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
About Role/Reboot
I have a female friend who i went to secondary school with who always had massive breasts. I was slightly obsessed with them too to hugging her whenever I could get away with just to be in contact with them. I even dipped my head in them a few times. She was massively uncomfortable by my affection and I had to respect her wishes. But every now and then when I got drunk I would just go for it. Now she doesn’t mind so much. She’s not a hugger. She told me that with her boyfriends she hugs but could easily do without it.
I only seemed to have this hugging addiction with her. I also used to fall asleep with my friend when we lived together after watching TV in her room often and I hugged her sometimes. We never spoke about it and she never seemed uncomfortable. I am female and not a Lesbian.
I definitely like hugging in general, but I like hugging BEFORE sex more so than after it. I also can NOT hug all night, I’d never get any sleep. I can’t even enjoy spooning all night. Spooning for a while is ok but during sleep I need me some space. Some foot touching or something is fine. I’ve most definitely had to throw a few boyfriends off me during the night in fear of suffocation from over hugging and spooning.I’ve never had a guy tell me that I was hugging him too much either. One guy just refused to listen to my wishes, kept going in for the hug and I threw him out of my house really early in the morning. Harsh maybe….
What is interesting is that I don’t mind extended hugs with a guy I’m really into and in long term relationship but if its a FWB then I’ll be very cautious is they start doing it extensively. Im not trying to become attached to this guy. One guy who was a FWB just kept hugging and I asked him if he thought of me as a potential girlfriend or he liked me more. He said he understood the agreement but just wanted to hug me. I told him that I can’t do that if I have FWB then it needs to be more clean cut than that.
After reading the comments this doesn’t seem to be a gender specific difference than an individual preference. Lynn, perhaps that was a trait all your previous significant others also shared?
Interesting. I’d say everything is a personal preference but gender (or even ethnic)-based trends would be interesting to see vis-a-vis affectionate holding. Cuddling is pretty OK in my book. Personally, cuddling is ok in my book, though it does get grope-y on my part, however I have a somewhat hard time sleeping while I’m being touched. Part of the problem is that I move around a lot while I sleep and I feel crappy about keeping someone else awake who just wants some affection. Also, despite being a normal-sized dude who dates normal-sized ladies, ie I am 6 inches taller and 60 pounds heavier, I sort of dig being the inside spoon 51% of the time. Personal preference? You betcha. Atypical of cultural and possibly biological norms? Likely.
Also, there are worse things than pity sex or even just-shut-the-fuck-about-it-already sex.
Man, everyone likes the inside spoon, that’s the priviliged position.
It’s the cat’s pajamas.
Wrote about it over @yourtango:
http://www.yourtango.com/200911119/i-m-the-inside-spoon-and-i-m-a-dude
I definitely like to cuddle–and it hardly has to do with sex. Just while watching movies or something. No biggie. Personally, I have never met men who have vocally expressed their disdain for cuddling nor have I heard cultural messages. I would disagree with any notion that it’s not manly.
It’s interesting to me that this article discusses “this particular gender myth—that men do not like cuddling,” which would appear to be focused around gender (obv.), but the subtitle discusses men only doing it to please their wives or girlfriends. If this is a particular “gender” myth, then why are straight men the only ones addressed here? Just paying attention to the ways in which we use gender to generalize all men as straight, not knocking the author because in my experience the authors don’t write the subtitles themselves.
At any rate cuddling is awesome. I do it for the sake of being lazy and chilling on the couch or talking in bed. I also wonder what good it is to even ask ourselves whether or not (all) men like cuddling–some do, some don’t. This question aims to generalize all men, i.e. “Do men like cuddling or not?” Men are different, and there’s never going to be strong enough evidence to support each polar opposite outcome.
As I skimmed this article, I got the strong sense it was guided more by personal opinion than tendency.
There’s something that happens if you deny a primate physical and emotional intimacy. They can become violent, disconnected, and even fear the very intimacy they were denied most of their lives. This is the same philosophy as how to traditionally raise boys. And it’s this fact that is my cornerstone of male gender issues.
Psychology today recently covered this in an article called “Terrorists and Mass Murderers are Lonely Guys”
I currently don’t have a girlfriend, yet cuddling is something I crave as much as sex. It’s not some chore I would take on to please her. At times, I’ve felt a bit of guilt after cuddling, because I felt it was driven more by my own pleasure than hers.
The problem perhaps is in drawing such a strong line of meaning between cuddling and sex. Really, the two serve a similar purpose, and illicit many of the same responses. Sex just has a potential reproductive element.
Basically, omit orgasm from the discussion, and remember that the whole body, not just the genitalia, is a potential erogenous zone. Then it becomes rather clear. The only real difference is WHERE you’re touching.
The responses to both sex and cuddling are a sensual way of building trust. This occurs in far more relationships than just potential sexual ones. It occurs between siblings, mother-children,and ideally, in father-children, and is pivotal in creating close ties such as those.
The fact is that realistically, these ties are weaker between father-children and parents-son. Compare yet again to the discussion of how loneliness breeds violence and distrust. Does it, then, not make sense that people would feel less trust around the men of their lives, and that these men would feel less connection and trust for those around them?
Links:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/collections/201207/the-mind-killer/terrorists-and-mass-murderers-are-lonely-guys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ygq7F4TX4
Ummm… Wat? Of course men like to cuddle! I love cuddling up with my lady and lounging about.
I think there’s been a bit of a mix up here.
Apparent issue:
Most men don’t cuddle, except one exception found by husband.
Interpretation:
Men don’t like cuddling, and my partner may well be faking it because we loves me.
Alternative interpretation:
Loads of men love cuddling, but socially, most of them are conditioned to the point where they find it near impossible to open up. Same issue with crying. I really want to be able to cry, to not feel the knee jerk reaction stopping me, but it’s not easy.
The conclusion – Author’s partner has found someone he can be close to, and open up to. Which is great. Don’t distrust that.
That is so sweet, well-articulated and dead-bang accurate. Thanks to replies like this one, I have learned some important lessons. You can read about that in the first page of comments if you are intersted. Thank you.
I have to agree with web above, cuddling is a pretty important part of intimacy in my book. I think in Western culture almost all of us are seriously deprived of all forms of intimacy, from rough sex to five-minute hugs.
And cuddling IS a part of foreplay. Not all cuddling leads to sex, but kissing and cuddling are the bread and butter tools for initiating foreplay.
A lot of the author’s interferences are just that, interferences without a lot of evidence that anything besides her lingering distress about her divorce was the cause. My suggestion for any women reading this, if you like cuddling, try initiating it more. Yes, sometimes it will become foreplay and not cuddling, and then you’ll have sex, but I’ve not encountered a women yet that doesn’t enjoy sex if it’s proceeded by a goodly amount of foreplay.
I LOVE to cuddle!
I love it as much as I love sex (and that’s A LOT!) but, given a choice, I’d go for the cuddle.
I think you have been blinded by old data, prejudices, and social clichès; nowadays many men love cuddling. Maybe not all of them would say it out loud.
The problem with this kind of questions is “Does men like/love…”, it’s too much of a generalization. You cannot say for all of them (just like you can’t for all women). It’s almost meaningless.
A much better question would be “How many men love to cuddle?”
I think what Lynn’s problem is the equating liking something with craving and even actively seeking something. I like pasta. I don’t generally go out of my way to eat pasta. If I’m at a restaurant that serves pasta, I will consider it. If I’m at home and the food items I have can make pasta, it is an option, but very rarely do I crave pasta and go seeking it out regardless of where I am or how practical it is to get.
For the record, my guy cuddles. He actually cuddles in his sleep. He cuddles me all the way over to the wall, and I have to wake up and crawl over him to get any room. Then he cuddles the other way. I adore it.
And I can’t believe the trope that women don’t like sex still exists. How does that still exist in the face of all the evidence? For example, TONS of erotic content on the web is written by women, for women, fan fiction comes to mind. Granted, women may tend to prefer a certain kind of sex, and men may tend to like another, maybe, but I suspect we all, men and women, like to have sex with people who love us and find us sexy.
I suspect part of it comes from feminist women who think any display of sexualization, even over the top examples made in fun, is objectification and entirely unacceptable (and the religious right women who act much the same way, but because it’s impure or whatnot). In this video by comedian, actress, writer, producer, violinist and all around awesome woman Felicia Day (best known for her youtube webseries “the guild”), she does an over the top rendition of the star spangled banner, and one commenter (TheeImmortalPhoenix) attacks her for daring to look and act sexy in a miniskirt and wiggling her ass.
When you have women like that, who are utterly opposed to any kind of display of sexuality, it can promote the idea that women (the people feminists are allegedly representing) don’t like sex. This is likely a strong reason for this trope being maintained. where it came from, I have no idea.
I suspect part of it comes from feminist women who think any display of sexualization, even over the top examples made in fun, is objectification and entirely unacceptable (and the religious right women who act much the same way, but because it’s impure or whatnot)
I think once you add in those who are not feminist women it becomes a much larger part of the reason. Perhaps such people want women to be open and sexual in only ways they approve?
There are certainly a variety of ways for a woman to express sexuality, some healthy, some not. The kind I hate to see is the kind I see in bars a lot (I’m am musician and as such spend a lot of time in bars) when a woman seems to not respect herself. I don’t see any problem with a woman liking a guy or another woman (in the band, in the bar, the bartender, whatever) and putting that out there and taking that person to bed for the fun of it. But for example I remember one woman, (unfortunately a band member’s wife) who wore these tiny little skirts and played pool in them, craving attention, and she ended up sleeping with another band member, said later she didn’t even want to, she just wanted attention. And I think some women think so poorly of themselves that they think the only currency they have is sex. I am informed on that: I was a very promiscuous teen, and trust me, the sex wasn’t good. But that’s how I got approval in those days, and affection. Now, 25 years on, I’m fully capable of pursuing and enjoying sex when I want it. But now I can want it for its own sake, and not as a bid for attention. It took a long time to get there, though.
I focused on the feminist part because that’s the example I had available to me. I see very little of the religious right, though I know it exists, so I tried to acknowledge it as best I could, but have nothing to back that up.
Just a few words
You have some serious unlearning to do.
Agreed. Don’t be so sheltered and believe that the world revolves around your limited experiences.
Really? please read this: http://goodmenproject.com/good-is-good/manhood-by-cuddle/
and if that doesn’t convince you read this: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/02/12/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-living-alone/man-i-need-a-good-cuddle
Hi Tom, Glad you read one of my articles, but I wish it wasn’t one where I was just flat wrong. If you go back in the comments, you can see my admission and apology. What i don’t regret is challenging my mistaken beliefs, and I greatly appreciate the feedback from men that made it possible for me to become a better person and partner.
Possibly relevant: Men With Kittens
Because not many things are more cuddly than kittens.
How dare this link not work!
I like Cuddling & hugging . It adds to the Intimacy to me I’d say .
Some of my best times in the past has been cuddling on a couch or bed and watching TV in the morning with the Girl I was with at that time.
I didn’t realize how much I liked cuddling until my first girlfriend (at age 20, so there is a distinct possibility of a nasty preceding case of touch starvation) introduced me to the notion. After that there was really no looking back for me. During the time after that where I was single I missed cuddling more than sex. In my more recent relationship I just kind of took cuddling for granted. I made sure to ask the first couple times before putting my arm around her, but after it became clear she enjoyed my touch it became cuddles and hugs all the time.
That being said I can very much agree that as a sign of emotion and vulnerability some men might be afraid to be open about it. I can also see how this could EASILY be interpreted as a sign of general dislike of touch or physical closeness (that isn’t sex).
I think that, sadly, men have largely been conditioned and raised in our culture to think it’s “unmanly” to want to cuddle — and to admit it. Perhaps many men would love to cuddle but think it would make them less masculine in some way. Also, tangentially, is it really true that babies die if they aren’t cuddled or held?
The most often cited study of babies deprived of touch, the one that everyone talks about, was a very extreme case. It was decades ago and involved an orphanage in Eastern Europe. All the children there faced horrendous neglect, including being left without any adult contact for almost 24 hours a day, babies only held when they were fed but otherwise left unattended. The kids there were deprived of a lot of things besides affection, so yes, they were much less healthy than average.
A lot of people have taken the orphanage study at face value and run off to the opposite extreme – nonstop touching, helicopter parenting, 24/7 surveillance in the home, etc. Don’t believe all the hype. You don’t absolutely need constant, round-the-clock human contact to be healthy, even as a baby.
This is just one more thing that parents are pressured into obsessing about until the guilt gives them ulsers. Quite handy for the sale of baby bjorns….
Sorry, it should “ulcers.” And I’m guessing about the spelling of bjorns.
Ummm no!
Snuggling up to a hot babe is the very definition of manly in modern society.
In an indirect and passive aggressive manner society denies men the right the right to be seen as they actually are. We so so by claiming that men are a certain way but only because they have been conditioned to be that way. But we don’t ask if they really are that way. Studies show guys like cuddling. Somebody isn’t listening to us.
I think this is just one more false dichotomy from the land of simplified gender ideas – you either want cuddling for its own sake, ‘innocent’ and independent of sex, OR you only see cuddling as a way to get sex and wouldn’t do it otherwise.
There are other possibilities. Cuddling can be sexual even if it doesn’t lead directly to sex. Something doesn’t have to be foreplay to be sexual. For some men, cuddling is more or less pleasurable depending on what kind of cuddling it is. For me it depends a lot on where my hands and body are in relationship to my partner. An activity doesn’t have to lead to sex in order to be sexually stimulating. I can’t imagine I’m the only man who cuddled without expectation of sex but still fantasized about sex while I was doing it.
By the same token, a man could enjoy cuddling AND enjoy the fact that it could evolve into foreplay. They don’t have to be exclusive of each other.
And, once again we’re talking about something that’s relational, not just absolute. Some partners are more cuddle-able than others, and some relationships are less supportive of cuddling than others. A man could love cuddling one person in one relationship and have less desire to cuddle the person in a later relationship. Yes, ladies, some of you inspire more desire to cuddle than others do. It’s not all the man’s pre-existing condition. (If I may make a personal request: don’t use cuddling time as a moment to criticize your boyfriend or as a time to go over all the household projects you want him to complete or as a time to itemize his flaws. Just sayin’….)
Lynn,
I just wanted to assure you that men do indeed love to cuddle just as much as women, but often we are much too tired from a full day at the office. In addition society views cuddling as something men do for women, so given that we never get to be the little spoon, doesn’t it make sense that we seem so disinterested?
I think if there is a (general) distinction here between men and women its that men may want to cuddle but for not as long. That’s how it’s been in my experience. I love the feeling of having a woman’s weight just against me, without anticipating sex, but after a while I might feel uncomfortable and crave some body-space. Interestingly, I think this can be traced to an attention-span difference, and that could be used to look at men and womens’ approaches to lots of things: shopping, social events — even conversation. I (and most ‘committed’ men I’ve talked to) love listening to their wives/girlfriends talk, but at a certain point of hearing the same information rephrased (for me its around an hour), I think most guys find it nearly impossible to keep paying attention. It’s not how much I love her; it’s how long I can invest my attention in something as compared to how long she can.
Just a thought, at any rate.
Well you can believe whatever you choose to even if it is totally delusional.
But you are failing to understand that people can differ a lot. Often what is taken to be the way things are is what one group of people consider to be the way things are.
With me I was an only child and so being able to cuddle was a great joy. Often my wife would push me away because for her touch was very sexual. If I had any contact it was because I was trying to “get some”. Often I was just enjoying the contact, touch is such a wonderful thing. But thing I did silly things like buy small gifts like tiny ceramic horses because I knew that she loved horses.
I enjoyed cooking nice meals and making good drinks. What can I say I’m a hopeless romantic. Gee, I guess that’s why I’ve had women to ask me on dates.
Why is it assumed that all women like cuddling?
It just makes me feel claustrophobic.. Especially after sex. And why is it that I end up with men who have had it drummed into them, since birth, that it is their DUTY to cuddle after sex?