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TechnoratiA Thousand Ways to Disconnect, and Now a Hugging Ban, Too
"Is there anybody alive out there?"- Bruce Springsteen, from Radio Nowhere
I needed a hug. This is two years ago, outside the village of Tykocin, Poland. I was on assignment, traveling with a Holocaust memorial group, most of whom were Jewish. After days spent touring murder camps, viewing the artifacts of the dead, grappling with the incomprehensible, our group found itself in a forest clearing. There, in 1941, we were told, 1,400 Jews - all the Jews of Tykocin - were made to dig three mass graves. And then they were shot.
I swear you could feel their presence, see them ambling the path down which we had come, hear mothers soothing anxious children with soft lies. "Hush now. Everything will be all right."
For me it was, finally, too much. I'm not a guy who cries easily and I didn't then. But man, I needed a hug. Needed a human touch. I sought out one of my bus mates and opened my arms.
It is a long way, physically and emotionally, from Tykocin to a middle school in Middle America, but the moral of the story remains the same. Sometimes - times of pain, times of commiseration, times of affection, times of joy - you just need to be held. So I was appalled to read this week about a school in Texas - Fossil Hill Middle in Fort Worth - where students are banned from hugging or even holding hands. And it turns out Fossil Hill is not the only one.
From Bend, Ore., to Oak Park, Ill., to Des Moines, Iowa, to Orlando, Fla., to, believe it or not, Cornwall, England, schools are banning hugs. Some say it's because hugging creates congestion in the halls. But there are others who say these "PDAs" - public displays of affection - are a gateway to sexual harassment.
My, my, my.
Am I the only one who feels this is just the latest step in a troubling trend? Am I the only one who sees businesses, schools and public institutions moving, inexorably as a Terminator, toward the standardization and regulation of even the most mundane of human interaction? In so doing, they seek to remove the defining element of human interaction: humanity.
I don't know about you, but I'm sick of punching in numbers. And talking to voice recognition software. And of self-service checkout lines. And of customer service agents who ask robotically, "Have I provided you with excellent service today?" after they have just told me they can't help me with my problem.
Ten years ago, a 58-year-old woman who worked as a cashier in a cafeteria in Washington, D.C., got in trouble because she had a habit of addressing her customers as "sweetie" and "honey." I've always thought women of a certain age who call you "honey" while taking your order were one of life's small, human pleasures. But some young person was offended.
My goodness, what robots we have become.
I understand the thinking. If you can standardize all interactions, you ensure a consistent level of quality. I'm just not convinced what we gain is worth all that we lose.
We already watch television in separate rooms. Eat dinner in shifts and on the run. Go about cocooned by iPod tunes. Now we have hugging bans. As if there were not already enough in life to made you feel disconnected, disaffected, alienated, isolated.
No one is pro-sexual harassment or, for that matter, pro-hallway congestion. But surely there are better solutions.
We're not talking about kids groping and making out. We are talking about "hugs." To hug is to reach across. It is to reaffirm common humanity. That is a powerful instinct.
Now the hug joins that long list of banned things. I guess kids who need consolation, kids primed for celebration, kids who just want to know that they are not alone will henceforth have to write text messages instead.
And progress marches on.
Leonard Pitts Jr., winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, is a columnist for the Miami Herald. His e-mail address is lpitts@miamiherald.com.
© 2007 Pioneer Press
48 Comments so far
Show AllI agree with you too, Io Q. Lellity; Advocate's post is insulting.
What's wrong with some of us, that we can't or won't be civil online?
I disagree completely with kivals. Hugs are part of what we need as human beings, a way of keeping us connected and whole. Those who think all hugging, or worse, all touch is sexual have lost touch with a vital part of human nature and happiness.
I'm sure these hugging bans are a way for schools to avoid lawsuits. After all, if one kid accuses another of groping in the guise of a hug--and such things do happen--then it's one person's word against another's. The ban may be good for the school board, but for the kids, the cure is worse than the disease.
And WJM, what's wrong with being individuals? What should we be--cookie-cutter replicas of each other?
But getting back to Advocate's attack on kivals: Advocate makes a lot of unwarranted assumptions about kivals, such as that kivals is a man-hating, religious-fundamentalist woman, despite kivals's assertion that "my wife and I and our relatives hug our son quite often." Seems to me that kivals is either a man or one-half of a lesbian married couple.
Many respondents here have made important points without making personal attacks, so it's really possible to do that, Advocate. Let's not have personal attacks, and let's not have praise for other people's personal attacks.
Thank you, Advocate; I agree with your post completely. It is insulting.
I remember a study done at Johns Hopkins where they raised an infant monkey with a wire frame bottle holder in place of a mother monkey. No physical contact from humans either. As a control, they had another monkey raised with affection from it's mother.
The result: the 'wire frame' monkey was psychotic.
Won't that just be fun... an entire generation of disfunctional psychopaths, trained by TV and videogames that the only human interactions are to be inflicting pain and death on 'the other'. Controlled by sterile mega-corps, ruled by a death obsessed government, living on the burnt out shell of a used up world.
Ain't hubris a bitch...
Kivals wrote:
I have no problem with my sexuality, and I am extremely offended by your insinuations. However, as a parent of a boy in that age range, I am aware of the motives of such children (at least the boys).
Personally, I would appreciate any efforts my son's school would make to slow down the hormone express.
COMMENT: You may not have a problem with your sexuality but I have a problem with your sexuality when you want to force your sexual values on others. I am a father to two boys, a girl, and grandfather to three boys. And I am "extremely offended by your insinuations," which aren't really insinuations, but deprecations of boys in general.
From what you've written here, I might be inclined to guess you are a man-hating, sexually frigid, religious fundamentalist, right-wing wacko. But, then I'd be doing what you are doing: extrapolating from experience or knowledge of one or two or a few, or from what I've read in my own politically-biased literature to apply broadly to others. And while you have come to consider boys in general having sexual motives when they hug, I consider any woman who can refer to boys as traveling "down the hormone express" as....well, almost certainly, a man-hating, sexually frigid, religious fundamentalist, right-wing wacko. And, I could be wrong, considering that you call yourself an agnostic. But, then, how can I trust you anymore than you trust boys? I know boys, I don't know you.
Truly, you've insulted boys, my boys, and me when I was a boy.
And you are insulting people who have different views as being on the "left," which deprecates the left, as in:
"many people are too myopic," "simpletons think the ancient rules restricting sex were completely arbitrary," " I cannot understand why more people on the left do not see this as a threat," "some on the left, in knee-jerk fashion, advocate the opposite of what they think the religious right would advocate."
My healthy family, adult children and grandchildren, are huggers, and no VD, out-of-wedlock pregnancies,or any of the other things that seem to cause you concern.
And just what "left" are you referring to? Libertarians of my acquaintance, for example, are politically conservative (i.e.. right-wing) while socially liberal (i.e.. left-wing). What you are really demeaning are boys and any who disagree with your cultural mores.
As is increasingly the case, we are confronted with situations where we are talking about (among other things) legislating behavior.
I agree with what puck twain and johnny hempseed have said, with regard to the deeper issues at work here.
Face it, the most screwed up people are people who have been 'denied' the right/ability to behave naturally and, as well, those who have been denied love and affection. Are hugs gateway drugs? Gimme a break, please. If a hug is a gateway drug to sex, then I feel it is safe to say, conversely, that banning hugs is a gateway drug to violence.
And, as was earlier noted vis a vis the European model, by making something that is natural 'taboo' or unavailable, you only increase a.) the desire for it, and b.) aberrant behavior resulting from a lack of it.
To Kivals and anyone with hormonal teenagers; Sure, middle school kids have raging hormones and can be a 'handful'. So what? If your kids are behaving all squirrely and crazy because of puberty, like all kids of that age do occasionally, let them have an awkward, confused, exciting, even titillating moment with a hug occasionally, IT'S GOOD FOR THEM - healthy and natural.
Why is everyone so afraid of physical contact and sex? Do you want to teach your kids to want a gun? Don't let them have a toy one.
Hugs are better than drugs,and they're not fattening.If hugs are a "gateway "drug to...sex ;like " Marijuana" to Heroin ,it is too damn bad.Hugs are a basic human need!We have gotten so far away from our primal tribal DNA .It took almost a millenia to evolve,and a just a few centuries to devolve past the point where our endocrine system does not serve us,or our lawyers! We evolved from primates who groomed each other publicly.
The trouble with western man is that he /she does not have a rite of puberty conducted by a tribal shaman or wise woman.The family is fractured.There is little or no community.We have been forced by our environments to live in an unnatural way that our genes have not caught up with. peace
The JC I taught at was very clear about its sexual harrassment policy--Avoid physical contact with students of both sexes. Period! I learned this the very hard way when I was reported for giving an encouraging pat-on-the-back to a struggling ESL student who had finally written a grammatically correct short essay. The shock to myself at the "dressingdown" I received was extremely disagreeable, and I became a "marked-man" in the eyes of administrators from that moment on. I view the whole affair as a product of our increasingly dysfunctional society.
ARE WE NOT MEN?
WE ARE DEVO!
Good Grief!
There is certainly a lot of opinion here without much data as to results of either position.
I once had a friend who grew up in an orphanage, he had never been hugged as far as he knew. Untimate sadness, with no real cure in this lifetime. Is THIS result worth all the efforts to create a sterile environment?
Kivals-
Excellent point. When boys that age want to hug girls, it's because they want to hug girls.
The solution to this and so many other problems is simple: single sex schools.
I have two sons. One has recently graduated from high school, the other is in his mid-twenties. Hugging and being hugged is very important to both of them. Both had friends in high school who were not "girlfriends", just platonic friends, whom they hugged when appropriate.
Humans evolved with a lot of physical contact. I believe that hugging and other physical expressions of affection and support are important for our physical and emotional health. In this society there is too little just-plain hugging. I worry that my boys, now away from home, do not get enough hugs. Both are quite capable, and were quite capable in high school, of hugging without it leading to any sexual behavior. I am grateful that our high school understands the importance of hugging and allows it.
Kivals:
First I'll say thanks for presenting a dissenting view and carrying on with the conversation - shows you've reached a mostly uncommon level of maturity with your sexual/creative energy.
But on the other hand...
Oh no! I just took a breath of air - another nose full of sex - darn this pollen everywhere I go! Facts on the ground, and in the air, are that every move we make, from conception to death, has a aspect of sex and sexual energy integrated with it.
Stilba begins to touch on the most important aspect regarding Taboos and excitement. Most in the West are conditioned to an imagining and mostly abstract perception related to what is an endless array of potential excitements and excitement expression.
Ask any nymphomaniac, don juan or any kind of Addict any they will tell you there's a vast difference between excitement and pleasure (pleasure based on true biological energy economics - see Feldenkrais' Body and Mature Behavior).
The apprenticeship of excitement vs. pleasure is continual from birth to death. And as C. Myss points out in her work Energy Anatomy, every person you come in contact with you determine if they would be an appropriate mate or not. As Kivals points out this is dependent on the prevailing social environment.
Just as it's not optimal biologic energy function to gain a mental perception of the 10's of thousands of enzymatic and antioxidant functions of the liver every second, it's not optimal and pleasure lending to form a mental perception of "is this an appropriate mate" with everyone you come in contact with.
The answer to "is this an appropriate mate?" is of course negative 99.999...% of the time. The point being here that the apprenticeship of this answer is constant, and begins to be heightened at that early stage of development when the sexual organs are perceived in the body image and the child gleefully shows the world and exclaims "I have a 'pee pee'.
The pedophile, caught in their perverse form of excitement, takes the gleeful exclamation as an overture for intercourse, the mature (sexual energy differentiating) person recognizes the delight in the child and derives a sense of pleasure at sharing the biological blooming of the young individual, but their energy economy tells them (sub consciously) that this is not an appropriate mate.
The moment isn't dwelt upon, except due to the fact, in the West, where we're faced with a sexuality that is predicated on excitement (due to lack of apprenticeship from behaviors like no hugging laws and indoctrination by "Madison Avenue") instead of pleasure and energy economy, the mature person may glance around to shield the child from a sexual predator.
I labor on with this writing because this topic is at the root of the problem that literally tortures the human population at this moment. As Pitts points out in the main article we suffer from a severe disconnect of human relations with our "television in separate rooms" and "eat(ing) in shifts" - i.e. a disconnect from cultures promoting continuing human, and therefore sexual, apprenticeship.
Kivals is right in stating that most of the CD commentators are something like pre pubescent teens, most of the West is very undifferentiated and meagerly apprenticed except through electronic (non biological and non social) instruments. This is why ggpearls response to make a human connection whenever confronted with this human disconnect is of vast and vital importance - we are doomed without vigilance to such action!
Today we are faced with the prospect that we conduct foreign policy in this country with the Cheney 3 Step of torture and the spewing of depleted uranium into the environment. Intellectually and sub-consciously we know this is abhorrent and wrong. Yet we recoil more at the prospect of the human contact needed to overcome this genocidal and suicidal path then these atrocious behaviors!
I can only conclude with hugs and handshakes all around - between and among every age, race and gender!
Now and everyday along with the discussion of why impeachment is the overriding societal action we can take as a group to overcome the genocidal/suicidal path we are on due to our disconnect from what it means to be human.
As Patti Smith ralates in her song Radio Baghdad, "Suffer not your nieghbors affliction...but extend your hand." And suffer not your own affliction, but extend your hand, and offer a hug. It's the only way out of this horrid mess!
Yeah this hugging as gateway drug idea Kivals has strikes me as bizarre too... Could it be kids are just being human with no sexual intent sometime? Could be... It makes me glad I am not a substitute teacher anymore for I would absolutely refuse to be a hug cop. Kids are dehumanized enough already in our corporate controlled society, without this kind of crap added on top.
Kivals: I read your comments on other threads and I have always found your thoughts to be worthwhile and helpful. I'm sorry about the way some have reacted to your thoughts. It truely does seem to me that most everyone here has taken away many different meanings from this article.
I think all of us here value human contact and hugs. At all ages. As I interpret what the schools are doing with these "no hugging" rules, they have nothing to do with sex or banning human contact. They are trying to avoid LAWSUITS!! The fear that the school will be sued for allowing a situation where sexual harrasment can take place is HUGE! They have a fiduciary responsibility to protect all their students from even the POTENTIAL of being a victim of sexual harrassment. Banning hugging or handholding may not be the best approach to reduce the risk, but it seems that they couldn't think of anything else. It seems to me that maybe educating the kids about what sexual harrassment is and what to do about it might just be a better approach....
kivals ...are you sure you're not putting us all on just to "arouse" us. I think you need a big hug.
Unlike the traditional social stereo type I grew up in a very strict loveless Italian family...no PDAs that I can remember and I've spent many years in therapy undoing all that.
If you don't learn how to hug as a child you'll feel awkward hugging as an adult...the taboo stays with you...you can't argue with Freud
Me and my wife(a middle school teacher with a no touching policy for her school) had a discussion on this. I was shocked, she was not. Forget about sex, PDA, human behavior, or anything else, this is 100% due to our sue crazy society. Sexual Harassment is what this is all about.
I'm sorry, kivals, that you keep getting attacked. :-( it's a pity people can't be civil on forums. I respect your opinion, even though I can't say I agree with it. I don't know how old your boy is, but I know that when I was in high school (and I just left it) hugging for me wasn't a sexual experience at all. It was communion with another human being, and I was grateful for every time I felt it.
I hope you don't prevent your child from hugging or otherwise basic forms of intimacy (or, if he's not old enough yet, that you won't.) I honestly believe he'll get past the hormonal stage if you let him try. Be careful, but not pre-emptive, for we all know how pre-emptiveness has worked in other plans. *cough IRAQ cough*
I like hugs, but I also like the self check out line at the grocery store.
Totalitarianism & America
It's what we call T & A
What a strange society we live in. Ah, the religion of Disconnection. Wow! Think of how that faith and practice drives people to all kinds of weird, isolated places where they become so lonely -- they buy things and seek power to fill the void of the simple human touch and connection.
On second thought -- Disconnection is a great religion -- a wonderful relion in need of globalization where loads of money can be made. This whole idea of holding love and connection hostage really works! Why, we wouldn't be where we are and who we are if it weren't for the faithful practice of Disconnection.
I can't believe that there are people who think hugging is the gateway to teen sex! Hugging is a totally friendly act. I hugged many friends in my all female high school, but was not having sex with them for crying out loud. We can't limit teens from having any physical contact, friendly or romantic with each other. We need to teach our youth to set appropriate boundaries and to listen to what makes them feel uncomfortable. Talking and looking at others can be part of sexual harassment, but we can't ban those. We shouldn't ban all hugs just because some horny boys might try to be flirtatious with girls by hugging them. Parents, please don't try to keep your child a baby forever. They need to grow up and think for themselves. They will do this just fine as long as you and not MTV is the primary influence in their life. In fact, we might want to start teaching teens that kissing, etc. are perfectly fine and wonderful since it is a way for them to express their emerging sexuality without jumping full speed ahead into the adult risks and responsibilities of sex.
I have the same problem every time I try to hug some chick.
And we wonder why there are parts of the world do not accept our values. And like it even less when we impose those values economically , culturally and militarily.
I think both Kivals and his opponents are correct. Some jr high kids do use hugs as sex between classes, others don't. Place and time and age and intent and you name it.... it is all different for the participants.
How disgusting, how condescending and right wing some of the comments here are! It is none of your business, and not your right to control what teenagers do with their bodies! That is their property, not yours! My group of friends always hugged at school, whether male or female, whether the person was dating someone else or not; whether we were gay or straight, and it had nothing to do with sex! I never thought about sex when it was happening, and yes, we did have adult emotional motives; bad days and crises, some of us cut, or had an eating disorder, and sometimes really needed a hug from a friend. And we would have done it whether the school liked it or not.
But actually, you know what, yes, I do believe in the rightness of free love when practiced by people who have gone through puberty; and their sexual awakening is not the business of parents or school administrators to thwart or comment upon. And the bodies of children are not yours to "dicipline" either!
http://www.dreamingearth.net
First they broke the family unit, second they took the right to discipline you're child away, then they stopped teachers disciplining as well, now they have the power ones ie. police etc they now wants banns on any closeness that makes us humans, divide and conquer and isolate from the other
If I hadn't been able to hug my friends during high school, I definitely would not have survived. And I mean that literally, like I would have probably taken my own life. There is little solace anymore for our teenagers.
Can we start looking at things to promote among children, rather than increasing the list of bans?
realitychecker,
Are you sure you checked reality? Nobody is talking about banning hugs universally, not among children or certainly among adults. Schools are obviously trying to control the hormonally induced insanity of pubescent teens. The US corporate media and entertainment corporations make billions off of titillating the kids and awakening their sex drives (why doesn't Mr. Pitts write about that?), and the schools have to deal with the repercussions. Nobody thinks platonic hugs are harmful, but the school officials in a position to know obviously believe there is nothing platonic about what is going on.
I am beginning to think that many of the commenters at CD are pubescent teens themselves.
kivals, why stop there? While certainly every sexual encounter I ever had involved hugging, it was always proceeded by conversation. And before that a smile. So let's ban smiling too, eh? That is the real gateway to sex! In all seriousness, I am truly sorry to hear that you believe that every hug has sexual intentions. I have 2 young boys at home who hug their friends in the neighborhood everytime they see each other. My 2 nieces hug their friends everytime they get together. Little Leaguers hug after they score a run or lose a game. It is human. It is comforting. It is good. It is certainly NOT sexual. You're kind of creepy, if I'm being honest......
I'm an old hippie, and one of the things I really love when us hippies get together away from the rest of this bizarre world is that a good firm HUG is the common form of saying hello. Even among strangers. Its wonderful. Try it.
I've been reading through Naomi Klein's latest book. There's one thing that's mentioned just in passing but that struck a nerve with me. That is that one of the ways our societies are manipulated is to try to keep us all isolated. The individual and individualistic values (like self-independence) are made very important. In contrast the values of a group and people in a group working together and relying on each other are downplayed. All of this is done to create a society where there is no effective ability to organize a group resistance to those who would harm us for their own profits.
Hugs are great. They should be encouraged.
Stilba,
I totally agree that in a less sexually charged society that hugging by children that age of their peers would have no downside. My wife grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution, and she says that in her teens there was no mention of sex in the media and no mention by the adults. And so the great majority of teenagers not only did not engage in sex, they did not even know about it! The first time I went to China, before the economic revolution, I was completely amazed at how non-sexual the teens were there, how different from US teens. But the US corporate media has seen fit to saturate the airwaves with titillating messages awakening and turbo-charging the sex drives of our early teens and even preteens.
kivals, I hear what you're saying, but I don't see how this ties to hugs. In western Europe, where people are affectionate to a degree that can almost seem silly to a Yankee, young people tend to have much LESS sex. Once you remove the taboo, you remove part of the excitement. Same goes for alcohol. In the U.S., you have 20 year-olds poisoning themselves on college campuses because they never explored their limits when they were teens.
This is more divide and conquer tactics from the righties, nothing more. The whole goal is to destroy Americans affinity towards each other, and this is one way to do it early on. Get them so afraid of each other that they can't even hug, and the next generation will be so removed from each other that there will be NO hope for a united populace. What more does the right wing want than that? If you can convince the people that there is NO commons, NO need to communicate, and NO reason or right to cooperate, then we as a country can be divided FAR easier. And a divided populace is FAR easier to control and screw. They are doing what they can to divide, just like they have been with us for decades, only now it's the kids. They want a nation full of individuals, because they are easier to screw with and steal from than a united group.
This is a dramatically unAmerican thing to do. These people should be seriously ashamed of themselves, and we should consider revoking their membership in HUMANITY. They seem to want out of it, anyway.
Orwellian, to say the least.
I've heard that there are 50,000 cameras capturing public places for the UK government.
In my college here in the US I have seen phenomenal public displays of affection, including a girl sticking her finger up her boy friends's a**hole.
In the bible belt.
Can we let the kids be themselves, please? They need more avenues to open up to, not fewer. You would think that with all this communication technology, people are getting closer.
Physical contact and proximity in general, I dare say, is getting reduced.
Mr. Pitts' article was a pleasure to read. We can never have too many reminders to stay human in a world where so much in deliberately designed to reduce if not eliminate human contact.
Kivals' comment could not drive home that point more, not the least of which because of its hostile, angry, paranoid tone and content. God help any child that is forced to grow up in that kind of environment. Reading those few words made both my heart ache and my blood boil.
If we live in a world where one person touching another person is immediately deemed sexual and predatory, what is the point? And if you're not teaching your children to delight in and hunger for physical and emotional contact with other human beings (and about sex), you're the anti-thesis of what a parent should be.
manchild,
I have no problem with my sexuality, and I am extremely offended by your insinuations. However, as a parent of a boy in that age range, I am aware of the motives of such children (at least the boys). I think it is wonderful when adults hug, and certainly there is nothing wrong with hugging in general, but you cannot apply the general pro-hugging rule to the specific instance of junior high kids with hormones in full throttle. And of course they will say it is non-sexual (they think they are so clever at that age). What would you expect?
I have read of small indigenous groups in South America where children join sexual free-for-alls, with other children and with adults, at the age of 11 or 12. More power to them. However, many people are too myopic to grasp why that is not appropriate in our society. It has to do with the size and structure of our society. In those societies, as opposed to ours, there is no VD or AIDS, no school to miss during pregnancy, and no special responsibility of the biological father as the village raises the children (simpletons think the ancient rules restricting sex were completely arbitrary, when actually they were practical means to address the difficulties presented by putting members of a species that evolved in small groups into a large group).
Children in the US appear to be having sex earlier and earlier, and I cannot understand why more people on the left do not see this as a threat to their children. The religious right may be wrong on most issues, but that does not mean they are wrong on every issue, yet it seems that some on the left, in knee-jerk fashion, advocate the opposite of what they think the religious right would advocate.
Personally, I would appreciate any efforts my son's school would make to slow down the hormone express.
This is increasingly become an I-Me-Mine culture, an Extreme Makeover Get Rich or Die Trying world. This is deliberate. Products are being sold to us in place of human exchanges. The commercials for these products give the game away, for example "Your friendly neighborhood WalMart" and all those stories of caring individuals who go the extra measure to deliver the packages or make sure the prescriptions are filled with everyone's individual special needs catered to, or manufacture their overthe counter drugs "with love." The few pockets of people genuinely caring for other people (such as the place where I work) are under increasing social and cultural pressure to give up their do-gooderness and get with the program under penalties that are sometimes extreme.
I agree Leonard, and I second that hug from Maska. I work in an economically depressed area in North Portland, OR at a high school. Three times this week alone, I have received a hug from a young black football player for my help in his English class last year (I am a white middle aged woman). The boundaries that are erased when this lovely child lets me know how much my help means to him is a priceless treasure. There is no 'sex' implied nor is this iresponsible behavior.
Unfortunatley, it is exactly this frightened mind set voiced by Kivals that will determine our future as a tactile species. Human touch is necessary for our holistic health. It triggers endorphines and releases tensions.
Being raised by my own mother who never hugged her own mother much was a lonely thing. I now go out of my way to hug whomever offers, wants or needs that contact. Kivals, I urge you to please find someone to talk to about your fears. If your own childhood contextualized hugs as a 'gateway' to sex, then perhaps someone in your past hurt you because of that lack, or maybe you were touched and hurt by someone you trusted in an unhealthy fashion. Children need that contact to be healthy and well-rounded individuals. From parents, peers, relatives, teachers, etc. The trusted members of their worlds.
Hugs to all, and don't let our collective fears deny us our need for physical affection.
I think this person Kivals, needs to examine her own sexuality and motives. Have you educated your own child about sex? Honestly, directly, without euphamisms? If we have reached a point where the motive behind every hug must be suspect, we're losing our humanity
As a parent of a child of that age, I have to disagree 100 percent. The kids are not adults and do not have adult motives. The main reason they want to hug is almost certainly sexual (unless there is something in the water up there), and living in one of the most oversexed societies in human history, and knowing that children that age are far from being able to handle sex responsibly, and knowing what the consequences are for children behaving irresponsibly with regard to sex, I have to ask you Mr. Pitts, have you lost your friggin mind?!?
Amen! Every time I read one of these stories about the depersonalization of our schools, I'm thankful I retired from teaching before the lunacy reached full flower. We wonder why the kids aren't engaged. Has anybody in administration ever considered how often the inspiration for a child to achieve has come from a caring teacher?
Mr. Pitts, consider yourself warmly hugged.
Hugs are as essential as food, if you ask me.
But I remember an incident during my Master's Studies when the 60-something female aid in the registrar's office very sweetly said, "thank you, dear", after our business was completed. Someone came up to me and asked me if I just felt violated. I laughed, heartily, thinking it was a joke. I had not even given the comment a thought! Sad that actual human warmth is now under attack. This is how tyrants get a foothold. Separate us from each other, until the only person we can call "dear" is the leader.
Stilba,
The whole idea of the human body being "evil" came from attempts to limit sexual behavior that posed a threat to individuals and to the society. Before antibiotics, sexual diseases were often fatal and they could do great damage to the babies in the womb. The Victorian sexual codes, which are derided and ridiculed to this day, were developed in response to an epidemic of VD in London.
As an agnostic with no belief in a god, it is easy for me to see how the sexual restrictions evolved, just out of practical rules for the good of the individual and society (e.g. preventing extremely dangerous abortions and the spread of VD).
As I tried to explain in my previous comment, humans evolved in small groups where a strong sex drive apparently helped in bonding in the group (free-for-alls were probably good fun for all). When humans formed larger groups over time, for practical and other reasons, the strong sex drive no longer served them so well as it inevitably led to innumerable conflicts and difficulties of many sorts, and so the restrictive sexual codes developed in response.
And, to radiusforms, I understand the value of hugs, and my wife and I and our relatives hug our son quite often (who happens to be a fantastic student and very well-adjusted and happy kid), but that does not mean he needs hugs from kids at school.
Implicit in the thought behind banning hugging and "public displays of affection" is that touch and hugging is always sexual. And bad. Or at least always inappropriate for youth.
Sorry, that is so wrong and so in denial of being human and of cultural variations. Remember "Turn, Turn, turn- "A time to embrace, a time to refrain from embracing." Ecclesiastes, I believe. Touch is part of human communication.
In many cultures people hug and touch and these are common and customary ways of greeting. I remember a Latino man who, when his Asian girlfriend said her mother never hugged her thought, "What kind of woman (monster) is her mother!" Yet, when he observed their interaction saw how much love, concern and respect both women had for each other.
Treating others and the "other", with basic respect is key. Appreciating a pluralistic society is key. Getting youth to understand differences and understand them. Two families from the same background may have many or few differences in parent/child interactions where people from different backgrounds could have many similar and/or differences in behavior.
You've got kids who are doing emotional as well as academic learning. And they experience some of their emotional learning as a roller coaster. Don't we expect learning in other than strictly academic ways, including socializing, including developing as caring human beings? How youth deal with new experiences, conflict, feelings is part of the learning that creates the people they are and will become. Don't we want youth to learn how develop healthy friendships and relationships?
Sex in our society is used to sell products, as an act of sexuality and/or intimacy, coercion and intimate violence. Why is it that the effects of violence and sexual violence on others isn't something that we talk about in school (K-12) and when we have to deal with someone affected by these negative experiences, we're often dealing with unproductive, defensive, destructive and often incomprehensible behaviors by the victims. Why don't we talk about victimization? What it does to people? How do people heal? Better yet, how to be assertive, caring people.
If you're concerned about inappropriate behavior, start with consentuality, priorities, teaching time and place (I had a very good teacher who used that expression), getting youth to class in a timely manner.
It's called creating an atmosphere where being out in the halls after the late bell rings is not acceptable without creating prison or purgatory mentality. I've seen school culture change from one where many youth were out in the halls after the late bell rang. Get the kids off the cellphones during school.
Texas. Seceded from Mexico, became a slave state, fought for slavery in the US Civil War, high level of gun ownership, violence and death penalty cases, and big on HS football.
How about an apropos state motto "Make War Not Love?"
Especially appropriate under this belligerent expletive Bush and his Texas mafia. All this about Texas isn't a blanket statement, just an acknowledgement of history, both older and more recent.
Great article from Minnesota. Once again, as with so many facets of American life, we could stand to learn a lot from our friends overseas. Elsewhere, to touch is so normal, and personal space, that scary, invisible fortification Yankees put around themselves, is almost non-existent. I feel this stems from fear and religion - the view that the human body is evil, and that all of the body's motives are also evil. Look at Islamic countries which have "decency police" patrolling the streets much the way our teachers are now to patrol our schools. Kids that can't hug or even touch one another equals adults who are maladjusted basketcases.
In response to Paranoid Pess., I agree. However, I have chosen to co-opt this back from the corporations and the commercialization of humanity. While I avoid Walmart, and large corporate institutions, when I encounter employees that are programmed to meet-n-greet or interact based upon a script, I make eye contact and offer interest in who they are on a personal level. You may be surprised at the responses. They generally look set back, then glance around to see if a higher-up is watching and then break from their script. I call it my personal de-programming effort. I have no plans to go quietly into that good night where canned automatons provide me with any service. I also see relief in them when I do this. It is just as depressing for them to be forced to interact this way as it is for us to witness. Subverting the overlords (lol) does not have to involve loud, sign carrying protests all the time...sometimes a little ripple makes a bigger wave when it reaches the shore, IMHO.
"I understand the thinking. If you can standardize all interactions, you ensure a consistent level of quality."
Actually, in America today, that should read "a consistent level of very low quality." Fortunately, the Whole Foods' and Trader Joes' of the world have adopted exactly the opposite philosophy, and their methods are spreading...
Enjoy the "Free Hugs Campaign" video that 18 million others have viewed. I love it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4&NR
It is only 3 minutes 49 seconds.
Hugs rock!!!