人们还像曾经一样的牵手吗？这很难量化。打电话的人比牵手的人更多，某种程度上，我们是在通过电子信号来传递肢体语言。牵手是在公共场合展示爱情的最低调的方式，因此牵手也就比其它看似深切表达爱与浪漫的方式更有意义。牵着某人的手就是给他友爱、保护、安慰，在黑夜中，在散步时，在婚礼上，在葬礼上人们都会这么做。这也是你离开世俗的一种交流方法。什么时候我们可以抽空来牵手？-psytopic.com
一个轻松的秋日午后，在华盛顿广场公园大理石拱门旁边，一对来自于俄亥俄州的夫妻手牵手在漫步，如同两个相互深爱的年轻人，但十年后的“深爱”已经缺少了一些时尚。
当一个陌生人问道，为什么你们在散步的时候要牵手？丈夫，Dave Findlay看着他七年的妻子回答了一个词：“交流”。
或许正如披头士在1963年唱的：“当我对某些事有感觉，我就想牵着你的手。”
这简单的歌词改变了年轻人对渴望以及第一次浪漫的成为别人的No.1的冲击的表达。即使是在贾斯汀以“SexyBack”占据音乐排行榜第一位，数字电视广播中充斥着朦胧的抒情歌曲，在歌曲In da Club里，歌手50 cents唱到“我正在进行性交，但是我并不是在做爱”。(“I’m into havin’ sex,Iain’t into makin’ love” sang 50 cent in “In da Club”)的今天，像Dave和Carey Findlay这样的夫妻，当他们漫步公园，穿过街道，迀回穿过拥挤人群的时候仍然是十指紧扣、双手紧握。
纽约大学社会学系主任，Dalton Conley教授说：“牵手没有受到性解放影响，比起那种公开的同居关系，它更少同性相关。”
现在，牵手已经激起了研究它对人身心影响的科学家们的兴趣。一位性健康教育者说，在这些比以前更多的在公共场合牵手，但仍然需要确定性取向的同性恋学生中，牵手是一个值得讨论的话题。
“我认为在性标准也许会更开放的一段时期内这仍然很重要，”Conley博士说：“这些事情仍然会少量的发生。”
牵着某人的手就是给他友爱、保护、安慰。这是你离开世俗的一种交流方法。简单点说，牵着伴侣的手穿过拥挤人群是一个有效的方法。在黑夜中，在前进中，在婚礼上，在葬礼上人们都会这么做。
通常这意味着夫妻关系是健康的，甜蜜的。在一些极端事例上，它表现出额外的力量。比如，去年在德克萨斯的Crawford举行的阿拉伯国家尊重友爱活动上，布什总统握着沙特阿拉伯王子Abdullah的手，使人们想起电影“华氏911”，电影描述了布什家族停止了依赖沙特阿拉伯领导人的生意，这点燃了阴谋活动。
但是，很少有事情能够比一个孩子拉父母的手更纯真了，为了保护、方向和Findlay所说的交流。随着现在孩子们越来越像，他们明显与父母更亲密，你已经了发现母亲和她的十多岁的女儿甚至是父亲与他的青春期儿子手拉手逛商场，快速穿过人行横道或者是漫步的机会。
成年后的孩子与他们年迈的父母仍然需要牵手，为了平衡，提供支持，作为爱的信号。
对浪漫的夫妻，对牵手的看法就如同指纹一样复杂。但是大部分人都同意这只是发生了小小的改变，并没有失去对它的喜爱。
“我认为大学生确实只是像以往一样牵手，”在Orono的缅因州大学的家庭关系和人类性行为教授Sandra L.Caron说。
如果他们这样做了，那他们只是深深的陷入了一段关系，并不是在浪漫萌发的早期，牵手只是恋人亲密行为的第一步。这就是披头士所描写的牵手。(通过性解放尽快跟上，就如同滚石的圣歌‘今夜让我们在一起’)
在缅因州大学超过一半的学生中流传着一个广为人知的道理：牵手是在公共场合展示爱情的最低调的方式，因此牵手也就比其它看似深切表达爱与浪漫的方式更有意义。
23岁的Joel Kershner说，现在，牵手比亲吻更亲密。因为在今天，牵手比在酒精横流的聚会上的亲吻潜在的包含着更多的拒绝。
20岁的Libby Tyler说，牵手相当的严肃这事感觉不可思议，但这是事实。这是你为某些事情做准备，她说。
22岁的Rachel Peters说，没有什么其它的事情可以让人们牵手，通常只有人们确定了他们的恋爱关系他们才会牵手。
学生们说，如果这还不够复杂，选择在哪里牵手同样具有深义。
21岁的Drew Fitzherbert说，公共场合的牵手不仅仅是对你的伴侣表达你的承诺，而是这个团体中的其它所有人。
纽约大学的Conley博士同意这种说法。“在漆黑的剧院中和在宿舍中，牵手是完全不同的社交行为。”他说。
人们还像曾经一样的牵手吗？这很难量化。伊萨卡岛科内尔大学的心理咨询与服务中心主管Gregory T. Eells并不这样认为。
“我看到打电话的人比牵手的人更多，”他说，“某种程度上，我们是在通过电子信号交易真实的有接触和肢体语言的面对面的关系。”
哥伦比亚大学的社会经济与政策研究学会的主管、社会学教授Peter Shawn Bearman说，在如纽约这样拥挤的城市牵手简直是不切实际。
“比起把牵手作为一个浪漫的信号，或许人口密度与牵手比例的下降了有更大关系。”他在e-mail中写道。
不管牵手的地位如何改变，我们都有很好的理由来培养这个习惯，因为你可以通过在你口袋中紧握伴侣的手来传递祝愿给他。
“根据我们的观察，多一些身体上的亲昵可以让双方关系更好，不管是母亲与婴儿之间还是夫妻之间，”迈阿密大学医学院触觉研究中心主管Tiffany Field说。
有时甚至连猴子也知道四肢紧握的重要性。在“好脾气：人类和其它动物的正确、错误观念的起源”中，埃莫瑞大学的灵长目动物学家(primatelogist)Frans B.M.de Waal博士写道，猴子在打架后会握手言和。
心理学副教授James Coan和维吉尼亚大学的神经系统科学毕业生项目已经研究了人类触觉的影响，特别在对危险情境中触觉如何影响神经反应，最近研究的结果相当的超出他们的预期。
“我们发现同任何一个真实的人握手，都会让你的大脑减少一些辛苦的处理工作。”Coan博士说，任何形式的握手都能够放松身体。
将发表于今年《心理科学》的一项研究，选择了16对夫妻，这些夫妻都通过了详细的问卷调查以确定他们的婚姻状况是良好的。将妻子放在核磁共振机器中，告诉她们，她们的脚踝将会受到温和的电击。在预期痛苦时，大脑图像显示这些妇女的大脑区域的很活跃，当他们的丈夫站在机器旁边时，与此相关的消极情绪有所降低。
“当你的配偶拉着你的时候，你就停止觉察周围其它的危险信号，你开始感觉到很安全，”领导此项研究的Coan博士说。“如果你身处一段浓烈的关系中，也许你可以远离病痛，应激激素也会对你的免疫系统有毁灭性的影响。”
这也许就是为什么那么多人渴求它的原因。
博客和在线论坛中总是充斥着抱怨，人们抱怨他们的重要他人不想牵他们的手。一名妇女在www.lovingyou.com网站“爱的建议”论坛中留言：“当我们外出，我们总是有一些牢骚，其中一个困扰我的就是在公共场合他从来都不牵我的手。”
对老年夫妻而言，放手也许是他们时间紧迫和过度陷于这种小的亲昵行为中的信号。
“什么时候我们可以抽空来牵手？”科内尔大学的Eells博士在谈到他15年的婚姻时说：“不会经常有。”
夫妻经常都是穿梭于孩子上学放学的途中，忙于自己的业余活动，不会像Georges Seurat画中的人物一样在公园漫步，即使有时上天会提供这样的机会。
Eells博士说，最近，他和他9岁的女儿在她的啦啦队活动结束后遇到了倾盆大雨，两个人手拉手一起冲入雨中，当他们最终钻进车里的时候，这个全身透湿的女孩对她的父亲叹息到：“真是太可怕了。”
附原文阅读：A Simple Show of Hands
When a stranger asked why they had chosen to join hands during their stroll, the man, Dave Findlay, looked at his wife of seven years and answered in a word: “Connection.”
Or as the Beatles sang back in 1963: “When I’ll feel that something, I want to hold your hand.”
Those simple lyrics turned an expression of teenage longing and first romantic steps into a No. 1 hit. Yet today, when Justin Timberlake is at the top of the charts with “SexyBack” and the digital airwaves are filled with steamy lyrical declarations (“I’m into havin’ sex, I ain’t into makin’ love” sang 50 Cent in “In da Club”), couples like Dave and Carey Findlay still intertwine fingers, kiss palms and link pinkies as they meander through parks, cross streets and snake through crowds.
“Hand-holding is the one aspect that’s not been affected by the sexual revolution,” said Dalton Conley, a professor and chairman of the department of sociology at New York University. “It’s less about sex than about a public demonstration about coupledom.”
Nowadays hand-holding has attracted the interest of scientists who are studying its effects on the body and mind. And sexual health educators say it is a much-discussed topic among gay students who now publicly hold hands more than ever before but still must consider whether they want to declare their sexuality.
“I think it remains more important in an era of perhaps more liberal sexual norms,” Dr. Conley said. “It remains this thing to be doled out.”
To hold someone’s hand is to offer them affection, protection or comfort. It is a way to communicate that you are off the market. Practically speaking, it is an efficient way to squeeze through a crowd without losing your partner. People do it during vigils, marches, weddings and funerals.
Usually it connotes something innocuous and sweet about a couple and their relationship. In rare instances, it takes on added potency, such as when President George W. Bush held the hand of Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in Crawford, Tex., last year — an act of respect and affection in Arab countries — reminding some people of the film “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which depicted the Bush family’s close business ties to Saudi leaders and which ignited conspiracy theories.
But, over all, few things are more innocent than a child grabbing the hand of a parent, for protection, direction and, as Mr. Findlay put it, connection. And with many children these days closer and more outwardly affectionate to their parents, chances are you have spotted a mother and her teenage daughter and perhaps even a father and his adolescent son ambling through a mall, scurrying through a crosswalk or strolling along, hand in hand.
Adult children and their elderly parents also hold hands, for balance, support and as a sign of love.
As for romantic couples, the opinions about hand-holding are as varied as fingerprints. But most people agree that it has merely changed, not lost favor.
“I think that for sure college students hold hands just like the old days,” said Sandra L. Caron, a professor of family relations and human sexuality at the University of Maine in Orono.
If they do, it is likely only after they are deep into a relationship — not in those early days of budding romance, when a touch of hands was the first act of intimacy between a couple. That was the hand-holding that the Beatles wrote about. (Followed swiftly by the sexual revolution, whose equivalent anthem might be The Rolling Stones’ “Let’s Spend the Night Together.”)
Among more than a half-dozen students at the University of Maine, there seemed to be two universal truths: that hand-holding is the least nauseating public display of affection and that holding hands has become more significant than other seemingly deeper expressions of love and romance.
“It is a lot more intimate to hold hands nowadays than to kiss,” said Joel Kershner, 23. Because of that, he said, reaching for someone’s hand these days has more potential for rejection than leaning in for a smooch at a party where alcohol is flowing.
Libby Tyler, 20, said it was “weird that hand-holding is more serious,” but true. “It’s something that you lead up to,” she said.
There is nothing casual about it any more, said Rachel Peters, 22. “Hand-holding is something that usually people do once they’ve confirmed they’re a couple,” she said.
But if that is not complicated enough, where you choose to hold hands also has meaning, the students said.
Drew Fitzherbert, 21, said that public hand-holding “shows that commitment not only to you and your partner but everyone else in the community.”
Dr. Conley of N.Y.U. agreed. “In the dark movie theater, in the dorm room, that’s a very different social act,” he said.
Are people holding hands as much as they once did? That’s impossible to quantify. But Gregory T. Eells, the director of counseling and psychological services at Cornell University in Ithaca, said he didn’t think so.
“I see more people on their cellphone than holding hands,” he said, adding, “To some extent we are trading real face-to-face relationships, where there’s touch and body language, for electronic ones.”
Peter Shawn Bearman, a professor of sociology and the director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University, said that hand-holding in crowded cities like New York may simply be impractical.
“Maybe if the proportion of hand-holders has indeed gone down it has more to do with density (of humans) than the devaluing of hand-holding as a romantic signal,” he wrote in an e-mail message.
Whatever degree of hand-holding may be happening, there are good reasons to cultivate the habit — reasons would-be hand-graspers may wish to pass along to their hands-in-pockets partners.
“Based on what we’ve seen, when we get more physical intimacy we get better relationships, whether a mother and an infant or a couple,” said Tiffany Field, the director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami School of Medicine.
Even monkeys understand the importance of a hand squeeze every now and then. In “Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals,” Dr. Frans B. M. de Waal, a primatologist at Emory University, wrote that some monkeys hold hands in reconciliation after a fight.
James Coan, an assistant professor of psychology and the neuroscience graduate program at the University of Virginia, has studied the impact of human touch, particularly how it affects the neural response to threatening situations, and said the results of a recent study were more dramatic than he expected.
“We found that holding the hand of really anyone, it made your brain work a little less hard in coping,” Dr. Coan said, adding that any sort of hand-holding relaxes the body.
The study, which will be published this year in the journal Psychological Science, involved 16 couples who were rated happily married based on the answers in a detailed questionnaire. The wives were put inside an M.R.I. machine and were told they were to receive mild electric shocks to an ankle. Brain images showed that regions of the women’s brains that had been activated in anticipation of pain and that were associated with negative emotions decreased when their husbands reached into the machine.
“With spouse hand-holding you also stop looking for other signs of danger and you start feeling more secure,” said Dr. Coan, who led the study. “If you’re in a really strong relationship, you may be protected against pain and stress hormones that may have a damaging effect on your immune system.”
Perhaps it is why so many people crave it.
Blogs and online forums are rife with complaints of those who say their significant other does not want to hold hands. “When we go out, we always have a blast, but the one thing that bothers me is that he never holds my hand in public,” writes a woman on a “love advice” forum on www.lovingyou.com.
For older couples, letting go of hand-holding may be one more sign that they are pressed for time and too swamped for little acts of intimacy.
“When do we make time to hold hands?,” said Dr. Eells of Cornell, talking about his own marriage of 15 years. “Not very often.”
The couple is often busy shuttling children to and from school and extracurricular activities, not strolling through parks like characters in a Georges Seurat painting.
Sometimes, though, even errands provide opportunities. Recently, Dr. Eells said, he and his 9-year-old daughter were caught in a downpour after her cheerleading practice. The two grabbed hands and raced off into the rain together. When they finally splashed over to the car, the damp girl turned her face to her father. “That was awesome,” she sighed.
翻译：Roger/原文：STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM《纽约时报》
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(感谢网友Guest和thresher指正，原译文已修改。)
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