Table Of ContentMen's Friendships
RESEARCH ON MEN AND MASCULINITIES SERIES
Series Editor:
MICHAEL S. KIMMEL, SUNY Stony Brook
Contemporary research on men and masculinity, informed by recent feminist
thought and intellectual breakthroughs of women's studies and the women's
movement, treats masculinity not as a normative referent but as a problematic
gender construct. This series of interdisciplinary, edited volumes attempts to
understand men and masculinity through this lens, providing a comprehensive
understanding of gender and gender relationships in the contemporary world.
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
Maxine Baca Zinn Bob Blauner
Robert Brannon Harry Brod
Cynthia Cockburn R. W. Connell
Jeff Hearn Clyde Franklin II
Martin P. Levine Gregory Herek
William Marsiglio Robert A. Lewis
David Morgan Michael A. Messner
Joseph H. Pleck Virginia Ε. O'Leary
Robert Staples Victor Seidler
Volumes in this Series
1. Steve Craig (ed.)
MEN, MASCULINITY, AND THE MEDIA
2. Peter M. Nardi (ed.)
MEN'S FRIENDSHIPS
Other series volumes in preparation
Men's Friendships
Edlted by Peter M. Nardl
SAGE PUBLICATIONS
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Copyright © 1992 by Sage Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Men's friendships / edited by Peter M. Nardi.
p. cm. — (research on men and masculinities; 2)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8039-3773-3. — ISBN 0-8039-3774-1 (pbk.)
l.Men—Psychology. 2. Masculinity (Psychology) 3. Friendship-
Sociological aspects. 4. Men—Family relationships. 5. Men—
Social networks. 6. Homosexuality, Male—Psychological aspects.
I. Nardi, Peter M. II. Series.
HQ1090.M47 1992
302.3'4'081—dc20 91-45060
CIP
93 94 95 96 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Sage Production Editor: Judith L. Hunter
Contents
Foreword vii
MICHAEL S. KIMMEL
1. "Seamless Souls": An Introduction
to Men's Friendships 1
PETER M. NARDI
Part One: Perspectives on Men's Friendships
2. Rejection, Vulnerability, and Friendship 15
VICTOR J. SEIDLER
3. "Our Eyes Behold Each Other": Masculinity and
Intimate Friendship in Antebellum New England 35
KAREN V. HANSEN
Part Two: Friendship and Social Structural Variations
4. The Spatial Foundations of Men's
Friendships and Men's Power 59
DAPHNE SPAIN
5. Men in Networks: Private Communities,
Domestic Friendships 74
BARRY WELLMAN
6. Men's Families, Men's Friends: A Structural Analysis
of Constraints on Men's Social Ties 115
THEODORE F. COHEN
7. Self-Disclosure in Men's Friendships:
Variations Associated with Intimate Relations 132
HELEN M. REID and GARY ALAN FINE
8. Men's Friendships with Women:
Intimacy, Sexual Boundaries, and the Informant Role 153
SCOTT O. SWAIN
Part Three: Cultural Diversity in Men's Friendships
9. Sex, Friendship, and Gender Roles Among Gay Men 173
PETER M. NARDI
10. The Relationship Between Male-Male Friendship
and Male-Female Marriage: American
Indian and Asian Comparisons 186
WALTER L. WILLIAMS
11. "Hey, Home—Yo, Bro": Friendship Among Black Men 201
CLYDE W. FRANKLIN II
12. Like Family: Power, Intimacy, and Sexuality
in Male Athletes'Friendships 215
MICHAEL A. MESSNER
Index 239
About the Contributors 243
Foreword
This volume is the second volume in the Sage Series on Research on
Men and Masculinity. The purpose of the series is to gather together the
finest empirical research in the social sciences that focuses on the
experiences of men in contemporary society.
Following the pioneering research of feminist scholars over the past
two decades, social scientists have come to recognize gender as one of the
primary axes around which social life is organized. Gender is now seen
as equally central as class and race, both at the macro, structural level
of the allocation and distribution of rewards in a hierarchical society,
and at the micro, psychological level of individual identity formation and
interpersonal interaction.
Social scientists distinguish gender from sex. Sex refers to biology,
the biological dimorphic division of male and female; gender refers to
the cultural meanings that are attributed to those biological differences.
While biological sex varies little, the cultural meanings of gender vary
enormously. Thus we speak of gender as socially constructed, the defini
tions of masculinity and femininity as the products of the interplay
among a variety of social forces. In particular, we understand gender to
vary spatially (from one culture to another); temporally (within any one
culture over historical time); and longitudinally (through any individual's
life course). Finally, we understand that different groups within any culture
may define masculinity and femininity differently, according to subcul
tural definitions; race, ethnicity, age, class, sexuality, and region of the
VII
viii Men's Friendships
country all affect our different gender definitions. Thus it is more accurate
to speak of "masculinities" and "femininities" than to posit a monolithic
gender construct. It is the goal of this series to explore the varieties of
men's experiences, remaining mindful of specific differences among men,
and also aware of the mechanisms of power that inform both men's re
lations with women and men's relations with other men.
Men's friendships are a recurrent theme in discussions of men's lives.
How are men's friendships different from women's friendships? What
are the obstacles to intimacy between men? What are the key features
of men's friendships? How do men's friendships vary among different
groups of men? Why does friendship seem so difficult for men to sustain?
These are the questions that inform Peter Nardi's collection, Men's
Friendships. The authors in the collection use a variety of methods—
historical inquiry, psychoanalysis, network analysis, feminist theory—
to explore the dynamics and meanings of friendship in men's lives. Several
authors detail the ways in which different groups of men, such as black
men, gay men, and athletes, manifest different patterns of friendships,
and how some of these might be useful to other men in expanding their
own friendships.
Several of these articles also shed some light on the recent popular
interest in "male bonding," a more temporally limited experience of male-
male intimacy in the context of retrieving a mythic "deep" masculinity.
In this regard, Spain's article serves as a valuable cautionary tale. In her
survey of the anthropological literature, she finds that those cultures in
which male bonding rituals are most evident and ritually important are
also the cultures in which women's status is lowest. Thus any consideration
of male friendships must remain aware that such relationships take
place not in the seemingly neutral zone of homosocial intimacy, but are
simultaneously played out against a broader canvas of male-female
relationships. Even in our most emotionally vulnerable revelations, our
experiences with other men are still structured by power and privilege.
MICHAEL S. KIMMEL
Series Editor
1
"Seamless Souls"
An Introduction to Men's Friendships
PETER M. NARDI
When Montaigne described friendship as "souls that mingle and blend
with each other so completely that they efface the seam that joined
them," he was talking about his friendship with another man. The
images of friendships in both myth and everyday life were historically
male-dominated. They were characterized in terms of bravery, loyalty,
duty, and heroism (see Hammond & Jablow, 1987). This explains why
women were often seen as not capable of having "true" friendships. But
today the images of ideal friendship are often expressed in terms of
women's traits: intimacy, trust, caring, and nurturing, thereby excluding
the more traditional men from true friendship (see Sapadin, 1988).
Attempts to alter how men construct their friendships on a wider cultural
level involve major shifts in the way men's roles are structured and orga
nized. For one, friendships between men in terms of intimacy and emo
tional support inevitably introduce—in ways they never had done be
fore—questions about homosexuality. As Rubin (1985, p. 103) found
in her interviews with men: "The association of friendship with homo
sexuality is so common among men." For women, there is a much longer
history of close connections with other women, so that the separation
of the emotional from the erotic is more easily made.
Lehne (1989) has argued that homophobia has limited the discus
sion of loving male relationships and has led to the denial by men of
the real importance of their friendships with other men. In addition,
"the open expression of emotion and affection by men is limited by
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