Male-Female Friendship: Intimacy, Frequency, and Individualism

I have had several private responses to my second post on the sex part--especially in connection with frequency--the desire or urge to connect with a cross-gender friend either by phone, text, or email.  As you may know this is such a Western, gendered paradigm that attempts to call the shots for what is "appropriate" for cross-sex friendship longing for connectedness.  Evangelicals known for their devotedness to live their faith and life in accordance with the Bible, have difficulty finding any biblical justification for finding a one-size-all relational script for a nongenital intimacy in cross-sex friendships--especially frequency of contacts. In other words, there is no one "appropriate" way of deep nonsexual friendship--it is a matter of faith and a lot of gray area.

"Masculine" friendships that are not centered upon a role or function (like football, baseball team connections, or employment connections--secular or Christian) are typically activity-oriented revolving around the "independent" or "mature" way of separation of individuals.  Yes, this is a generalization.

"Feminine" friendships in the Western culture have always been viewed as "immature."  In recent years female friendships have become known as the style for intimacy or self-disclosure.  Quite frequently, female friendships--especially viewed by men--are waaayyyy too "relational."  Again, a generalization.  Along those lines, there are women who have developed intimate friendships where frequent daily contact is part of their life.  Some Christians would say this is over the top.  Other Christians would see no problem with women connecting like this if it contributes to the kingdom of God. 

However, as my post indicated, this becomes one of the big obstacles in cross-sex friendship intimacy in a Western society that prizes individualism as a "mature" way of relating and prizes romance/sex as the only path for male-female frequent intimacy.  Western Christians have no place to put men and women friends who desire nonromantic connections with each other through phone, email, or f2f on frequently on a "daily" basis--the same Christians who believe that Jesus has been eternally with the Father, etc.

If you could sum up my entire blog on cross-sex friendship and marriage--it is a challenge to think outside the box on those two issues: 1) radical individualism of the West that we have accepted as normative and how that impacts friendship and, 2).  Male-female marriage as the only path for male-female for "appropriate" frequent intimacy.  If the Trinity shows us anything, its shows a deep relationality of intimate "with-ness" that is not inappropriate, childish, or immature.

Comments

[Dana Ames]

Hope this post is part of your book somewhere :)

Dana

[Mark]

Dan,
One thought...why do you think x-g books/papers do not more frequently try to characterize cross-gender friendships as a form of brother-sister relationship, which is a generally understood and accepted social paradigm? A brother-sister characterization generally parallels many descriptive points of a close x-g couple - a long-term, non-romantic yet intimate, loosely-coupled adult relationship. To account for the "bloodline" distinctions within a traditional family, maybe x-g could be called "pseudo-family" or something else "family"-related. What do you think?

Regards,
Mark

[Dan]

Thanks Dana! Something like this will be there. :-)

Mark,

Great question. There is a popular, secular work, Lisa Gee's *Friends* who does argue that the male-female pairing in brother/sister relationships is good basis for close cross-gender friendships. She does a great job of doing it. It's one of the my top secular CGF books.

As best as I can understand it, evangelicals (generalization coming)in their view of family, see the brother-sister paradigm as a different kind of socialization. They would be queasy--very queasy about the depth of closeness in cgfs that Gee compares to as close-like brother-sister bonds.

[djchuang]

Great thoughts, and I'm so encouraged that you're a leading and thoughtful voice for deeply intimate cross-gender friendships. I wish this notion were more acceptable in the world we live in. I'm curious, though, are there any cultures in the world where cross-gender friendships are acceptable and valued? My hunch is that most cultures in the world, especially traditional cultures, have firm boundaries on how men and women interact with each other, and cross-gender friendships are out of the question.

[Mark]

Dan,
Thanks for the rec on Gee's book - I just ordered it. Also, I just finished Scudder & Bishop's Beyond Friendship and Eros - very insightful. Their discussion of better-known xgf's - CS Lewis & Joy, John Stuart Mill & Harriet Taylor - provided encouragement. Thanks for posting it, and a listing other xgf books, on your site.
Regards,
Mark

[Dan]

Hi djchuang,

Thanks for your kind comments. Your question is a question I've had for four plus years in my research. I am frustrated with the lack of studies beyond the Western culture. You are right about the more firm boundaries with the expected Muslim culture as the extreme example of sex-segregation.

There is a very interesting study by sociologist Robert Brain in the 60's who stayed for a while in a nonWestern tribe (name escapes me now) who witnessed close cross-sex friendship pairings as an expected form of culture--you were not to marry or have sex with this friend--but the tribe went through an institutionalized ritual of commitment--and these friendship pairings were for life and they developed close physical/emotional bonds without sex. These friends married others but they were paired friends for life with their cross-sex friends in this culture. That fascinated me. As a Westerner, Brain have never seen anything like this of course, but he was convinced after living with them for a period of time, that they have very close, physical relationships without sex--nonromantic friendships.

Mark,

I'm glad to be of help to you. *Beyond Friendship and Eros* is great look at cgf relationships from a philosophical perspective. I really do like Gee's book. Glad to have you here. It is difficult to find good, Christian wisdom in books on cgfs which is why I am writing on it.

[djchuang]

Thanks for the reference to Robert Brain. Google answered pretty quickly -- Brain wrote a book, Friends and Lovers, about the Bangwa people in Cameroon.

Here's the thing - the notion of cross-gender friendships is foreign to the majority of cultures in the world, not just foreign to Western culture. Knowing Asian cultures, there's quite a bit of sex-segregation, I've seen sex-segregation in Latino/ Hispanic settings, and African-American contexts too.

In other words, it seems to be very exceptional to find a sizeable prominent society (one that you and I would commonly know of) that values cross-gender friendships to the degree that it is promoted and strived for as a society.

Well, that's not to say the ideal shouldn't be strived for, but it is to say that this kind of relationship is rarely valued and promoted.

Now, according to the Wikipedia entry for "romantic friendship" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_friendship "refers to a very close but non-sexual relationship between friends". Um, so would a cross-gender friendship be a similar or separate category from romantic friendship?

[Dan]

Hi djchuang,

Good observation about rarely valued--although you do find stories of meaningful, rich, and deep cgfs in Catholic and EO traditions (much more than in Protestant).

As to your question, yes and no. There are contemporary sociological studies suggesting that male-female friendships tend towards nonsexual intensity and self-disclosure, which would lead towards what is called "romantic" friendships. In contemporary society, any friendship (without genital intimacy) with "intense" emotions or physicality is "similar" to the label of "romantic" friendships"--given the past era of romanticism and post-Freudian sexual interpretations of closeness. This why its such a challenge for male friends to become "intimate." So, it could be an affirmative response to your question if the friendship becomes extraordinarily close. Prior to the era of romanticism, "romantic" was never applied to some very deep cgf friendships among Christians.

Descriptive language, has always been a challenge for extraordinarily close cgfs in Christian tradition. I would object to the term "romantic" to describe my close friendships--although they are a "very close but nonsexual relationships."

Our contemporary society peering in, might label my relationships against my wishes. Society has language (such as Jesus as a "friend of sinners" when he was hanging out sinners) but Christian grammar has to be the language of deep interpersonal Christian friendship love--same-sex or cross-sex. Close cgfs in the Christian community are born from Christian distinctions in Christian community.

However, there is a wide range of creative possibilities regarding cgfs that may not be so intense or close. The Christian community has a calling--not just point out injustice in gendered relationships--but that the eschatological end for all men and women is to profound delight in each other.

[Jennifer]

I think the term "romantic friendship" was mainly applied to same-sex friends in the Victorian (???) era. I think Dan could correct me if I am wrong. They were not homosexual friendships, just very close friendships.

I think it would be just so confusing to apply that term today - the "outsider challenge" is hard enough already. Althoguh, from what I've read, the peopel who practiced that kind of firendship knew something about navigating intensity and loving each other for the long term.