This is one of my favorite topics.
I've alluded to it before in a prior OP.
This article from The Good Men Project highlighted some concepts I've ruminated before: "Touch Isolation: How Homophobia Has Robbed All Men Of Touch".
We could argue that it wasn't "homophobia," but rather the advent of "homosexuality" as an unabashed "identity" that led to this, but it's not necessarily relevant to the crux of the OP.
As a woman who dates men, I've noticed, and many of my female friends have noticed, that men rely on their female SOs for literally all intimacy. And that oftentimes it's a bit of a burden to be the single outlet he has for emotional intimacy, romantic intimacy, platonic intimacy, etc...
Gentle platonic touch is central to the early development of infants. It continues to play an important role throughout men and women’s lives in terms of our development, health and emotional well being, right into old age. When I talk about gentle platonic touch, I’m not talking about a pat on the back, or a handshake, but instead contact that is lasting and meant to provide connection and comfort. Think, leaning on someone for a few minutes, holding hands, rubbing their back or sitting close together not out of necessity but out of choice.
That bolded part? Female friends and female family members provide this to one another on a regular basis. When I'm sad or feeling down I can lay my head in the bosom of my mother, aunt, or bestie and just be ... comforted.
In America in particular, if a young man attempts gentle platonic contact with another young man, he faces a very real risk of homophobic backlash either by that person or by those who witness the contact. This is, in part, because we frame all contact by men as being intentionally sexual until proven otherwise. Couple this with the homophobia that runs rampant in our culture, and you get a recipe for increased touch isolation that damages the lives of the vast majority of men.
Modern men, especially American men, can't. They have to play a role with their friends. And then of course they have to play a role, albeit a different one, with their siggy other.
No room to just be.
And as a woman, I agree that that sucks for the modern man.
Though this wasn't always the case it seems.
This is a photo essay of old timey bros essentially having the types of relationships female friends have today - intimate and relaxed friendships with one another.
Perhaps old timey man wasn't so deprived and FA'ish as modern man, not just because of "Marriage 1.0," but because he actually had platonic warm and affectionate relations with his bros n'em.
What does PPD think?
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