around another person or group of persons. The hug is one of the most common human signs of
. Unlike some other forms of physical intimacy, it is practiced publicly and privately without
in many countries, religions and cultures, within families, and also across age and gender lines.
Sometimes, hugs are a romantic exchange. Hugs may also be exchanged as a sign of support and comfort. A hug can be a demonstration of affection and emotional warmth, sometimes arising out of joy or happiness at meeting someone.
Brief in most cases, it is used to show many levels of affection. It is not particular to human beings alone, as there are many species of animals that engage in similar exchanges of warmth.
Hugging has been proven to have health benefits. One study has shown that hugs increase levels of
.
There are different variations of hugs. Prolonged hugging in a cozy, comfortable position is called cuddling. Spooning is a cuddling
, a kind of hugging when both the hugger and the hugged persons face the same direction, i.e., the front of one person is in contact with the back of the second one. The person whose front is in contact with the other's back is referred to as the "Big Spoon" and the person whose back is in contact with the other's front in referred to as the "Little Spoon". In May 2009, the
.
Despite hugging being widespread across human culture, several cultures - such as the Himba in Namibia - do not embrace as a sign of affection or love.
The following came from an article that I found on NY Times Website:
"
For Teenagers, Hello Means, 'How About a Hug?'"
There is so much hugging at Pascack Hills High School in Montvale, N.J., that students have broken down the hugs by type: There is the basic friend hug, probably the most popular, and the bear hug, of course. But now there is also the bear claw, when a boy embraces a girl awkwardly with his elbows poking out. There is the hug that starts with a high-five, then moves into a fist bump, followed by a slap on the back and an embrace.
There’s the shake and lean; the hug from behind; and, the newest addition, the triple — any combination of three girls and boys hugging at once.
“We’re not afraid, we just get in and hug,” said Danny Schneider, a junior at the school, where hallway hugging began shortly after 7 a.m. on a recent morning as students arrived. “The guy friends, we don’t care. You just get right in there and jump in.”
There are romantic hugs, too, but that is not what these teenagers are talking about.
Girls embracing girls, girls embracing boys, boys embracing each other — the hug has become the favorite social greeting when teenagers meet or part these days. Teachers joke about “one hour” and “six hour” hugs, saying that students hug one another all day as if they were separated for the entire summer.
A measure of how rapidly the ritual is spreading is that some students complain of peer pressure to hug to fit in. And schools from Hillsdale, N.J., to Bend, Ore., wary in a litigious era about sexual harassment or improper touching — or citing hallway clogging and late arrivals to class — have banned hugging or imposed a three-second rule.
Parents, who grew up in a generation more likely to use the handshake, the low-five or the high-five, are often baffled by the close physical contact. “It’s a wordless custom, from what I’ve observed,” wrote Beth J. Harpaz, the mother of two boys, 11 and 16, and a parenting columnist for The Associated Press, in a new book, “13 Is the New 18.”
“And there doesn’t seem to be any other overt way in which they acknowledge knowing each other,” she continued, describing the scene at her older son’s school in Manhattan. “No hi, no smile, no wave, no high-five — just the hug. Witnessing this interaction always makes me feel like I am a tourist in a country where I do not know the customs and cannot speak the language.”
For teenagers, though, hugging is hip. And not hugging?
“If somebody were to not hug someone, to never hug anybody, people might be just a little wary of them and think they are weird or peculiar,” said Gabrielle Brown, a freshman at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in Manhattan.
Comforting as the hug may be, principals across the country have clamped down. “Touching and physical contact is very dangerous territory,” said Noreen Hajinlian, the principal of George G. White School, a junior high school in Hillsdale, N.J., who banned hugging two years ago. “It was needless hugging — they are in the hallways before they go to class. It wasn’t a greeting. It was happening all day.”
Schools that have limited hugging invoked longstanding rules against public displays of affection, meant to maintain an atmosphere of academic seriousness and prevent unwanted touching, or even groping.
But pro-hugging students say it is not a romantic or sexual gesture, simply the “hello” of their generation. “We like to get cozy,” said Katie Dea, an eighth grader at Claire Lilienthal Alternative School in San Francisco. “The high-five is, like, boring.”
Some sociologists said that teenagers who grew up in an era of organized play dates and close parental supervision are more cooperative with one another than previous generations — less cynical and individualistic and more loyal to the group.
But Amy L. Best, a sociologist at George Mason University, said the teenage embrace is more a reflection of the overall evolution of the American greeting, which has become less formal since the 1970s. “Without question, the boundaries of touch have changed in American culture,” she said. “We display bodies more readily, there are fewer rules governing body touch and a lot more permissible access to other people’s bodies.”
Hugging appears to be a grass-roots phenomenon and not an imitation of a character or custom on TV or in movies. The prevalence of boys’ nonromantic hugging (especially of other boys) is most striking to adults. Experts say that over the last generation, boys have become more comfortable expressing emotion, as embodied by the
MTV show “Bromance,” which is now a widely used term for affection between straight male friends.
But some sociologists pointed out that African-American boys and men have been hugging as part of their greeting for decades, using the word “dap” to describe a ritual involving handshakes, slaps on the shoulders and, more recently, a hug, also sometimes called the gangsta hug among urban youth.
“It’s something you grow up doing,” said Mazi Chiles, a junior at South Gwinnett High School in Snellville, Ga., who is black. “But you don’t come up to a dude and hug, you start out with a handshake.”
Some parents find it paradoxical that a generation so steeped in hands-off virtual communication would be so eager to hug.
“Maybe it’s because all these kids do is text and go on
Facebook so they don’t even have human contact anymore,” said Dona Eichner, the mother of freshman and junior girls at the high school in Montvale.
She added: “I hug people I’m close to. But now you’re hugging people you don’t even know. Hugging used to mean something.”
There are, too, some young critics of hugging.
Amy Heaton, a freshman at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, Md., said casual social hugging seemed disingenuous to her. “Hugging is more common in my opinion in people who act like friends,” she said. “It’s like air-kissing. It’s really superficial.”
But Carrie Osbourne, a sixth-grade teacher at Claire Lilienthal Alternative School, said hugging was a powerful and positive sign that children are inclined to nurture one another, breaking down barriers. “And it gets to that core that every person wants to feel cared for, regardless of your age or how cool you are or how cool you think you are,” she said.
As much as hugging is a physical gesture, it has migrated online as well. Facebook applications allowing friends to send hugs have tens of thousands of fans. Katie Dea, the San Francisco eighth grader, as well as Olivia Brown, 11, who lives in Manhattan and is the younger sister of Gabrielle, the LaGuardia High freshman, have a new sign-off for their text and e-mail messages: *hug.*
I am not quite sure why I am writing a post about hugs. Maybe it's because whenever I am down or just having a bad day, James always gives me a hug and it makes me feel better. Then again, on Wednesday, I was walking towards the breakroom and one of my co-workers, Nick just asked me if I was mad and I said I wasn't, but out of no where, he gave me a hug and it made my day go from bad to great in that moment. I don't know what the deal is with men giving women hugs, women giving women hugs, women giving men hugs and men giving men hugs. In other words, if a man gives a woman a hug, people would wonder if there is something going on between them and vice versa. When a woman gives another woman a hug, it's usually a sign of hello or just to comfort them if they are having a bad day. To be honest with you, I have never seen a man do that to another man. I guess they (meaning men) pat them on the back and it's "understood" of what they are trying to say.
Another random thought brought to you by yours truly!
Good grief! I haven't written on here since the Fourth of September and that was two months ago! Yikes!! Well, for starters, James and I are back in Ithaca. We moved back in August. We just felt that it would be better if we moved back. James has received temporary jobs for Cornell University here and there, but he really wants to get his job back at Wegman's and on Monday he is going to talk to HR and see what they can do about it. I transferred back to the Walmart and got my old job back in the Pharmacy and so far, I am liking it and it feels good to be back. There are some moments where I feel like I just want to strangle a few people, but that's life and I have to deal with it one second, one minute, and one day at a time or else I will just lose it!
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