
Perspectives

By Burt Hochberg

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Touch

Here's a provocative extract from Fernando Arrabal's chess novel
"The Tower Struck by Lightning" (Viking, 1988):

     The most well-established taboo in chess is the one
     forbidding touching. "A piece touched is a piece
     played," accoring to the rules. Thus we see the
     irrevocable nature of the act of touching. If a player's
     fingers graze a piece, he is obliged to declare
     "J'adoube," a French term originating in the Middle
     Ages used in solemnly addressing a knight in his
     armor, and which today may signify "Pardon!" or,
     more precisely, "I am arranging,"or "I am disposing."
     For some psychologists, among them the American
     ex-champion Fine, this taboo against touching masks
     the two threats menacing every champion:
     masturbation (according to these experts, the figure
     being touched is a penis, which is why, after touching
     it, the player excuses himself) and the homosexuality
     "latent in chess players."

Really, now! I'll bet you didn't know what you were actually
doing when you touched a piece you didn't intend to move.
Arrabal, a Spanish-born French avant-garde playwright, was
inspired to write his chess novel, in part, by the infamous 1981
Korchnoi-Karpov match. I was inspired by the above passage to
compose a few limericks.
                      
There are all sorts of things you can touch:
Things like pawns, knights, and bishops, and such.
     Say "J'adoube" every time
     (So it isn't a crime),
And be careful you don't touch too much.

How dare you imply, Dr. Fine,
That when touching some things that are mine,
     Whether bishop or knight
     Or whatever I might,
I am sexually crossing the line?

Homosexual latency, sir,
Is a matter I'd like to defer
     Until after the game,
     When I tell you my name,
And you realize at last I'm a her.

Masturbation's no menace, you see.
For a chess player, how could that be?
     Whether straight or quite gay,
     He will candidly say,
"Whatsoever I touch, it's not me!"

There are many games other than chess,
And this rule is the same, more or less:
     What you touch you must move,
     Unless you can prove
You were only adjusting your dress.

"J'adoube" is a term *en francais*,
Which chess players use during play.
     (Some pronounce it "jadoo,"
     But not me or you.)
It means "Pardon me, *Je n'est pas gai.*"

There was a young fellow named Enos,
Who invented a new piece: the penis.
     The touching taboo
     Is quite moot, in his view.
Since de Milo inspired it, Venus.