@alice @Nuki Definitely. "You guys can hug each other now thanks to feminism" is going straight into my list of ways in which feminism helps men too.

@momo @alice Something went definitely right with you and your friends then I don't want to generalize, I know there are plenty of men (even straight men!) who hug and touch each other affectionately, most of my friends do, but I think that's still far from being the norm. And even then, there's this unspoken set of "acceptable" ways of touching (my partner and I often joke about that "affectionate-aggressive" type of hug where men feel the need to pat each other just a little too hard).

@not_a_label @alice I'm sorry your family is like that... It's totally okay to not be a hugger as long as it stems from a personal preference, but denying yourself and others physical affection on the basis of gender expectations alone is heartbreaking.

@not_a_label @alice I know it is now, but for 18-year-old me it took some time to wrap my head around the concept. Especially when it came to the parents (who he still lived with!) and the brother: at that point, I hadn't even imagined that not hugging your closest family could be a thing.

@alice In my late teens I dated this guy for a short while, then we stayed friends. One day he told me that what he missed about dating was having regular physical contact with another human. His parents & older brother had stopped hugging him since he wasn't a young boy anymore, and his circle of friends was all male and of course they didn't hug each other. Dating, to him, had been an oasis of physical affection.
The conversation was eye-opening for both of us.