Hugging your short friends: a PSA

[dragonlady7]

via https://ift.tt/3hDgDAY

rionsanura https://rionsanura.tumblr.com/post/651003653497520128/hugging-your-short-friends-a-psa :

Hello! I, like many of our lockdown comrades, am touch-starved to the verge of perishment. I already was, because this is not a snuggly society, and almost all of my good friends are fairly physically distant even in company. My inclination (to be plastered up the side of a bosom buddy at all times it does not literally hinder movement) does not coordinate well with my face-to-face communication style (mostly receptive, waiting for prompts to speak of myself or make requests). So, no, I don’t get enough hugs, handholding, couch cuddles, or hair petting, especially during these Unprecedented Times.

However, now that vaccination is in progress in my city, there seems to be some kind of potential dawn at the end of the tunnel, and it might not be an oncoming train headlight this time. A future within the reach of us now living, at the end of Eternal March, after Halloween and Destiel and New Year and back through March, now on past Sexy Vaxxy Mayday, in which we may be able to hug each other again, and the renewed novelty of the experience may incline some people toward a more vigorous exercise of the privilege.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot, even more than usual, and it looks like it may be possible to Do Hugs someday, maybe even soon, so I’m here to ask people of all heights: please hug your shorter friends kindly.

As a corporeal vertebrate five feet three inches (160cm) in height, I do not tower over many of my friends. They average out at a head taller than me, with commensurately higher shoulders, ribcage, and spine, leaving my cervical vertebrae at approximately the level of their strongest inward brachial grip and their most prominent torsal protuberance. Unfortunately, most of them do not seem to take this anatomical coincidence into consideration when applying pressure to me via hug, no matter the level of enthusiasm.

I fucking love hugs, but most of the ones I get are bad.

They’re hugging my neck, both arms over my shoulders, and squishing my face into either their collarbones or their pecs, depending on the height difference. This pushes my head backwards and compresses my neck back on itself, which, especially for an enthusiastic and well-squeezed hug, is uncomfortable verging on painful. If they lean on me, it’s also squishing my spine down on itself in general, not just my neckspine. Especially if I’m braced for horizontal compression instead of vertical.

If I do the awkward pre-hug over-under dance and manage to get one arm over theirs for a diagonal, it might make it better with one of their arms exerting pressure over my back instead, but it might just ruin the radial symmetry of the neck crushing and turn it into a twisted, scoliotic compression.

It’s a hug, so it’s something, and I’ll take it like the famine-ravenous, hugless urchin I am, but it’s possible to do so much better.

Instead of resting your weight on my cervical vertebrae or crunching them together onto your front with your tall, strong elbows, consider applying hug pressure to my thoracic spine, maybe put your hands or your forearms, or whatever you’re squishing with, between my shoulder blades. Or on some lower ribs. Or even down past the ribs! I’ve had some good upward-tugging lifting hugs that hauled my kidney area! (Though not directly on my kidneys, thanks, that hurts.)

Or if you really don’t wanna reach down, and I didn’t move fast on the over-under with arm options so you are poised to lean on my shoulders, consider the fanfic trope of hand-to-the-back-of-the-head (popular for a reason), and pull to squish my cheek to your chest instead of folding my neck like an accordion.

If you hunkered down and reached under my huggin’ arms like I’m a toddler asking to be picked up, for goodness’ sake, pick me up! You had to bend your legs to get all the way down here anyway, why keep them bent in an awkward lean? Hold onto my ribcage and go nuts! I realize this might not be for everyone, but the idea remains:

Try not to crunch your short friends downward or at bad-folding angles when you hug them. Pull us sideways to you, squish us on planes that don’t fold badly, or find a good handhold to pull us upward! (Your picture was not posted)