Devastating! The three worst people you know love each other!

If you spend any amount of time watching how Vox interacts with his environment, it's quickly apparent that people aren't the only things he touches a lot. He's constantly tapping or drumming his fingers on things, running his hands over surfaces, leaning on furniture, messing with his clothes, and handling objects. If anything is close enough to touch, there's a high chance that he's touching it. If he isn't, he's either talking with his hands or tucking them behind his back (and even then, I've caught him tapping his fingers on his arm).

All of this is sensory seeking behavior, which occurs in people whose nervous systems require a high level of stimulation to meet sensory needs. Specifically, it's tactile seeking, which can also manifest as a strong desire for physical touch. And because it is a need, the sensory seeker will automatically try to satisfy it. Which can cause problems when the thing that satisfies it is something they shouldn't be doing.

For various reasons, tactile seekers often have trouble with personal space and boundaries.

People are less capable of noticing and responding to social cues, and more likely to act on impulse, when they're excited, stressed, or understimulated. These also happen to be the exact states of being that trigger sensory seeking behaviors, because the nervous system is trying to regulate itself.

The desired sensory input activates the brain's reward system, so the seeker may want to do The Thing even if they know they shouldn't.

While sensory seeking can occur on its own, it's more commonly seen alongside autism and ADHD, which have their own impact on impulsivity, social boundaries, and ability to recognize and interpret social cues.

It's also common for sensory seekers to suppress their needs (which leads to a whole different set of problems), or find ways to meet them without being obvious about it. Vox mostly falls into the latter category; while there are moments where he seems to do it without thinking, he tends to be very intentional with social touch, and consciously uses it to direct, influence, and ingratiate himself to others (or at least try).

Interestingly, he also seems to have a sense of boundaries, albeit one that's a little to the left of socially acceptable. While he freely touches strangers and acquaintances, most contact is restricted to the other party's shoulders, arms, and hands. Anything else is normally reserved for the other Vees and Alastor, and even then it's innocent touching; belittling or domineering sometimes, especially during Don't You Forget (Reprise), but never sexually inappropriate.

(Before anyone comes at me about the "Alastor doesn't have a tail" thing, do me a favor: find yourself a nice pair of socks (maybe two if they're ankle cut), roll them up, and tuck them in the back of your pants. Then look in a mirror or put your hand on your lower back. If you can see or feel the socks through your clothes, congratulations! You have successfully completed a non-invasive tail inventory).

It's also worth noting that Vox lets people pull away if they want to. The most commonly cited example being when Alastor does so during Don't You Forget (Reprise), but we also see it when Vox asks where Alastor is during his hotel visit, and Charlie easily steps out of his hold.

To summarize, Vox clearly understands that some touch is acceptable and some isn't, and that what counts as acceptable changes depending on the relationship. While he seems to regard consent as implied unless explicitly withdrawn, he understands that too. He's playing by his own rules, but he is playing.

But then we get to the other side of the coin. Because other people's boundaries aren't the only ones tactile seekers can have trouble with, and Vox's own boundaries around being touched are. Questionable.

We don't know what his limits are with strangers, but people he knows are granted a lot of leeway. To the point where he repeatedly allows unwanted, sexually suggestive contact, with no attempt to avoid or escape it, even from someone who regularly harasses him.

It makes sense that he'd be more permissive with Valentino (though obviously being Val's partner doesn't mean he's obligated to accept unwanted advances). But Katie does it in front of a room full of people, after he'd already turned her down, and he sees her reaching for him. Yet he still doesn't move away from or comment on it. And she's so unhesitatingly wanton, even though he could easily obliterate her if he wanted to, that she clearly knows she can get away with it. All evidence points to this being a common occurrence.

And then there is Alastor, who seems incapable of leaving Vox's screen alone. To put this in perspective, Vox does not touch his own screen. He does grab the corners of his monitor a lot, especially when he's excited or upset. But apart from cleaning it after Angel spits in his face, he only touches the screen itself twice that I can remember, and they're both moments of distress: at the end of Stayed Gone, and after being muted. Even Valentino doesn't usually touch his screen (and when he does it to be a nuisance in Stayed Gone, Vox actually knocks his hand away. Though that might be more a result of his anger over Alastor's return).

Alastor touches Vox's screen no fewer than three times (four if you count a tentacle to the face while they're fighting), and apart from the flashback, they only have two in-person interactions where he isn't tied to a chair. And Vox clearly doesn't like having things jabbed in his face all the time (who would, really), but even when Alastor's staff is resting against his screen, he just stands there until it's pulled away.

So why, exactly, might a tactile seeker struggle even with their own boundaries? Once again, the reasons vary:

Threat detection starts with the nervous system, which is less responsive to touch in tactile seekers. If physical contact fails to register as intrusive or threatening, the urge to avoid it isn't there.

If their current need for sensory input is greater than their discomfort with certain forms of contact, they might accept it or find it settling even if they don't want it.

They might miss social cues and interpret touch as more innocent than it is.

Like anyone else who's been repeatedly forced to accept unwanted touch, they might simply have been conditioned to allow it.

In Vox's case, my guess is that he just doesn't feel threatened. He could obliterate Katie if he wanted to, so her harassment is merely annoying. Valentino is a familiar and primary source of physical contact, so his touch probably registers as safe or steadying. Even Alastor (who should register as a threat) does no damage the one time he goes for Vox's screen in a fight, and Vox only flips him off in response. So at least from Alastor, that particular form of contact seems to be annoying, not threatening.