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Viliam_Bur comments on European Community Weekend 2014 retrospective - Less Wrong
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Reading when someone is uncomfortable while you hug them is an easier skill then reading it before you hug them. At the weekend Anne was walking around with the written word "cuddle" in addition to the free hugs sticker. I greeted her the first time with what was in her words more of a cuddle then a hug. I could feel that it was too much for the situation and I'm usually calibrated well enough that I don't act in a way that creates that reaction in another person. Enough for me to reduce the amount of physical contact that I initiated in later interaction with other people because I had the feeling that my automatic calibration skills were broken at that point.
A day later Anne came to me to give me feedback and she basically didn't tell me anything I didn't already knew myself. But in case I would have my own feedback loops, that feedback would probably have been quite valuable. Having an environment where it's possible to give that kind of feedback openly is very valuable.
Beforehand I hugged a few guys who I would categorise as someone who's system I says: "Hugging is at the rand of my comfort zone" and who's system II says: "I want to be hugged". For interaction with guys that usually means it's okay to hug them, especially for the rationalist crowd who think their system II is what matters. For male-to-female physical contact on the other hand you usually want that both system I and system II of the woman agrees to the physical contact.
Free hug sign itself don't tell you the line that tells you which intensity of physical contact is welcome and which isn't. They just tell you that you can hug the person. There still the possibility to have to much contact and walking around with the heuristic that you treat people based on their tags, reduces the amount one reacts to body language of other people.
I believe this happens, the question is (a) how much, and (b) whether it is a net improvement or not.
Generally, any situation of "not having to worry about X as much as before" makes people spend less energy on X, and more energy on something else. Historically, since people invented reading and writing, they didn't have to memorize everything, and they stopped memorizing a lot of things -- so these days most people can't recite long sagas from memory and don't remember ten generations of their ancestors. We lost something; but I believe we gained more than we lost. If we decided to spend a lot of time and energy to get this ability back, we probably could; but we prefer to spend that time and energy doing something else. As another example, I heard that some people who were abused have very high ability to read other people's body language; because for them it was a survival skill. (Not sure how reliable is this info, I remember only a fictional evidence.) I think it's not worth paying this price, if one has an option to avoid it.
In the Elevatorgate story I don't think there was an unwelcome hug. On the other hand there was a guy with uncalibrated social skills that were so uncalibrated that they caused a public debate. I don't think hugging tags would have helped in that situation. If the guy in question however would learn to read body language to an extend of being able to tell when a woman gets uncomfortable he would have feedback loops to be calibrated well enough to avoid gross faux pas like the one in Elevatorgate.
I still think that it's good to have the tags at an LW event as they encourage people to hug each other who otherwise wouldn't while allowing those uncomfortable with physical touch to opt out, but they are not a magic solution to all problems. The tags are useful crutches.
Getting asked to be hugged from a person you don't want to hug is a pretty slight inconvenience, I don't think anything that someone would find worthy to start a huge debate about.
What generally helps is giving people social feedback. Verbal feedback to those people who don't understand the nonverbal one.
My priors for that claim being true are low. I would think you got it from the fictional evidence.
Being good at reading body language of other people often has a lot to do with being aware of your own body. Physical abuse often leads to shutting down bodily self awareness to reduce the amount perceived uncomfort.