boundinbraids:

enlillestarling:

I rewatched Lord of the Rings the other day and you know what I really appreciate?

The men are so tender.

They cry, and kiss each other’s foreheads, and hug, and call each other ‘my friend’ and ‘my dear’; they’re respectful to women and faithful to their partners; they have banter without being creepy and sleazy, and literally none of that stops them from being considered “manly”.

More Lord of the Rings men please.

This is because for a long time this was the behavior that was concidered “manly.” Men would kiss each other on the lips as just a standard good bye. (In fact workers at the Colonial Williamsburg living history museum have done some research in this area and are actually incorporating it in their museum.) It was concidered “manly” to burst into tears and just cry your eyes out. You can find this in work by authors like Heinrich von dem Turpin. This idea of men being stoic and immune to all emotions is really a recent trend. And Tolkien knew this. You can see it in his translation of Gawain and the Green Knight.

And even today only Western countries see this behaviour as gay, everywhere else thinks it’s normal.