Romantic Friendships

[x1980x]

As I said in another thread,

It’s the 20th and 21st century speaking. There’s an older concept of a romantic friendship that can involve a great deal of physical and emotional intimacy that does not involve sex or sexual feelings. Abraham Lincoln is sort of well known for having one with his BFF Joshua Speed. 19th century British and American literature is replete with “bosom friends” - chaste same sex pairings that walk around holding hands and sharing innermost secrets, but DON’T jump into bed for some quick nookie.

From the novel “Tom Brown’s Schooldays”, 1857, by Thomas Hughes (This is a “British Boarding School” classic, and a stylistic and thematic predecessor of Harry Potter. It’s available on Project Gutenberg)

"
…
It was evening when the housekeeper summoned him to the sick-room. Arthur was lying on the sofa by the open window, through which the rays of the western sun stole gently, lighting up his white face and golden hair. Tom remembered a German picture of an angel which he knew; often had he thought how transparent and golden and spirit-like it was; and he shuddered, to think how like it Arthur looked, and felt a shock as if his blood had all stopped short, as he realized how near the other world his friend must have been to look like that. Never till that moment had he felt how his little chum had twined himself round his heart-strings, and as he stole gently across the room and knelt down, and put his arm round Arthur’s head on the pillow, felt ashamed and half-angry at his own red and brown face, and the bounding sense of health and power which filled every fibre of his body, and made every movement of mere living a joy to him. He needn’t have troubled himself: it was this very strength and power so different from his own which drew Arthur so to him.

Arthur laid his thin, white hand, on which the blue veins stood out so plainly, on Tom’s great brown fist, and smiled at him; and then looked out of the window again, as if he couldn’t bear to lose a moment of the sunset, into the tops of the great feathery elms, round which the rooks were circling and clanging, returning in flocks from their evening’s foraging parties. The elms rustled, the sparrows in the ivy just outside the window chirped and fluttered about, quarrelling, and making it up again; the rooks, young and old, talked in chorus, and the merry shouts of the boys and the sweet click of the cricket-bats came up cheerily from below.
…
"

They AREN’T gay!

 

[x1980x]

I think that is Called Friends with Benefits, not allowed in the Catholic Church.

I might be reading what your asking wrong.

If it leads to premarital sex -yes, for a married man, yes even if not sexual.

At least in the US here, a “Friend With Benefits” is pretty much the exact opposite of a “Romantic Friendship”. With a FWB, your entire relationship revolves around physical sex. There is no emotional connection, no sunsets, no talk of marriage, just the electric slide. It’s supposed to be really popular at secular colleges. (I actually started writing “sexular”, Mr. Freud.).

 

[chevalier]

I suppose the term “romantic friendships” is messing things up a bit. In principle, romance is not something friends are doing, period. A man should have one woman for a partner and a woman should have one man for a partner, not a couple, not even if those partnerships are deprived of some degree of sexual fruition. Polygamy is wrong, period.

On the other hand, physical expression affection within friendship is a whole different story, where indeed, in some cultures men have kissed men on the lips, in limited cases men have kissed women in such a way, hugging was less restrained than it is currently in the western culture. Many people still kiss their little children on the lips, for example. By extension of imagination, the same could be done with grown children or with siblings or close friends. Same with holding hands, even when reclining and relaxing.

As for sharing a bed, that shouldn’t be understood as shacking up and starting to sleep in the same bed like we’d imagine today. More sleeping under one blanket, or sharing the bed if there’s only one, this kind of thing. To my knowledge, there are people don’t see a problem with a male and female friend doing this in some situation, where there is trust that it won’t be sexual. I suppose that may be the by-product of family beds and lots of hugging and cuddling etc. in childhood.

All of this must be understood differently when it’s normal in a person’s cultural or social circle or family or when it is a result of some experience in life (e.g. a long and close friendship will more likely than not provoke you to take the hand of your sad friend, no matter the gender of yours or his) rather than someone just deciding to do it and claiming it’s okay. For example, within the western culture, I don’t have a problem with people going further than typical with physical expression of friendship, but I do have a problem with the so called “non-exclusive dating relationships”, which is explicitly a form of polyamory.

That was my first impression as well, but the lack of sexual contact/acts seems to indicate it’s not ‘friends with benefits’. I’ve always perceived the friends with benefits concept to be a relationship in which you are having sex, but no commitment.

The description leaves a lot to the imagination because it is limited to external gesture and misses out on a lot of context. Coming from a culture in which kissing on the mouth is the typical greeting is not the same as being western and having a friend for lip exercise and recitation of love poetry (whom is such a person kidding anyway?).

Nope, romantic friendships are nonsexual, same sex, rather old school and not exactly secular if you go back far enough.

Yup, a large part of “romance” is giving expression to 1) caring for someone, 2) being interested in that person’s life, 3) being taken with that person’s personality (a degree of fascination). None of which is inherently sexual or even sensual or even otherwise limited to a marital relationship.

Actually, a couple of decades ago (and a couple of centuries ago too) and especially in the more refined circles, it would have been acceptable for a woman to be much more caring (or care-taking) towards men and for a man to be much more delicate and protective towards women. People would be walking arm-in-arm with their friends’ spouses actually, just as an example to illustrate.

Obviously, though, romance is romance and enough is enough. One’s got to start asking questions when attractiveness enters as a motive.

The concept and practice predates modern views of friendship and romance by many centuries, complaining about it degrading our language is bizarre

Actually, this use of the adjective “romantic” probably does not go much farther in the past than the middle of 19th century, or at best the first half. There was no concept of “affectionate friendship” either. There was basically no idea why close friendship shouldn’t manifest the emotional closeness physically. And when people didn’t have so many sexual associations triggering so fast as we do now, living basically under siege from immorality, they didn’t see a reason to ban or shun such expression. This is a simplification though, since we could find examples of banning or shunning way into the past.

I suppose whoever has a problem with what we’re talking about is motivated by the unfortunate term “romantic friendship”. Stated that way, I have a problem with it too because while affection has a place in friendship and expressions vary from culture to culture and person to person, the marital relationship includes exclusivity of something more than just the marital act. There’s a reason people speak about “emotional affairs” and “emotional betrayal”. My position, in short, is: affectionate friendship okay, romantic friendship not okay (unless the two people are free to marry each other and not similarly involved with others, though even then one could wonder about a couple of things).

Bottom line, I guess, is that when friendship is the motive, it’s one thing. If attraction is the motive, it’s another thing altogether.

 

[chevalier]

As I said in another thread,

It’s the 20th and 21st century speaking. There’s an older concept of a romantic friendship that can involve a great deal of physical and emotional intimacy that does not involve sex or sexual feelings. Abraham Lincoln is sort of well known for having one with his BFF Joshua Speed. 19th century British and American literature is replete with “bosom friends” - chaste same sex pairings that walk around holding hands and sharing innermost secrets, but DON’T jump into bed for some quick nookie.

Yes, but while such things could be completely innocent, they could also involve one of such male friends taking on an effeminate role and just not progressing further than very limited aspects of what’s basically more like a marriage without sex in it. Against which I’d be prejudiced.

 

[Marchmain1987]

The whole notion of romantic friendships is a bit of a sticky subject.

When I think of this notion, I always think of Marie Antoinette and Marie Louise of Savoy. And, of course, that relationship was taken into a sexual context even at a time when romantic friendships of the same-sex where very common.

They always seem (even in the 18th century and earlier) tinged with a bit sexual innuendo by those who look onto those relationships (the general public around the participants).

This is a generalization on my part.

I may be wrong on this next point, but it is just one person’s opinion. Given the saturation of sex (in its rawest forms) into popular culture, these relationships would be difficult to have. Much less explain them to others.