the Dept of Science said:
Susan Arendt said:
First off: Girls who do that are almost always doing it for attention, plain and simple, whether they claim otherwise or not. That said, it is far more socially acceptable for women to be physically affectionate with each other than it is for men to be, because that is seen as nurturing (read: feminine) behavior.
Guys are so worried about being judged as unmanly, because they're looked down on for showing practically any emotion other than anger or lust. (Unless it's their family.) Think about it: a girl sees her friend, gives her a hug hello, no big deal at all. A guy does the same thing, he gets called "fag". (He can, perhaps, do the shoulder bump or shake hands, but that's about it.) It's really unfair, honestly. So it's not so much that girls are more open-minded than boys, it's just that they're allowed to be more openly affectionate than boys.
I don't think this is quite true because most guys I know wouldn't do anything gay even if there was no social consequence. The idea of, say, kissing a guy has a yuk-factor for a lot of men. Speaking personally, I wouldn't kiss a guy for the same reason I wouldn't kiss a dog, something inside me has an aversion, which I don't believe (entirely) comes from social conditioning.
I'm no authority on how women feel, but I know straight girls who don't appear to kiss girls out of any social pressure, but because they genuinely want to.
It's not social pressure at all, merely socially acceptable. (I'm not referencing girls who kiss girls for sexual reasons, which is also far more socially acceptable.)
Well, you say it's not because of social conditioning, but clearly you consider kissing to have a certain connotation or value, which is why it's ok for some people, but not others. Why is kissing a guy - who you don't find physically attractive - a "yuk" factor unless you consider kissing to have a connotation other than affection? But let's make it even more platonic - what about just giving him a great big hug? Something else you probably wouldn't do, because it would feel weird to you.
I'm not saying you're doing anything bad or wrong, just what you've been conditioned to do. Boys aren't supposed to express affection for other boys, period, the end. Could be your best friend in the entire world, you still can't give him a hug or you're "teh gay!" Which, in my opinion, sucks.