Hugs

"He was one of those guys who'd pronounce
I'm a hugger as he came at you,
neglecting to ask if the feeling was mutual.” 
[Gillian Flynn, "Gone Girl"]

So, a while back, I was speaking at a public event.  It was a very emotional experience.  As it was winding up, one of the other speakers, someone I've known casually for a couple of years, approached me and asked if I was 'a hugger', and if it would be ok to hug me. 

It was the first time someone ever asked me that question.  And from the calm, friendly way in which he asked, it was abundantly clear to me that "no" was an acceptable answer to the question.  It was up to me.  It was merely an offer, and the decision was mine to make.  I had all the agency.  It was about respect.  It was about personal space.  It was about consent.  And it was a strange new experience.

Many years ago, I remember crossing an airport to greet my friend Geoff.  I reached to shake his hand.  He wasn't having it.  He grabbed me and pulled me in tight and gave me the biggest, best kind of bear hug.  It was a long time ago, but I remember back then thinking it was awkward, such a public display of affection between men.  'They'll think we're gay,' I thought.  And then, there in his arms, wrapped up as if in a big warm blanket, 'I don't care.  Why should I?  This is not wrong.'

From that day forward, I made a point of doing the same thing to other men.  At every such opportunity, I would turn a handshake into a hug.  I did it because I thought that, in the bigger picture, I was pushing back against homophobia and making a point that men should be free to express their feelings for one another.  (Something which I've recently learned was common until the 20th century, and is still quite common in other parts of the world.)  I wasn't aggressive like that with women, with whom I'm always very cautious about personal space and touching.  (In my early 20s, the military was VERY clear about harassment policies to the point of making me paranoid.)

In the last number of years, particularly this past year with the #metoo movement, I've become even more self-aware with regards to the nature of my physical contact with people.  But it wasn't until someone asked permission to hug me that I realized that while I was respecting the personal space of women, I wasn't respecting the personal space of men.  I was forcing my ideas about appropriate expressions of affection on them.  Maybe they're not all ok with it?

And in that moment when I was asked, I realized this.  And I also realized something else that's quite important too.

This was just one of a number of small, odd encounters or questions or statements that have, over time, slowly brought me to a realization that I don't think most men of privilege understand:  that feminism and the LBGTQ+ movement is, at its heart, about everyone.  As a cis-gender, straight, white male, it's easy to stand on the outside looking in and think it's about women, or minorities, or gays and lesbians, and so on.  That there's nothing in it "for me".  The small-minded even go so far as to think it's somehow something being taken away from them.  ('Rights are not pie.  You won't get a smaller piece.')  But being an ally does not have to be magnanimous, even for a cis, straight, white male.  Notions of respect and fair treatment benefit everyone.  

As an instructor at cadet camps in the last 80s/early 90s, in any given group of about 15 boys, there was almost always at least one kid that wasn't comfortable showering in those big public shower rooms with the other boys.  They wanted to shower in a stall, or at a different time from the others.  They were accustomed to more privacy than those big rooms, and for whatever reason, it made them feel very uncomfortable.  Why?  I didn't always know.  I didn't care to know.  I didn't need to know.  As best we could, we'd make small adjustments to try to provide them that privacy.  Really, it's not that big an accommodation to make.  Nowadays, whenever the subject of change rooms and bathrooms comes up - usually within the context of gender-neutral facilities in public buildings - I always think back to that time, and try to point out that it doesn't really even have to be about gender, just about privacy, about an individual's right to have a little privacy, regardless what their reason might be.

Rights, respect, fair treatment:  it's about everyone.  Feminism is about fair treatment for all.  If, that day, I wasn't ok with being hugged on that occasion, or by that person, or in general... the choice was mine.  I was offered that agency.  (By someone clearly a better feminist than me, but I'm learning.)

Yes, I am a hugger.  Very much.  Can't get enough.  Seldom turn one away.

Yes, I happily accepted his hug. 

In fact, I'd wanted to give him a 'thank you' hug for ages, but being so conscious these days about only hugging those who I think are comfortable with it, I just never knew how to approach it.  I haven't yet found a graceful way to ask.  (He made it seem so damn easy.)  Instead, I find myself hugging fewer and fewer people, even some friends and family, unless they reach out first.  I consider this unfortunate, but only until such time as we all learn each others' boundaries and how to respect them.

When we reach a place, as a society, where we can better, more openly, and more casually speak in terms of consent, not just sexual consent, but all forms of consent... after that, those who enjoy hugs can have them, those who don't won't have to endure them, and we can all live a little more comfortably and enjoy a little more mutual respect.

Proviso

"I am the man, that's what I am
I'm a straight shooter, with a master plan
I am the man, that's why I'm here
I am the man, I am the man"
["I am the Man", The Philosopher Kings]

Last April, a few friends and I gathered in my basement to tune into a webinar by The White Ribbon Campaign.  In one part of the presentation, they were talking about toxic masculinity and they showed a list of words they use as discussion points about some of the ideals that it can impose on boys and young men, shaping their notions of what's required of their gender as they get older.  Most of the words on the list were completely unsurprising and now forgettable, the stuff you'd expect to see - stoic, macho - that sort of thing.  But one word stood out and caught me off guard and I'd certainly never have thought of it if I'd been asked to build the list.

Provider.

And for the rest of the presentation, and now nearly a year later, it still doesn't sit quite right with me, though recent months have certainly helped me better understand.

Today, on the sixth anniversary of my father's death, it came quickly to mind, because my father is the reason I have such a struggle with the word.  When I think of Dad, the word provider always springs immediately to mind.  When you get to really know people, when you begin to see what motivates or excites them, and you read between the lines and understand how they see themselves, you come to recognize the identity they've constructed for themselves.  I consider this an important exercise in trying to understand and empathize with close friends and family.  When you truly understand how someone sees themselves, you can be of far more assistance and comfort.  You understand why they do what they do, why they want what they want, and stop bringing to the table what you'd want if you were them, but rather, what they need because they are them.

In my adult years, as Dad was aging and having progressively more and more trouble taking care of himself, as I spent more time around him as an adult, and not as his child, I began to grow a deeper appreciation for just how he saw himself:  as a provider.  Throughout my childhood he worked all the overtime he could manage 'to put food on the table and clothes on our backs'.  It was really who he was and how he saw himself.  As myself and my siblings went through various life events, like a job or relationship ending, he was always there to remind us we were welcome to move back in, because he'd always give us a bed to sleep in and put a roof over our heads.

In recent times, in discussing toxic masculinity with Liza-Ann, I've told her there are many things I felt I was taught by society growing up and with which I've readily parted, but that there remain certain elements that are much harder to let go.  Provider is, for me, one of the hardest of those.

Because I have immense respect for a man who considered himself a provider, whom I considered a provider, and largely because he provided.  It is difficult to wrap my head around the idea of provider as a "bad word".  I understand - on an intellectual level - that when it comes to toxic masculinity, there is more nuance to understanding it than that.  It's not really a matter of "good words" and "bad words".  The problem is not in the word or even the concept it describes, but in the idea of its mandatory enforcement.  There's nothing wrong with being a provider.  There is something wrong with taking any segment of society and saying "you must do this" or  "you must be this".

In the last few months, I've been having an especially difficult time at work.  I was offered what I knew would be a very difficult and stressful assignment.  I knew it was something I would find challenging, at which I could probably excel, and for which my particular history and skills were probably an excellent match.  I accepted it.  

I under-estimated just how stressful and trying it would be.  As I've struggled, as I've fought my way through it, I've had the good fortune that the freedom my newfound, less-toxic self has allowed me to speak a little more freely with Liza-Ann, with a few close friends, to get the emotional support I needed to keep pressing on.

But at the times when I truly felt like I was floundering in the dark, desperately looking for something solid to hold onto and looking for a way out, what I found was a set of bars I'd constructed for myself.  My cage still has some bars left, and provider is definitely one of them.  Only then did I begin to understand what White Ribbon was suggesting.  But recognizing it doesn't hand-wave it away either.  Toxic masculinity isn't on an intellectual level; it's a set of instincts borne of years of conditioning.

At the end of the day, what my father did was respectable.  It was a good thing.  Whether he did it out of his own sense of goodness or out of a sense of socially-enforced obligation is both hard to say and perhaps largely irrelevant.  That he did it is something for which I will always remain thankful.  

Are good acts done for bad reasons less good?  A larger philosophical question for another day.

For today, I just know I miss Dad.  He gave great hugs.