• Replies 21 replies
  • Subscribers 78 subscribers
  • Views 15082 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Touching, hugging , kissing

Marjorie195

I suspect this may be repetition for many, but how can I politely avoid the hugging and kissing that goes on these days.

I cringe inwardly and sometimes outwardly when people hug and kiss me without consent. I hate it. I go rigid. I have read that some on the spectrum find this sort of thing painful. I just hate it.

I saw a pregnant lady, out, in the summer, wearing a t shirt saying hands off my bump. I would love to have a t shirt saying "hands off me". Looking back, I suspect my parents were on the spectrum, and none of us are touchy feely.

More distant relatives and my husbands family are, but now friends, aquaintances and all and sundry seem to hug and kiss. Weddings and funerals are a nightmare.

I try to put up with their behaviour, but I do cringe and have attracted remarks like "have I got bad breath or something". It makes me uncomfortable, angry and embarrassed. I need a way of telling people politely that this sort of contact is not for me. Urrgghh

Does anyone share this revulsion and if so, how do they deal with it?

Parents

  • Im aware that by now Im defending a fairly tenuous position, and this could probably have been avoided by thinking for more than the apporox 30s I did earlier in the thread, but we're here now and the question is not uninteresting.

    I guess my point is that on a crowded street, consent to accidental knocks and bumps are consented by the implication of ones presence...but what we were debating was the very different matter of a willful intrusion of anothers space...

    If we assume the hug/kiss greeting is aceptable in the clear absense of consent we then have a situation where poeple heve hands/mouths on the person of another and I see no logical place to draw the line unless it is at that initial moment of contact.

    I still think M has a right to insist people refrain from touching her...if her hypersensitivity was burn related it would be a much more obvious position.

    We should however agree to disagree as neither position is entirely without merit, the debate is largely philosophical, and M asks for practical advice. To that end, I reiterate the handshake idea I expressed further up the thread.

Reply

  • Im aware that by now Im defending a fairly tenuous position, and this could probably have been avoided by thinking for more than the apporox 30s I did earlier in the thread, but we're here now and the question is not uninteresting.

    I guess my point is that on a crowded street, consent to accidental knocks and bumps are consented by the implication of ones presence...but what we were debating was the very different matter of a willful intrusion of anothers space...

    If we assume the hug/kiss greeting is aceptable in the clear absense of consent we then have a situation where poeple heve hands/mouths on the person of another and I see no logical place to draw the line unless it is at that initial moment of contact.

    I still think M has a right to insist people refrain from touching her...if her hypersensitivity was burn related it would be a much more obvious position.

    We should however agree to disagree as neither position is entirely without merit, the debate is largely philosophical, and M asks for practical advice. To that end, I reiterate the handshake idea I expressed further up the thread.

Children
No Data