Now Allowed to Hug

From sharp panic to pleasant surprise.

Penny: Leonard, Sheldon's hugging me!

Leonard: It's a Saturnalia miracle!

— The Big Bang Theory

There are many reasons why someone Hates Being Touched, which are explored in depth on that trope's page. In addition, they may be operating on Real Men Hate Affection or they're an Affection-Hating Kid.

However, a clear sign of Character Development, such as a Defrosting Ice Queen or Cracks in the Icy Façade, is when they will now allow someone to make contact with them without protest. Often The Defroster will be the first given permission to hug them.

In instances without Foreshadowing or singular events, it may overlap with O.O.C. Is Serious Business. May happen to Tsundere characters.

May overlap If It's You, It's Okay. May also be a form of Friendship Moment.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Freezing: Female lead Satellizer El Bridget Hates Being Touched due to a Dark and Troubled Past involving sex abuse by her half-brother. Kazuya manages to gradually get her to relax a bit from the fearsome image she's cultivated at West Genetics to protect herself, and by the E-Pandora arc, she's a lot less hostile to physical contact.
• My-HiME: Natsuki has a dislike of being touched, though not as pronounced as most examples. But after the HiME Festival is over, she is on the receiving end of The Glomp from Shizuru during Mai's karaoke celebration. She's initially startled, but subsequent shots show Shizuru with her arm around Natsuki's shoulder, and Natsuki being alright with it.
• Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon: Lillie had a crippling fear of being touched by Pokémon, despite her fondness for them as a researcher, due to her childhood trauma from being nearly abducted by a Nihilego when she stumbled upon one of Faba's experiments. But throughout the series, she has slowly mustered the courage to become more comfortable with touching Pokémon ever since she took an Alolan Vulpix she named Snowy into her care. Once she makes peace with her Dark and Troubled Past with some help from Ash, she becomes very receptive to physical contact with Pokémon.

Comic Books

• All-New Wolverine: Laura, as a former victim of sex trafficking, has a noted hatred of being touched. So after she takes out a drone and crashes to the ground, Angel goes to hug her, and she stops him. He immediately apologizes, saying he should have remembered her past. She shakes her head, saying it's not because of her previous issues, but because she's got several broken bones and her healing factor is still knitting her back together. By way of compromise, Angel pats her head.
  Angel: Awkward?
  Laura: So much. (Angel stops. Laura smiles ruefully) I didn't say to stop.

Fan Works

• Peeking Through the Fourth Wall: At the end of Episode 29, the siblings on the couch are so touched by the story (that depicts one of them, Lynn, at age two cheering her baby brother Lincoln up from a nightmare by sleeping in his crib and acknowledging for the first time that she's his big sister) that they have a Group Hug. Lucy, despite usually disliking displays of affection, joins in because she's just that emotional.

Film — Animation

• The LEGO Batman Movie: Batman stops Robin from hugging him twice throughout the movie, the first time he misinterprets it as an attack. However, when Batman says goodbye to his family as he believes he has to go back to the Phantom Zone, he finally allows Robin to hug him.
• Treasure Planet:At first, Jim tells B.E.N. not to hug him. After they survive the titular planet's destruction, he finally allows him to do it.

Film — Live-Action

• In Spider-Man: Homecoming, when Tony is dropping Peter off at his home, he reaches past Peter to open the door. Peter mistakes this for a hug, and Tony tells him they're not there yet. This would become a Brick Joke in Avengers: Endgame where Tony fully embraces Peter in a hug after the latter had been blipped for five years.

Literature

• Origami Yoda: Dwight is often noted to be extremely averse to physical contact, especially when it comes to hugging. However, he does make an exception on one occasion; when he's distraught that the cafeteria has discontinued Rib-B-Qs (his Trademark Favorite Food), Lunchman Jeff gives him a box of them. Dwight is so overjoyed that he hugs him, much to everyone's surprise.

Live-Action TV

• Abbott Elementary: From the start of the series, the emotive and enthusiastic Jacob attempts to befriend the more serious and reserved Gregory, with Gregory being reluctant partially out of professionalism and partially due to finding Jacob weird. However, over the course of the series, after getting to know each other better and working together the two get genuinely closer. In the season two finale, after Gregory talks to Jacob about his feelings for Janine and confides the fact they kissed at Pexa weekend, with Jacob encouraging him to tell her how he feels, the two share a brief "bro hug" as a sign of how far they've come.
• Astrid: Invoked by Astrid, who normally Hates Being Touched because one of her autism symptoms is hypersensitivity to sensory stimuli. This causes a problem when she decides she wants to try having a First Kiss with her boyfriend Tetsuo, who fortunately is a very Understanding Boyfriend. In the end, she starts by asking him to close his eyes and remain very still so that she can control the contact.
• The Big Bang Theory: Sheldon dislikes hugging people, though as he notes to President Seibert in one episode, it's not a touch phobia, it's a germ phobia. However, there are two occasions where he hugs people.
  • In one Christmas Episode, Sheldon has gotten a large number of gift baskets for Penny in order to prepare for whatever gift she gives him. His plan is to give her the gift basket equivalent to the gift she gives him, then returns the rest. When she reveals that her gift is a napkin signed by Leonard Nimoy, he gives her all of the gift baskets, and declares it's not enough. He then offers her a sincere and heartfelt hug.
  • In another episode, Sheldon guilts Penny into giving up her place on a trip with Leonard to Switzerland to see the Large Hadron Collider. Sheldon gives her a hug. This actually causes him to miss out on the trip, because Penny was already carrying a flu bug, and Sheldon caught it from her. Sheldon and Penny are stuck together on Valentine's Day, while Leonard ended up having to take Raj to Switzerland.
• La que se avecina: Amador, one of whose catchphrases is "Don't touch. Why do you touch?" said to Leo, in an episode in which the latter buys the ground floor apartment for him, Amador tells Leo "Touch as much as you want" and hugs him. However, in later episodes he's back to using that catchphrase.
• In Doom Patrol (2019), Jane really, really hates being touched due to her history of being sexually abused, and for much of the first two seasons, reacts violently when anyone tries to touch her. As she becomes more integrated with her original persona, Kay, she allows for more affection from those she knows, like Cliff (her surrogate big brother/father figure) and Dorothy (her surrogate little sister). After being fully integrated as "Kaleidoscope" in the penultimate episode, she not only initiates a hug with Cliff, but also initiates a kiss with her new girlfriend Casey.
• The Good Doctor: On Claire's farewell from the St. Bonaventure, Shaun lets her hug him.
• Odd Squad: Otis is largely averse to shows of affection like hugs, opting for polite handshakes instead. In the Season 2 finale, he starts to give a handshake to Oprah, only for her to refuse it and tell him to "bring it in." He willingly obliges, joining in a Group Hug with his coworkers.
• Scrubs: After spending the entire show denying JD the hug he's wanted for so long, Dr. Cox finally consents to one in, what would later be, the Series Fauxnale.
• Wednesday: Throughout the series, Wednesday consistently forbids anyone from physically touching her, which grates especially hard on her roommate, the extremely affectionate Enid. After the climax of the last episode, wherein Enid saves Wednesday from a rather gruesome death, the two are reunited and Enid gives her a big ol' hug of relief, only to remember Wednesday's boundaries and starts pulling back. However, Wednesday, after a moment of hesitation, hugs her back.

Video Games

• Baldur's Gate III: Once Karlach gets her second upgrade and is no longer physically dangerous to touch, the player has the option to hug her.
• Death Stranding: Sam is not only an asocial loner, he also suffers from aphenphosmphobia and appears to have a genuine allergic reaction to physical contact (simply touching his skin with a bare hand is enough to bruise it). However, his massive journey to reunite the post-apocalyptic remains of America gradually defrosts his cold, untrusting exterior, and his increasing willingness to connect with others pays off in a big way during the climax: as Amelie — who Sam has known as his sister — is revealed to be the final Extinction Entity, Sam thwarts the Final Stranding by putting away his guns and hugging her, convincing her that there's still much for Earth and humanity to live for through love and forming connections, successfully delaying the end times.
• Spiritfarer has Elena, a spirit who dislikes physical affection and the only spirit in-game whose mood decreases if hugged. Upon completing her quests and taking her to the Everdoor to pass on, Elena audibly considers hugging you before accepting one just before moving on.

Webcomics

• El Goonish Shive: Susan, as part of her Defrosting Ice Queen arc, went from not wanting to be touched (let alone hugged) to trying to get over her discomfort, and eventually succeeding.

Web Video

• Multiverse Tales: "Unkillable" Kate Bleickur Hates Being Touched, stemming from years of growing up in a nightmarish prison dimension full of supervillains, which taught her to see everything around her as a direct danger to her life, including physical contact (except for hugging her young friend Ana Fenz). In a gender-switched dynamic of Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl, Sterling Engeal starts helping Kate adjust to life outside of prison and to teach her how to let go of such an unhealthy mindset. While the process is naturally slow-going, by the time of The Soul of the Enemy, she's progressed enough that she's the one who initiates her and Sterling's first hug, as a way of relieving her Anger Born of Worry due to him recently visiting Dresden Oakland, the warden of her former prison, without telling anyone about it beforehand. Sterling's reaction heavily contributes to the growing Ship Tease between the two. Further proof of Kate's emotional growth is in The Broken Hero, where, when Sterling is the one having a Heroic BSoD after a really cruel decision of Dresden's, Kate decides to repay the emotional help he's given to her before by intimately touching him above his heart, and then helping him begin to heal by having the two sleep platonically together with his arms wrapped around her for the night. All of which shows the positive influence Sterling's had on Kate.

Western Animation

• In Ed, Edd n Eddy, Eddy is known to greatly dislike being touched, even by Ed and Double D. However, come the finale movie after Ed saves Eddy from his sadistic and cruel Big Brother Bully and Double D goes to see if he's alright, he lets his guard down and allows him to help him up and hold his hands.
• Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous: Yasmina states that she's not really a hugger. But Cuddle Bug Sammy insists anyway. As the two grow closer, Yas is shown being more comfortable and welcoming of the hugs, especially after Sammy has a brush with death after their encounter with the Scorpius Rex.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Ember is the first dragon beside Spike that shows she is willing to give friendship a chance, but due to not fully understanding it or some of the more "mushy" sides to it she has a few rough times with it. She most notably is confused when Spike hugs her for the first time, noting that she doesn't think that she likes it. This attitude towards hugs persists in her later appearances, showing shock or annoyance whenever Spike or someone else hugs her. Though she still allows herself to be hugged regardless of her feelings towards it, and when hugged by Spike she always responds with an Affectionate Gesture to the Head. By the time of Season 8 though she has now gotten used to it, no longer complaining about it like she used to and showing little to no signs of visual annoyance at it.
• Skylanders Academy: Stealth Elf says that she hates public displays of affection (despite sometimes doing it herself), but in "Space Invaders", she lets a group hug with her friends pass after they went through the whole episode thinking she had died.

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