Is Affection Between Men Shameful?
TL;DR: No, no it's not...
Answering questions submitted to me in my “Ask Me Anything” segments on my Instagram account.
Firstly, wanting affection is completely normal and nothing to be ashamed of—even as an adult man and especially from male friends.
Affection is a form of intimacy, which is understood as “a feeling of closeness and connection in an interpersonal relationship”, which is not only important for intimate relationships (such as romantic, life-long, or sexual relationships) but is as important in friendships, too. Affection, which is a feeling of liking or caring for someone or something, is a way in which we can create intimacy (that is, creating feelings of closeness and connection) with others. Affection (and therefore intimacy) can be shown through words (saying kind things, giving compliments, or expressing appreciation), physical touch (hugs, pats on the back, arms around shoulders, sexual acts), acts of kindness (doing something thoughtful, helping someone with a task, or giving gifts), quality time (spending time together, being present and attentive in those moments), and through non-verbal cues (smiling, making eye contact, etc.). As human beings, intimacy and affection help us to feel loved and wanted and that we belong.
Who we choose to be intimate with and display affection to (or accept intimacy and affection from) is where things get somewhat trickier and can make things more complicated. In a predominately heteronormative Western society (that is, a society in which heterosexuality is considered to be more typical and “normal”), there are cultural norms that govern the levels and types of intimacy and affection that can be experienced between not only men and women, but also between women and women, and between men and men, with one of the key issues being that, as Jackson Bliss writes in a blog post for The Goodmen Project, “men have grown up seeing affection as sexual behavior [sic], not social behavior [sic].”
While homophobia is less prevalent in the West, it has not disappeared entirely (and in more recent years, incidents of hate crimes against those of the LGBTQ+ community, including homophobia, have seen an increase; therefore, it could be suggested that it is seeing a resurgence in some respects). And between men, the existence of homophobia can lead to what a sociologist, Eric Anderson, termed “homohysteria”, which is basically the fear of being perceived as gay or “homosexualized.” Anderson writes that in order for homohysteria to exist, three conditions must occur: firstly, mass awareness that homosexuality exists as a static sexual orientation; secondly, a cultural Zeitgeist of disapproval towards homosexuality; and finally, disapproval of men’s femininity because it is associated with homosexuality (i.e., feminine men are thought gay). And in this case, the idea of giving or receiving affection between men is often coded as feminine, something that is more accepted between women. Therefore, the assumption is then that if men are affectionate towards each other or want affection from other men, then it must mean that they aren’t masculine or real men, or must have a sexual interest in men. Which is, quite frankly, ridiculous.
In terms of human development, homohysteria is a relatively recent phenomenon and saw an increase (particularly in the US) due to the work of Alfred Kinsey, a sexologist who (among many of his studies of sexuality) conducted a large-scale study of men’s sexual practice in 1948. The study alleged that 10% of the male population was gay, which was apparently far more than people assumed (but interestingly is less than the most recent UK survey of sexuality, which indicated that 3.8% of men identified as gay in 2022). This unveiling of a higher prevalence of gay men led straight men to begin keeping emotional and physical distance from each other.
Before this homohysteria, however, physical intimacy between men was quite commonplace. For example, “in Picturing Men a study of thousands of ordinary photographs of men taken between the 1850s and 1950s [so, over a hundred-year-period] ...shows how men of all races, classes, and regions openly engaged in physical intimacy with other men. Common poses included sitting on each other’s laps, holding hands, or resting their head on the other man’s shoulder. Physical closeness was once a prime feature of male friendship.”
Added to this is a cultural view of touch between men. In some non-Western cultures men quite often engage in non-sexual physical affection, defined as “close physical proximity and/or touch that helps communicate positive and intimate feelings towards someone without the intention or expectation for it to lead to any sexual activity”. For example, in India, it is commonplace to see men holding hands, which is “a way of expressing non-sexual affection, friendship, and camaraderie.” Similarly, in East Asian culture, it is not uncommon for male friends to engage in skinship, which is “physical contact or intimacy between two people that involves touching or caressing one another’s skin.” Seemingly this is something that is quite common among male K-pop stars in Korea. Skinship is a combination of “skin” and “kinship” and is believed to have originated in the 1960s from the Japanese word sukinshippu and the Korean word seukinsip. In a review of the benefits of skin-to-skin contact, touch has been found to have physiological and biochemical benefits, such as decreased heart rate, blood pressure and cortisol and increased oxytocin (known as the “love hormone” and is responsible for that warm fuzzy feeling when you receive a really good hug).
So, we can see then that before the conceptualisation of homophobia, and the fear that being close to a man in some shape or form could be perceived as gay, being physically close to a man was completely normal and accepted in Western parts of the world. Equally, there is evidence to suggest that this is something specific to the Western perception of physical contact between men and not something that is inherent among all men the world over. Therefore, to want affection is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. Moreover, for men to want affection from their male friends is also something that is completely normal and is only deemed shameful because we have grown up in a society that links touch between men to sexuality, and that is also something to be ashamed of. As Mark Green entitled one of his blogs: “homophobia has robbed all men of touch”, and that is a shame.
Now, I am not saying that we as men should go out and hold hands with or caress our male friends, but I guess there is something to be said for the fact that we have grown up in a society that makes it difficult for us to express (even verbally) our care and appreciation for other men in our life. We will obviously have our own limits as to what we feel comfortable with in terms of physical touch - but surely, we can move past handshakes and fist bumps. How about big, long hugs? According to more recent research, when hugging another person, the hug needs to last for at least 20 seconds for the release of oxytocin to occur. So, yes, while a handshake that turns into a clap on-the-back, “bring it in”-embrace, those are usually 3-5 seconds tops. We’re not getting the full physiological benefits of seeing our friends in this shorter space of time. Perhaps we could move towards a fuller, more meaningful embrace that lets those we are hugging know that we miss them, care for them, and value them.
Tied to this, and in some respects linked to our personal limits of what we may feel comfortable with in terms of touch (or just all manner of giving and receiving affection), is starting to challenge the links between affection and intimacy to sexual interest (and more broadly, continuing to challenge the belief that sexual interest between men is not OK). Yes, we have grown up in a world in which we have been taught that touch can be a signifier of sexual interest, but as has been seen in some of the evidence above, that wasn’t always the case and isn’t the case in other cultures. So if it has been done before, and others are doing it now, then surely we can move towards that way of being with our male friends.
I know I have written a lot about physical intimacy here, but based on what I have read, the idea of men being in close proximity to men is what has been written about the most. However, men are also not the best at other forms of intimacy with other men, such as verbal intimacy (telling each other how we feel). If the idea of physical intimacy is perhaps a step too far (and I will admit that even for me, I would have some limits to what I would be comfortable with - I am not perfect), then perhaps we can learn to say things to each other without interpreting that as feminine or some other way of expressing sexual interest. And considering that men are supposedly experiencing what has become termed a “friend regression” - reportedly 15% of men in a survey said they have no close friendships at all (an increase from 3% over the last thirty years), and that close male friendships are linked to better mental health and wellbeing - perhaps increasing the ways in which we as men connect with other beyond football, pubs, and shared interests (all of which can have their benefits, for sure) might go some way to improve this.