Hugs

I watched a documentary about technology the other night. One scene featured a group of people talking about how when they were kids their teachers hugged them. They talked a bit about how that doesn’t really happen in schools much anymore. That led them to talk about how they, as adults, don’t really hug people that regularly outside of their romantic relationships. This was at the end of the documentary. It was a nice way to conclude the hour or so where they examined how technology has helped us but also made our attention spans not nearly what they used to be, contributing to a growing sense of disconnection in our society. The facilitator of the group went on to talk about how liking something on Facebook or commenting or retweeting are missing a human connection. We have created a world where we have to constantly be on the go and need to change things, yet we don’t often make genuine human connections. Even though we are interacting, we aren’t connecting.

I’ve been teaching in various capacities for nearly twenty years, some of that time in classrooms, so the bit about hugging teachers really struck me. When I was young no one thought it was weird to hug the teacher. When I became one I found myself incredibly paranoid about it, especially as a male teacher. I never hugged a student. Several have hugged me, while I stood there awkwardly with my hands up like I was surrendering to the police. I was terrified by all of the policies that discussed student/teacher contact as well as a paranoia that anything could be misinterpreted as inappropriate. There are good reasons for such policies, but the discussion in the documentary made me think about it in a different way.

The idea of the lack of connection being a cultural phenomenon and the juxtaposition of my different experiences with hugging as a young student and then as an adult teacher was really interesting to me. It got me thinking about my own behavior. When I have hugged people lately it’s been a sort of noncommittal, one armed affair. Those are always a bit awkward, but I think they have become such a common thing to do in our culture because it allows us to seem like we are connecting with that person when we really aren’t.

I think it is especially difficult for men to feel comfortable with hugging in our society. We have created this environment of toxic masculinity that bombards men with the need to not be weak or vulnerable from a very young age. Connection and hugging come with an inherent vulnerability, and vulnerability of any sort is often seen as weakness in both conventional gender roles. That perceived weakness can set off alarm bells in the minds of men that have been brainwashed by these cultural toxins, thus the discomfort. There is another layer as well, which became especially prevalent in the wake of the Me Too movement; the perception by some men that women are “out to get them,” and any sort of compliment, let alone a hug, would lead to an accusation of misconduct or harassment. This paranoia misses so many points, though admittedly it is also likely the same source of my paranoia about hugging students. The need for social connection should not cross the boundaries of consent, because then it defeats the entire purpose of the type of connection discussed in the documentary; a one sided connection is not really a connection. So this absurd idea that women are out to get men only further leads to disconnection, and not one perpetuated by women, but by the centuries of cultural conventions regarding the behavior of men that have led us to this moment in history.

It is easier for women to perform displays of platonic affection between each other because they don’t have that legacy battering them from such a young age. They have a completely different set of standards pushed upon them. The ease and frequency with which women interact like this really only makes it harder for those men that have fallen prey to stereotyping to break through it, because such affection is seen as a feminine thing to do, and another component of that toxic masculinity is that femininity is perceived as weakness. Many of us are taught to “act like a man” from such an early age. Phrases like “man up,” and “cry like a girl,” really do a number on us, making many of us equate being feminine with being weak because it is unmanly. You see this manifest itself amongst the gay community in the form of “bottom shaming,” and the prevalence of terms like “masc4masc.” I recognize it in myself sometimes, when the internalized homophobia that I think I’ve eradicated rears its ugly head again. This usually occurs when I see men who are more effeminate acting with confidence. The thought is usually something like “he should tone it down,” which is the product of the old shame that was placed in my head around my own sexuality. Scenarios like this build up around each of us, regardless of our gender or sexuality, causing us to disconnect us from one another.

It might seem like an over simplification to say that hugging could solve some of this, but it is often the small steps that make the greatest impact. I can’t help but think that maybe, if we tried the simple step of genuinely hugging people more often, that the world might be a better place. If we could reach a place where we are regularly connecting with the people in our lives in this slightly more intimate way (with consent of course), I can only imagine the positive change that could occur.