[moldytony]

was cruisin my tl & this is so fucking important

[jumpingjacktrash]

i think the moment i was disillusioned about life was when i was maybe 7 years old and realized the reason all my friends had become assholes was because boys aren’t allowed to have any physcial contact that isn’t fighting

my parents were hippie feminists so my brother and i could play clapping games and sleep in puppy piles and give each other weird hairdos, but all the ‘normal’ boys just up and stopped knowing how to touch anyone without hitting sometime between kindergarten and first grade

and my little kid mind briefly saw the vastness of life stretching out in front of all of us, and all the hugs everyone would need and not get, and for a moment i was just like

maybe life is not such a good idea after all

[ferenofnopewood]

I grew up around a Russian ballet school. Let me tell you something about Russian men: They touch each other. Especially dancers, who are in my experience almost always super tactile people. They rough house like Americans, but they also hug each other, and sit on each other’s laps, and share blankets when it’s cold backstage.

So I grew up knowing full well that the whole Men Don’t Touch thing was puritanical bullshit.

What I was absolutely not prepared for, however, is the super intense effect it has on straight men’s romantic relationships.

Because when you are literally the only person it is okay for your boyfriend to touch, Jesus fucking Christ, that changes the game.

I strongly suspect that a lot of Str8 Dude feelings of entitlement to women’s bodies, particularly the bodies of their wives and girlfriends, is a direct result of those women being the only non-violent physical contact they’re allowed to have.

I know for certain that the framing of any and all platonic physical contact as un-manly has been directly responsible for a lot of sexual dysfunction (and then the attendant misery of trying to get that treated at the ripe old age of 22) with at least one of my exes. It’s a mess when you can’t get it up because you’re depressed and want to be held but you’ve been brainwashed into thinking what you actually want is sex because being held is for girls.

Amazing how the erectile dysfunction went completely away when he learned the difference between feeling horny and feeling cuddly. /sarcasm

[warpedellipsis]

This stuff also ties into the “anyone who smiles at me wants to bang”, via the same can’t touch/can’t be affectionate, so

–>all touch is sexual, no touch is platonic

–>thus anyone I do touch/am affectionate with is SUPER SPECIAL and sexual

–>thus every woman who’s nice to me wants to bang

–>being nice means you want to bang

–>being nice to a woman means I want to bang her

–>I can’t be nice to a woman unless I want to bang her, if she’s nice to me then she wants to bang

–>I fall in love with any and all nice women

That explains a whole lot of the complaints women have about men. I don’t think it’s this simple, but it sure feeds into those problems.

[thathopeyetlives]

(operatic drama play voice) *must* it be to “bang”?

Nobody can know exactly what they have been taught by society and what is essential to their nature. But I’m not sure I would want to touch people more.

I do not feel that all touch is sexual, ballroom dancing has cured me of that. But I have been more annoyed by people touching me when I don’t expect it. (this is Terribad).

And yet very desperately I wish to marry a wife and live life in her embrace.

Blessed art thou, oh Lord, who has made me according to thy will.

[the-grey-tribe]

This!

And that assumption goes a long way to explain why people are the way they are. This is such a horrible double bind. If a man is nice or affectionate, clearly he is doing it for some kind of sinister sexual ulterior motive!

If people give you this kind of crap for physical contact, you would think twice before initiating it, and would regard every instance as meaningful, or at least indicative of something.

[the-grey-tribe]

I mean the sex-positive woke feminist response to “anyone who smiles at me wants to bang” by @warpedellipsis is “Everybody wants to bang, but nobody wants to bang you. True banging will only come to those who do not seek it!“

The consent that can be given is not the Eternal Tao.

[mitigatedchaos]

Men used to touch more in America, too, I think, but now they’re all terrified of being read as gay.

The thing is that even men who are entirely okay with gays, if they’re straight, are often frightened of being read as gay.

Seeing as “hangs out with gay dudes regularly but deeply averse to being read as one of them” doesn’t make a whole lot of sense by itself, I’m left to wonder if the effect comes from straight women, based on reports from bisexual men that straight women do not want men that fuck other men.