>I just don't agree that the issue is rooted primarily in
>homophobia.

uh huh.

>And also, when we say platonic touch, what are we talking
>about?
>
>Hugs?
>
>Kisses?
>
>Holding hands?
>
>A friendly groping of balls?

^^ see? there i

never mind. LOL.

>Because part of the discomfort in that some of that coming
>from a man is that it. doesn't. feel. good.

*sigh*

>But at the same time, I just gave two examples of platonic
>touch that are accepted with love.

there are places where platonic touch goes beyond a hug and a handshake. that's the author's point.

yes, hand holding. yes, hugging. but even lounging on each other. platonically. cuddling, even. platonically. the sort of touching we see between parents and children. but when i say 'children' i really mean girls b/c boys get a lot less of it. and why? you brought it up earlier - we think we're conditioning them to deal w/a rough world. we're toughing them up. but we're also teaching them some bad lessons, i think. we're teaching them to be distant. cold. to lock their feelings away. and we teach them that touchy-feely stuff is for girls b/c we touch our girl children way after we lessen the amount we touch our boy children.

akon mentioned earlier that there are a significant number of men who won't even sit next to their men friends in a movie or on public transportation. b/c that's 'gay shit'. we need to stretch out...and we don't want our knee touching our homie's knee when we do it. b/c that's some 'gay shit'.

but the point isn't so much about homophobia as it's about what happens when boys and men are isolated from platonic touch. regardless of why it happens, it happens and it's not good. it probably does us more harm than good.

there are men around the world who don't suffer as much touch isolation as we do. and they're still tough. macho. maybe we can teach our boys to become tough men w/o isolating them from platonic touch.