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Comment by phrotoma | Hacker News Reader

As is the case with everything, I'm certain it's more complicated than this, but I believe you've hit on a huge factor. I would encourage anyone who is interested in this (or skeptical of it!) to check out the work of Niobe Way, a psychologist who has been researching the social lives of adolescent boys for a couple decades. I would crudely summarize a key finding of her research as roughly: around 12-14 yrs of age boys stop saying things like "I love my best friend" and start saying things like "I'm not gay" and "I wish I was a girl so I could have feelings".

I'm sad to say that last one is a direct quote. Hug your bros gentlemen.

https://www.niobe-way.com/

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I should rather have said, “we will solve it no sooner than …”, because certainly there are countless other ways society constrains desire to the detriment of the subject’s capacity to relate to others. I’m sure our musical culture would do well to cast off twelve-tone equal temperament, which trades a dimension of artistic expression for a certain fungibility; pitch classes have no particular identities because their internal relations a have been flattened, every perfect fifth is as perfect as it will be, every major third sounds equally inflamed, and so on.

But as for matters of mental health; I assert that every man exhibits desires which we have decided fates him to be a homosexual. Any suppression of true desire (as opposed to that which society grafts upon us) introduces a schizm in the personality. Consequently, there is not a man alive who is spared from this issue; all men are divided against themselves, and so they are divided against each other and against really anyone they ought to be vulnerable with.

This is a natural response to the culture sexualizing everything and how lifestyles are celebrated.

I don't think I understand what you mean. If that were the case, wouldn't teen girls have the same issue? I know it's hard to convey sincerity by text so to be clear I'm not trying to be glib, genuinely curious about your ideas here.

...because we now are happy that gay people can leave the closet and overcome the threats that would keep them there, straight men can't share emotions?

There are gay women. Why are friendships between women not a threat to the "no homo" need?

There is evidence that the intimacy (especially physical intimacy) of male friendships declined starting in the 90s as more gay people left the closet and slowly worked towards social acceptance. But the "no homo, bro" reaction is entirely self inflicted and has absolutely nothing to do with a sexualized society. I'd actually wager that the straight men who spend the most time around out gay men are the least likely to feel the need to resist male intimacy out of a fear of a threat to their sexuality.

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