system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why do such a wide variety of animals seem to enjoy human affection?
gpt
I don't think any of these answers have gotten to the heart of the question. Animals enjoy touch (mammals especially) for the same reasons people do. But of all the animals in nature, humans have the best appendages for giving massages/scratches because we have such fine control over our hands and fingers. So you take any mammal - a lion, lets say - and if you can convince it to let you get close without feeling threatened, and start giving it a scratch behind the ears .... then it's gonna enjoy the shit out of that.