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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxl!houxm!hogpc!houxe!CLS
From: CLS@houxe.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Hugging
Message-ID: <450@houxe.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Jan-84 09:25:56 EST
Article-I.D.: houxe.450
Posted: Thu Jan  5 09:25:56 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Jan-84 02:37:50 EST
Sender: chris@houxe.UUCP
Organization: American Bell, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 38


SUBJECT: Hugging & Friends


Hugging is more important than sex. I could remain celibate
for the rest of my life and never be lonely a day, but to
go without hugging...I shudder at the thought. Yet I 
frequently inhibit my desire to hug a friend because I
fear it will be mistaken for a sexual advance, or childishness
(as in "Have you hugged your child today?").

Friendship/love [they are degrees of the same thing in my
book] constitutes a feeling for another individual which
satisfies four criteria: Trust, Respect, Affection, and
Allegiance. While it need not be reciprocal, I admit it's
nicer if the feeling is mutual. The best way I know to 
express that feeling of friendship/love is with a hug.

Hugging is a way to share energy. It is a way to share 
strength & weakness, joy & sorrow, pleasure & pain.
Hugging can reach a friend when nothing else can. In
moments of emotional excitation [e.g. happiness, ecstasy,
fear, anger] when words just go sailing by, a hug can
bring two people together.

I believe that much of the loneliness which plagues
us [single or not] can be abated if the distinction
between hugging and sex, or the disassociation of
hugging with childishness, was more widely supported,
and hugging became a more generously exercised
form of communication. In short-

Hugging has great benefits all by itself -
	and we all could use more of it.

Have you hugged a friend today?

		Chris [houxe!chris]