There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown. He wants to see what is reaching towards him, and to be able  to recognize or at least classify it. Man always tends to avoid physical contact with anything strange. In the dark, the fear of an unexpected  touch can mount to panic. Even clothes give insufficient security: it is easy to tear them and pierce through to the naked, smooth, defenseless  flesh of the victim. All the distances which men create round themselves are dictated by  this fear. They shut themselves in houses which no-one may enter, and only there feel some measure of security. The fear of burglars is not only the fear of being robbed, but also the fear of a sudden and unexpected clutch out of the darkness. 

- from 'Crowds & Power'; Elias Canetti (1960)