This is what this article is NOT about: it's not about forbidding a willing child to sit on Granny's knee, or giving Grandpa a kiss, or cuddling Auntie Kate. It's not about being overly politically correct or trying to stop normal family life.
What it is about is this: children have powerful instincts, and sometimes adults override those instincts for social niceties that suit the adult, not the child. Sometimes children don't want to kiss a relative or family friend, for all sorts of reasons, and yet adults want them to because otherwise it doesn't look nice, or seem polite. In being coerced to kiss or cuddle someone they don't want to, that child is being told that how they feel, what they want to do with their own bodies, doesn't really matter. That an adult's wishes and sensibilities matter more.
And it's a more pernicious action than you might think. If a child gets used to being told their bodies aren't their own, or have no right of refusal, even in something as innocent as kissing grandma, when or if there is malintent from another adult they may not feel strong enough to say no. How are children magically supposed to learn that lesson? You cannot expect a child to acquiesce when you want them to, and then magically grow up to "know their own mind". Knowing their own mind starts with allowing them to speak it.
