To be touched in a certain way, or to be moved in a certain way by an encounter with another, may involve a reading not only of the encounter, but of the other that is encountered as having certain characteristics.If we feel another hurts us, then that feeling may convert quickly into a reading of the other, such that it becomes hurtful, or is read as the impression of the negative.In other words, the 'it hurts' becomes, 'you hurt me', which might become, 'you are hurtful', or even 'you are bad'. These affective responses are readings that not only create the borders between selves and others, but also 'give' others meaning and value in the very act of apparent separation, a giving that temporarily fixes an other, through the movement engendered by the affective response itself. Such responses are clearly mediated: materialisation takes place through the 'mediation' of affect, which may function in this way as readings of the bodies of others.
Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion