It must be an evolutionary thing, or something.
As I'm neurotically driven to point out, we are primates and social grooming is nearly universal among primates. I have a pet theory that our lack of actual physical contact with each other is a prime driver of modern alienation, rather than a symptom.
Buying bulk Xmas cards from Big Card is really a form of social grooming.
As I'm neurotically driven to point out, we are primates and social grooming is nearly universal among primates.
So is all-over body hair infested with parasites. "Nearly universal" is doing a lot of work in that argument.
The poor need to touch each other for warmth. It's pathetic, really.
I am not an upper-class Western woman and still am bothered by people touching my belly.
I thought belly touching was just one of those female bonding things, like complimenting each other's shoes, or pinching each other's nipples.
That would make me stabby. But then, yeah, it would be nice/good for us if we were all touchier, maybe.
Incidentally, why has Hands on a Hard Body never been on DVD except for like ten minutes once?
Someone owns it and would have to pay to have the DVD made from whatever the originals are? I blame Halford.
I feel like I'm always touching people in the wrong place. Like, instead of a comforting pat on the arm while sitting next to someone, I will firmly grab their knee. Or I go to hug someone, and I put my hands in the wrong place--either both low or both high, when a symmetrical one-over-one-under hug is the thing wanted. I kiss an eyebrow instead of a cheek. I think the problem is that I am so unused to any physical contact of any kind now that the existence of other bodies is a weird kind of novelty.
If someone touched my belly though, I think I would punch that person in the face.
The reason I probably don't care is that it's the one spot where you don't feel any fat.
I think I would punch that person in the face.
And end up hitting them in the spleen.
I am a fairly touching-people* person and I often find it pleasant to be touched, at least in passing. But I would MUCH rather have someone touch my hair or arm or knee or back than my belly. Aaaaagh belly.
*Originally "touchy," but that means something else.
12: Heebie is okay with being patted on the head, according to this theory.
Only when I've been a good girl. IYKWIM.
9 -- I don't know, but it looks like what happened was it was sold to a low-end distributor who then couldn't keep it even on DVD because it didn't know how to monetize it. If that's true, it would be a cheap pick up. Or, more likely in these kinds of situations, someone involved is crazy.
19: When I've sent my Season's Greetings cards through the mail to my friends and family. See 2.
I used to have a Haitian cow-orker who really missed having platonic male physical affection, like walking arm-in-arm.
(He was a smart, charming, and thoroughly decent person who was later killed in a car accident because the world sucks like that.)
On the veldt, touching a woman's protruding belly was how the tribe determined whether the woman was pregnant or had horrible intestinal parasites.
(It's a skill that's largely been lost in modern societies; many lay people today can't by touch tell the difference between a fetus kicking and a tapeworm turning over.)
it would be a cheap pick up
Appropriately for that particular film.
With the right novel sexual act, we can bring the tapeworm back in spades!
Is there a way to properly signal that one's belly is open for touching?
25: I think you have to say "Hey, touch my belly." I certainly wounldn't make the move without a clearer signal than that.
It's hard to tell if the anti-touching-my-belly people are imagining a scenario in which they are visibly pregnant or just being approached by some random belly-touching fetishist. The latter clearly merits a kick in the groin.
I find it hard not to touch people's babies. Babies are so freaking cute.
"Hey, I just met you,
and this is crazy.
But see me lumber,
So touch my baby."
anyone who likes this website is invited to touch my belly if they are gentle and slow about it.
31: I've been doing that awhile now without any takers.
So is it finally ok to ask heebie when she is due? You are pregnant, right?
I received some excellent back scratches from my daughter this morning. It started my day off well. I am pro-touch.
I have been invited to touch a few pregnant bellies, and even been grabbed by the hand with an avid "you can touch it!" I'm not sure what gives one the impression that I wanted to touch it, but I obliged.
I've always been a little fascinated by that phenomena because I've heard about it so much, but when I was pregnant no one ever tried to touch me. I wouldn't have minded, but it didn't happen once.
I wondered whether it was because I lived in the Castro district of San Francisco and worked South of Market -- lots of gay guys, lots of techie guys, so maybe those are just not the kind of people who touch strange women's bellies? On the other hand, being pregnant on public transit in SF was amazing -- I practically had people fighting over who could give me a seat faster. Literally, on BART, I'd step on the train and the three people closest to the door would jump out of their seats and move to the aisle.
Also, homeless people in SF don't ask pregnant women for money. I even had one apologize when she realized I was pregnant and wave my change away. So, SF = different cultural rules for pregnant people? Or perhaps I just looked like a particularly plaintive, miserable pregnant person. (Could have been, I threw up...a lot. Like twenty times a day for months.)
So is it finally ok to ask heebie when she is due? You are pregnant, right?
How dare you.
(April 17th.)
What a failure on your part to time your pregnancy to synch appropriately with the academic calendar.
35: Sounds nightmarish. I'd be like: am I supposed to make petting motions? How long am I supposed to keep my hand there? Do I get extra points if I say "oh I think I felt him kick?"
Part of this thread reminds me of an amusing train-wreck scandal from elsewhere on the internet some years back that I think was called "the open source breast project."
even been grabbed by the hand with an avid "you can touch it!"
Hoo boy, has this approach *not* worked for me.
39.1: I, of course, just went in for a soft obligatory pat of good luck or whatever, but then she grabbed my hand and pushed it hard into the tummy just above her pubic area, directing me to feel an elbow or something. I found it a little shocking.
What a failure on your part to time your pregnancy to synch appropriately with the academic calendar.
The real failure is that I've never been able to justify taking an entire semester off for maternity leave, where you get your 8th and 9th months off just because of logistics. I want to be due in February or September/October.
41, further: I'm guessing that this has something to do with the fact that it must feel weird to have such specific physical sensation of a reality no one else shares. You're feeling elbows and butts and heads and stuff, and everyone else just sees a round belly of mystery.
What a failure on your part to time your pregnancy to synch appropriately with the academic calendar.
The then-chair of my former department really did say something quite close to this to a grad student colleague of mine. He followed it up with, "Well, I guess these things do happen."
I am 28 weeks along, and I would hate if a stranger just came up and touched my belly. But I want my friends and family to be able to feel the baby kick, so if they say anything at all about my belly, I encourage them to touch it. (I stop short of grabbing people's hands, though.)
Like Sarah, no one ever made a move to touch my belly when I was pregnant (barring close family). I figure that's a combination of big-city mores, BigLaw mores, and the fact that I personally would generally prefer that no one I'm not fond of (meaning close family, and some but by no means all friends) make any physical contact with me ever, and I think I project that preference fairly well.
On the general question of whether it's just uptight to not want to be touched? Eh, I think it's what you're used to. All the people who say that primates need to be touched/groomed are probably right, but that doesn't mean we need to be touched by everyone we come in contact with. With family, I'm draped all over them like a cheap suit, but that's plenty for me -- I don't think I'd be emotionally healthier if my office were a huggy place.
Samoa (everyone does remember I was in the Peace Corps, right?) was very same-sex platonically huggy and touchy, and it was really draining for me having my students leaning on me all the time. Every so often I'd be trying to explain something to a bunch of them, and have an uncontrollable startle reaction where I had to kind of shrug them all away from me (which cracked them up something fierce) (one of the many things about me that cracked them up something fierce) just to be able to draw an unencumbered breath.
I'm guessing that this has something to do with the fact that it must feel weird to have such specific physical sensation of a reality no one else shares. You're feeling elbows and butts and heads and stuff, and everyone else just sees a round belly of mystery.
Sort of? Except I feel like it's not a mystery in that way for people who've been through it. As someone going through this stuff for the first time (though not that far along), I've definitely had many moments of Holy shit, what in the world is going on with me. But then you keep coming back to the reality that a pretty large percentage of people in the world have been through pregnancy. So that older woman in line with me at the post office, maybe she doesn't know that the kiddo is elbowing me right at this very moment,* but she is likely to viscerally know what it is like to have a fetus elbowing her from the inside.
*Hypothetical situation, I haven't yet gotten to the quickening.
Blume! Elsk!
I didnt want to say anything before, but congrats!
I'm not generally a very touchy-feely person, but whenever one of my friends has become pregnant, I want to touch the belly. I ALWAYS ASK FIRST. (Obviously, it would probably be awkward for them to say no, but I do ask.)
I wonder if desire to be touched is inversely proportional to the amount of time one spends on one's appearance.
As in, more well-kept people would be afraid of being smudged? I would be a counterexample, as both unkempt and prickly.
At a BBQ, always wipe your hands before touching anybody's belly.
If there are more parts that can be pulled off, then it would make sense to be more wary about physical contact.
My partner was happy to have people touch her belly when she was pregnant. In a gentle, admiring way of course.
So one shouldn't backhand the belly dismissively? Or work it like a speedbag?
But then you keep coming back to the reality that a pretty large percentage of people in the world have been through pregnancy.
100%, really. Unless neb was hatched from an egg or something.
100%, really.
I would suggest that you carefully gauge the mood of any pregnant women you might be thinking of saying that to.
Outside of a womb fewer than 100% of people have been through pregnancy. Inside of a womb, it's too dark to do anything but kick every now and then.
I haven't yet gotten to the quickening
I hope someday I will no longer associate that word so strongly with "Highlander", which really wasn't that great, but it sure hasn't happened yet.
100%, really. Unless neb was hatched from an egg or something.
It seems very odd to me to say that someone who was given birth to has been through pregnancy.
NOT HATCHED-IST!
61: On the upside, it conjures up the image of Sean Connery sadly failing to produce a Spanish accent but looking fantastic wearing eyeliner, and earring, and a big red hat.
"Highlander", which really wasn't that great
Them's fighting words.
I assume you mean fighting not to laugh.
This seems moderately relevant to the thread but highly appropriate for the blog in general.
"I seldom chortle, I have inside me queasy things."
I lived in the Castro district of San Francisco and worked South of Market -- lots of gay guys, lots of techie guys, so maybe those are just not the kind of people who touch strange women bellies?
FTFY
The only people who come up to me and touch my belly are friendly women that I know because they're custodians at Heebie U, ie lower class Mexican-American women.
Mrs. K-sky reports that the only person who has touched her belly without seeking permission is our housekeeper, who is from Mexico.
(Also: "working" might be preferred to "lower"?)
I don't think anyone ever touched my pregnant bump, but then I am English.
And Highlander was fucking fantastic! Easily Lambert's best film! We made the children watch it, and they were a little confused - "er, this is really bad?" "Quiet! Enjoy!"
Clancy doodah was in ER and so when we were watching his episodes earlier this year I would randomly shout "there can be only one!" much to the children's annoyance amusement.
(Also: "working" might be preferred to "lower"?)
I suppose so. Lower has a way of sounding like it's lower.
71: Clancy Brown will always be Rawhide to me.
(Also: "working" might be preferred to "lower"?)
I sometimes wonder about this as a general piece of terminology. It feels patronizing when I talk about my clients as working class because factually very few of them work. I've tended to revert to "poor" which I guess is better anyway because it foregrounds certain important facts, such as that they're poor.
Lambert made other films?
You haven't seen the one where he's an American computer chip salesman who gets caught up in a ninja war on a bullet train?
I liked* the one where he was a futuristic prisoner with a magnet in his stomach.
*not really.
Highlander was a fantastic film ...
... especially when compared to the MST3K-worthy Highlander 2.
The thread is long dead, but I will chime in anyway to say AWB's 44 seems exactly right to me. I am informed by a reliable source that, when the baby is kicking, I have the abstracted air of a schizophrenic person who is, in the jargon, "responding to internal stimuli."
Thread is dead and gone to movies?
Last night was Kiki's Delivery Service! (I also watched Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy last week, but what can be said about that?) Notes:
1) I was amazed at how much "showing off" there was, advances or tricks to impress people who understood animation. Maybe all directors show off, but I think technically driven directors (Cameron, P Jackson, Lucas) do it more than others, and maybe fantasy and SF are a better vehicle for it.
Count the moving layers in the depth, and understand that each is a cell in a stack or column. Count the moving layers while there is simultaneous movement into depth, away from or toward the viewer. This is some cells moving horizontally while others are moving vertically.
2) After several weeks of watching anime and "limited animation, Kiki and "full animation" was a revelation. I don't remember this being so obvious from my last Miyazaki, Laputa.
In order to get good effects of depth or movement into/from depth, 1st you need movement, sliding cells, but 2nd the foreground moving object, usually characters, needs to be much less textured and detailed than the background.
And this is what I noticed, that Kiki and the other people, moving cars etc were basically very simple planes of a single color against a very textured and detailed landscape. To understand how this works imagine a complicated print dress on Kiki instead of her simple black shift.
In limited animation, for instance a mecha series, or Anno Hideki, the moving characters have all the detail, and the backgrounds are simpler and less realistic.
And this is the way Miyazaki privileges nature and environment over people. There is ontology and ideology going on here. Movement of simplified characters in a complicated environment.
Umm also, again, boy built machines and girl had magic that depended on feelings. Sigh.
48.2 gets it exactly, 100%, perfectly right.
