The Power of Hugs in Anime, from ‘Sailor Moon’ to ‘Spirited Away' | Hacker News Reader

The Power of Hugs in Anime, from ‘Sailor Moon’ to ‘Spirited Away'

nytimes.com

52 pointsmooreds38 comments

Unlike Western countries like the US, hugs are not part of the daily postures in Japan, even between family members - Most moms don't hug their children in normal circumstances for example. I think that's part of why these Japanese anime creators treat it as special and magical.

Hugs are not really a thing in the US either.

That's not true. Guys who are really close friends or family will do the epic handshake, pull it in, quick tap on the back hug. Women hug all the time. It's their version of the handshake. Every time I meet up with women they want to hug.

For anyone curious, that bro hug is also known as giving dap, or a pound hug. Have lived in several US states and many major cities (NY, Chicago, SF, LA) and dap is universal.

> dap

Great word, that.

Hugs are super common in California, even when meeting people for the first time. It freaked me out when I moved there.

I don't know you, buddy, get away from me.

> Hugs are super common in California, even when meeting people for the first time.

My CA experience is that hugs between anyone other than family and close friends are rare, at least in Silicon Valley and San Diego. Although I imagine this varies quite a bit by culture.

Well bless your heart! Come on over here and let Texas show you how it's done!

I'm from El Paso - hugs aren't a thing in my family either. I get really weirded out by people that want to touch me as socializing.

I'm 38 years old and have lived in the US my entire life. I have lived in 5 states and visited 17. While the frequency does vary quite a bit from place to place, I have never been to a city where no one hugs; especially close family members.

Late 40s and I also don't know what gp means. I don't think "in the US" is the appropriate level of granularity for such a statement.

Northeast US, hugs are a standard greeting for extended family and close friends for the people I know.

Where in the US do you live, because I've never been somewhere here that people don't hug.

I am extremely confident you are 100% wrong

I wish I was born in such a culture. I've been trying to teach my father I'm not comfortable with being patted on my laps, back, hugged or generally needlessly touched, since I was 7 at least (25 now). I'm not very hopeful that will ever work. At least I got the little success of stopping my relatives from trying to kiss me on cheeks. For me such gestures are really reserved for intimate relationships in intimate moments.

I've recently read James Clavell's Shōgun and the way this book depicted how physical contact and intimacy was treated in Japan circa 1600 really resonates with how I feel about those things, i.e. whatever happens between two people behind close doors is no big deal, public nudity (devoid of sex) is no big deal, but casual touching, hugging, kissing with everyone at every turn which is so commonplace in Western cultures is a no-no.

I highly recommend the book btw. It gave me a picture of a beautiful place and culture.

I hope it’s a little heartening that a parenting style that says ‘my body is my body’ is relatively popular which means those kids never have to try to dodge a kiss from grandma they don’t want.

That said, reading about Temple Grandin’s hug box experience might open something up around the sensation.

It has become very clear to me, listening to all my female friends, colleagues, partners - mtalking about consent and all kinds of horrible experiences when they couldn't say no, I didn't feel they could - that we used to teach body submission since a young age.

I have twin girls and I'm trying as hard as possible to teach them body autonomy and consent. Your body your choice. The doctors help (if it's not urgent, let's talk, and if you're afraid or don't understand yet, we'll do it later on - the girls consent far easier when they don't get pressure and an explanation, and when they can see a track record of truthfulness and explaining stuff before - this is going to hurt, I'm doing it so you don't get such and such disease, as your parents explained, are you OK with it ? We can numb the area if you need). It can look silly to the tough-it-out crowd (and I don't really care if it annoys anyone) and yes, there'll be emergency overrides, but thankfully we've never needed any. Even the rare firemen or ER medics asked and explained before performing acts and actually listened to the answer (we can do this one a bit later, but we need to do that one now to make sure you're not in grave danger, OK?)...

Family that doesn't understand get a talking to, first by the girls themselves, and then later on I can most of the time pinpoint painful or unpleasant experiences in the family stories, to illustrate the most irate. Every woman in my family immediately got it. My own grandma (born in the 20s) was ecstatic when we explained 'oh I hated when they forced me to kiss someone or get kissed, good for them, women are not toys'. Guess who gets the most hugs, kisses... My father doesn't get it, jokes it out and tries to force the issue or steal hugs or kisses and doesn't understand why they won't 'just take it'. Yeah... You can guess how he is with women.

The first rule there has always been 'have I listened to what they actually want'? They're dependent human beings, not things.

Strangely, many things become easier then. Not a struggle with authority but actually convincing about what needs to happen (vaccines, medical exams, hygiene, medication, sunscreen...), what can happen if they want and what the consequences can be (ears pierced, kinds of clothes, hairstyle)... I find them far more invested once they're all in, and... that I needed to work a lot on control issues.

... sorry, parenting is such a mind consuming activity, I ramble :-)

I agree with you on the consent thing. Still, many many people want hugs and sometimes they dont know it in advance. Its the same as doing any scary thing, dont force people to do it, but a bit encouragement is not necessarily bad, you should know when to stop tho.

Yeah, when we feel they might need a hug (hurt themselves, some sadness, anger) we ask whether they want one. And the key here is not getting angry, sad or impatient when they refuse,but staying around patiently. It's there if they want it, there is no reason for anyone to rebuke them for not wanting to be touched... They need to know that normal is not forced in any way. To be able to see the difference, when they're being forced.

It's not something I was taught and it's very, very hard sometimes to stay and 'be there' and not hug... But the worst time to force is when they're the most vulnerable.

You should try some tantra, I know multiple people that have been mentally healed by a single week-long tantra retreat. They changed front people that were uncomfortable with touch and intimacy to people who actively sought it out, without becoming creepy or non-consentual. I have one friends who was completely uncomfortable with his body and with intimacy from other people. Because of this, he was 26 years old and never had a sexual experience with another person before. After hearing some good stories of other Friends, he decided to do a tantra retreat. He came back a changed man. His fear of intimacy had dissapeared. A girl from the retreat proposed that she would deflower him and a few weeks later hè had his first threesome. I know it sounds a bit unbelievable. I probably wouldn't believe it, if I hadn't had multiple people with a similar experience.

That being said; nobody should be forced to hug or kiss if they don't want to. I do, however, believe that most people crave intimacy even if they do not know it themselves. I think love and intimacy are dangerous for systems and society, and are therefor discouraged slightly by society.

Any chance at all you want to highlight what GP supposedly is to be "mentally healed" for?

Yes, no problem. It is the taking away of inhibiting feelings. You know: like when you want to swim, but you feel concious about your body and rather not show it. It is your own view which handicaps you in such a moment.

This is a Tumblr post with a budget.

Right, that was exactly my first impression. Thanks for putting it into words so well.

First time reading the NY Times?

wait till you start seeing spongebob squarepants articles in 5-10 years ;)

Can we please ban paid sites links? It's extremely annoying. And encouraging piracy by putting a link into the comments that circumvents it is even worse.

No.

Also I'm not quite okay with asking a 3rd party to spend resources on something what could be not even used.

Also there is archive.ph link in a comment made 45 minutes before your comment.

So instead of respecting the creators of the content you are linking to an unpaid link, essentially encouraging piracy? And then you want to lecture me on asking something of someone? Please...

I think paywalled links are reasonable since one should be able to ask for money for their work/efforts, though it would be helpful to disclose the fact somehow, to save a click for those uninterested in that media format?

For example, we already have suggestions for videos and PDFs in the guidelines:

  > If you submit a video or pdf, please warn us by appending [video] or [pdf] to the title.

Of course, I'm not sure what a name for that tag might be, [paid link] or [paywall], though those might have negative connotations. Just a thought.

Edit: dang also linked the FAQ and previous discussion of paywalls above, it seems a solved question.

What is so bad about piracy. I like piracy. Even with my content of it prevents me from maling content I will stop making it.

I love piracy. Thankfully, it’s existence doesn’t depend on whether you like it or not.

For what it's worth, the article seems free to access on mobile here in Australia. I'm using an Android phone with the Vivaldi browser. Each article prompts with an offer to subscribe to the NYT for $20/year or 50c/week, but that prompt is easily dismissed. I also have the free New York Times login account that increases the number of free articles you're allowed to read, but apparently I wasn't logged in to that anyway.

Perhaps I have paywall free access because I took their "Not ready to subscribe? Tell us why" survey a while back?

This question has been settled for years on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989. If there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post workarounds in the thread.

This is in the FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html and there's more explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

It's not a perfect or even particularly good solution but it's much better than banning all the sites with soft paywalls or any other solution I'm aware of.

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