Of course they can.
It’s pretty normal to have a mild phobia or two. Unless they are destroying your life, you rarely need to go to a doctor and get “cured” of it. No one is saying that, just like a mild arachnophobia isnt something you need go to a doctor and get “cured” of it.
The phobia is your problem, but it’s a reasonable accommodation to ask people not to touch you casually. Perfectly Ok, a very reasonable request. **But let’s not take your mild phobia and turn it into rules that everyone else must follow. ** Just like a person with arachnophobia can’t demand TV stations never broadcast ads for horror or nature films with spiders in them. Not everyone has Haphephobia or arachnophobia or Ailurophobia, so those with those phobias dont get to make the whole world march to their fear. Cute kitten calendars are still Ok for the workplace.
Huh. There was a poster here that thought that a man offering his hand to shake while meeting in a professional situation was akin to attempted rape.
I’m a guy, I have taped a woman that I consider a friend at work to get her attention. Or if she asks for help and I have to stand behind her looking at her computer, I might even tap the back of her chair when I leave saying, 'You’ve got it, let me know if there are more problems." Heavens, I suppose that would be assault.
It’s getting ridiculous.
You’re being really weird here.
Thorny locust, I would guess that every person in the thread who isn’t** DrDeth** gets the point you are making. (I suspect he does too.) I can’t tell you what to do, but if I were you I’d question how far down the rabbit hole you want to go with him.
Larry, any sociologist or psychologist will tell you that light non-sexual touching among people *you know well *is a normal part of human communication.
They will also happily define Haphephobia.
Like it said- it’s OK to have a mild phobia. It’s Ok to ask for reasonable accommodation.
BUT- it’s not Ok to demand the whole world obey your special rules. Really, Haphephobia is not something that everyone has. Altho, true, it is getting more and more common. A lot of people are not properly socialized, they don’t know how to act in a normal social setting.
So, I am not sure what you mean by 'weird".
Ruken did. Twice.
There are a whole lot of people who don’t want to have other people put their hands on them in board meetings, or poke them to get their attention in movie theaters. This has not been common behavior in any professional setting I’ve ever been in, or for that matter in any movie theater I’ve ever been in. The fact that you are comfortable with it does not mean that you get to impose that on everybody else.
And I will ask you also to not try diagnosing me. But I think it’s possible I know what the problem might be here. I think this whole thing was probably set off by my post quoted below:
Minor point: I don’t get the exact symptoms of chalk-screeching-on-blackboard as a response to unwanted touch. I was making a comparison to level of annoyance. I thought that was clear; but maybe some people read “level” as “type”.
Major point: I chose that comparison partly because I thought the level was equivalent, and also because it’s something that bothers some people but not others, and can be done either by accident or deliberately to annoy. So I thought it was a good example.
But it occurs to me that it may be a terrible example: because the use of actual chalk on actual chalkboards has been out of style for years now, and so people may not know what I’m talking about.
Scraping chalk on a blackboard in a particular fashion produces a noise that, in some people but not others, causes an unpleasant sensation sometimes described as ‘having one’s teeth on edge’. It can, again, be done either by accident or on purpose; and was sometimes done by schoolchildren in order to be annoying.
People susceptible to the sensation didn’t run screaming home to hide under the bed and have be coaxed back out again to go through therapy. They didn’t become terrified of classrooms. They didn’t become terrified of chalk, or of using chalk. They didn’t become unable to function in classroom environments, except that while the noise was ongoing they certainly weren’t going to be able to concentrate on anything else. They didn’t even leave the room, though I suppose if the noise went on long enough somebody might. The usual reaction was to clap one’s hands over one’s ears and, if a teacher hadn’t already done so, tell the offender to cut it out.
So if what you are thinking is that I sit in meetings afraid all the time that somebody’s going to touch me, or even that I’m afraid if somebody pokes me – no, despite your and Ruken’s attempts at longdistance diagnosis, I’m not worrying about it all the time. (As I said, in my experience this is quite rare behavior.) And if it does happen it doesn’t make me afraid. It makes me annoyed. And the unwanted touch is far more disruptive to my concentration – during the time when it’s actually happening – than speaking to me.
But if what you are saying is that everyone who objects to others’ claiming the right to touch them at any moment for any reason is so abnormal as a human being that it’s right and proper for others to assume that they can touch anybody at any moment except for a few weird people who are just being unreasonable – no. You are just plain wrong about that.
ETA: Larry, thanks. And you’ve got a point there. I need to go do other things for a while, anyway.
DrDeth aside–and I know that’s like a metric shit-ton of posts to put aside–I’m wondering if there’s an accommodation position:
- Everyone, pay attention to the norms at your workplace.
- If you’re in a non-touching workplace, and someone touches you, it’s cool to let them know what the norms are.
- If you’re in a touching workplace, and someone touches you, it’s cool to let them know that you don’t like it.
- If you touch people, stay within norms. A workplace like mine, where shoulder-touches are normal, doesn’t invite you to touch folks on the thigh, or face, or wherever.
- If you touch someone within norms, and they give any indication of disliking it, you screwed up–minorly. Apologize and don’t do it again.
- If someone touches you within norms, and you dislike it, let the toucher know, but don’t treat it like assault.
We’re humans. Under the best of circumstances–where we’re trying to make the world a more tolerable place for one another–we can still screw up. Be patient with each other, be clear about your needs with each other.
Quite the strawman, no one is saying that.
Guess I can’t quite let it go, and am sure this won’t fit in the edit window.
Of course light nonsexual touch between people who know each other well is normal human social interaction! So, for that matter, is sexual touch; up to and including sexual intercourse. So is eating a meal together. So are all sorts of things.
Doesn’t mean you’re entitled to do all of that in the meeting. Nor are you entitled to do any or all of those things with somebody who doesn’t want to join you; whether they don’t want to share those activities with you at all, or just not at the moment. Not even if you know them well.
Now I really am going to be gone for a while.
Yes, it very much is.
The example used in the OP is of a man touching a woman. The majority of examples of uncomfortable touches in the workplace are men touching women. It is very much a gendered phenomenon, and that cannot be ignored.
The specific example in the OP is not a phobia. The guy was making a dominance play. You don’t grab people’s wrist. It’s long been culturally understood to be a dominance thing–it’s why it was Wonder Woman’s weakness back in the 1960s, and why the trope of trying up women’s hands is enough to subdue to them completely.
Similarly, most of the touches that people want to be able to do are touches that they don’t do to men. Men generally don’t touch each other in professional environments, outside of the handshake. Sure, the occasional tap to get your attention occurs, but there’s a reason why people use the least amount of contact to pull that off.
You keep trying to reframe this a phobia, trying to appeal to psychology. But you know one thing I learned in a basic psychology class? The concept of the personal space bubble and how it’s different for different people. They didn’t try to pathologize people who have wider space bubbles. It was just treated as individual and cultural preference.
That framing is just bad, turning the person who doesn’t want to be touched into a “problem” that you are being so gracious in “accommodating.” But that’s not the situation at all.
The real situation is that we have not as a society moved to the point where we treat professional men and professional women the same way. Hell, I’ll even admit that I’d rather touch a woman than a man–even in personal life. I hug my female friends much more than I hug my male friends. The reason isn’t some phobia, but part of the culture.
If you ignore the gender dynamics, you’re not going to understand this. If you ignore that 1 in 20 women have been sexually assaulted, you’re going to misunderstand this.
Seems like a really shallow way to view the situation. It’s getting a bit tired this notion that whenever there is an apparent conflict or problem, the automatic assumption is that there is a bad person and a good person, and the solution is to identify which is which, punish or shame one, and exalt the other. Undoubtedly it doesn’t help that we have a dualistic (duel!) adversarial legal system.
I’m starting to really come around to the idea Cory Doctorow is promoting, that our impulse to place blame has become so pathological that it has now become one of the largest obstacles to positive change.
If you really look deeply at most conflicts, they are symptoms of problems inherent in the system. The solution is not to hulk smash the elements at the point of failure, but to see what parts of the system led to the conflict and resolve them.
I myself feel somewhat uncomfortable being touched, but I also know that touch is a vital human need, and the fact that there is such a disparity is a symptom of a much larger than issue than how well people respect boundaries.
The OP said that the man put his hand on the woman’s wrist. I didn’t take that to mean that the man grabbed her wrist. Perhaps we’re all filtering this through our own lenses. I viewed the gesture as an attempt by one coworker to reassure another that he was not cutting her off for no reason. If the OP had said he “grabbed” her I would probably be more in the control camp of the argument. But to me there’s a big difference between placing your hand on someone’s wrist or forearm and grabbing them.
I am curious. What would people like to see happen in regards to Sally’s complaint? What actions if any should their employer take?
Yep. Really, this is just a way of saying “I’m really out of time and must go”, while making sure you get the persons attention and don’t seem completely dismissive.
I’ve run into these types of folks that do not understand that the meeting is over, and I MUST leave. Seems rather rude to just turn on your heel and go. And yes, many of these folks need some sort of clue to get their attention so you can make a polite exit.
I’d like it to be like this:
“Sally, can you let me know in this context what your boundaries of touch are? Is this an issue just with Dave, or is it a wider issue?”
Then HR could help make a plan. If it’s just with Dave–AND IF THERE ARE NO OTHER COMPLAINTS ABOUT DAVE–then just tell Dave, “Hey, it makes Sally uncomfortable when you touch her. Don’t do that again.”
If Dave complies, that’s the end of it.
You dont understand how HR works. They are not there to protect employees, they are their to protect (their own asses and) the company. Complainers and complainees thus are be be gotten rid of.
Mild phobias are nothing to seek medical care over. Yes, indeed if you symptoms arose to those kinds of things you mentioned, then maybe some counseling. But as you said they dont. But it’s still a mild form of haphephobia. Just like I have a mild form of Acrophobia in that i dont feel comfortable in high places without a window or guardrail or something. A mild phobia is a feeling of “I’d rather not”, not the extreme “run screaming home assume the fetal position and turn the electric blanket up to 11” (actually, a panic attack, which is scary in of itself).
But if what you are saying is that everyone who objects to others’ claiming the right to touch them at any moment for any reason is so abnormal as a human being that it’s right and proper for others to assume that they can touch anybody at any moment except for a few weird people who are just being unreasonable – no.
Not at all. It’s a very mild phobia, and anyone you explain it to should be understanding, considerate and accommodating. You have every right to object- and I have said this over and over and over here.They should never do it again, on purpose. All I am asking is that if someone does innocently and normally touch you- that you explain it to them, not run off to HR first- where they will (sadly) think you are a deranged idiot that has to be gotten rid of asap. They will get rid of you to protect their asses and the company. They might also get rid of the guy who innocently touched you, as too many HR dept consider employees (except themself) to be as disposable as used Kleenex. And that’s what you are going up against. Not a dept full of people who sincerely want to help you.
I just got off the phone with one of my buddies, who works as a child psychologist for the school district. Of course he was unwilling to diagnose anyone. But he did say that haphephobia is become more and more common, along with Scopophobia (fear or dislike of being stared at or making eye contact) but he really prefers Social Anxiety Disorder , which can also be a fear or dislike of being talked to. He told me that now quite a few people have a mild version of it.
I thought I was half joking when I mentioned someone complains when you talk to them or make eye contact, but it’s a real thing and it even happens in the workplace. Several well known celebrities will even put this in their contract! :eek:
So,** thorny locust** you are sitting there in your cube at work. New guy comes in, next cube. You stand up, welcome him, and he turns his head and walks away. Next thing you know, you are sitting in HR, because he complained you spoke and/or made eye contact. They are going to write you up, and put it in your file, and you have to go to a counseling class. You wont get fired or anything. Would you consider that perfectly OK? Would that be justice?
Good lord, people. Just because the mods are useless doesn’t mean you have to dance to every dipshits tune.