john eden
male pale and stale
All of this will also form part of my communist programme, comrade. Salute!
Can you hug your opposite sex friend?
- Thread starter nilprenia
- Start date
All of this will also form part of my communist programme, comrade. Salute!
Sure but the "forced hugging" thing - all boundaries broken - could also be part of that. Some of those kinda "anything goes" liberals do get a bit of pasting in the books by Reich's students who saw the 60s. They would say it's a particular character attitude in our culture rather than indicative of anything particularly deep.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
@padraig (u.s.) Do you maintain your militant anti-hug position even if all parties present are on a fuckton of MDMA?
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
it 100% can be/is
there's an intersection of that with cultural differences about physical contact
certainly I don't think platonic physical contact is bad, but I also don't think it's a universal human need like being loved is
it's one of numerous ways to express affection, i.e. fulfill that need for love, just not the only way
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
I look forward to this glorious destigmatized future
...bit like revolutionaries who're absolutely consumed with anger and spite. It's the underlying pattern that's most of interest not its surface peculiarities.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
bro my overarching position is always that consenting adults should do what they want with each other
if I was on MDMA and I wanted to hug people, you better believe I would if they wanted to hug me back
tho having been on MDMA I've never wanted to hug people in a purely platonic way
Leo
Well-known member
hugging good friends and close family is fine. I object to the bro hug with someone I barely know.
the other funny aspect of the traditional bro hug is they lean in, the shoulders gently touch, but by no means is it a full-body embrace. no dick-against-dick contact. it's like "I'm man enough to hug you, but keep the hips apart, don't make it, you know, weird."
the other funny aspect of the traditional bro hug is they lean in, the shoulders gently touch, but by no means is it a full-body embrace. no dick-against-dick contact. it's like "I'm man enough to hug you, but keep the hips apart, don't make it, you know, weird."
It's more interesting question than I first thought this is. About male and female behaviour, sexuality, what's cultural, what's "genuine" etc etc. I have some very vague and probably borderline offensive/totally wrong ideas about this in the relation between Reichian armouring and same sex attraction but I need to think them through a bit first.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
I would agree with this, if it's forced
as some of you know, I got in trouble as a kid and spent most of my teen years at a "therapeutic" boarding school based on behavior modification - there's an entire industry of that bullshit in the U.S. (and possibly abroad?) ultimately based - for anyone who's familiar or wants to look it up - on CEDU/Syanon (yeah, the drug rehab/cult) lines
and it put me entirely off the notion that you can really change the behavior of anyone who doesn't want to change their behavior, besides with threat of force. it also inspired my healthy skepticism of the entire mental health field - not that it's all bullshit, so much as it's very hard to distinguish the bullshit from the genuine insights but that doesn't stop people speaking from authority as if they know the difference (I just reread Trainspotting and there's a pretty good chapter where Renton goes into this in more detail). all I ever learned there was how to game the system until I could leave.
which isn't directly related to hugging, I guess, just the idea that anyone has a handle on what human needs really are outside the obvious
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
but seriously the continuing prevalence of gay panic in straight men ca. 2020 is a crazy thing
it's like we haven't advanced past a ca. 90s "Oh I'm not gay. Not that there's anything wrong with it." deal
it's like we haven't advanced past a ca. 90s "Oh I'm not gay. Not that there's anything wrong with it." deal
That boarding school sounds fucking rough. Sorry you had to go through that. I've read an account of forced Reichian therapy on a minor. It was not good and seemed to instill a lifelong hatred of Reich and all his works in the unfortunate dude who underwent it.
just the idea that anyone has a handle on what human needs really are outside the obvious
Bit off topic but it's amazing how much "the obvious" isn't actually ever done or carried out. So much of counselling and therapy is speaking to very basic human needs, like to be listened to respectfully, to be heard and acknowledged. The whole of humanistic counselling is based on these ideas particularly Carl Rogers' work.
just the idea that anyone has a handle on what human needs really are outside the obvious
Bit off topic but it's amazing how much "the obvious" isn't actually ever done or carried out. So much of counselling and therapy is speaking to very basic human needs, like to be listened to respectfully, to be heard and acknowledged. The whole of humanistic counselling is based on these ideas particularly Carl Rogers' work.
holding hands for a prolonged period of time feels more intimate to me than a hug or a cuddle. You can't be too loose or too firm, you just have to be comfortable, and it's an agreement to mutually abstain from most distractions as you can't really do much when your hands are in someone else's. The last time I was holding hands with someone while I was intoxicated was with my most #lad pals and it ended up a very deep, serious and significant conversation about Proper Stuff and I think that intimacy was as much a part of it as anything else going on.
linebaugh
Well-known member
Its insane how high school students that can barely read create complex philosophical systems on the subject of gayness. Before the bell would ring theyd put on self regulating Socratic seminars on dynamics of gayness with genuine logical investigation. Epistemology, ontology, morality, all of it. 'would you suck a dick to save your moms life?' was a hot button issue.
And weirder still is they were by all measures leagues more tolerant than my highschool. Tons of openly gay students that seemed perfectly integrated in the community, even a small population of trans students which at the time I graduated, 2013, was unthinkable.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
no worries man it was forever ago and whatever bitterness I had has faded with time
what I resent most isn't the place itself but missing out on being a teenager, but what can you do, c'est la vie
it was such a weird, self-contained world I could go on about it forever, but the main point is that it wasn't bad in a physical sense - living conditions were austere but reasonable, I never saw any signs of physical or sexual abuse by the staff etc - it was rather endless mind games lodged in a kind of Kafkaesque/Orwellian superstructure. there was an endless list of rules that were imprecisely defined - the principles were clear, but their interpretation wasn't, so you never knew actually what the rules really were - and students were not only encouraged but inquired to inform on each other. there are some obviously shocking things to people who've never heard of them, like the questionable wisdom putting into teenagers into "encounter groups" with each other, but it's very difficult to convey the overall strangeness of the atmosphere - kind of struggle session-lite crossed with self-help positive thinking (and/or American candoism) and yeah, Kafka. if I'd known about behavior modification, operant conditioning, etc at the time, I would've just refused to play the stupid game entirely but obviously yunno when you're 14 you think you don't have a choice.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
anyway, long time ago
I've never read Carl Rogers, Renton actually slags him off - or his writing - in that bit I mentioned above
while also acknowledging that it doesn't necessarily matter why you feel the way you do, just that it doesn't impede you living your life
addressing the obvious doesn't seem like a bad place to start
philosophy is open to the same charge of no one knows what is and isn't bullshit, but it's not actively trying to fix individuals so different barometer
I've never read Carl Rogers, Renton actually slags him off - or his writing - in that bit I mentioned above
while also acknowledging that it doesn't necessarily matter why you feel the way you do, just that it doesn't impede you living your life
addressing the obvious doesn't seem like a bad place to start
philosophy is open to the same charge of no one knows what is and isn't bullshit, but it's not actively trying to fix individuals so different barometer
yeah, but you could argue that self-selected family is the last gasp of bourgeois family ideology, hence the inter-scene conflict dynamics you get in a lot of queer spaces. This is not to say that there won't be conflict under the communist project - obvs there will, but a lot of family you choose can end up as religious moralism - they are only family until they need to be ostracised. as much as genetic family is horrid and reactionary, it still has some longevity going to it. But I'd rather just not.
turkey is so homophobic but a hug and a kiss on the cheeks is standard between men at any guests house. In fact, it can be rude not to - though don't do this danny, you will probably be seen as weird anglo desperately trying to fit in.
you get to choose your family always makes my skin crawl because it's framed as a privilege and it's like - do you know what's even better than choosing your family? Having one that loves you unconditionally and values who you are.
I mean, yes, I'm deliberately surrounded by the right family, both genetic and self-selected socially, but that took time and effort I could have used doing better things. The longevity argument for family does nothing for me: all relationships take work, and as soon as either side chooses to not do whatever that work looks like, the relationship should change - I don't believe people should stay in unpleasant or actively toxic situations because of bloodlines
I mean, yes, I'm deliberately surrounded by the right family, both genetic and self-selected socially, but that took time and effort I could have used doing better things. The longevity argument for family does nothing for me: all relationships take work, and as soon as either side chooses to not do whatever that work looks like, the relationship should change - I don't believe people should stay in unpleasant or actively toxic situations because of bloodlines