I keep reading articles about hugging. Not shagging, they’re different ‘articles’. But hugging. Cuddling. In fact about touching. And how this is not just part of the human condition, this need for touch, but an essentially defining feature. If we were dogs we’d sniff arses, but we’re not, well, I’m not, we’re humans. Well, we used to be. Before… the thing that won’t be named because we’re all so fucking bored of it.

I WAS a hugger. And that was before reading research telling me how beneficial an activity it is. I was a pioneer. Men, women, children, animals. Hug and hug em hard. Stop just short of outright sexual assault. I grew up in a tactile family and consequently my own family then continued the tradition. Lots of people didn’t perhaps have this benefit growing up and thus are left feeling awkward when some virtual stranger embraces them bodily, squeezing the breath from their lungs. Those are my favourite victims. The ones you can feel squirming with the unfamiliarity of the whole exercise. Because the British are not essentially a huggy nation. Too reserved, too stiff, too much legislation about inappropriate behaviour, to really enjoy hugging. In America you can circumvent the legalities. But only for a while. As Harvey Weinstein learned. Yet I’m not talking about sexual abuse. Specifically. More just that as humans, we NEED to touch.

It’s physical, its psychological and thus, inevitably, its measurable. Which is why I keep reading about it. Research. And even though I’m normally the world’s biggest research-skeptic, on the grounds that it is always biased (well someone’s paying for it, ain’t they?), prejudicial and open to ambiguities on interpretation, even though all that, I’m prepared to forgo my natural cynicism for a good hug.

Because all the research says the same thing. That humans have a physical need to touch. Ok, this varies between individuals, and between volumes of alcohol consumed, but our wellbeing is in a big part dependant on contact.

And now we’re not just no longer touching, but actually developing strong touch-averse reflexes. In which we recoil if touched. “Holy SHIT!!!!! Did you just brush against my arm?????” And even react with discomfort seeing people in movies shaking hands or making ‘unnecessary’ contact.

So just a little question then: could this be the very end of humanity, as it was once known????

Wow. That’s deep.

Happy socio-philosophical musings

A xxxx