The legislation in question is Tennessee Senate Bill 3310, which renders it legally actionable for teachers to demonstrate what it calls “gateway sexual activities” to students during (the state’s abstinence-only) sex education, or recommend them as alternatives to sexual intercourse. The bill, then, was presumably intended to prevent teachers from suggesting the use of oral sex or mutual masturbation to replace sex. But it defined gateway sexual activities very broadly and vaguely, such that, depending upon interpretation, they could refer to almost any non-sexual social contact.

The huge response to the bill seems to have followed an article on local news website wmctv.com, titled “Bill would define holding hands, kissing as ‘gateway sexual activity’”, an overstatement of the actual situation. Daily Kos picked up on the story with a similar title, “Tennessee senate warns ‘hand-holding is a gateway sexual activity’”, after which a number of other news outlets followed suit in similar or even more misleading terms. It was generally represented as a targeted attack on handholding itself.

While this isn’t true, it is within the realm of legal possibility, and the bill does present a couple of interesting sexual and physical contact issues. First, as Planned Parenthood has pointed out, even when conservatively interpreted, the bill seems ill-advised. The state’s sexual education program is already based upon strict abstinence policies, but Tennessee has a higher than average rate of sexually active middle school and high school students. Trying to go further in this direction seems unlikely to improve matters. But, that’s not within our area of specialization.

Second, the overwhelmingly angry response to the perceived threat to handholding underscores just how strongly people feel about non-sexual social contact. A commenter on ThinkProgress’ coverage wrote, “So if I help a child cross the street — and hold the child’s hand — that makes me a potential pedophile? Maybe Tennessee is simply proving that we are not all evolving. Some are actively devolving — back to the slime from whence they come.” A post from a blogger going by Sherrie Questioning All is on the first page of Google returns for “tennessee handholding” and consists of a similarly-inspired rant, arguing for her beliefs in non-sexual social contact.

The reaction to this vote demonstrates, more than anything else, that people take our social contact very seriously. We have strongly negative feelings about the suggestion that touch need have sexual overtones or connotations. People already know that touch is an important part of all relationships, romantic or no—but sometimes society’s rules and perceptions are slow to catch up. (As a sidenote, I would argue that the reaction demonstrates our present lack of faith in government to a nearly equal degree: we expected so little of it that a bill banning handholding seemed entirely plausible. That realization is a sad one, but absent people’s strong emotional reaction to an anti-handholding agenda, the response would likely have been considerably weaker.)

In any event, we feel the response has offered strong evidence of the importance of our mission to advocate for an increase in polite, responsible social touch. And we’ll use it as motivation for taking our actions to the next level. In the meantime, if you have any thoughts, please let us know in the comments below!

So, think about your own experiences with eye contact. If you live in a big city, like me, you may find yourself wondering about it a lot, thanks to a city’s tendency to push a bunch of total strangers into a small space for an extended period of time (like the subway). Usually, if my eyes meet someone else’s, both lookers quickly look away. Why is that? What makes eye contact uncomfortable in that situation? And what if I maintain eye contact? Keeping a straight face feels totally weird. I have to smile. And if I smile, the person I’m looking at will usually smile back. So eye contact is either awkward or induces smiling. Weird.

We feel these ways because eye contact is actually a very intimate behavior. It feels uncomfortable if you’re not feeling intimate with the other participant. It feels just the same as it might if you hugged that same person, or if they hugged you. It crosses a boundary that we only take down when we’re feeling safe and open. It’s really like a hands-free cuddle. And don’t forget about these same feelings coming up with people you do know. So much can be communicated solely through eye contact. So what’s going on here? Why does eye contact feel so similar to physical contact? 

Well, of course there is the oxytocin proposition to consider, but a deeper answer also lies in the newly developing human brain. In a 1996 study, a group of Canadian scientists assigned babies to two groups. In one group the caretakers were encouraged to make eye contact, and in the other group they were not allowed. The study found that the group deprived of eye contact smiled less. This is a significant finding–frequency of smiling in babies is a good indicator of how they are developing emotionally and socially, because it is an instinctive behavior and because infants behave mostly with facial expressions (and crying).

Why did the deprived babies smile less? It makes sense if you consider a few basic psychological principles. First, happiness comes from reward. “Reward” in the field of psychology is a broad term, meaning anything that stimulates a positive response in the receiver. It can be your crush laughing at your jokes, a teacher giving a few words of praise, or a even the crying of a bullying victim, if that’s what you’re after. See, the thing about rewards is that they only have to matter to the receiver. So while I would not want to make anyone cry, a bully may find it satisfying (if only for a little while). When a person is rewarded, the result is always the same: the behavior that merited the reward becomes more likely to be repeated. If a reward is withheld or some punishment is administered, the behavior will decrease in frequency. This is why the babies who were deprived of eye contact smiled less: because they were deprived of intimacy. Babies don’t look away as we grownups do–just as with the bully, they have different reward preferences than we do. Eye contact is always welcome to them; always rewarding. They have no fear of intimacy and it is their only way of feeling connected to their surroundings.

My point is simple: eye contact is powerful and it is a gift that can be given like a hug. It is the intangible cuddle. And of course, our friend oxytocin can back me up here. The fact that oxytocin is released supports our new proposition: EYE CONTACT IS THE HANDS-FREE CUDDLE.

Now go forth, and look.

A Whiff of Extroversion: Sniffing Oxytocin Could Make Us Outgoing

Soon to come: Want to show your Cuddle Pride? While you wait for Cuddle Labs itself to start making merchandise, we will aggregate some sites that already make cuddle-related products. For starters, check out this oxytocin necklace from made with molecules.

However, I’d like us to take a look at the history of exercise. For a long time, before industrialization, exercise was easy to come by. Most people had to exert a lot of physical effort as part of their job, or at least as part of many daily tasks. In fact, it was seen as a status symbol to be overweight because it meant you were one of the few (the 1% if you will) who didn’t have to do any exercise and could afford to eat extravagantly.

Then, industrialization–and later, the growing prevalence of computers–allowed humans to stop moving around so much. Exercise was no longer a daily activity and people started to grow larger and more complacent.  The evidence for this trend is plastered all over the media. People had originally thought of exercise as an activity that only athletes or soldiers needed to do. But when the lack of exercise started to lead to obesity and other serious health problems, the people turned to SCIENCE.

“Science!” they cried, “Help us! We are dying in new and increasing rates of heart disease and stuff! Tell us what we can do!”

So science looked into the problem and found that exercise is actually CRUCIAL TO OUR WELL-BEING. Not just if you make your living by moving around a lot, but for everyone, even kids! And following this discovery, we started to find other benefits of exercise. Exercise not only decreases your risk of all kinds of nasty health problems, it also regulates your mood! It promotes the production of endorphins, which are natural analgesics which relieve pain and aid relaxation. It’s good for your memory and a whole bunch of other parts of your brain!

Well, it’s obvious just from looking at a newspaper stand that exercise is now in vogue. And this is what exercise and cuddling SHOULD have in common. Cuddling is also an activity that people usually think of as being reserved for only certain specific situations (i.e., very intimate relationships.) And, like exercise, it is being done less and less due to the fast-paced, disconnected life of the age of computers. It, too has benefits that science has only recently begun to discover. It promotes the production of a highly valuable and useful hormone, even more crucial to human coexistence than endorphins, OXYTOCIN!

Clearly, cuddling’s position is very similar to exercise before its rise to mainstream popularity. So we propose the same revolution for cuddling that exercise has recently enjoyed. We want everyone to know about it! We want “20 tips for a better cuddle” on the front of every magazine! Or even, “Are you too skinny to please your partner during cuddling?” We want state of the art pillows!  We want businessmen to hug instead of shaking hands! Parents to make special time for cuddling their kids!

All this being said, I’d like to finish with my favorite difference between cuddling and exercise: While I find it almost impossible to make myself exercise, I find it extremely easy to make myself cuddle. And I think that’s probably true for most people. It’s easy and fun and it feels great! So go hug your friends, your kids, your loved ones! Get in some prime caressing while you watch TV! Read with your dog or cat lying all up next to you. Their cuddles are just as beneficial! Go get some oxytocin!

And tell your friends: the Cuddle Revolution is coming.

Edit: Unfortunately, Conan‘s player seems to start clips immediately upon loading no matter what, so we’ll just link to the video.

Last one… we promise. (We think.)

Cuddle Labs does the hard research, so you don't have to.

Cuddle Labs is hard at work, pushing the boundaries of cuddling research and reformulating our web design.  We’ve been lax in sharing the knowledge of late, and we apologize for that. But we have continued to hungrily accumulate it, so stay tuned as regular updates resume this week! Things will only get cuddlier from here on out.

For now, stay cuddly, and stay warm.

Nick giving a... perhaps... overenthusiastic hug? to friend Simon Pegg.

Amazing actor Nick Frost gave us a shoutout on Twitter today–and it’s getting us more traffic than we’ve ever had before. We’re so grateful! Thanks, Nick! You are owed a great many cuddles. Everyone go see The Adventures of Tin Tin!

Ahem, sorry… we’re quite excited. To all our new visitors, welcome. If you’d like to catch up on the cuddle science we’ve shared so far, please check out some of our best posts:

• Is Spooning the Best Way to Cuddle?
• How to Cuddle Without Spooning
• Do Guys Like Cuddling?
• The Basis of Cuddling Technique
• Oxytocin: The Real Elixir of Love

And if you’re wondering exactly what in the world you’ve arrived at, please visit our first post. It will explain everything.

…It will explain as much as can be explained.

But, I’ll start with an anecdote. My colleague Kevin and I were having a hug-fest on the streets of Manhattan, along with an acquaintance I’ll call “Robert.” Hug-fests are simple: we just offer hugs to people, and give them if they say they want one. It’s extremely fun. Then we got onto the subway, and, as so often happens on New York subways, a woman entered the car and began making a speech about needing money.

Kevin and I grew up in NYC and have been hardened to these sob stories and pleas, but our friend Robert felt differently. He got up, stood in front of the woman and said “Ma’am, I don’t have any money, but I can give you a hug.”

Needless to say, I was mortified. I have seen panhandlers get angry and aggressive with harmless bystanders. Robert could be hurting her pride or crossing a personal boundary or something else terrible! 

But of course, the woman agreed to the hug and was furthermore totally touched by the gesture. I admitted I was wrong and gave her a hug too. So did Kevin. Within 5 minutes, our whole half of the subway car was hugging each other. It was a beautiful thing and a very pleasant reality check.

Now I always offer a hug to someone asking for money. That is, if I decide that the person is clean enough and not dangerous (even when being generous, we must be good to ourselves). I’ve had many amazing experiences now that I’ve adopted this practice. I’ve had a man cry in my arms while I was waiting for the New Jersey Transit, and a woman who said she had been abused cling to me just a moment longer than I expected.

People need hugs, and the ones who need them the most are often the ones who get them the least.

So I call out to all giving people: LET US BRING HUGS TO THOSE IN NEED! LET US RAIN OXYTOCIN UPON THE COLD CITY OF NEW YORK! AND ALL OVER THE WORLD!

In order to make this fun and official-seeming, I designed the above certificate to be printed and signed by those who wish to join the cuddle revolution. It has been fake authorized by President Barack Obama, but I can do other signatures if you request them by emailing me at birdy@cuddlelabs.com. I will be updating it and posting the new and printable one hopefully tomorrow so WATCH OUT!

We request that anyone who accepts the position of “Giver of Epic Hugs” adhere to the principles of Trust, Consent, and Sincerity. I.e., you must be trustworthy and demonstrate trust when entering another person’s personal space, you must receive consent for any hug offered before engaging, and you must give your hugs with a full two-arm squeeze (being careful not to crush any ribs if you happen to be really strong).

We believe that hugs are more important than money. So donate a hug (official or not) to your local person in need. I assure you they will appreciate it, and they won’t use it to buy drugs.

In the study, OSU scientists swabbed saliva from one partner in each of 23 couples they’d recruited, in order to test for their variant of the gene. They then videotaped them listening as their partner described a difficult time in their lives. Next, the scientists played the videos, muted, for another group of 116 people. They asked this group to rate the recorded partners on kindness, caring, and trustworthiness based solely on body language.

The gene in question can manifest in any of “GG,” “GA,” or “AA” variants. Six out of the 10 partners judged “most prosocial” were found to possess the “GG” genotype for the receptor gene; 9 of the 10 “least trustworthy” partners were found to possess at least one “A” variant.

This is not the first study to implicate this receptor gene in social matters. Previous studies have suggested that the GG genotype makes it more likely that a person will possess high self-esteem; studies also suggest that people with the other genotypes are less adaptive to stress, show greater likelihoods of developing autism-spectrum disorders, and have worse mental-health outcomes.

It is important to note that the gene variations don’t ensure that anyone will have great social skills; nor do they doom anyone to social obscurity. After all, 4 of the 10 social butterflies in the study had at least one A variant of the gene. It’s likely that environmental factors—”nurture”—play a similarly large role in mediating social skill. Our bet is that conditioning the oxytocin response via cuddling might have something to do with it… and so, of course, our prescription for a better life has not changed. In fact, we’re only more adamant than ever before. Cuddle on, everyone!

"Are you going to become a webcomic?"

In upcoming posts, Cuddle Labs will provide a great deal of “cuddling position” posts, suggesting different cuddling techniques and detailing their important features. Because Cuddle Labs is concerned with the optimization of all your physical social contact, these positions will fall into a number of categories. To find out more, read on.

Cuddling Categories
If you want to learn how to cuddle effectively, you’ll have to consider situational factors first and foremost. As an obvious example, the best way to cuddle with a partner in bed will clearly differ from the best way to touch a new acquaintance while standing. In fact, there is a much larger range than that—the best bedtime cuddle will hardly even bear resemblance to the best position for cuddling your partner on the couch. In our estimation, there are approximately four cuddling categories, with occasional shades of gray and subsections:

1) Full Cuddles. Full cuddles are the category that people most often think of when they hear the word “cuddling.” These are the laying-down, all-out, cuddling-is-all-I’m-doing-right-now positions. Classic “spooning” is an example of a full cuddle (albeit an evil one.)

2) Directional Cuddles. These are cuddles more appropriate for when both partners need to be, for whatever reason, facing in the same direction. These provide cuddling opportunities for watching a movie on the couch, when sitting side-by-side (for road-trip/subway/movie-theater applications), or whenever circumstances dictate a fixed position.

3) Quick Cuddles. These are the kinds of contact that we slip into our daily lives, usually without taking particular note of them. Handshakes, hand-holding, hugs, walking arm-in-arm, even just momentarily tapping someone as you speak with them—we consider all of these a part of this category.

4) Cuddle Puddles. These go even further than the “full cuddles,” being cuddling cabals—cute, chaotic constructs consisting of crowded constituents. Cuddle Puddles are groups of three or more cuddlers, and their proper coordination requires considerable technical expertise. (If you’ve ever thought it was hard to get comfortable while cuddling with one person, imagine getting twenty people together, all comfortable and delighted.) Cuddle Puddles are an area in which Cuddle Labs’ mastery seems particularly unrivaled at this time, and we will discuss them with a corresponding level of frequency.

Discussing specific positions within these categories is our first priority at the moment, but if Cuddle Labs’ non-positional posts were more to your liking, have no fear. While the above will make up a large percentage of our posts, we’ll continue to address the social dynamics of cuddling, report on important oxytocin findings, and remark on current cuddling events. We’ll also interview interesting cuddling cases, co-opt information from other fields (stay tuned for massage tips!) and generally just pontificate on cuddling according to our whim.

So if you want to help start the Cuddle Revolution, stay tuned!