Lynn Beisner wonders if the men who say they like to cuddle are simply doing it to please their wives or girlfriends.
Originally appeared at Role/Reboot
In Harris O’Malley’s article debunking the idea that women do not want sex, titled “It’s OK To Want Sex,” he examines one half of our culture’s myth “that men and women are diametrically opposed by their very nature; men want sex, women want love.” He does an admirable job establishing the fact that women like sex and that men should view sex as a collaboration with women, not a con-job perpetrated on them.
What O’Malley and male writers never seem to address is the other side of the “men want sex/women want love” myth.
As it happens, this particular gender myth—that men do not like cuddling—has been the subject of debate in our relationship since Pete and I first started dating. Pete swears by all that is good and holy that men love to cuddle. I am not sure that I believe him. Perhaps he genuinely likes to cuddle, but I cannot believe that cuddle-cravings are endemic to his gender. I have been told all of my life that men cuddle out of obligation, to be kind, or to manipulate a woman into sex, so I am having difficulty letting go of this particular piece of essentialist nonsense.
I first learned that men do not like to cuddle from Sunday school teachers and the other morality-nags that haunted my adolescence. They told us: “Men use cuddling to get sex. Women use sex to get cuddling.” We warned that snuggling was a slippery slope, sort of like what happens in the children’s book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. If you let a man hold you, he is going to want to run his hands up and down your back. And if you let him caress your back, he will start to stroke your butt. If you let him touch your butt, he’ll want to feel your breasts. And if you let him in your bra…well, you get idea.
When I was in my late teens, I found a sex manual for men that my stepfather had hidden behind a multi-volume guide to the Old Testament. It was the first and only form of sexual education that I had as a teenager. Two things stand out in my memory of that book. The first was that I had no idea of what the word “ejaculation” meant. I searched our dictionary in vain for a definition that matched how the word was used in the book. Somehow a “strong verbal exclamation” just didn’t seem right. The other thing that stood out for me was an entire chapter devoted to how to manage a woman’s desire for cuddling and affection. The premise of the chapter was that cuddling is distinctively unsexy and that women need to be firmly but kindly reminded that they will be rewarded with cuddling after they have put out.
The “men hate cuddling message” was driven home by my generation’s seminal movie about relationships:When Harry Met Sally. In one scene Harry talks about how sex works for men: “you have sex and the minute you’re finished you know what goes through your mind? How long do I have to lie here and hold her before I can get up and go home…All men think that. How long do you want to be held afterwards? All night, right? See there’s your problem, somewhere between 30 seconds and all night is your problem.”
According to Harry and others, women’s desire for cuddling is a problem. There is something incredibly shaming about how women’s alleged desperation for snuggling is generally portrayed. At the very least, it is seen as a point of vulnerability, a chink in women’s chastity armor.
At some point after my divorce from my first husband, I started to feel like a schmuck every time a man cuddled me. It made me wonder what kind of an idiot he took me for. I respected a guy who asked for sex when he wanted it. But attempting to manipulate me with cuddling or feigned affection is an affront to my intelligence and a violation of my trust.
At best, it seemed like a wasted act of self-sacrifice for a man to engage in a form of touching that he did not want (cuddling) when the kind of touch he craved (sex) was something that I very much enjoyed and wanted as well. I could not accept physical touch given out of obligation or self-sacrifice. Pity cuddles are no more pleasant and affirming than pity sex.
The idea that cuddling was a chore and not a joy for men was reinforced by my experience of being cuddled. Most of the time it is done thoughtlessly, passively, and without any eye-contact, since a man usually holds a woman with her head against his chest. The best way that I can describe how the men that I dated cuddled is that it was like they were humming. When you hum, you are singing unconsciously and without the desire to communicate. Cuddling, in my experience, was touching unconsciously and it carried no communication.
In recent months, Pete has started expressing his need for cuddling as being something as intrinsic to his nature as the desire for sex. I am confident that he is not trying to manipulate me into sex. For starters, Pete does not need to manipulate me to have sex with me. All he needs to do is ask or even hint. On top of that, Pete does not have the sort of calculating mind that manipulation requires. However, my inner-skeptic, which is capable of wonderfully convoluted thought, wonders if he is unconsciously expressing as his need what he believes that I need.
I tease my husband about his “unnatural urges” and he kids me about being a closet sexist. Beneath our gentle jokes lies a tension we have yet to resolve. Based on our culture’s stereotypes about what men and women want, my husband’s desire is unnatural or even deviant. And I will admit that my refusal to believe that men enjoy snuggling is blatant sexism.
It is hard for me to change my belief when I have never heard a man other than my husband express a need for snuggling. In my mind, there is a Someecard that reads: “I cannot wait to get home tonight and cuddle with my wife, said no man ever.” So if there are guys who love to snuggle, who seek it out and are even bigger cuddlers than their spouses, I for one need to start hearing about it. Just like you guys needed abundant evidence that we like sex, we need demonstrations that you like cuddling.
Lynn Beisner is the pseudonym for a mother, a writer, a feminist, and an academic living somewhere East of the Mississippi. You can find her on Facebook and Twitter.
For more on men and cuddling, check out Tom Matlack’s Manhood by Cuddle and “God, Thomas, You’re Such a Pussy“
Photo of couple in bed cuddling courtesy of Shutterstock
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I love snuggling, have since I was a little kid.
My ex-wife did not. It took many years, but she weaned me off of it until it was clear she didn’t like being touched. At all.
I have been so deprived for so long that on those rare occasions when I get a hug from an adult female, I melt inside, and if it turned into cuddling I’d be so overwhelmed I’d probably start crying.
Make of it what you will, but I am definitely a cuddler.
Jim
Jim this makes me want to find you a wonderful woman!
Too bad you’re a stranger on the Internet, haha.
And my husband says I”m not allowed to set anyone else up because it leads to drama!
(but you deserves love and snuggles! good luck!)
I know exactly what you mean. Any form of physical contact send my emotions all over the place, because for most of my life, I locked myself away in my room building Knex sculptures, LEGO robots, and building computers.
A while back I was upset about something. I don’t remember what, but I remember my mom put her hand on my cheek, and instantly, my heart rate went up, and I pushed her hand away, and went back into my room.
And like you said, when a girl hugs me, I melt. It’s something I’m not used to. I’m used to everyone keeping their distance.
I get lots of cuddles these days, as I am married with a not-yet-3-yo daughter, and a just-turned-1 son. I love cuddling with the kids, it’s an amazing feeling, but it’s definitely different with my wife. I love holding her, and being held by her. Someone, an adult, grown woman, will allow me to be that vulnerable and accept– love me– for who I am.
We only run into cuddling problems when she falls asleep on me. I can’t turn off and go to sleep on my back so I have to kick her off and turn onto my side.
I think many men are socialized into not liking cuddling, for the same reasons as the author.
Absurd. Simply absurd.
I would agree that most men see it as unmanly, but I for one not only enjoy cuddling with my wife but I need it some times.
Studies show that men want cuddling more than women. It may be part of the fact that men want physical affection more than women.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/kissing-cuddling-important-men-women-long-term-relationships/story?id=14022238
Poor men. What they do desire goes unappreciated and then when science proves them wrong then it doesn’t matter because it turns out the truth is that men want the cuddling but women want it less. So much for trying to be appreciated for our desires, “nah never mind we never liked cuddling that much anyways.” Uhhhh.
I dated a guy who would get this half-conscious urge to cuddle up to any person or pillow when half asleep. Awesome with me, totally embarrassing for him when he was camping with a buddy – luckily one with a good sense of humor! So, trust me, there are definitely guys who don’t cuddle out of obligation. It varies from guy to guy just as it varies from woman to woman.
There is a strange way which sexist roles work in this case. Its not considered wimpy for women to want to be cuddled because men are the stronger sex but if a guy wants to be cuddled by a woman it seems (to some limited minds) almost as if “what is a guy wanting some little wussy woman to cuddle him for?” Its hard for men to express how sexism impacts their daily lives (men can’t want to be cuddle/be cuddled) because often that sexism toward them is intertwined with a sexism toward women. (Yet, I don’t think that means that sexism toward men can’t be taken seriously as an issue in and of itself.)
As a female, I definitely found this article amusing – I dated girls/women all through high school and college, it wasn’t until 3 years ago that I met a man who I get on with well enough to date, and then love. I’m a little masculine in my demeanor, he’s a little effeminate – it works for us. So I wasn’t surprised that he liked to cuddle, needed it even – but he was SHOCKED to find out that I don’t care for it at all. Because, I’m a girl, after all, and so I must therefore like cuddling. We have a compromise though – we have separate bedrooms, but we have ‘bed dates’ where we’ll hang out in his bed and cuddle and watch movies until I fall asleep, and then he carries me to my bed. I don’t trust him to cuddle in my bed anymore – I’d fall asleep and wake up with him asleep next to me – still cuddling!
For what it is worth, the conversation that this piece generated on Role/Reboot has convinced me that many guys really do like cuddling. Now that the theoretical issue has been resolved I get to deal with what was hiding behind my insistence that men don’t like cuddling: the fact that I really don’t care for it. I did not notice my distaste for it until I couldn’t blame it on the other person. Projection is great in that it allows a person to hold onto irrational beliefs and it requires no relationship negotiations. Self-examination and honesty with oneself and others, on the other hand, requires saying publicly “As it turns out, I was wrong and I am sorry.” So as tempting as it is to just hold onto a sexist belief out of ego and a desire to avoid cuddling, I must admit that I have been proven well and truly wrong. I have apologized to my husband and we are talking about how to deal with our disparate needs for cuddling.
It takes a big woman to do that. Kudos, and I’m glad you posed the question. Nothing risked, nothing gained
Glad to hear you are both working it out. I like cudding myself, but there are some times I don’t like it. Immediately after orgasm I can’t stand to be touched so I don’t like post-coital cuddling, wears off after 10-15 minutes but it’s an issue that I feel will cause problems in the future. I love cuddling at other times though.
Humans sure are a complex species huh?
What do we mean here by “cuddling”? When I’m feeling amorous, I definitely can’t focus on non-sexual touching, but when that’s out of my system or I just don’t feel like sex, curling up with someone and watching TV is wonderful. It really makes me feel cared for in a way that sex alone can never manage. One of my favorite things is just to hold someone until we fall asleep and wake up in the same way
Hell, that’s half the reason I even try to have sex!
Cuddling is just touching with not only hands but arms, legs, torso, etc. I’ve been doing that for years.
To suggest men touch without communicating anything is absurd. I dunno about other men but simply being hugged makes me feel so much better. Cuddling directly after SEX however is a different story because in some men we feel a major desire to get up and do something, hate being touched for the few minutes after sex. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2177158/Sorry-darling-I-just-help-How-scientists-real-reason-men-fall-asleep-sex.html This explains it a bit but basically google “hate being touched after orgasm”, and look at the effect of the various hormones post orgasm. The feeling generally goes away after 10-15 minutes.
A guy holding you with your head against his chest, I’m sure many of them are communicating to you. They’re saying they care about you, are protecting you, keeping you warm, etc. Maybe the author is simply blind to the ways men communicate?
My boyfriend loves to cuddle and he is a big guy — 6’3″ and around 250 pounds, and he is pretty typically masculine in his psychology and demeanor. I know he’s not faking his love of cuddling because he doesn’t cuddle me the way a guy thinks women like to be cuddled. (Which I’ve experienced in prior relationships.) He wants me to cuddle HIM. Especially right after sex, he likes me to put my arms around him while he rests his head on my chest, like he’s a little boy. He will easily fall asleep that way. It’s very sweet.
Your boyfriend sounds like me, only twice my size. Being cuddled is the BEST.
My husband is the same way! A little shorter than your bf (6’1″) but the otherwise the same
When we’re in bed whether or not we’ve had sex he want me to put my arms and/or legs around/on/under him. As soon as he’s snuggled in BAM! out like a light.
He’s a way bigger cuddler than I am
Exactly! Go 6’1 men who like to cuddle! (myself included)
Just earlier today I asked one of my girlfriends to cuddle me because I was preparing to have a difficult conversation with the other. She then held up my stuffed giraffe that I cuddle every night and suggested that I absorb a little bit of the giraffe’s patience for the difficult conversation.
I am an adult man. Make of that what you will.
Well, you’re wrong. I would give anything to be held and to be allowed to hold.
I’m curious if you’ve strongly reflected on how you were socialized to think about cuddling and sex. You described it in your blog, but think about what it means… stereotypical gender roles strongly reinforced in early life could possibly make you a little cynical about it later, you know?
I can’t speak for all men everywhere, but I like to cuddle and be cuddled. People in the past have told me I kiss too much when I’m having sex and should just get pounding away. I mean, everyone’s different, but I’m pretty… dude-ly. And I like to cuddle.
When you talk about communication, what sort of communication are you expecting from cuddling? Is there a predefined script for “acceptable” cuddling? Because, honestly I’m not astrally projecting a political discourse when I’m snuggling with my baby, I’m just happy to get to hold her and be held.
I feel similarly about sex. When I was a teenager, it was all about Andrew getting off. But I eventually grew up. Now I think of it more like cooking a meal together – a lot of fun, very sensually appealing, and the rewards are best shared together. I guess that means I’m not a “real” man by the 1950s definition or by the book you found as a kid, regardless of my downstairs plumbing. I’d like to think that if that’s reality, I’m better than reality and happy with it.
Kissing during sex is the best, anyone can pound away.
I’ve known a lot of men who like to cuddle and a few who didn’t. Generally the ones who didn’t had deeper trust issues and struggled to let people in. If you find a guy that loves to cuddle, keep him, don’t ask if he’s for real, that would just be annoying.
What? Really? Men no cuddle? No no no no no. I read this whole article about men not liking to cuddle wholly expecting to get to the punchline as if it were satire. It has never, ever, crossed my mind that any man who wants to cuddle is less manly. I’m sorry you or anyone thinks that is the case. Oy!
I have been with a lot of men who after ejaculation their nervous system just seems to need a break from physical stimulus. That has even happened to me post orgasm. What the nervous system needs or needs a temporary break from is not necessarily related to emotional need or connection. Everyone has a different level (that can change) of stimilus that is comfortable. Too much, uncomfortable.. To little, uncomfortable. The same for sound, taste, smell. That line from “When Harry Met Sally” was frankly offensive to me. If you had a clue to the purpose of the scene in the film, that line was ilustrating a young man who at the time had some intimacy issues & judgements to overcome. I can’t really recall being with many men who didn’t like cuddling with me. I suspect I may have some woobie-like energy. Over the years, I’ve had about 5 strange little boys (pre- social PDA shame) run up to me in a public place out of nowhere, grab my legs most enthusiastically to hug me, look up and give me the biggest smile ever. Some say, “Hi!!!” I only look down and say, “Oh, hello,” and smile.**They were all boys.** Their parents get embarassed. I don’t touch the boy with my hands so the parent(s) don’t become afraid. I tell them it’s okay. I secretly feel like I just received a blessing from an angel. Who better to most innocently, non-sexually express “I think you’re just plain huggable” than a toddler? I really wish I knew what I look like to those random, hug-bombing babies.
Cuddling during sleeping is a different matter. Many people think that cuddling equals bilssfully falling off to sleep in each others’ arms, being able to hold each other all night long. That must mean love, right? Not really. Some people have a very hard time sleeping with additional physical stimilus. It doesn’t mean they don’t like to cuddle, or don’t love each other. It means, if you’re cuddling them, they’re going to stay awake. With the exception of only 3 past loves, (I’m 40) I am one of those people. When we’re done cuddling, we’re maybe just touching feet, sole to sole, to still make contact but sleep. Sleep is a precious, valuable resource. One of the only times it’s completely okay for a person to be wholly “selfish.” It has boundaries of personal touch preferences that should not be equated to degree of cuddle desires or love. The movies make that out to be romance, but it’s not exactly realistic. Two people who can fit together & both sleep soundly—that’s not always going to happen. Sometimes I feel like I need a different bed or room altogether.
Perhaps the word “cuddle” seems effiminate. How about the words: full-body embrace; love-knot; human origami…? My future Good Man: I will hold you as long as you and I can stand. I’ll enthusiatically or sleepily spoon you from behind with my long & strong arms, running my fingers through the patterns of your body hair, nuzzling your neck. I’ll try to hold all of you in my arms, legs & toes,—maybe try to squeeze you so you can’t escape. Ha Ha! I’ll try to become as small as possible and you hold me. We’ll keep changing & trying new positions like an extended lovemaking session. The Cosmos will be moved to publish a revised Kama Sutra to include all of our epic cuddle positions, in a free, downloadable format.
I loooooove cuddling. Often I want that more than sex. In fact, I’ve typically wanted it more than the women I was with. The only time I don’t like that is when it’s burning hot but I think that’s probably like that for all cuddlemaniacs.
I think you just haven’t met enough different kinds of men.
My almost 12 yo son still loves to cuddle on the sofa while we watch TV or read books together…or while I massage his aching limbs (too much fun at sleep away camp!)….that would be funny to see if he changes as he gets older! He got embarrassed (in front of his peers) when I kissed him goodbye before he left for sleepover [in private he loves lots of hugs and kisses!]….