A friend wrote about this on Facebook, and curiosity led me to check it out. Apparently, there's some movement among fundamentalist Christians to restrict people to "side hugs" (i.e. hugging by putting one arm around your buddy, hip-to-hip) because front hugs carry the risk of sin, in case either party's, uhh...member might bump into the other person's body.
Anyway, I had to dig into this a little bit to make sure it was real. It is. And the gangsta rappers here in this video are being completely serious, including the particularly asinine moment at 3:35 when the rapper intones that Jesus never gave front hugs. Funny, I've read the Gospels a time or two and never saw any references to that..
If you have just four minutes to spare on this fine post-Thanksgiving Friday, give this video a look. I don't know whether you'll laugh or cry, but you won't be disappointed!
That's fine! Leave the front hugs to the atheists! ;)
ReplyDeleteAs Lynne knows, I am not big into "hugs".
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I sense this is just something that someone thought was a good idea at the time and it got some traction, but it is not, IMHO, about Fundamentalism.
There are five things that define classical "Fundamentalism" and this is not one of the five.
I tried for a while to be a "huggy" person, but my Irish Jansenist background got in the way.
And now, even the handshake at the Kiss of Peace is being discouraged, out of fear of embracing a disease (this year, H1N1).
I'll be waving at you.
Regards — Cliff
If I was a teenager girl and a boy did that to me, I would be think I would very uncomfortable in a creepy way in the sense he likes me but because he's a pervert and he knows it.
ReplyDeleteSide hugs won't stop desire if you're physically attracted with someone. If a teenager wants to stay off anything physical in a relationship, simply stay in public/open areas with other people with that person.
Thanks all for chiming in about the 'side hugs.' As Renee said, there is something inherently bizarre about the side hug, because it's calling attention to the risks posed by front hugs in a way that sounds, well, perverted.
ReplyDeleteFront hugs seems pretty innocent, and humanity has managed to get by with them for literally thousands of years. If I were the parent of young 'uns, I would NEVER teach them to 'side hug' because that would lead to an awkward explanation about why we shouldn't front hug.
IMHO, that's far more likely to rob someone's innocence than is the chance that some body parts might bump together in a front hug.
For the sake of sharing, regarding the need for non-sexual affection from family and friends (even from spouses) with the concern for chastity in adults.
ReplyDeleteFrom 'Hug the Monkey' Cuddles now or Hooking Up Later (January 2008)
"Writer Tiffany Sharples mentions unpublished research showing that kids who grow up in cold or hostile families are more likely to engage in sexual behavior at an early age.
"Psychologists have long warned that children who grow up in a hostile home or one in which warmth is withheld are likelier to start having sex earlier and engage in it more frequently. In a study that will be published in March, Trish Williams, a neuropsychology fellow at Alberta Children's Hospital, studied a group of 1,959 kids ages 11 to 13 and did find a striking correlation between a volatile home and earlier sexual behavior. A few of the children had had intercourse at as young an age as 12, and while the number of sexually active kids wasn't high--just 2% of the total--the cause was clear. "Hostile parenting is highly associated with problem behavior," says Williams."
This is another thing that can seem like a big duh. When you don't get enough love at home, you'll try to get it wherever you can -- and for preteens and teens, love is pretty hard to separate from sex. "