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SUNDAY, 12 MARCH, 2000, PHILADELPHIA | |
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Consider the handshake. No, I mean, really consider it. Examine and ponder upon it for so long that it becomes meaningless, like saying a word over and over until you just can’t believe that word ever made any sense. In a society which oppresses physical contact between its citizens, strangers especially, the handshake in an anomoly for it breaks this taboo and requests that participants, usually less intimate participants, fondle each other for a moment. How bizarre. To see political figures or clouted execs in the throes of a handshake — highest members of “civilisation” such as it is — is an interesting paradox, for handshaking is animal. I can see little difference between a handshake, and dogs sniffing each others’ butts. Well, okay, there is a difference. And maybe even a big ass difference, but in essence, the handshake’s foundation is equally animal. There are some tribes in West Africa whom I would be hard pressed to name that have their own special version of a “handshake” wherein the participants briefly waggle each others’ penises as a sign of greeting and respect. If a handshake is meant to instill warmth and comraderie between two people, perhaps we might do well to learn a trick or two from an obscure tribe in West Africa, eh? More fun that butt-sniffing, at any rate. See what happens when I don’t do my research before writing? This bit comes from the inestimable Mordantia Bat who writes: The handshake’s origins came from the medieval period or thereabouts and the purpose of the gesture was a greeting exchange designed to assure the two handshakers that the other did not have a weapon hidden up their sleeve.
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