That's false. As you travel around any city, sooner or later you see a
'bucket truck' ('cherry-picker') owned by the local electric utility company,
with the bucket extended and a technician ('line-man') up in the bucket
working on live electric lines, possibly with his bare hands.
Wait ! Even if you don't ever see a lineman working on live lines with
his bare hands, you DO see birds happily landing and sitting on live,
bare, electric lines.
CONTACT with a high-voltage point or a current-carrying conductor
is not dangerous in itself. It's only dangerous if there's some OTHER
part of you in contact at the same time with something that the electric
current wants to flow into, and YOU are the only way it can get there.
When current flows THROUGH you, THAT's when you're in big trouble.