Hug, Act II
I like hugs. I am not very good at the bro dap half hug, half handshake thing. I always mess up the hand part. But I nail the hug. I have long since shed any stigmatized reluctance to hug other dudes. If I like you and I trust you, you will know it, because I will hug you. Big smile, verbal greeting at a volume too loud, arms open, comin’ in hot.
I have learned over the past decade that it really is important to ask if my intended target is a hugger. I seem more concerned about it if the recipient of my hug is female. I feel like I am doing a guy a favor if he is reluctant – like I am helping him break out of his emotionally stunted dude shell – as though it is my right or duty to cross that line for him. With women, I am much better at asking if they are into exchanging a hug. There are a lot of reasons why I feel this step of consent is important. First of all, I want to avoid any action that can be misconstrued as rapey. Lunging at a recoiling female is never a good look.
We have also learned in developmental psychology that we shouldn’t force kids to give hugs like it is their job. “Go give Uncle Bruno a hug goodbye, little Zoey. Don’t worry about the fact that he’s been drinking brown liquor for six hours and he smells like gouda and cigar smoke. Your three-year-old emerging boundaries are not as important as showing my mom’s brother that I am raising my children right, so give that scruff-covered cheek a kiss while you are in there.” Forcing kids to show affection that is not genuine leads to seriously bad consequences in adolescence and young adulthood. Teaching a child she is in control of her own body is far more important unless delivering low-level trauma at an early age is your jam.
Maybe most importantly, changing the dynamics around hug consent is critical because it makes us more comfortable with the whole concept of affirmative consent. Research conducted with college-aged young adults reveals that the most common form of consent obtained before sexual contact is the least effective. It is also the only form of consent I ever learned. If I reach for a boob, and feel no resistance, I interpret that as consent. Mix that situation with alcohol – something that takes place on college campuses millions of times per weekend – and you have a disastrous recipe for he said / she said rape allegations and denials. The aforementioned research goes on to reveal that the most effective form of consent – affirmative written consent – is seldom used by people trying to get it on. Maybe written consent feels like overkill the way some claim that stopping to put on a condom kills the mood. If we could at least move toward a societal endorsement of affirmative verbal consent we would make a huge leap in the right direction. So a general cultural acceptance of the importance of hug consent is actually a critically important way for us to start practicing verbal consent.
I coach high school soccer, an environment ripe with the thrill of the victory and the agony of defeat, both of which are often instinctively conducive to hugs. I work with a coach who doesn’t like to hug. In nine years coaching with her, we’ve hugged three times, and she tells me I am in her adulthood top ten in hug frequency. I respect her boundary, but when something truly great happens on the pitch, it is hard to resist my ingrained need for connection. Sometimes a high-five just doesn’t cut it. But in a case like this, I don’t think it is a close call. Her boundary trumps my enthusiasm.
In church on Sunday, I offered a young mother a hug. She had been through a tragic and traumatic week with a serious health scare for one of her children. Through tears, she nodded affirmatively as we approached each other. I held her, and nervously moved my hand up and down on her back. I don’t know her well, and I was shocked by the degree to which she leaned on me and cried into my chest. I was trying to be kind, but the encounter quickly felt way more important.
She was out of energy, out of hope, out of love, and out of confidence that everything would be OK. She could not provide that for herself after a week spent trying to transfer all of that to her daughter. Like a phone that dies because the battery is out of juice, she plugged into me trying desperately to recharge – at least just one bar on the display screen so she could make it to the next loving person waiting with open arms. She needed that hug. That hug was not celebration or assurance or comfort or cordiality. That hug was survival.
I did not expect that hug of complete vulnerability. But when someone – especially someone I don’t know well – lets her guard down to that degree, the hug transcends routine hug meaning. That hug taught me something important.
It is true that she needed that hug. What I learned in the brief few seconds as she let me hold her like her life depended on it is that offering strength and support is not a zero-sum game. I was not depleted as she grasped for a recharge.
What I didn’t know until we were clenching each other, momentarily bonded together, was that I needed that hug, too.
Vulnerability wins again.
If you would like to read the first part of this two-part series on hugs, please click here.
This essay is from the “Underlying Issues Series.” Just because I have moved past alcohol doesn’t mean I don’t have lots of room for growth, and lots of underlying issues to explore. If you are down with this blend of authenticity and self deprecation, please subscribe. If you don’t need help finding sobriety, you can ignore all the alcoholism stuff, and just read about my underlying issues that led to the addiction.