Some people are uncomfortable with touchers. Should they set the rules?
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
I like the idea.
Communication. And grace.
If you're not sure if something is welcome, ask... politely. If someone does something unwelcome, say something... politely. If you see two other people involved in an unwelcome exchange, try to smooth the situation over while teaching lessons... politely.
I volunteer with a variety of alternative groups. It's actually logically impossible to act in a way that everyone's norms around touch are satisfied, because many are mutually exclusive.
In an absence of clarity, all we have is communication, consent, and fundamental decency in how we treat each other when one or both of us &#+@s up. Because we all will, at one point or another.
Teaching children to reach for polite assertiveness when called for, and polite apology when due, would go a long way towards making the world a better place.
(And just to head off the inevitable: we're clearly talking about sub-criminal actions here)
If you know for sure someone welcomes contact from you, then sure go ahead.
Otherwise, you're asking double from the person whose boundaries were violated: First, the discomfort of the unsolicited contact. Then, second, the discomfort of causing a scene to assert their boundaries.
It's nearly always easier to just accept the first small and incidental discomfort and move on - but it doesn't mean it was okay.
Examples could be a relative that criticizes your physique (e.g. a comment of the belly someone developed over the christmas holidays), mansplaining or a repeatedly interrupting colleague. Any sort of interaction bears the risk of violating someones boundaries (that one does not know because how could one if they didn't communicate them [0]). Assertiveness means that someone both knows where their own boundaries are, so that they actually can tell when they are violated and additionally that they have the skills to deal with it. This can be as easy as challenging the other with a "Oh? Do you think so?", making clear that there is something one does not agree with and that this is a topic the other would not have an easy time to pursue further. Assertiveness is not about making a scene, it is about clearly communicating that there is a topic that will lead to conflict if pursued further.
Basically it is a tool to make people stronger and more confident so that they do not become victims of other people's transgressions as easily.
[0] This does not mean that people shouldn't be somewhat considerate but being overly considerate is nothing more than social self-censorship. Others have to accept your personality as much as you have to accept theirs. It's an interplay.
Edit: This nice line is from Wikipedia: Assertiveness is the quality of being self-assured and confident without being aggressive.
Of course, there can be exceptions, for example rules may make sense when there is an extremely asymmetric power relation, e.g. one is the employer of another, and we already have rules in the form of laws for that purpose.
Without getting political (please!), does somebody have an idea where does this obsession with rules come from? Fear of civil lawsuits in the US?
Somewhere in between, there are gray areas. The question is whether one vocal minority should be allowed to define where the lines are drawn, and insist the rest of society adjusts its norms to abide by their definitions. Or is it OK for the establishment of social norms to be a broader, slower, less clearly-defined, and sometimes ambiguous process?
There don’t need to be rules about shaking hands or high giving because those are mutually consensual actions.
Fist bumping a non-receptive individual (aka punching a colleague on the shoulder) is not consensual.
For the “vocal minority” which is most women and some men, non-consensual touching is associated with bullying, intimidation, physical coercion and assault. In the workplace we try to avoid emotional arousal because people shouting angrily at each other makes it difficult for others to focus on their work.
In social settings, you are free to explore boundaries as long as you are aware that failure to take non-vocal hints can lead to being ostracised from those social circles.
But yes, the “vocal minority” should be allowed to define the lines, which are pretty simple even for people who have never had to follow etiquette: other people’s bodies are off limits to you unless they indicate otherwise.
By all means go for the high five, but accept that if it is not returned you don’t try forcing it to happen. You have now divined where one boundary existed at one point in time.
From this, and this alone, I'd like to imagine that people just want to clear up the unknown. Social interactions are almost always different from one person to the next. Social norms do tend to keep things pretty similar but the whole range can vary wildly. Maybe this is just a way to narrow the range? I don't think it is a great way to handle things that make you uncomfortable and I also don't think uncomfortable is always a bad thing.
The worst advice I was given as a child was "treat others as you wish to be treated", because it is awful advice when moving in to a significantly different set of people.
It's a useful minimum surely? How else should you treat a significantly different set of people?
Yes once you get to know them, you learn how they want to be treated (mainly?) based on how they treat you and others.
Are you talking about using general formal politeness?
For example, I hate being asked questions multiple times. Therefore when i went to ubiversity, if I asked someone is they wanted me to buy a round, and they said no, I would not accept the answer. After some months I discovered I was considered tight, as the first offer is always refused, so "doesn't count".
Theres plenty of time over the ensuing months to communicate your preferences.
FWIW I wouldn't say theres a particular rule requiring offering to buy a round multiple times, so I'd have have been viewed as tight also, even if I was trying to fit in with normal convention.
How exactly they evolve, what distinguishes social norms from conventions, and their relation to institutions, these are highly controversial topics. I'd personally recommend Cristina Bicchieri's taxonomy and approach, but there are other theories out there. In any case, it seemed clear to me that the WP article didn't talk about social norms - you cannot just decide what social norm is to be in place, these evolve independently and can be more or less stable -, and the WP article doesn't talk about laws only either. It seems to be based on the idea that written codes that are not laws should complement laws and replace actual social norms as kind of guidelines of how to behave, and I reject this idea for many reasons, including many moral ones.
To summarize my reasons very briefly: Everybody has a right to be an asshole and not every undesirable or unwanted behavior is also immoral. I'm very unhappy about the apparent trend (which seems to mostly exist in the US only) of not being able to distinguish between criminal behavior, immoral behavior, generally undesirable behavior, and personally unwanted behavior. These are all different things and mixing them up leads to a lot of confusion.
I find it weird that you've escalated this into some huge thing that infringes upon your freedoms.
Keep your fucking hands off my body.
I’m forced to spend a significant amount of time in Miami in a professional setting. I am so damn tired of women touching me in what I consider a wildly inappropriate and intimate way.
I never say anything to them because I don’t think their is anything wrong with them, I understand it’s just cultural. I share deep hugs with my close male friends of 30+ years frequently. I don’t accept that there is anything wrong with me or the above poster. We simply don’t want to be touched outside of the contexts we find appropriate.
This discussion has been excellent as it’s mainly focused on how to handle the rules of engagement in a world that includes people like us and people like them. Please try to focus on that and not on deciding who is wrong.
But I object to people who insist that a common behavior is deviant, wrong, or offensive simply because they don’t like it. Social norms should not be dictated by an loud idiosyncratic minority with extreme adverse reactions to normal interactions.
The funny thing is that the same bullshit the WP article talks about already existed in the past, in the form of etiquette books like the Knigge or Emily Post and schools for good manners and etiquette. I firmly believe we can do without that nonsense.
In this case nice things is social interaction that’re natural which don’t require a “contract” (I.e. I’m thinking of hugging you, may I hug you?).
It’s so big brother-like. It’s a bit opposite of being social. It becomes more like a mechanical contract and lawyerly. This is not a path I wish to go down.
Some people are over touchy, but, and here I agree with Pelosi, you have agency. Put your hand out for a shake, or whatever. Yes, some people smooch too much or hug or touch too much, but they are outliers and introducing these artificial mechanics to, in theory, thwart these people, I think is not worth the trouble.
My own professional career spans military, academia and multi-national corporations and therefore dozens of hours of dumb videos showing cringy behavior like Biden. These articles completely miss the point that he’s at least 20 years out of date of what’s considered acceptable (and some of his weird actions were never welcome, despite being acceptable norms).
Smelling, I think is outside the norm and most people would agree it’s unwelcome behavior.
It’s like asking, is touching someone’s axillas appropriate? Of course outside medical examinations probably not.
Pay attention to the cues, be prepared for non-vocal cues that your physical behaviour is unwelcome in this context, and accept that your “norms” aren’t shared with everyone outside your immediate family, and even then there are caveats.
You don't go to the home of someone you just met and "make yourself at home" the same way you do with yours, and you don't touch without knowing how it will be received. You might pull back a stump.
It does, but not for "people who just met". For them it provides awkwardness and the feeling of being dominated.
I think not touching strangers isn't really gonna pinch anyone's lifestyle real hard.
Which of these are we to gain consent for in advance? No one is hurt by a casual touch to the hand or arm, any more than they are hurt by direct eye contact. But it can make some people just as uncomfortable.
You can refer to my argument as whinging or tiresome if you like, but it that doesn't change its validity.
That's a nice assumption. Are you sure about that? Have you asked most people?
You might find that there are a lot of people who don't actually like it, but who find the consequences of making a fuss about it even worse.
Your approach assumes that touching is somehow unusual and invasive, is not part of normal human interaction, and should always require upfront consent.
I see no reason to assume that a pat on the arm or a light hug should be categorized in that way.
If you don’t like being touched, then fine, that’s up to you. But you don’t get to dictate social norms for everyone else.
In fact, I don’t touch people in social situations because I have a tendency to shyness. I do, however, find hugs and casual physical contact from other people pleasing and comforting. It’s a perfectly normal form of interaction.
It would lessen the enjoyment I take in spontaneous social interactions, including physical contact, if it were codified and tabooed in the way you seem to prefer. Thankfully, the people I have asked about this in person seem to agree with me.
No assumption there, other than what you've been asserting about social norms as somehow justifying violating boundaries.
Doesn't matter that you have some anecdotal experience with the people you've asked. I've asked people about this in person and they seem to agree with me, so it's a wash.
And I'm sorry your enjoyment might be lessened, but maybe that's just a price you have to pay in a world where other people and their respective enjoyments & preferences exist.
Lots of people find hugs & contact both pleasing and comforting. Maybe there's even a general biological need for it. That doesn't generalize to suggest that unsolicited random hugs & contact with you in particular is necessary or welcome.
The workplace is not a social environment. It brings together people who otherwise would never have shared the same space, so you need to be super cautious about establishing new relationships.
The key is to look for cues, rather than blindly assuming everyone likes drunk men bear hugging them because you as a drunk man like bear hugging everyone.
I'm English and we don't do much casual touching. But when I shared a house with French people, they were visibly offended when I pulled back from a casual kiss on the cheek to say hello and goodbye. Getting used to it cost me nothing and eventually it became natural to me. I have a South African friend of Indian descent, he's much more tactile than is usual in friendships between straight males in the UK. Again, I was uncomfortable at first, but I adjusted because I value the friendship.
I am at a loss as to why people feel that their discomfort is the overriding factor in any situation. Sometimes, it's the uncomfortable one who needs to make an adjustment.
My friends get to know me and can safely interact with me in many ways other people can't and with them we can get really touchy (or not, depending on the person). From others, I do expect that "do I have consent" question. It sounded strange for me too in the past, but I've actually been in places where such questions are a social norm and in practice they work really well. I'm a kind of person who always replies "yes" anyway, but thanks to that question the awkwardness somewhat goes away.
The only sane alternative to asking that question is not touching at all until becoming emotionally connected.
Can't people regulate basic social interactions without the government stepping in, anymore?
If you're uncomfortable with a pat on your shoulder, just tell the person.
Sure, that always works fine. They won't take offense or make it a thing or blow it up and make everything awkward from then after.
Of course, I'm being sarcastic. It's usually easier to just eat the discomfort and not make a fuss. But, it would be nicer to not get touched by randos in the first place.
"Partial isolation involved raising monkeys in bare wire cages that allowed them to see, smell, and hear other monkeys, but provided no opportunity for physical contact. [..] partial isolation resulted in various abnormalities such as blank staring, stereotyped repetitive circling in their cages, and self-mutilation."
On the contrary; social touch, with the ensuing spectrum between "discomfort/aggression/dominance" and "affiliation/friendship/social comfort" is actually found in all social mammals, it has nothing to do with society, gender, sexual undertones or anything human-specific like that! Even domesticated cats http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5962 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1771 have a basic, instinct-driven understanding of how the aforementioned spectrum should be carefully negotiated if one is to establish a genuinely-experienced social bond.
I'm sorry but yes, per the above, Biden's "touchy-feely" behavior with strangers has indeed been singularly clueless, even unintentionally creepy and disturbing, in neglecting these obvious facts. Biden is one of the major figures in U.S. politics and obviously socially competent - he has no excuse for this.
People's preferences aren't immediately self-evident to all observers, and intent does matter.
How does he get voters? Why aren’t people who meet him singularly turned against his candidacy?
When we read an article like this, it's natural to put yourself in the shoes of the people it's about, and imagine if you'd have reacted the same way. As empathetic as we may each feel we are, this process still involves projecting a magnitude of assumptions about the other person's experience which we simply cannot know. We naturally assume that people experience life _generally_ the same way we do: sure, their circumstances may be different, but we're all equal and we all make choices basically the same way.
But it isn't true. We each see the world through a series of lenses, and it's not really possible to remove those lenses. The best we can do is be aware of the lenses, and that other people have different lenses.
I'm not suggesting this article is right or wrong; just that those of us who feel very strongly about it in one direction or the other should, perhaps, acknowledge that theirs is not the _only_ legitimate perspective.
If you're interested in learning more about lenses, privilege, and why we often feel defencive when confronted by it, I highly recommend [this book](https://www.amazon.com/White-Fragility-People-About-Racism/d...).
Next question.
Find video of his sniffing the hair of an old man for example ... You can't.