I read recently that octopuses taste with their skin. Like, if they touch you with their tentacles, they would know whether you smoke or not because they would be able to taste the nicotine on your own skin. Perhaps they would be able to taste it in the blood flowing under your skin.
I wonder: What if we were able to taste other people by touching? Would that affect our appetite? Would it make us more prone to cannibalism?
Perhaps in such a world we would develop and market anti-body lotions; the aim would be to neutralise any sense of flavour on the human body. We would call these lotions ‘Survival’, for obvious reasons.
And what about desire? Would touching someone cause us extreme arousal? Would it be impossible not to come prematurely?
The perfume industry would step in and develop all kinds of lotions to control our desire, going as far as naming the ultimate scent ‘Eternity’.
Obviously, Calvin Klein must really like octopuses.