Japanese and United States cultures differ greatly in the amount of touch considered acceptable between strangers, among family, and in general. We talk about our experiences as Americans being touched a lot less in Japan.

Content Note: Discussion of non-consensual touching

Transcript

K: So, lately I’ve been thinking about the difference in between touching in the United States and touching in Japan, and I get touched far less in Japan than I did in the United States. I feel like in the United States, everyone was always touching me. Like, touching my arm or hugging me. I feel like I met my girls, I hugged, there was just a lot of touching.

C: Yes.

K: Really? “Yes” is all you have for the people?

(laughter)

K: So, touching bothers me less than it bothers you. But being touched does bother me. 

C: Being touched at all bothers you, or just people you don’t know or people you – feeling the social obligation to allow yourself to be touched or…?

K: Feeling a social obligation to allow myself to be touched and… so, I – we don’t do trigger warnings on this show, but…

C: We put content notes on the transcripts, so if you just listen, you don’t get them, but if you check the transcript.

K: This time I’m going to do a trigger warning because most of my life I’ve been touched inappropriately, and, so, if that type of thing is upsetting or triggering for you, you might not want to listen to this episode.

C: Okay.

K: Do you think that’s fair?

C: Yup. Boooooop.

K: Really?

C: Yeah.

K: So, like, that was the exit point was like the weird

C: That was the exit point, yes.

K: Okay. So, something that’s happened to me my entire life is aggressive hugging. And it’s only -0 there’s only been one person in Japan who’s been able to aggressively hug me, and they finally left Japan, and I threw myself a parade that they were gone. I cringed every time I would see them because we weren’t friends, first of all. We’re not friends. We did not like each other, and, I don’t know, maybe they liked me, but they didn’t talk well of me, so, they would, like, say how much they love me to my face then talk trash about me behind my back. So, maybe, personally they liked me, but professionally they didn’t would be the most accurate way?

C: Or maybe they liked you so much they wanted everybody else stay away.

K: Maybe.

C: You’ve had that happen before.

K: Yeah, I have. So… in the United States, this would happen to me quite often, and, in Japan, only happened to me once where somebody would hug me and then press their genitalia against mine. 

C: Mhm.

K: And… in a hug, there’s never any reason that that should ever happen.

C: Yeah.

K: And… also, like, hugging me and then as you release from the hug doing a sideswipe on the boobs. Or hugging and mashing my boobs against them. And, like, sometimes people would give it a rock back and forth, and I just feel like… eww. Every time that happens. And, so, in case anybody’s wondering, yes that’s sexual assault. If you’re touching someone in a sexual way without their consent, that’s sexual assault, and I never consented to that. And it happened to me a lot in the United States, and I always felt guilty and ashamed every time it happened to me. Because I feel like, because it’s been happening to me my whole life, that I should know better and how to avoid it. So, I’m very good at the hip rock out… but, the problem with that for me if I do the hip rock out, I’m doing the protruding of the breasts.

C: Yeah. Just because of the physics of it. 

K: Yeah. So, I try to do the side-hug, but then people usually kiss me. 

C: Mhm.

K: And, so, I don’t know how to – like, now I