Touch

It is important to touch other human beings. It could be the easiest thing in the entire world, but it isn't.

A friend posted an article recently that explained how hard such a simple thing can be for men in our society. It doesn't refer to any sort of sexual need, but rather just being touched as an expression of simple humanity.

How about me for an example. I really like being touched, but it's tricky. At home, there is no issue. My wife both returns my touches, and equally initiates her own. It's great, and always makes me smile. At Jiu-Jitsu, hands and legs and backs and chest are forever pressing on me. The goal isn't touch, per se, but it sure happens a lot.

Leaving out those two areas, I don't get touched. I don't mean exactly never, but it's pretty rare. Let's see how much it has happened in the last year or so.

There have been a number of handshakes, which barely count at being touched. There have also been a number of hugs when meeting old friends, or saying goodbye.

Besides that, there has been one visit to the dentist.

That's it, in a year.

How many seconds per month does that work out to being? Not many. The only sustained contact was in the dentist's chair, and that involved a lot of pokey things, and power-tools, and rubber gloves.

This is a problem. What about all those folks without a partner, or without an activity ripe with touching? Who touches them?

And, like many things in our society, it is an asymmetrical problem, in that it effects men the most.


        ...it has become every man's job to prove they can be trusted, in each and every interaction, day
        by day and case by case. In part, because so many men have behaved poorly. And so, we prove
        our trustworthiness by foregoing physical touch completely in any context in which even
        the slightest doubt about our intentions might arise. Which, sadly, is pretty much every
        context we encounter.
                                                          -Mark Greene


The reverse is not true. If some female acquaintance offers me a hug, I never, ever suspect her of having ulterior motives; of trying to cop a feel.

At Jiu-Jitsu, if a woman wants to partner with me to learn a technique, or to spar, there isn't the slightest possibility that she is sexually motivated. I sometimes hesitate to offer to partner, or to roll with a woman, in case I might be creeping her out.

If you think I'm being silly in the sports context, I am not. I have witnessed males who clearly were absolutely being creeps; thank goodness that has never been at our school.

I am very careful about offering a hug. With relatives, it is easy, or with long-time friends.

It is all too easy to be creepy, and the fear of being creepy is a big deal. The normal procedure is to never attempt to touch anybody else, ever, unless they initiate the action.

So why do I go on about rules for hugging, when there are many other forms of human physical contact? I contend that there really are not.

In the last year, outside of my long-term relationship and Jiu-Jitsu and my dentist. Every single one of my interpersonal physical contacts has come in the form of either a hug or a handshake.

Nobody ever seems to worry about a handshake participant being "up to something," but hugs are very different.

Why no other kinds of contact? Think about it. Anything other than that is clearly off the table.

Let's take somebody with whom I sometimes exchange hugs, and with whom I wrestle with a lot on the mat. Koko is forever going away to University, or coming back, and this involves hugs. Whenever she is in town, we end up rolling around for hours together in a Jiu-Jitsu context. So far, no slightest hint of creepiness. Suppose I attempted to hold her hand, or to massage her shoulders? I bet things would seriously change between us. No more meeting to train, and no more hugs on departure or return. Wouldn't blame her at all.

Nobody should have to put up with any sort of creepy contact fears.

To that end, when I used to teach high school, I let it be known that I didn't like being touched. A lot of kids are pretty open and sweet, and like to hug people. Equally, many don't want touch from a teacher. I wanted my room to be one where there was no pattern or expectation that students should hug the teacher, or that he wanted them to. To protect them as best I could from the creepy-adult syndrome, I used a little white lie. I actually love hugs and such.

Somehow, knowledge about my "aversion to being touched," spread to the staff. Therefore, I got far less than my share of hugs in the staff room, too. I didn't mind, as there is also lots of creepy co-worker stuff out there in the world, and this helped keep me from being mislabelled here as well.

At Jiu-Jitsu, I like to make myself avoidable. For a while it used to work that I would not usually pick a partner at pairing time, and wait to be grabbed by somebody else. Somebody always did, usually very, very quickly. I was a popular partner. Somehow this changed when my belt went from Blue to Purple. Sometimes I get picked, but not like before, and now I often end up as odd man out. Going to have to re-think my strategy, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

I like the type of contact that exists in Jiu-Jitsu. Imagine a room full of white, martial arts uniforms being worn by robots. These machines proceed to try and defeat one another across the floor using grappling combat movements. Zero sexual motivation. Now imagine a real mat, with an equal number of uniforms, this time worn by human beings of assorted sizes, genders, and sexual orientations. They try and defeat one another across the floor using grappling combat movements. Again, zero sexual motivation. This time you'll notice a lot of sweat, and cooperation, and learning, and occasional laughter. It's great.

Kinda like a basket of puppies.