When reading the book “Manhood” by Steve Biddulph I was really struck by how very true his comment was that a lot of western modern masculine identity is built around convincing others that one isn’t gay. This can bleed into reluctance to being physically intimate or even have contact with other men beyond the accepted formal handshake.
Being gay I obviously don’t have any issues with physical contact with other men, and on the whole gay men are far more comfortable being physically affectionate in a platonic way towards one another than, from what I have experienced, straight men are.
I’d be interested to know how straight men feel about physical affection with other men, gay or straight. Is there a clear separator between family and friends? (i.e. it’s okay to hug brothers and dads but not buddies?), do you like being physically affectionate with other men? Do you resist it or otherwise consider it something unmanly? If so why? (all reasons are valid, whether it’s linked to sexuality or not) Does a man being straight or gay factor into how comfortable you are being affectionate with him? If you’re not physically affectionate or find it hard to be do you wish you could do it more? What about women, what do you consider to be acceptable between men? For example, would it bother you to be with a man who was very physical with his friends?
Again, I’m gay so have no physical boundary issues with men, and I’m quite tactile so if a guy is similarly so am always open to a hug or an arm around the shoulder. I think our culture is quite starved of affection for men and we should be more willing to offer it to one another. I’m pretty much just as happy to be physical with people I’ve just met as close friends, doesn’t really matter to me. Something I absolutely HATE however is when you hug a guy and he jokingly (or otherwise) says “okay, easy there” as if to imply that some kind of sexual pass is being made. It’s a gross insult in my view, whether it’s said jokingly or not, and I make a mental note not to touch that person again.
A quick hug (just long enough to say, 'Bill, old bean! Good to see ya!) with no more than three pats on the back if the guys are especially good friends who haven’t seen each other in a while. Oh, and keep your faces apart. Look at the guy; don’t put your head on his shoulder.
Pretty much limited to handshakes or hail-fellow-well-met backslapping at most. I can’t imagine hugging a friend. Maybe if he’d just endured some unfathomable tragedy - entire family died in a fire. Maybe.
I don’t think it’s so much a matter of look-how-gay-I’m-not. Can’t offer a better explanation, though.
I’ll always remember a porn vid where a devil’s threesome turned ugly. Among all the surprised and outraged comments on the vid there stood one gem: “Balls aren’t touching. It isn’t gay.”
But seriously, when I was younger there was a lot of obvious overcompensating by everyone, including myself. If two guys bumped into each other for a moment too long they’d both hop ten feet in the air like they’d heard a gunshot as if to make sure that everyone knows that they really didn’t want to be in contact with another dude. But now the trend is going the opposite direction, at least among the circles I move in. Implied homoeroticism is played up for laughs. I’m perfectly comfortable giving all my guy friends Soprano-style hugs when we’re done hanging out for the night, for example. That’s something that would have seemed outrageous among my group, say, five years ago.
All in all I prefer it the way it is as opposed to how it was back then. If me and another guy brush up against each other I’d rather be able to jokingly comment “Ooooh yeah” than have to run ten yards in the other direction to avoid embarrassment.
But isn’t this really doing the same thing, just in a different way? You’re reacting to the touching as if it’s something to be commented on, as if there needs to be some reaction to it other than an authentic acceptance of what it is? (god that sounded wanky, but I think you know what I mean)
No, I get you. And you’re right. I guess what I’m saying is that a genuinely-lighthearted reaction seems better to me than genuine (or perhaps feigned! bum bum bum!) panic.
I am a very physically affectionate person, but none of my guy friends are (save one, and honestly he’s a beet creepy about it). I have had no problem in the past hugging my friends, throwing an arm around the shoulder, or anything else.
As with almost all the people I know, the physical boundaries are set by them, as I have none. I used to have a female friend who, even when we weren’t having sex anymore, would still like to cuddle, often naked (at least her). I miss that, as cuddling is not something that happens at my house for me very often at all.
While I admit that the idea of cuddling with one of my male friends does sound odd, if they wanted to I would give it a try, and knowing me, I would probably like it.
It is quite amazing how some guys will got to such great length to make sure they do not appear or accedently turn gay. I served quiche on the North Slope oil fieds one time and I swear several grown men were conserned that they might turn gay if they consumed it. I have since taken to calling quiche "Bacon and Egg Pie"when at homophobic work camps. They eat the hell out of it. Possably turning gay in the process. I am part of the secret underground gay agenda. Oil fields are the woworst by far. I hug alaskan fishermen and constrution workers all the time. I will have to say in my experience here in alaska there is less concerne about being percieved as gay. More hugs here than in Texas were I grew up.
I think the acceptable level of contact between to straight men is sucking each others cock. Balls not touching.
Around my guy friends, mostly military, the most physical touch would be the handshake/pat on the back hug. That was only for close friends you probably won’t see for a while.
Unless it is cold. There are no gay jokes when it’s cold.
I don’t really like close physical contact. Hugs? No, don’t like it. For me, it’s not an issue of whether the other man is Gay or Straight. I don’t think I’d like women hugging me either (apart from my wife).
Maybe I just grew up in the generation of bromance. I don’t see any of my guy friends with a identity around ‘convincing everyone else they weren’t gay’. I mean, my guy friends would no sooner offer a hug to an ugly girl than each other. (Or rather, they give ‘man pats’.) Hell, I see my guy friends hugging me closer (or trying to) than my female friends were. So, no, I don’t think it’s a hangup so much as it is a ‘not something I’m naturally inclined to do’.
I never considered myself to be touchy feely. But I am the type of guy that will put his hand on your shoulder when I trying to stress a point, take light hearted jab at you or whatever.
I’ve only had one guy directly tell me: “Don’t touch me man. I don’t like being touched.” (Awkward) Aside from that, I am surprised at the number of men who don’t seem comfortable with this. As a result, I have to consciously tell myself: “Keep your hands to your self Shakes.” Unless of course I’m with my close friends.
Slightly off topic: I used to have a gay friend. Whenever he would hug you, he would kiss you on the cheek. I was never skeeved out by this. However, if one of my straight friends were to do this I would be skeeved. That doesn’t even make sense!
As a girl, I can’t figure out the Guy Rules. My brother is 11 and 9 years younger than my male cousins, respectively, and when he was little, anything was fine. I can’t even place when it started to change, but he’s now 21 and they’re in their 30s and at a wedding last month it was all the “guy hug”: minimum barrier of an arm’s length, quick slap on the back. Same for my brother and all the uncles, some of whom just shook his hand, maybe because they hadn’t seen him in a while and weren’t sure what he was comfortable with. Meanwhile, I got the same full-on hug I’ve always gotten, because I’m a girl. I guess guys just know when it’s time to switch?
I know exactly what you mean. I would never be weirded out by a gay friend doing this, or excessive hugs without back slapping, or cuddling, or ass grabbing, or frankly almost anything. However, when a(n ostensibly) straight guy does it, it’s weird, and at that point I don’t want any more contact than a brief hug. I feel like this is an odd counterexample to the idea that straight men avoid physical contact in order to avoid implying that they’re gay; surely, prolonged physical contact with a gay man is gayer than with a straight man? Maybe we simply feel that we can pass off the responsibility for such contact on the gay man, but I wonder if we straight men are more worried about appearing to be a closeted gay man. As societal acceptance of homosexuality grows, it seems like there’s more shame in being a closeted gay man than simply a gay man, and maybe that’s what we’re trying to avoid.
As a high school teacher, I find the way teenage boys will, on one hand, go to extraordinary lengths to avoid “looking gay”, but will at times really engage in what seems like extremely gay behavior. I mean, if you had four high school boys stay overnight in a hotel with a single king0size bed, three would sleep on the floor. But those same four boys will strip down to their skivvies, paint themselves in the school colors, and dance, arms around each other, at a football game.
I also think the OP is ambiguous: are you asking what people are personally comfortable with, or what they find acceptable in others? Those are really different questions.