“ I read this article by @AnthonyEsolen
in college (late 2000s) and it changed my life.
“ “A Requiem for Friendship: Why Boys Will Not Be Boys & Other Consequences of the Sexual Revolution”
“ Esolen, in his usually brilliant manner, showed how in the past, red lines on sexual morality—particularly against sodomy—liberated men to have far more deep and rich friendships with one another. The proper barriers actually created more space for deep brotherhood. The inverse was also true: as those barriers broke down, the simplest and most innocent gestures of affection and love in both words and deeds became sexualized; off limits as “gay.”
“ This, he points out, is a gross departure from the ideals of male friendship found throughout history—both among real and literary figures. Esolen points to both real and literary figures such as Gilgamesh and Enkidu, David and Jonathan, Frodo and Sam, etc., as examples of the highest types of brotherhood men are capable of, but which many modern men fail to understand precisely because of how sexualized everything has become¹ (and particularly because of the breakdown of the barriers against homosexual behavior). Because fires could now be lit outside fireplaces, many began to avoid fire itself, failing to realize that rightly ordered and within the fireplace, it could be a source of immense benefits, both individually and socially.
“ He writes: “No doubt about this: If you are a modern man, a half-man, many such ideas and loves have already died in you. For as much as you can admire them wistfully, from a half-understanding distance, you can be neither Frodo nor Sam, nor the man who created them. You dare not follow Agassiz, alone, to the Arctic. You will not weep for Jonathan. You once were acquainted with Enkidu, but that was all. Do not even mention John the Apostle.”
“ I noticed this myself in many letters and stories from historical figures: men in the past could express themselves to one another in ways that many modern men would pass off as “gay.” And yet, it was these men who often lived in cultures where homosexuality was completely off limits, whereas in ours it was the opposite. But for them, it was precisely because the red lines against homosexual behavior were so firmly intact and understood that they could express themselves far more strongly to their brothers with no hint of sexualization: no one even suspected it!
“ This dissolution of brotherhood has civilizational consequences. As Esolen observed in another article appended to this one: “No civilization has been built without that foundation of male camaraderie directed toward civic ends: not Athens, not Rome, not Japan, not India. It remains to be seen whether any civilization can long endure without it.”
“ Esolen was writing in 2005. It is now 2025. Much has changed, for both the better and the worse. One of the ways things have changed for the better is in many quarters, men are reaffirming the ancient red line stigmas against homosexual behavior, and finding once again the freedom to love their “brothers” in a deeper way as a result. I am glad to see that many young Christian men (40’s and younger) seem to be realizing this, and embracing a deeper love of their “bros” that is platonic and ordered toward virtue, because the sordid is off the table, laughed at, joked about, mocked, and we all rejoice in the freedom that has come from wiping it off the table. We need much more of that, and frankly, it requires the further development of male-only spaces (just as women need female-only spaces).
“ There is much more work to do, but the re-establishment of the stigma against homosexual behavior among many seems to be achieving precisely what Esolen would have predicted: a flowering of a deeper, more loving, more devoted, more biblical, more Christ-like, more genuinely masculine level of friendship and love (phileo; fraternity) between men.
“ If Christian civilization has a future, this is a necessary prerequisite. ”
¹ Part of the faggotization of everything.