koen the poet and transcending the eclipse of touching...
Thank you for saying more eloquently than I did that the need to touch is profound and that touching is human--primate even. My close and beloved relatives--the Orangs and chimpanzees and gorillas--have a grand good time grooming each other and often lay on a paw.
Not touching a Henry Moore sculpture is like an air kiss--neutered and unfulfilling.
Not touching any art work is like the anti-hugs that pitifully inhibited persons give. You know--the ones where they try to put their arms around you while just barely touching you.
This eclipse of touching is ubiquitous in America. Oh, there may actually be a rise in the Miss Tittlemouse form of touching; the touching where one barely touches; the touching where the object is to experience ritual rather than reality--the dread Hollywood air kiss. There is a pandemic of air kissing and anti-hugging, of persons pretending to such acute cultivation that they cannot handle the robustness of a real hand shake, or a bear hug.
Since I haven't traveled abroad much lately, I can't say if this plague has struck other lands.
Here in America, the eclipse of touching is spreading like a plague. Everything is too valuable, too precious, too rare, too fucking something to be touched...especially by children.
Increasingly the enviro-fanatics say that ordinary folk have to be prevented from physically interacting with nature. The new National Park Service poster will probably soon be Smoky the Bear in a HazMat suit with the slogan: America's parks and scenic wonders--look, but don't touch.
pt. 2
Increasingly, people experience even the vices without touching. Somewhere, you just know that some poor devil is sitting alone in a room with the shades down watching a PC screen, showing a YouTube stream, of a guy watching a TV with a show on about a guy staring at a mirror full of the reflection of a love doll.
It is like we are all becoming like those pale, huge-headed aliens dominated by oversized eyes and withered hands with suction cups for finger tips. There is no touching, only thinking and seeing and grasping with suction cups for what we have been propagandized into wanting.
And more and more the goods we buy are sealed, so we cannot touch them before we buy them.
In the super markets, people touch the produce less and less and the meat not at all.
Since AIDS, everyone has been propagandized to fear sexual intimacy and touching seems to have been collateral damage to the misguided fear mongering about intimacy. Since 9/11, everyone has been propagandized simply to be so afraid that they permit oil wars based on lies. This is all bullshit and it doesn't stop here.
Teachers are not allowed to touch students reassuringly, for fear the school might be sued for physical abuse or mollestation.
Jesus (or Buddha, or Mohammed, or what have you, depending on your supernatural leanings) would not be allowed to lay on hands, because too many mollesting Catholic priests were protected so long the kettle blew and scared everyone about touching by priests.
Fewer persons seem to walk arm in arm in the parks.
The high back movie theater seats make it harder to put your arm around your girl, if you're a straight boy, or your woman, if you're a straight man. I can't speak to whether gays are experiencing this decline in touching, also, but I suspect so, because since gays are supposed to constitute a sizeable group, whether we recognize them or not, well, I just don't ever see two men, or two women, in a theater with an arm wrapped. Maybe I'm too far out in exurbia, but I sense the phenomenon is pervasive, when I do go to the big city occassionally.
pt 3
Front bench seats have practically disappeared in cars, so couples can't drive snuggled up anymore; this is truly one of the greatest losses--I feel terrible for this generation of teenagers--straight or gay. They can bed down and rock senselessly in their parents minivan, or SUV, whenever they wish, if they are not to scared by the anti-intimacy propaganda.
But you rarely see a guy drive with his girl snuggled next to him. Driving a car, any vehicle, with your arm wrapped around the woman you love was once one of the greatest satisfactions of contemporary life--may be the only truly human and romantic advance fostered by the industrial revolution...and we seem to have let it slip away for better support in cornering? Terrible, just terrible!
Do not be surprised if sometime soon you read about me being arrested in a museum. The next one I go to, I am tempted to padlock myself to one of Rodin's Burgher's leg, start touching the statue all over, and in my best Jimmy Cagney accent shout, "Come and get me, screw!" Hey, there is probably some fine print in the Patriot Acts that codifies touching sculptures as an act of a terrorist.
So be it.
Touching Hugging Kissing
Koen, well said. Not touching, to a ceramist! Capital sin!
Dcwilson, An American asking for more Hugs and kisses? Nice!, but hard to understand for an Argentine, you,ll see:
So I,ll go on. From touching to hugging. Then from hugging to kissing.
Here people hugs and kiss a lot.
And we kiss between men. The more macho you are, the less you doubt it.
Goggling ,,kiss between men in Argentina,, you will find:
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One of the joys - and difficulties - of being a foreign correspondent is learning and adapting to local customs. Buenos Aires looks, on the surface at least, pretty much like a European city. You would think then that British journalists would not have too much difficulty blending in with the locals, but that is not always the case.
Argentines are famous for their passionate embraces
The kissing between men is done in a very macho, Argentine sort of way
I have got nothing against kissing. In fact, I'm all for it.
But there is an awful lot of it going on in Buenos Aires and sometimes I do not know if I have got it quite right. You kiss pretty much everybody - one peck, right cheek to right cheek - when you greet them and when you say goodbye.
"What? Everyone?" I asked my Argentine wife on my first visit to the country.
"Yes, everyone," she replied.
I was doubtful.
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Friendly kiss
Some years ago the custom developed for men to kiss men. Family members and very close friends had always done so. But in such a macho, sometimes homophobic society, this was a radical move.
When dropping my children at school in the mornings, I kiss all the mums and all the dads... insurance salesmen, architects, lawyers and teachers. Then we kiss again to say goodbye.
On Saturday mornings when I take my sons to football, we repeat the process, only then the dads have not shaved and that is when I had much prefer a distant and very British mumbled "hello" and a weak wave.
I kiss colleagues, male and female, on my arrival and departure from work. I have kissed the cleaner, the bank manager, the receptionists and secretaries at the offices of people I have interviewed. But not the refuse collectors, my barber or the ticket collectors on the train - although I might if they were a little more friendly.
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And everyone kisses children, enthusiastically and often. My own boys are well-trained to proffer their cheeks to all visiting adults.
Although on return trips to Britain they find they are often left hanging, with their necks arched, while stuffy, distant British adults look at them in confusion.
"Oh! You were expecting a kiss," they'll say.
Argentines are definitely more friendly. But sometimes, it is just too much. Too many lips and too many cheeks.
The kissing between men is done in a very macho, Argentine sort of way.
When two friends meet in the street, there will be the quick peck and a hearty slap on the upper arm accompanied by a loud: "Che! Que tal? - Hey mate! how's it going?"
You can still offer a handshake but that might be seen as a sign that you want to keep your distance, that you do not want to become too friendly in what is a very friendly, sociable society.
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Too British
Kissing in public is important to Argentines.
Standing in the queue for the cinema the other day I heard frantic slurping and near drowning noises behind me. I turned to find a not-so-young couple quite openly and unashamedly indulging in a passionate kiss.
The guide books all say the same - that Buenos Aires looks, on the surface, like a mixture of Paris, Milan and Barcelona. And the immigrant mix of the residents reflects the same, with the subsequent evolution of a kissing culture.
Which is better? One kiss or two or three? On greeting and departure or just greeting?
The portenos, as the residents of Buenos Aires are known, have evolved their own style. So if you should visit Argentina, have your lips at the ready, beware of diminutive elderly dentists and, gentlemen, please shave first.
Here,s the link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6684727...
Instructions to kissing other men in Buenos Aires
And here is A Heterosexual Man,s Guide to Kissing Other Men:
From another link:
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You,re socially liberal. You,re well-traveled. You,re culturally sensitive and possibly multi-lingual. And you,re a straight man in Buenos Aires.
If it,s your first time in the city, you may be slightly taken aback by the sight of these famously macho men kissing other men in greeting. As a progressive, open minded, non-homophobic individual, you think, oh this is simple, I can do this, it,s just like kissing a woman in greeting.
But it,s not. The mechanics are different, the physical dimensions are all wrong, and there,s that whole scratchy beard thing. So how do you kiss other men as smoothly and casually as a native porteño?
1. Verbally greet your manfriend with a nod of the head and a standard greeting, "Como andas?" or "Que tal?"
2. Approach your manfriend and incline your head clearly, unequivocally, towards their left cheek, signaling this cheek to be your intended target.
3. Simultaneous with your lean-in approach, raise and place your right hand on your manfriend,s left shoulder and pat it in a congenial buddy ,ol pal manner.
4. Move in for the kiss. Now, whats more important than actually placing your lips to his cheek is the symbolic gesture of kissing. Place your cheek to his cheek and make a very loud smooching sound that says, "I am kissing you, dude, and it doesn,t make me the least bit uncomfortable with my sexuality, even though it,s really weird feeling your scratchy-ass beard all up on my face!"
5. Follow up with the phrase, "Todo bien?" Say it two or three times just to be safe. Chances are, they will ask the same question, to which the proper response is, "Todo bien." Therefore, the total verbal exchange should go something like:
6. Congratulations! You,ve managed to kiss another man without endangering your masculinity. You are now a dude-kissing machine. Look for other dudes in the group and repeat from step one.
Important notes:
Do not mix greetings. For example, some local men will assume that as a foreigner, you will not be expecting a kiss from another man and will therefore offer you a hand. Do not shake hands and then go in for a kiss. It,s like a double greeting. It,s redundant. It,s awkward. It makes you seem either overzealous or insecure. Don?t do it.
Kissing other American men. It,s okay to kiss other American men whom you,ve met in Buenos Aires, but I think if I were to see these guys in America, I would probably offer them a hug but it would be strange because I,d never hugged them before. Mid-level intimacy just gets lost in translation.
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Researching I also learned that,s common in France and Belgium. Please tell me.
What does have to do kissing and design?, Kissing objects?
Football / soccer,s players Kiss the "cup" once win it!
Is becoming "kissing objects" the last trend?. I,ll let you know!
p.s.:here is the link, don,t miss the comments:
http://equipaje.wordpress.com/2007/11/03/a-heterosexual-mans-guide-to-ki...
I am happy to report that...
...kissing and hugging is alive and well in this part of Canada (Québec). Although some people are still kissing on the mouth, (something I would not do with my students) it is largely considered as un-cool. But kissing on the cheeks is quite common. As pointed out in Gustavo?s contribution one has to indicate clearly that you are going to kiss by avoiding reaching with one arm as the normal introduction to a handshake. A kiss is introduced by spreading both arms, one slightly higher than the other, indicating in the process which side you are going to kiss (the side of the lower arm) The other person does the same and if there is any misunderstanding on the left to left cheek habit, you can still correct.
Coming from Belgium I never had any problem to adapt to the local kissing habits. Belgians and indeed Frenchmen kiss even more than what is considered generous here.
So when DCWilson and I are going to get together to hug the big whale and celebrate Cesar Pelli?s genius, I expect we will start with a hug and a friendly kiss.
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