HUMAN FRAILTY AND THE MEANING OF FRIENDSHIP: Joseph Stong replies to Eve

[In case you want a break from election postmortems! Note that this post, like the original post of mine to which it replies, is meant as a musing or food for thought rather than as crisp syllogisms or polemic. --Eve]

I think the problem you and many of our generation may have is the inability to distinguish between eros and philia type friendships... or maybe it's that the sex-saturated culture where the 2nd date involves intercourse has brought us to the place where we can't see that friendship is a vital need of all human beings and that it doesn't have to involve sexual intimacy.

Think about all those soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq, or indeed all wars... the men are more than good friends. They are willing to die for their buddies at a moments notice...to jump on the hand grenade. But they wouldn't dream of sex with them! Veterans are deeply, psychologically hard-wired to fidelity with those they've suffered with. But their relationship isn't identical to marriage! It's as if our generation's worst intellectual problem is the failure to draw clear distinctions and allow for different types of friendships or "interpersonal relations." One size does not fit all. It's not either/or: either sex or loneliness.

I can imagine the weight of cultural expectations crashing down on the young girls these days... and on the boys. Both are told that life is about sex and parties and popularity. Both are told that sex is the currency that buys happiness so obviously if a guy feels more comfortable with other guys--shazam! he must be gay and if a girl feels safer with girls, Pow! she's lesbian. When all along what we are dealing with is truly "a case of miscommunication."

posted by Eve at 2:01 PM | link

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