I have had numerous internal discussions with myself about whether to write this post, and how to frame the subject if I did. This is a story about personal space and bodily autonomy — for a man. I am cognizant of what women — my wife, daughters, teen granddaughters, sister, and friends — go through every day in a sexualized world dominated and controlled by men who see women as playthings put on earth for their use and gratification. The #metoo movement brought to everyone’s attention how pervasive sexual harassment and assault really are. I have spent countless hours thinking about my own complicity in treating women as less than; of not recognizing their absolute right to personal space and bodily autonomy. As a result, I have changed my ways: my actions and speech. For example, I had taken it for granted that female acquaintances of mine were okay with me hugging them when we came in contact with each other. I had always hugged them. “That’s what friends do,” I told myself. However, I never bothered to consider if they wanted to be hugged. I just assumed . . . . I came to understand that I had no right to hug a woman without her permission. So, I ask first before hugging them. It is literally the least I can do.
When I go out in public, I always dress well. No slumming for me. You will never see me in public wearing sweatpants or ratty clothing. I pay attention to what I wear, making sure that my hat, suspenders, socks, and shoes match my shirts and pants. Welcome to OCPD. 🙂 Some may say my attention to these things is obsessive, however looking right, looking smart, and looking dapper matters to me. Quite frankly, I don’t give a shit about what others think about my appearance.
I also know that I have a nice beard, one I take great pride in. I know I look like Santa Claus. During the holiday season, it is not uncommon for adults to call me Santa and for children to stare with that wide-eyed look when I pass by. I have embraced my Santaness, taking time to talk to children about Christmas. Quite frankly, I enjoy doing so.
Unfortunately, I have had adult women take things too far, invading my personal space without my permission. Several years ago, a woman plopped herself on my lap at a high school basketball game. At another game, an attractive woman in her late 20s snuggled up to me, putting her hand firmly on my leg, so she could tell me what she wanted for Christmas. I have had women, without asking permission, touch and run their fingers through my beard. Others have complimented me on my look while telling Polly how lucky she should feel for having a good-looking man like me. Creepy stuff. Uncomfortable, to say the least. And believe me, I am the one who got the better end of the deal when I met and married Polly.
Polly’s mom died last week. Her funeral was on Saturday. Before the service started, I was talking to Polly’s aunt from Michigan and her son and his wife. It’s been years since I have seen them. We had a delightful conversation. One of our family’s Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preachers deigned to come near me. His only words to me as we shook hands were: “Hey, Bruce. God bless your heart.” And with that, he walked away. I said to myself, “fuck you.”
As I looked up, my eyes connected with his wife, a cousin of Polly’s whom I have known for forty-seven years. As a toddler, this woman was in our wedding. We have gotten along well over the years. She is quite outgoing, much as her mother was. What happened next, though, was quite disturbing and offensive.
As the woman saw me, she said loudly, “Bruce!” As she came closer to me, she asked, knowing my battle with chronic illness and pain (her mom died of bone cancer and couldn’t bear to be touched), “are you doing hugs these days?” I replied “yes, ” and we embraced. (Yes, I was in a lot of pain, but I typically — my counselor says wrongfully — defer to others.) As we broke our embrace, this woman proceeded to put her hands on each side of my face, slowly running her fingers through my beard — twice. She then pulled me back close and said, “you sure smell nice!” (I use cologne from Scentbird — a monthly subscription service. High quality colognes at an affordable price.)
Here we were in the middle of an IFB church. Polly and her husband were mere feet away. I felt uncomfortable, to say the least. We traded several more pleasantries, and then I walked away to my seat. I have only seen this woman twice in the past seventeen years. She assumed a familiarity with me that she did not have. As I sat down next to Polly, I said to her “what the fuck was that?” We later talked about the fact that I had but a taste of what many women go through every day of their lives. Did the woman in question mean anything by her actions? No. She was, however, raised in a church environment where taking liberties with the personal space and the bodies of others was common. Greet one another with a brotherly kiss, the Bible says. Affectionate hugs are common. No one bothers to ask for permission before hugging.
I try to hug my children and grandchildren when I see them. I love them dearly and I want them to know it. That said, some of them are huggers, and others are not. I respect their wishes. Last year, my oldest son’s girlfriend came over for a family holiday for the first time. As they were leaving for the night, I hugged my son. I turned to her and said, “is it okay if I give you a hug?” She said “yes,” and we embraced.
We don’t know the lived lives of others: family members who have been groped by uncles; women who have been assaulted by preachers, deacons, and Sunday school teachers in the name of Christian love; roving hands and lengthy embraces from men (and sometimes women) who are indifferent to what others want and find comfortable. Instead of assuming, ask. It really is that simple.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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I was raised as a boy. During that time I was sexually abused by a priest and a family friend.
As a woman, I have been sexually harassed and assaulted.
Having lived through those experiences, I have learned that everybody has bodily autonomy. Everybody, whatever their gender identity, has a right to decide who interacts, in any way, with their bodies—even if it means no one at all. And if one allows the touch of another, one also has the right to determine the level of its intimacy and duration.
Bruce brings up something I’ve tried to articulate for a long time. I first mentioned the sexual abuse I endured from a priest more than three decades after the fact. I was about to undertake what people commonly associate with a gender affirmation (what was commonly called a “gender transition “) but was identifying myself as a woman to others. Seeing myself as female, I felt I could speak of myself as having been violated without being subjected to the questioning of manhood male victims experience or simply fear.
Still, I did not mention the abuse to anyone else for years, until I had been well established in my life as a woman. I now realize that I could not have “come out,” as it were, in any other way: I identified myself as a victim of sexual violence in the way women have been doing in the “Me too” movement. Like too many of those women and girls, I felt I could talk and write about those experiences precisely because they were so far in the past: Had, for example, I spoken of being raped on my way home from work the night before, I would have been subjected to undue scrutiny, or even slut-shaming.
While I have begun to unpack the trauma I have carried for decades, I now realize that there was a boy (even if he was a manque female) whose bodily autonomy was not respected and who never had a voice. There were, and are, many others—including boys and men who may not have had their persons violated in the same way but who have their own reasons for their boundaries—or, perhaps no reason at all.
I apologize for such a long comment. But the issue Bruce raises in this post deserves even more.
I just don’t get why a lady would grab your face like that, Bruce. It’s way too personal.
As human beings part of our social interactions are touching each other. You have a great point, we have to walk a tight rope on what we can and should do to others. If one was to write a rule book on human tactile interactions, such a tome would have so many exceptions and caveats making it hard for even the best meaning person to negotiate. Yes, asking is sometimes the way to go, but even that depends. I recall an SNL sketch that parodied a University policy that required explicit consent for every escalation of each level of intimacy. The absurdity was so blatant that it was elevated to parody. As your beard fondler illustrates, even someone who is complimentary and asked before hugging can still rub you the wrong way. I suppose my take on it, is to try to respect people’s personal space but also respect the fact that not all interactions can be perfect, especially since angrily protesting unwanted physical contact can create social friction (and hurt feelings) as well.
being an HSP, I hate being touched. And yes, it does take a forceful, “I don’t do hugs” to keep these idiots away.
I wage a bit of a private campaign against ‘strangers’ wanting to touch me. I got some bad news about a family crisis just before a hospital appointment -which I was nervous about anyway – so was shaking as I waited in the consulting room. Three different older female nurses tried to ‘comfort’ me. One rubbed my back, and another stroked my knee. I assume this normally brought comfort to patients, they did it so spontaneously, yet were professional in other respects. I was in no state to complain, but it really freaked me out. I thought of a friend – and other patients – who are survivors of abuse…..how awful for them. I had some subsequent treatment and did ask staff not to touch me in those ways, I kind of did it, and will again, on behalf of many (women mainly though not exclusively obviously) who recoil from the touch of strangers and suffer a lifetime of PTSD from previous traumas from inappropriate touching by others.
yep, I know exactly that feeling of being freaked out when someone touches me. Happily, no trauma in my past, but I do feel for those who have had it.
This an important and thoughtful post. One thing that I absolutely loathed about church services was the “sign of peace.” It went from a desultory handshake to unwanted hugs from complete strangers. I would walk out, pretending I was going to the bathroom, right before this nonsense started, if I could. Otherwise, if I was hemmed in, I’d shake hands, smile weakly and look down and avoid eye contact with the enthusiastic sorts. A male friend of mine was startled when a woman all but groped him during one of these things. Then there was the absolutely tasteless funeral I went to at a Unity Church. The poor woman had died young, of cancer. The pastor said at one point to turn and hug the person next to you in the pew “to show your love in honor of B.” I looked at that person next to me(who I did not know) straight in the eye and said, “Do NOT touch me!” He cringed. (They closed the funeral with a duo singing a song entitled, “I’m a Happy Girl.”)
I have never liked the “Meet n Greet” time in the service sometimes called “Passing the Peace.” As an introvert and an HSP, it was something to be endured, not enjoyed. And occasionally there was that no-boundaries guy or gal that wanted to hug or kiss without asking. Bruce is right, one should always ask. I was on the other end of that exchange once with a guy who looked something like Bruce and had a beard and would probably be considered by most people to be jolly and huggable. We were becoming good friends. I asked him if I could hug him. He said, “No, I’m a sexual abuse survivor.” I thanked him for telling me and I was glad I asked.
Bruce, thank you for bringing this up. Evangelicalism taught us that our bodies were NOT our own, that they belonged ultimate to God/Jesus who bought our bodies, and to our fathers (if we were female) until we were married, and then to our spouse. As our bodies weren’t our own anyway, consent wasn’t considered relevant.
My mom was way ahead of her time in teaching me about consent at a young age. She didn’t call it that – instead, she said that NO ONE had a right to touch me without permission. I found out well into adulthood that my mom had been sexually abused by her uncle when she was 5 years old. That explained A LOT about my mom.
My family weren’t big on hugs, and definitely not kisses. Imagine my shock when introduced to my husband’s big Irish-American family who greet everyone with hugs and used to kiss on the mouth. Ugh!!!! When I met them in my 20s I had so much anxiety about every visit and didn’t know I could say “please no kissing”. I told my husband that I found it disgusting that his mom and aunts kissed him on the mouth. He said he had never thought of it before, but yes, that was gross. My sister-in-law who married my husband’s brother also found it gross. The ultimate incident that gave me a voice instead of ducking and weaving was when a drunk uncle accused me with a long, sloppy kiss on the mouth. I would tell people after that hugs, no kisses. My father-in-law continued to try anyway, and he would publicly shame my kids for ducking away from kisses. The last straw was when I was entering a party carrying food, and he came over and accosted me with a mouth kiss when I was unable to defend myself, after having been told repeatedly NO KISSING. Loudly, in front of several of his siblings and their kids, I said, “if you ever kiss me on the mouth again, I will punch you in the face.” He tried to joke and laugh it off, but everyone got quiet, and I said, “I am not kidding.” That’s the last time anyone tried kissing me, him included. One of his sisters came to me later and apologized. She said that she didn’t realize that hugging and kissing could be traumatic for some people, and she thanked me for bringing it up and that she would ask people going forward before just hugging them. And guess what – she asks, and I actually do hug her!
No one has a right to touch another person without consent.