Platonic Physical Affection

Women are encouraged to touch their friends openly and affectionately, especially friends of the same gender.  Men, on the contrary, are largely discouraged by broader society from showing physical affection to other men or to women, all because of the idiotic notion that for men, touch and affection are mostly, if not always, sexual.  Touch is objectively nonsexual in itself; only the context and intention could make it sexual in nature.  That it does not logically follow from the concept of touch that sexuality or sexual expression is involved means that all it takes to know this is just a few moments of rationalistic reflection.

It is assumed by fools that men who are affectionate physically and sometimes even emotionally with male friends must be homosexuals, just as it is assumed by fools that men who show affection towards women outside of their family are supposedly doing so for sexual reasons, hoping to have sex with every attractive woman they encounter. Like how some women can come to erroneously believe the stereotypes about their gender after repeated exposure to social pressures while they are non-rationalists, some men might actually come to believe these falsities, even though they can be refuted so very easily.  Their relationships and regard for themselves suffer as a result.

Despite a lifetime of general conditioning to regard themselves as just hypersexual beings, men are able to quickly realize with absolute certainty that there is nothing inherently sexual in nature or intention about touching one's friends, whether they are men or women.  Even someone who is not used to rationalistic contemplation can let their direct experiences prompt them to reason to the objective fact that touching someone of the same gender or the opposite gender does not mean someone is communicating/expressing sexual feelings.  Men can embrace or affectionately touch other men or women without anything being sexual about this.  Women can brave or affectionately touch other women or men without there being anything sexual about it.

Since humans are mind-body composites, any worldview or lifestyle that trivializes, ignores, or denies either general component of humanity will neither correspond with truth nor promote individual or collective flourishing to the greatest extent possible.  There is nothing that people gain from misperceiving all touch as sexual, whether it involves the same or opposite gender, except for emotional isolation and the forfeiture of rationality.  If a person cannot even embrace someone else or place a hand on their shoulder without thinking that they are doing something sexual even when flirtation or sexual initiation is not at all what is on their mind, they have already misunderstood their own self and leapt into stupidity.

Women and men have nothing to lose but slavery to assumptions by realizing the nonsexual nature of mere touch among friends of either gender, and assumptions that are demonstrably false at that, not that assumptions that turn out to be correct are epistemologically justified and rational to begin with.  However, it is men that American culture specifically discriminates against more with regard to this.  Men, like women, need to seek freedom from everything but truth to see just how extensive these stereotypes and their destructive, irrational ramifications really are.  No one, man or woman, can fully understand themselves as they truly are or be open to holistic connections with others as long as they think physical affection is inherently sexual.