Thursday 22 March 2012

Hand-Kissing and 'Chivalry'

Something that I absolutely detest is strangers kissing my hand. I have never seen this happen to a someone who is presenting as a man, not once. I have seen it happen to people presenting as women numerous times, and I've experienced it myself far too often. My discomfort with it is partly based on its genderedness - I hate behaviours that so clearly separate 'men' from 'women', particularly when it's someone else who is behaving in this way, so I can't do anything to change it.

However, it's also just plain unpleasant. A stranger's lips on my skin? No! Why? I understand that this is culturally condoned behaviour, and that in many cultures (including ours, it seems), it is considered acceptable and possibly even polite to do this. But I just ... can't take it. A handshake I can take; even, in some circumstances, a hug. But hand-kissing is different, and the difference is that, for the most part, you don't have a choice when someone kisses your hand. In my experience people grip your hand really quite hard, and resist your pulling it away.

I was in the Embankment Gardens last week with a date. We were sitting on the grass in the last of the sunshine, chatting. We were approached by a man with a collecting tin who held out his hand to my friend and, when she took it, he first shook it and then kissed it. When he held out his hand to me, I said "please don't kiss my hand" and held out my hand. He took it and tried to kiss it, so I pulled my hand back saying "don't kiss my hand". My friend gave him some money and told him to be well. I reluctantly put a few coins into his tin, not wanting to look mean since my friend had given him something. He took my hand again and tried to kiss it. I wrenched my hand away and repeated the only words I'd said to him since he approached us. He backed off. He looked at us. He waved his hand vaguely in our direction. "Lesbians?" We stared at him. "Lesbians, cool. Gays, urgh, they can fuck off. Lesbians ok."*

OK, so that guy was hateful. I guess not everybody who tries to kiss your hand is like that. But, to me, that experience kind of epitomises the reasons that I'm uncomfortable with it. The people who kiss your hand don't give you the choice, and they don't accept that touching you should be your choice as well as theirs. Hand-kissing says "I am entitled to touch you". It says (usually) "I'm a man and you're a woman, so this is ok". It says "This kind of behaviour pedestalises you, and women like being pedestalised, so this is ok". I don't like the distancing that it involves, the implication that we are so different. A handshake is equality; a hand-kiss is hierarchy. I don't like the implication that I should be flattered or pleased, that I should giggle or blush or feel pretty and delicate. It's pretty much the same reason I don't like most acts of 'chivalry', when 'chivalry' means men performing kind acts for women because he's a man and she's a woman, not because he's a kind person that likes opening doors for people regardless of their gender. Chivalry implies difference, implies distance - implies strength on one side and weakness on the other. Hand-kissing is those things too, but with added nonconsensual touching. My favourite.

*I'd be interested to know why that guy read us as lesbians. Did we look like lesbians? It's not unlikely. Or was it because I didn't want him to kiss my hand? Perhaps he's an old fashioned guy, who saw 'bodily autonomy' and thought 'feminist' and therefore 'man-hating' and therefore 'lesbian'. And by "old-fashioned", I of course mean "dickhead". 

10 comments:

  1. About the "strangers lips on my skin" bit... The etiquette of hand-kissing used to be that the touch of lips was purely symbolic and as light as possible. Nowadays so light that the lips aren't actually supposed to even touch the skin. So most people who insist on kissing hands are very likely doing it completely wrong. They probably adopted the habit because they think it makes them look chivalrious and dignified and helps them get more women. With that line of thinking, it's no wonder some of them get so pissy if their advances are rejected.

    The thing about chivalry really is that it's discrimination at its core. Women are so fragile and dainty and saintly that they can't be allowed to do anything on their own, but need a strong mighty man to do it. People who cite chivalry as their only reason for normal, everyday politeness are basically saying "without this tradition that says my penis is small if I act unchivalriously I would totally beat up women and men left and right."

    -Sunatic

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    1. Lol quite, Sunatic. "I am very powerful, but I will use my power to *protect* you feeble lil ladies" - charming.

      I didn't know about the 'symbolic' thing. I can honestly say that nobody who has ever tried to kiss my hand has done it 'symbolically'!

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  2. But kissing the hand of a woman or a man (in some cases, that also happens priests etc) might also indicate respect (or even submission). It does not always mean that woman are sweet little things and as a man I am treating them as such, but it can be seen as I am submitting to the authority and power to a woman. Just a thought.

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    1. Interesting angle. How would the woman (or man) know that you were indicating respect or submission? I know what you mean - I'm thinking of old films where subjects kiss the king's hand, for example - but I think we have a much more recent cultural understanding of its meaning, which is that of men kissing women's hands as a misguided kind of gallantry, and we can't so easily separate the action from its (most recent) meaning. It also still plays into that pedestalisation that I was talking about above, and whether you are kissing a someone's hand to imply that they are a 'sweet little thing' or that they have 'authority and power', you are still imposing a role on them that they haven't had any say in. I think perhaps it is also to do with the context - whereas in previous times we might have kissed the hands of people we 'knew', therefore also knowing the power exchange involved (kings, for example), nowadays we kiss the hands of strangers or acquaintances, and so we have to default to the most common meaning of the action.

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  3. But how does the woman (or man) know that you were not indicating respect or submission or anything else for that matter? Don't you also impose a role upon someone who does kiss your hand? Don't you also impose a role upon someone who does not want to be kissed? And how 'common' is this kind of act recently to have a default 'most common meaning of the action'? I personally did not have anyone kissing my hand instead I had kissed and it was expected from me to kiss the hands of elders and priests as a sign of respect.

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    1. If a hand-kiss is expected of you as a sign of respect, then obviously all parties involved know the meaning of the action, and there is no problem with it. The difference is when only one person out of the two involved knows what they mean - the other person (the person being kissed) has no way of knowing if the person kissing them means "I respect /submit to you", "I think you're great", "I think you're a sweet little thing", "I want to kiss you and I know that this is more socially condoned than kissing your mouth", or any other reason.

      The point is that I wouldn't impose myself on other people in this way, and I would like it if nobody imposed it on me (or anybody else). I'm not imposing a role on anyone by disliking being kissed - if someone kisses my hand, *they* are responsible for the action and how it can be interpreted.

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  4. You really base your opinion of hand-kissing on this experience? That is absolutely ridiculous heterosexual man-hating logic! When I kiss a woman's hand, it has nothing to do with sexual domination or sexist values. It is out of respect and admiration, and most heterosexual women appreciate this gentle gesture, as opposed to someone shoving his beer-soaked tongue down their throat. This is just hate-speech and a terrible talking point. Extreme feminist assumptions like these are annoying and are progressively making the world a duller place to live. I am truly sorry for whatever happened to you to make you feel this way toward the opposite sex, but I'm tired of keeping my mouth shut when sexist drivel keeps spewing out, just to be politically correct. I support civil rights, but men and women ARE different. If you can't handle it, try a different planet. People are being nice to you in this thread, and that's just further enabling your hatred of men. I'm just being straight up and call out your bullshit for what it is: A thinly veiled sexist rant.

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    1. Well said, Anonymous! I am a happily married woman, and a friend of ours often kissed my hand. I loved it. It's a gallant, gentlemanly thing to do. How lovely if there was more of it. Personally, I love that protected, cherished feeling it imparts. I, too, am sick and tired of sexist rants. So there.

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  5. Should a friend be kissing a married woman's hand.... can it be used as an act of slow seduction?

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  6. I was just reading how even in the Victorian Age, a man must not kiss a woman's hand unless her hand is actually proferred to him for kissing. He may initiate such a sequence by holding his own hand out palm-up, but must never grab the hand -- and (yes, even in 19th c) if her hand is held in "hand-shaking" position, he must shake her hand, not kiss it.

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