I moved away from Houston 5 years ago but I thought Pearland was turning high fallutin . <| sep |> No matter how many volts you pump into your fingertips , it won ' t make a lamp in your ass glow . The lamp glows because current flows through the filament . Current flows through the filament because there ' s a voltage difference across it . If the voltage is being applied at your fingers and the lamp is at your ass , the voltage will be identical at the two ends of the filament , no matter how high it is at your fingertips . You are correct about your body acting like a resistor though , just not in the way you thought . Even if you shorted one of the lamp terminals to ground instead of letting it touch your ass like the other one , not much would happen . The resistance between the two terminals your fingers are touching would be pretty small compared to the resistance of everything between your fingers and your ass . It ' d be a lot easier for current to simply flow from one finger to the one right beside it than it would be for it to flow from your hand all the way down to your ass .