Is hugging wrong?

[horuhe00]

I love hugs, I give hugs, I need hugs! Even to my guy friends! I've noticed it's a cultural thing because we Puertoricans and most latins are very expresive. Americans, on the other hand, always get akward with all our displays of affection.
Hugs can have many meanings and mean many things. One of them is lust, but that's only one of them.

 

[stevezak11]

There is nothing wrong with a casual hug!!!!

 

[natanya]

It seems that most people are in support of casual hugging.

We have to take into account the second part of the friend's statement- a hug can turn a guy on. It has nothing to do with whether he is out of control or a bad Christian. It has more to do with maybe his age, how he feels about the woman he is hugging and (according to what I have heard from guys) what her body is like. Hugging a skinny friend from church camp is different from hugging the curvy woman you met at a conference and would like to date.

Hugs are great- if they are a part of your culture and a part of your church relationship that is fine. Just don't support it because it gives you a chance to touch someone of the opposite sex. Remember that not everything that is permitted is beneficial and that we should avoid anything that makes someone else's walk with God more difficult. The hug may mean nothing to us but what does it mean to the other person?

 

[HoosierCanuck]

hugs are alright. what is a 'side hug?' I didn't grow up in an affectionate family so getting lots of hugs in church is still awkward to me to a point even after all of these years. However, when I get there and people want to hug I just put it out of my mind and think "this person needs a hug" rather than "aaak! My space!!!" I still feel kind of weird when one of the elders goes to give me a hug because my former church was so weird about me being single....like I had the plague. However, these people mostly have been married as long as I've been alive so I don't think there is anything inherently strange going on. I'm usually sensitive to things like that so I'd shy away if I thought there was.

 

[Tink]

Can we have a huge CF hugfest for those of us who are not convicted about hugging? YAY!

 

[bithiah2]

I'm apart of church and campus ministry in which everyone hugs each other before getting down to business and before leaving (you even get hugs on the way into church before you sit, if you see someone from the ministry you know walking around, you just hug them).

So I was telling a guy friend this and he was like "Guys shouldn't be hugging girls" and I was like "Why?" He said that basically it arouses them physically, and guys and girls should not especially have a full frontal hug (his partial reasoning being that women have breast and feeling that pressed againsta man's body can make his mind go places he did not intend). He says that even if he is not aware, feeling a woman's body may trigger things for him mentally or even physically. He emphasized that even the most disciplined man has trouble with this. He says all that hugging can be a stumbling block. He said that side hugs are "ok" but really guys and girls shouldn't be touching at all.

Is this true fellas? Is hugging wrong?

Girls can answer this too.

-September.

well the Bible says if your right hand offends you, cut it off! Matthew 5:30...if hugging causes you to sin, then don't do it.
so, your friend should not hug anyone until he gets free. i believe it all depends on the type of hug and the motivation behind it. there is a right and wrong way to do anything, i am not into hugging everyone i see, but i will speak. there is nothing wrong with a "side hug' or shoulder to shoulder but as i said, if a person has a problem with their flesh, then even a handshake would set him or her off.
blessings
bithiah2

 

[sherri]

There's nothing wrong with hugging a guy friend unless he's battling hormones at the time but a place where 'everybody' hugs constantly? Thats kind of a touch fest for males.

It's not a very healthy environment for a guy to be constantly touching and hugging girl after girl.