Nekkid

Recently one of my brothers was on his way to an ultimate frisbee game straight from work. He passes my house on the way, and often stops here to change. I was talking to him on the phone and he said he might just skip it tonight: he had just looked in his trunk and only had his shoes, but no shorts.

"Jaaaared!" I called across the house. "Do you have any shorts Bryce can wear for ultimate frisbee?" Jared did, of course, and I offered them to Bryce so he could still play.

He still hesitated, "I mean, I don't have a shirt either."

"I'm sure Jared has a t-shirt you can wear. Heck, I have a t-shirt you can wear. Come over!" I protested.

"Well... uh... it gets worse than that." At which point I had to snicker. No, actually, I laughed out loud. Then I said, "I could ask the question, but I'm not sure if you would even want to borrow any... thing else." He confirmed.

This caused me to wonder. I personally have either loaned or borrowed skivvies from a girlfriend or sister in need in the past. And I know that other women do this too, if need be. Not that it's probably anybody's favorite thing, but it's not that big of a deal either. We have washing machines, after all. Men, on the other hand, I think would generally rather die a slow, painful death than share anything that intimate.

When we were backpacking last May, the subject of sleeping naked came up. I asked Jared if he would ever borrow another guy's sleeping bag if he knew the guy had slept in it naked. "Never in a thousand million years" was his response. Which is funny to me. I mean, I understand, but it still makes me laugh. Men are so phobic about contact with other men.

Death Cab for Cutie has a song about "brothers in a hotel bed," their point being that two men in a bed will sleep stiff as boards and as far away from each other as possible. Me an' the girls? We just cuddle up together. It seems healthy and good, to me, to get physical attention and affection outside of sexual relationships. Sometimes I wonder if men and women are different this way because for men, physicality is inherently sexual, and so no contact is without connotations, or whether our culture so teases "sissy-boys" that men have become paranoid about what would otherwise be a healthy way for them to experience physical touch. Are men so sexual because it's the only kind of contact society allows them? Or does society only allow it because men are, truly, just more sexual about contact?

hmmm....