The power of touch, especially for men (2017)

I don't know if it's in their culture to touch a bunch but after awhile we were /always/ smacking each other on the back and leaning on each other or whatever other friendly male touching you could think of. It was seriously awesome therapy for the soul and despite how shitty the job was and how bad I wanted to get out of there for my 1.5 years there I always felt 'wholesome' in a sense that died pretty quick after entering corporate world.

I still miss that shitty fucking job.

If you think men police their hands around each other, just wait 'til you see how much they police their hands around women.

(There's also the empirical pattern that men show more physical affection with one another in cultures where homosexuality is more off-limits and strictly punished. For reasons that make sense if you stop to think about them. But enough about that...)

> There’s a reason the majority of clients seeking private services from the nascent professional cuddling industry are overwhelmingly male

In like every interview with a prostitute, they say that a lot of their clients want to spend most of their time talking. And, yes, there's sex, because of course that contributes to those (ersatz?) feelings of closeness and wellbeing they're looking for. So how is this substantially different? Or different from going to a shrink? It sounds to me like these things are all more closely related than we admit. Oh, and, as we all know, most prostitutes' clients are men. Why is none of this a surprise?

> men are “more likely than women to report that they received less affection from others than they wanted.”

I'll bet rich men and old women break this pattern. Because rich men have something people want, and old women don't.

Didn't Donald Trump have a line about that? Something like, "Being rich, being famous -- it's amazing, you can do anything and they love it -- you can grab 'em by the pussy!" I forget exactly, I'm paraphrasing.

> the 30 heterosexual undergraduate males interviewed felt safer cuddling, hugging and, especially, confiding in platonic male friends than they did with their girlfriends. These “bromances” provided less judgment and increased “emotional stability, enhanced emotional disclosure, social fulfillment, and better conflict resolution, compared to the emotional lives they shared with girlfriends.”

I mean, men don't typically "cuddle" with each other, but yeah, there is male bonding, and some of it is somewhat physical, albeit gender-conjugated. And it's not surprising that men often get along better with their friends (I believe this is called "a boys' club" and "misogyny", when it happens).

Not a great comment on the state of heterosexual relationships in 2022 though, is it?

I also laugh at this line about there being more "emotional stability" with men ("that's a dog whistle!"), but, uh, yeah, not uncommonly...

> "Women have it right," I said [...]. "They find friends or sisters to talk with when things are rough"

If "men are defective women" is the only framing you can use to get this published, go ahead, do what you need to do.