Celebrating The Love of Brothers
This week’s blog comes to you live from a retreat center in upstate New York, where I’m spending the weekend with a group of extraordinary men, clearing brush, preparing cabins for the summer season and celebrating brotherhood.
Something I can’t help but notice whenever I spend time in this community of men is the way in which non-sexual touch is used as a powerful form of communication and community building. It happens virtually ever hour, in one way or another.
A good friend and I experienced a minor conflict a few days ago. We knew that we needed to spend a few minutes talking about it, and since we were both headed to the same retreat for the weekend, we agreed we’d find time for each other then. During an organizational work meeting Friday evening, he reached over and took my hand, and he held it for a good long time, perhaps 15 or 20 minutes, with genuine affection I couldn’t help but feel.
I don’t even remember much about what the original conflict was about, to be honest. Our bodies worked it out. Without the clumsiness of words, a physical gesture based on touch between our two bodies was able to sufficiently resolve what had been a minor irritation. When we asked each other later whether we had anything more we needed to say to each other, we both agreed that our bodies had worked it out for us.
It is not at all uncommon that men here will spontaneously form little clusters on the floor that we affectionately refer to as “puppy piles.” Someone will rest his head on another person’s chest while having a conversation, or two or three guys might snuggle up together in front of the fire. It sometimes takes new visitors a minute to figure out that these behaviors aren’t about dating or mating–they’re mostly about brotherhood, an intense sense of friendship, devotion and safety that men experience with each other.
A hundred years ago, no one would have considered these behaviors exclusive to gay men. They were behaviors common to all men in a culture which permitted us to be supportive, affectionate and mutually affirming. Click here to read an insightful article in the Christian Science Monitor which details how the decline of warm, supportive touch over the past 200 years puts all men at risk, because it denies us something we genuinely need from each other.
Sometimes our bodies work things out through the communication of touch which might take many more minutes using words, which can seem remarkably limited. Men are able to extend loyalty, non-competitive posture, and support without a word. In my own Touch Practice, men who have experienced trauma or difficulties in their bodies are often able to communicate what they have experienced–and what they need–in a way which makes verbal language seem fairly limited in comparison.
Want to see some pictures of what “real” men looked like 100 years ago? Check out these photos, and be amazed at how far we have come–and how much we have lost.
Be well. Thanks to those of you who’ve been writing with comments and encouragement. Please keep in touch!
Have thoughts you’d like to share?
Touch Practice is a sacred practice for me, and part of that is keeping confidences sacred. While a name and e-mail address are required to post a comment, feel free to use just your first name, or a pseudonym if you wish. Your e-mail address will never be seen by or shared with anyone. It is used to prevent spam and inappropriate comments from appearing in the blog. I’d really like to hear from you!
It is so true how touch can be just as equal to words of effecting, or even better.
I loved the photo’s, they were so honest.
Thanks Stephen. Those vintage photos are interesting to me too—with all of the many hours I have spent in this work, even I, when I look at them, have a momentary flash of some sort of discomfort. I’m not used to seeing men be this way with each other—any sense of demonstrable warmth between men has been so thoroughly eradicated from our current culture that the photos strike me as “odd” until I look at them long enough for them to strike me as truly beautiful.
Thanks Kevin! You’ve nailed it once again. HH! Hugging Heals! I was at a gathering in Tennessee several weeks ago of some 60 friends and acquaintances, the gamut from gays to straights. From what I’ve learned from Touch Practice I was really able to appreciate and enjoy my friends and family through non-sexual heartfelt hugs that no words could convey. I realized how much it fed me in such a deep way…
B
Thank you Baba–thanks for your comments about your experiences in Tennessee, and for carrying a healing practice in your body.
Kevin,
Thank you for sharing this experience ! It has brought back wonderful memories of the many of experience of Easton Mt in which I was part of the community for three years.
In a space where men could be themselves, safe and expressive. It is beautiful to see, and beautiful that you have shared it here for others to find.
Out in the world it does not happen much, yet when I am around my Faerie friends the experience of man resting on each other, holding hands, just being is a beautiful event to witness.
Hi Jeff, and thanks for commenting.
I agree with you, and for my part, I’m trying to address your words “out in the world it does not happen much” by trying to create space for it to happen more. Our culture seems to have sequestered non-sexual, affectionate touch between men to that segment which it perceives as “gay.” In large part, many who identify as “gay” have been all too happy to oblige, and as a result they don’t make space for “straight” men in such transactions. Once we decide to touch, we’re often not careful enough about what another man’s boundaries might be, what they might or might not want, what might feel comfortable.
Worse, we don’t even allow, in our imaginations, space for the idea that a man may wish to cuddle or be held by another man while having absolutely no interest in sex. We tend to view with suspicion and disbelief (“why don’t you just come out already?”) those who present themselves that way.
I use “gay” and “straight” in quotation marks because as I have navigated this world, I now perceive those ways of categorizing something as complicated as sexuality as doing a disservice to all men. Many of us just don’t fit into a box, no matter how many boxes we create. The problem with continuing to add letters to the LGBTQ acronym is that we can fill the entire alphabet and still not find a letter for everyone. A man is not a letter; he is a man. Categorization is not relationship.
Thank you. Very well articulated and I agree. Over the last seven years I have been involved in men’s circle with the ManKind Project (www.mankindproject.org) and I have experienced a letting down of my masks and armor around male touch. Touch is powerful and transformative. And it is still so taboo in the west.
My wife and I had a housemate from east Africa (Burundi) for a year. Pascal is really now a part of our family. And it amazed me to see how easily he was able to use touch as a connection of friendship. He would reach out to hold my hand as we walked on the sidewalk in town. Two adult men, both straight, one black, one white, holding hands. The socialization SCREAMING in my head. I am still afraid of this. And I have a deep hope that this is one of the things that will change in our culture as the great shift continues.
Greetings, brother–thanks for taking the time to comment. I appreciate your sharing of your very powerful experience. Many blessings to you.
Kevin,
I’ve been facilitating a mens holding group for the past 4 years. First in Jacksonville Florida and now in the Philadelphia area. My mission is to co-create a world of unending joy by helping men to wholeness. I’m accomplishing this through holding.
I was made aware of your mission by one of my new group members who thought you were me! Let’s chat some time.
Kevin
Hi Kevin: I’ve e-mailed you directly, and look forward to chatting with you more! Thanks for writing in.
Incredible, how setting an intention impacts the outcome of an interaction. This statement is becoming my intention that I hope to carry with me and share with each and every man I meet, each and every day:
“… these behaviors aren’t about dating or mating–they’re mostly about brotherhood, an intense sense of friendship, devotion and safety that men experience with each other.”
Intention is pretty amazing stuff. My favorite example is if you’re holding a piece of fire, a candle or a flame of some kind. You can use that to sterilize water so someone can drink, or cook a meal for someone, or light a fireplace and create cozy, romantic memories with someone else. Or, you can use it to burn your neighbor’s house down, or slowly torture someone by burning off every inch of their skin, or starting a forest fire that kills tens of thousands of animals.
Same candle.
Just intention. that’s it. That’s the difference between a romantic evening and torture.
I have been wondering why I’ve been thinking…”It would be okay for very masculine men to touch me, or hold me, but if I sense they are somewhat feminine, I would probably recoil.” I think the reason is that I associate feminine men with those who molested me as a youth, or somehow make some connection with between the two – the feminine men being dishonest, unscrupulous, manipulative, just out to satisfy their sexual need. Or maybe I’m just a latent homosexual, and prefer masculine men. ha ha
Hi d: thanks for this comment. One way to work with what is repulsive (the quality of aversion) is to consider that what we are reacting to in the “other” is actually a piece of ourself that is projected outward. If you’re interested in exploring this, you could ask yourself, “how do I feel about the feminine part of myself? in what ways do I see myself as feminine, or less than masculine? How do I judge masculinity and how do I “score” on that scale?” If you are able to accept pieces of yourself that you may perceive to be feminine (or may worry about as “too feminine”) doing that work on yourself, in an inward way, will free you from the need to pin that on others and judge them harshly for it. Perceptions of what is masculine and what is feminine are highly variable, cultural, learned, inherited, and they are adjustable. It is easy for men to get stuck in either an artificially hyper-masculine or hyper-feminine caricature, but in someone who is healthy and balanced, we move freely across a spectrum, in any culture, of masculinity and femininity.