Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site umcp-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!prls!amdimage!amdcad!amd!vecpyr!lll-crg!seismo!umcp-cs!mangoe From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: Just how far can hugging go? Message-ID: <1279@umcp-cs.UUCP> Date: Fri, 16-Aug-85 20:40:01 EDT Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1279 Posted: Fri Aug 16 20:40:01 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 06:39:37 EDT References: <359@azure.UUCP> <2433@sun.uucp> Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD Lines: 34 In article <2433@sun.uucp> sunny@sun.uucp (Ms. Sunny Kirsten) writes: [about a man who admits a cetain reluctance to hug other men] > Can you say "homophobia", boys and girls? ... I knew you could. > You may hug someone with whom you're experiencing sexual relations, > but that doesn't mean that hugs are, per se, sexual in nature. It's not sex, it's intimacy, something we get back to later... > "SEX" is the most intimate of sharing experiences, > "HUGs" are a less intimate sharing experience... I've got news for you, Sunny: for many men (maybe even most) hugs are pretty far up on the intimacy scale. I'd also hazard a guess that most men aren't willing to have that kind of intimacy with any but a few other men. There's also the problem that in our culture the intimacy signals are rather confused with the sexual signals. >What I'm alluding to is spiritual union. When you get close enough to >another person to hug them, your auras "hug" each other as much as your >bodies do. The melting and merging of auras, the positive feedback of >love, life force, chi-energy, spirit, is the kind of experience which >truly meets your minimum adult daily requirements of "love". Not that I have anything against yoga (or any other eastern religious discipline), but I think the psychological assignments of intimacy are sufficient to explain the phenomena, as best they can be explained. C Wingate "I'm your density."