. That being said, I don't touch the faces of everyone I meet; I only do so in much more intimate settings.

Yup. A prostitute in Vegas tried to get me to touch her face. Super weird.

I know a few people that graduated from the school for the deaf and blind here in Virginia and they don’t exactly enforce the most socially acceptable behavior. I’ve had multiple people tell me that they’ve been told that feeling faces is OK

I actually saw this in the one Ray Charles biography movie, though it was probably partly myth even there. I had never met anyone in real life who had done this and definitely never considered doing it myself.

I have no idea where society even gets this idea from, but I agree that it’s awkward, makes me feel super uncomfortable and just ...almost creepy/a violation of personal space if that makes sense. I also have encountered people who’ve told me to feel their clothing etc in public and that’s also a bit strange. Just describe it maybe?

Blame $1 video.

I've linked above to the relevant point in the video.

The following description is from the beginning of the video:

A drama teacher (Lionel Richie] is teaching a class of students, his eye is constantly drawn to a pretty young woman in the class.

Through the video we are told that she is very talented, acting - music - sculpture - dance, and less subtly that she is sight impaired, clumsily walking with a short white cane someone gives her (I think her tapping technique improves later), eventually we see her reading a large book of braille which drives the point home.

At the same time the teacher (Lionel Richie) sings of his unrequited love as he watches her in various classes and tries unsuccessfully to get closer, even speechlessly calling her at her own home. I think you could call this stalking nowadays.

This is the point the link above jumps to.

The teacher is summoned to the sculpture classroom where he finds the young woman has completed a life like bust in red clay of the teacher.

"I wanted you to see it so many times, but I finally think it is done", she says.

"Tell me what you think of it?"

He responds, "Oh, its wonderful."

"This is how I see you!", she implores as she reaches out and feels his face.

There is a hiatus as the guitar sings and weeps.

Suddenly Lionel pulls her hands from his face and starts singing again, "Hello. Is it me you're looking for?"
Fade to black.

$1

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