Note To Men

While my journal/blog has been 99% about women, I suddenly realized I didn't want to leave the guys out (it wouldn't be fair)! Unfortunately it's true that patriarchal culture reinforces the stereotype that men, and particularly gay men, are hypersexual and hence incapable of forming a long-term platonic relationship resembling Boston marriage. Well, I believe it is possible (although extremely unlikely) for men to pursue this kind of thing. It's just that, according to my expertise on the subject, there has been no documented case of such a union between males. This is not to say there aren't any. In fact, romantic friendships among men actually existed back then.

However, that is not entirely the point here. For example, I noticed that ALL MEN (regardless of sexual orientation) are extremely uncomfortable, not just with their bodies pressed closely together, but also with expressing affection and genuine fondness for another man. For some reason, true (nonsexual) intimacy with each other sounds scary; among other things to ponder. That is why I'm going to devote the next sixteen entries exclusively to men, ending with a song titled "Guy Love".

But first, here's a very interesting article you should read. It is written by Heather Elizabeth Peterson. The main idea is that only in relatively recent times has it been assumed that romantic feelings can only exist where erotic feelings are present. However, this is not so. Her assertion states how people from the past held the belief that romance was compatible with friendship; that romantic love can exist alongside platonic feelings too. In other words, activities that we would now regard as romantic could fall on either end of the spectrum (Friends or lovers). And I explained this a bit in the previous entry titled, "Revelations: The Truth & Paradigm Shift". I just wanted to explore this in greater depth.

Yet, the heart of the article is trying to say the term "Romantic Friendship" is not just a code word for gay (although some gays/lesbians did hide under the guise of romantic friends), that it isn't really the stepchild of homoeroticism nor a 'cousin' of lesbianism; not even a subcategory of anything. Rather, it is trying to say romantic friendship really does have it's own distinctive features, and is truly a living force of its own, considered one of the highest forms of human emotion and behavior & worthy of profound sentiments! In fact, I believe the loss of romantic friendship was a loss to humanity.