A Ramble on Hugs
Hugs. They seem simple enough. It wasn't until recently that I came face to face with the fact that they mean wildly different things to different people.
For me a hug, no matter the duration, is nonsexual. It's about comfort, not carnality. You could even toss in a kiss on the neck and I wouldn't consider it as foreplay (but I had better know you really well, this is really close friends only territory). To me, a hug only means more than 'I like you and you make me feel comfortable and cared for' if there's roaming hands, nibbles, and other additional activity rather than just a hug.
It didn't occur to me that there were people that would consider a long hug to be a prelude to more intimacy. That my taking comfort and happiness from just holding them for a while would make them nervous. That not everyone found a lingering hug to be somewhat Zen. Just turn off the part of you mind that worries about job, money, what people think about you, what you have to do before you go to bed, what to make for dinner, and a hundred other things and simply enjoy the presence of someone you care about. Taking a moment to appreciate the mere existence of a person, to give and accept a 'I'm glad you are who you are and that I know you and let you into my life.'
Of course in pondering these sorts of things I had to wonder, what the hell is wrong with our society that a hug has become something shared only between parents and children, blood relations, and lovers? Why is touching a friend a nearly taboo activity? Why do we (Americans, particularly those of the northeast in my experience) have this invisible shell around us that we allow so few people to invade and even then give them only short moments to do so? Why have we turned every bit of physical contact into something potentially sexual or a power struggle?
Children don't have these problems. If they like you, they'll hug you, until their parents teach them otherwise. To an extent this teaching is wise, hugging strangers is just not safe, but why do they teach them not to hug friends? Some teach them not to hug family members other than themselves and siblings. Some teach them that hugging is just not done, which later that child may turn into 'hugging is only for lovers and in private.'
And of course the parents don't teach by just saying "don't hug that person." They teach by example and how they give and receive hugs themselves. If they start not returning their children's hugs they begin teaching the child that they can't hug them. Eventually that child learns not to give hugs, no matter how much they want to, no matter how much they want to be hugged themselves. After all, it won't be returned, it won't be appreciated, it might even be rejected. By now the child isn't really a child any more, he or she is probably becoming a teenager. The setting is in place for the sexualizing of hugs, after all, only people that want to have sex with them hug them now, their girlfriends or boyfriends. I doubt the scenario is that uncommon.
I've experienced this vague cultural uneasiness over hugs myself. I might
want to hug friends, particularly when saying good bye (at graduation for
instance) but for most of them I never did. Our indoctrination was well
developed and even though we knew we'd be unlikely to see each other in
person again we didn't take a moment to wordlessly say 'thanks for being
my friend.'
That's pretty much how it continued until graduate school where I met some people that became friends and were huggy. Now I could actually get hugs when I needed them and I started unlearning the 'taboo' that had been impressed on me. I found Keenan, who would actually stand with me, arm around my waist and my arm around his shoulders (yes, he was shorter than I). It's nice to stand talking with friends with that sort of contact. It did piss off his girlfriend though. Sad really, she had no reason to be worried. It's not like she didn't know my romantic interests lay elsewhere.
After graduate school, with my re-emergent huggy tendencies, I got into what is called 'the furry community.' Furries, as a whole, are HUGGY people. Most are very physically affectionate with each other, and some few find this uncomfortable. Nowadays people at conventions will generally ask people they don't know that well if they would like a hug rather than just hugging them. Yes, random hugs from strange people were a perceived problem at conventions. Here I was with friends I met online and I could hug, and be hugged by, and it was No Big Deal.
I've been indulging in conventions and all the hugs I could want for the last four years, attending at least eight conventions. I guess I've become used to the open affection of those conventions and forgotten that people from the 'mundane' world aren't like the ones of the furry subculture. And I've forgotten that even some furries can be deeply inured in the mundane parent culture, to the point where a hug isn't just a hug to them.