Yeah, there’s a strong signal there. I think it transfers though. If the culture you’re trying to protect is actually good at engaging cooperatively and non-threateningly, Alexis can handle Bryce too.
The situation described is where Alexis tries to touch someone who doesn’t want to be touched, and where an observer can’t tell that her intent was good. If you have real skill in the community, and you limit/track the newcomers like Bryce, then Alexis will probably know to ask consent before touching Bryce—and the community will recognize what’s happening.
There’s an assumption there that you can have high trust cooperative societies without learning how to deal with people who don’t want to be touched, and I’m skeptical. I think the way you get to a secure community is by learning to handle insecurity, not by trying to prevent contact with it.
There’s an assumption there that you can have high trust cooperative societies without learning how to deal with people who don’t want to be touched,
...no? Not sure where that came from, and certainly wasn’t intended, anyway.
The question is who bears the burden of an unusual sensitivity, like being traumatized by touch. In our society, if you offer someone a candy bar containing peanuts, you are not treated like an asshole if the person has a previously undisclosed peanut allergy; the people with peanut allergies assume the burden of informing and everyone else assumes the burden of accommodating—but not preemptively. Not until told.
(You are treated like an asshole if you offer peanuts after everybody’s been looped in.)
Similarly, in a high-trust society with healthy amounts of casual touch (i.e. an order of magnitude more touch than modern American society), those people who either want or need less touch just … note this, and then everybody else nods and cooperates, the same way that we nod and cooperate with peanut allergies.
The problem is when you end up in this confusing ambiguous space where people are sporadically punished for behaving in perfect accordance with common knowledge norms, if the person with the special needs is sufficiently sympathetic and decides to paint the other person as an asshole.
(A norm in which Alexis explicitly checks in because they know Bryce is acclimating makes a lot of sense, but a general norm in which you’re expected to secure verbal consent for casual touch is actually super bad in ways that I’ve spelled out a bunch of other times and probably won’t rehash here. Its badness unfortunately hasn’t stopped (especially left-leaning parts of) our culture from driving pretty hard in that direction, leading to our present epidemic of chronic undertouch (and downstream effects like homophobia and increased emotional labor within romantic relationships and teenage depression, etc etc etc.))
...no? Not sure where that came from, and certainly wasn’t intended, anyway.
Hm. My bad then, sorry for the misinterpretation.
It came from your description of Alexis failing to deal well with Bryce as if Alexis couldn’t be expected to notice his desire to not be hugged. Because if you can expect people to know not to hug people who don’t want to be hugged, this isn’t an issue. Alexis just say “Oops, sorry”, and the community says “That’s okay. Just pay more attention next time. Bryce is new, remember?”.
(A norm in which Alexis explicitly checks in because they know Bryce is acclimating makes a lot of sense, but a general norm in which you’re expected to secure verbal consent for casual touch is actually super bad
My first response is “Agreed. I’m suggesting the former.”
On second thought, the subtle differences might be where we differ. Or maybe not. We’ll see, I guess.
I’m not much a fan of overly specific rules like “You have to ask consent before having sex, but not before hugging—unless they’re new, then you ask consent for that too”. I generally think it generally makes more sense to judge on an individual level “Does this person want to engage with me in this way”. If I’m getting the sense that they don’t, or they might be so upset that a genuine “I’m sorry” doesn’t cut it, I’ll ask first—even if it’s just “Can I ask you a question?”. I think “Look bro, we hug here, so you’re in the wrong” isn’t the kindest of responses after you’ve just tried to hug someone who doesn’t want to be hugged, and not the most likely to get him to lower his sword.
I agree that healthier cultures can tolerate hugs and punch bugs without flipping out if someone makes an honest mistake, but it also seems to me that healthier cultures can tolerate discomfort with hugs and swatting someone’s arms away when they start to give an unwanted hug. When you paint a picture of a “clean space” where Alexis both fails to notice that the new guy doesn’t want a hug and she can’t just apologize and trust it will be accepted, I don’t think “This clean space must be protected by keeping Bryce out”, I think “This place needs some work”.
I think “Look bro, we hug here, so you’re in the wrong” isn’t the kindest of responses after you’ve just tried to hug someone who doesn’t want to be hugged, and not the most likely to get him to lower his sword.
Yeah, I wouldn’t say that. I might say something like “oh, yeah, the reason this happened is that we hug around here; if you need to not be hugged that’s totally fine and something people can adjust to but you gotta give them the heads up, sorry for the unpleasant surprise.”
When you paint a picture of a “clean space” where Alexis both fails to notice that the new guy doesn’t want a hug and she can’t just apologize and trust it will be accepted, I don’t think “This clean space must be protected by keeping Bryce out”, I think “This place needs some work”.
Uh, I notice you keep (mildly) strawmanning me. This is like the third time now that you’ve taken something I said and rounded it to a dumber, worse thing?
I know, and I didn’t mean to imply that you would. I did explicitly say that maybe we don’t differ here.
Part of the reason for such an exaggerated caricature was in hopes of making it clear that “I don’t think you’d actually say this”/finding common ground. The other part is to highlight the direction of error. Because while the exaggerated version is obvious, the dynamics themselves are very much not, which means that all sorts of intelligent people end up making these mistakes in more subtle ways.
I’d still say things differently in such a situation, though crossing the inferential distance in a comment probably isn’t going to happen. This Monday and next I have a couple posts on this topic (as part of a larger sequence) which explain where I’m coming from as it relates here. If you’re interested in reading them, I’m curious what your response would be.
Uh, I notice you keep (mildly) strawmanning me.
I prefer the term “Failing the ITT” :)
I’m happy to accept corrections/clarifications, and sorry it came off like putting words in your mouth. I know I phrased it in a way to accentuate what I see as a problem with the picture you paint, but I genuinely don’t know how this differs from what you describe. I have a hard time imagining you saying that the person being hugged did want the hug, or that the person hugging did notice, etc, so I’m not sure where the misrepresentation is. Rereading, you only applied the names Alexis/Bryce to the “Asks a seemingly innocent question” example, but that doesn’t seem like a substantive mistake?
Yeah, there’s a strong signal there. I think it transfers though. If the culture you’re trying to protect is actually good at engaging cooperatively and non-threateningly, Alexis can handle Bryce too.
The situation described is where Alexis tries to touch someone who doesn’t want to be touched, and where an observer can’t tell that her intent was good. If you have real skill in the community, and you limit/track the newcomers like Bryce, then Alexis will probably know to ask consent before touching Bryce—and the community will recognize what’s happening.
There’s an assumption there that you can have high trust cooperative societies without learning how to deal with people who don’t want to be touched, and I’m skeptical. I think the way you get to a secure community is by learning to handle insecurity, not by trying to prevent contact with it.
...no? Not sure where that came from, and certainly wasn’t intended, anyway.
The question is who bears the burden of an unusual sensitivity, like being traumatized by touch. In our society, if you offer someone a candy bar containing peanuts, you are not treated like an asshole if the person has a previously undisclosed peanut allergy; the people with peanut allergies assume the burden of informing and everyone else assumes the burden of accommodating—but not preemptively. Not until told.
(You are treated like an asshole if you offer peanuts after everybody’s been looped in.)
Similarly, in a high-trust society with healthy amounts of casual touch (i.e. an order of magnitude more touch than modern American society), those people who either want or need less touch just … note this, and then everybody else nods and cooperates, the same way that we nod and cooperate with peanut allergies.
The problem is when you end up in this confusing ambiguous space where people are sporadically punished for behaving in perfect accordance with common knowledge norms, if the person with the special needs is sufficiently sympathetic and decides to paint the other person as an asshole.
(A norm in which Alexis explicitly checks in because they know Bryce is acclimating makes a lot of sense, but a general norm in which you’re expected to secure verbal consent for casual touch is actually super bad in ways that I’ve spelled out a bunch of other times and probably won’t rehash here. Its badness unfortunately hasn’t stopped (especially left-leaning parts of) our culture from driving pretty hard in that direction, leading to our present epidemic of chronic undertouch (and downstream effects like homophobia and increased emotional labor within romantic relationships and teenage depression, etc etc etc.))
Hm. My bad then, sorry for the misinterpretation.
It came from your description of Alexis failing to deal well with Bryce as if Alexis couldn’t be expected to notice his desire to not be hugged. Because if you can expect people to know not to hug people who don’t want to be hugged, this isn’t an issue. Alexis just say “Oops, sorry”, and the community says “That’s okay. Just pay more attention next time. Bryce is new, remember?”.
My first response is “Agreed. I’m suggesting the former.”
On second thought, the subtle differences might be where we differ. Or maybe not. We’ll see, I guess.
I’m not much a fan of overly specific rules like “You have to ask consent before having sex, but not before hugging—unless they’re new, then you ask consent for that too”. I generally think it generally makes more sense to judge on an individual level “Does this person want to engage with me in this way”. If I’m getting the sense that they don’t, or they might be so upset that a genuine “I’m sorry” doesn’t cut it, I’ll ask first—even if it’s just “Can I ask you a question?”. I think “Look bro, we hug here, so you’re in the wrong” isn’t the kindest of responses after you’ve just tried to hug someone who doesn’t want to be hugged, and not the most likely to get him to lower his sword.
I agree that healthier cultures can tolerate hugs and punch bugs without flipping out if someone makes an honest mistake, but it also seems to me that healthier cultures can tolerate discomfort with hugs and swatting someone’s arms away when they start to give an unwanted hug. When you paint a picture of a “clean space” where Alexis both fails to notice that the new guy doesn’t want a hug and she can’t just apologize and trust it will be accepted, I don’t think “This clean space must be protected by keeping Bryce out”, I think “This place needs some work”.
Yeah, I wouldn’t say that. I might say something like “oh, yeah, the reason this happened is that we hug around here; if you need to not be hugged that’s totally fine and something people can adjust to but you gotta give them the heads up, sorry for the unpleasant surprise.”
Uh, I notice you keep (mildly) strawmanning me. This is like the third time now that you’ve taken something I said and rounded it to a dumber, worse thing?
I know, and I didn’t mean to imply that you would. I did explicitly say that maybe we don’t differ here.
Part of the reason for such an exaggerated caricature was in hopes of making it clear that “I don’t think you’d actually say this”/finding common ground. The other part is to highlight the direction of error. Because while the exaggerated version is obvious, the dynamics themselves are very much not, which means that all sorts of intelligent people end up making these mistakes in more subtle ways.
I’d still say things differently in such a situation, though crossing the inferential distance in a comment probably isn’t going to happen. This Monday and next I have a couple posts on this topic (as part of a larger sequence) which explain where I’m coming from as it relates here. If you’re interested in reading them, I’m curious what your response would be.
I prefer the term “Failing the ITT” :)
I’m happy to accept corrections/clarifications, and sorry it came off like putting words in your mouth. I know I phrased it in a way to accentuate what I see as a problem with the picture you paint, but I genuinely don’t know how this differs from what you describe. I have a hard time imagining you saying that the person being hugged did want the hug, or that the person hugging did notice, etc, so I’m not sure where the misrepresentation is. Rereading, you only applied the names Alexis/Bryce to the “Asks a seemingly innocent question” example, but that doesn’t seem like a substantive mistake?