Men get to bond without the risk of getting hurt on the field, and boys get to feel a sense of closeness even if they’re not that into sports. For men who may have trouble wrapping their brains around kissing their buddies, it might be helpful to think of the benefits as similar to sports and roughhousing, that is lower risk.
Even those that weren’t kissing their friends didn’t stigmatize those that did,” McCormack says. “Our research shows that younger men value demonstrations of emotion and love. Participants did not report any shame from these displays of affection. Both types of kissing were described as a form of social bonding and displaying a close friendship, and were correlated with positive attitudes towards gay people. However, the longer interview sessions revealed that those numbers were in fact closer to 53 and 13 percent, respectively. Survey data indicated that 38 percent of men had kissed another man on the cheek, and 9 percent had done so on the lips.
Researchers then conducted in-depth interviews with 75 of these men.
To find out if the same trend held true for men in the U.S., McCormack and his team surveyed 442 college-aged men about how they show and receive affection, as well as their attitudes towards gay men.
