How To Hug

One very interesting body practice that we are subjected to in our society in the manner in which we hug. This may seem odd but if you think about it, the way we expect to get a hug from a man is very different from a women. This is even more complicated when you factor in male-male, female-male and male-female hugging and how each of these interactions has their own societal rhetoric.

The two types of gendered hug are a social construction in our society which have be written in to our docile bodies. The standard “guy” hug that I think of starts with a handshake or low high five then the two men pull in a touch shoulders. This style of hug totally fits in the binary division of what it means to be a man in our society. They should not be overly emotional or show too much affection and there should always be some type a barrier between to men (God forbid they touch front to front). The standard girl hug is one of more emotion and can be read as such by an observation. If I (a male) where to hug one of my female friends the way I hug a male friend they would be very confused, and if it was an emotional situation they may even become upset. Thus, in this situation we have agency to not comply with the norm however if one does not their action could be misread by the other party. Most of the time we do not even think about this. We see someone and we subconsciously process his or her intelligible body and then act according. Obviously not everyone follows these “hugging guidelines” all of the time, but it is interesting to think about how little cognitive control you have in this action, and how cultural knowledge has created a habitus with hugging.