Platonic tree-hugging is a fetish practised by many green/climate academics. It was celebrated in a piece by Charles Sturt lecturer Shelby Gull Laird at the monoversity and taxpayer-funded (but anti-free speech) outlet The Conversation. “Are we all tree-huggers?” she asked. Her suggestions include “Spend some time sitting under a tree. And if you’re so inclined, maybe even give it a cuddle.”
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The global arts community is not always into trees platonically. Minnesota’s Conceptual Artist Genevieve Belleveau, daughter of an environmental educator, has described her psychedelic drug-enhanced tree affairs, starting with a birch tree at age eight:
"Fascination, and love, and the sense that the tree accepted my feelings—that even if she didn’t love me back, exactly, she was receptive to my love for her… kissing her and hugging her I felt a kind of shame afterwards, because I did that to a living entity without its consent … I don’t think it’s that bad that I humped the tree or whatever.”
