I agree with you. I find that when my female friends want to hear the truth instead of being puffed up, they call me up. A real friend is loyal and wants to keep you on the straight and narrow. Even if it hurts
This type of prohibitive thinking assumes that you are sexually attracted to your friends and would want to sleep with them given the opportunity. No offense to my male friends, but I'm just not THAT into you.
This is so true. And it feels like an extension of the belief that women need to dress or act a certain way so as not to arouse male attention. (Let’s not even talk about the fact that men are not required to dress a certain way to avoid female attraction.) Not only is this blaming the victim, it is an extraordinary insult to men everywhere: it assumes they are incapable of discretion and restraint, and therefore need to be protected from themselves. This is f**’d up.
I mean there is some truth to it. Male and female biologies are different.....especially in this regard. Like I am personally attracted to 90% of women, I think it is true of most men even tho it sounds pathetic to say outloud. Not saying women need to dress a certain way etc, as a liberal you should respect people's autonomy and choices (and honestly imposing certain expectations on others that you wont impose on yourself, does feels very non kosher). I do wish a more nuanced understanding developed on both sides, where female friends are not blanket banned, but these extra barriers are acknowledged. Like for some people, having female friends would be more trouble than it's worth. Comparable to having a friend that lives on the other side of the city, say, in difficulty. That is a choice that should also be respected
What I find disturbing is the quality of a marital relationship where each of the 2 individuals basically gives up their unique identity and becomes half of a couple - to the point where they do everything together unless it's their job, always socialize together, and often give up friends if their partner doesn't happen to like them or worse, is jealous. Jealously has always seemed to me to be an adolescent and immature emotion that one should grow out of as one ages. I couldn't live in a relationship in which I felt like my partner's "possession."
Great essay. I deeply value my friendships - I’m lucky to have female and male friends who tell me hard truths. Lovers come and go - Good friends are treasures beyond price.
Dear Helen. Thank you so much for helping me broaden my thinking on relationships m/friendships with the opposite sex. I have always believed in them but have often been bound by fear of not knowing my boundaries and of the opposite sex not knowing theirs. I believe my challenge is to build trust by honest dialogue and respect
I know it's a bit bad form to post two comments on the same post. But I was thinking about this today while on the road (A wonderful thing about working as a bus-driver is that your brain gets a lot of time to process things -- the job takes focus and attention, but isn't intellectually challenging)
Have you ever pondered the fact that the kinda people who say that women and men can't ever be friends because lust always gets in the way -- tend to be exactly the same kinda people who claim that monogamy is the only natural default for human beings, and that anything else runs contrary to our very nature and therefore is guaranteed to be a trainwreck?
My boyfriend's best friend is female. I love her too. I am not jealous bc I understand their lifelong friendship. It doesn't matter that she is pretty. It matters we have honest communication and trust each other. Been together a couple years and I can't picture my life w/o him. One of my best friends is male and I've known him for decades, dating back to highschool. My dude is excited to meet him when he visits (he moved) soon. So yeah, I get his friendship, he gets mine.
We both also have other opposite sex friends. If someone isn't prone to cheating, you don't have anything to worry about!
I’ve never understood the claim that men can’t have female friends that are just that. I’ve had female friends my whole life and it’s a great addition to a life well lived. I suppose some men aren’t built for it. So be it, no judgement but don’t project your experience on me. And no, it’s not because of unattractiveness, or that it’s not possible. That’s a shallow argument. It’s because the friendship is what we want.
Great read:) Incredibly relevant to some of my own life lately..
So often when these topics are tackled it seems like a neverending barrage of men telling women how to be better women, to almost entirely male audiences, or women telling men how to be better men, to purely female audiences. So absurdly unconstructive lol.
This kinda thinking is deeply wrong on so many levels that it's hard to know where to start.
For one, not everyone is straight. It's strange that we should have to mention this fact in 2026, but a nontrivial fraction of people are STILL arguing in a manner that assumes everyone is.
If friendships worth having cannot exist between you and someone of a gender that you're potentially attracted to, does that mean bisexual and pansexual people can never have any friends at all, at least not while being partnered? That's clearly not reasonable, and yet if pansexual people can manage this balancing act then surely it's possible for at least some straight people to do exactly the same thing?
Secondly, the assumption that if nonzero sexual attraction exists between two people, then they can't be friends, is infantile. Like you say most mature humans sometimes experience attraction that for some reason or other it's best not to act on -- so they don't. The idea that lust is this all-encompassing thing that dominates your entire brain *permanently* to such a degree that your only reasonable choice is to organize your ENTIRE life around avoiding "temptation" is fundamentally the same one that fundamentalist religious people argue in favor of.
Men *can't* interact with women in a 1:1 setting without experiencing lust, so let's just ban that, at least unless a chaperone i present. Men also can't *exist* in the same space that visible women exist, so let's just chain down women to the kitchen, and if they have to go out in public at all, let's mandate that they cover up 99% of their body with black fabric in a desperate attempt to fight this demon of male lust. (in this worldview, women are usually assumed not to be sexual subjects in the first place -- an attitude that's *also* common in these folks -- notice how most of them will claim that it's the MEN who experience lust, and can't or won't control themselves)
I seem to be in the minority but I disagree with you here. I think the truth in many cases is precisely the opposite of "The claim that men and women cannot be friends therefore seems to me to rely on not valuing individual minds at all. I must conclude that is the stance of people who do not like to think."
It is because I value individual minds and can see having a true connection with a male friend that I protect my marriage by only getting together with that person along with each of our spouses. It's not a case of not trusting myself, or anyone else, not to act wrongly, but every marriage goes through dips and low points and having another male who "gets me" when I am not finding that my husband does, seems an emotionally bad place to be. I can't predict when that will happen, so it's a general rule I choose to follow.
If you rule out people being attracted to each other who were sure they never, ever, would be, it would cancel a high percentage of books and movies. Things often develop in ways we don't expect them to.
Well, it's not. It's applying the same moral and practical reasoning to a wider framework to see if it still works. If one is bisexual, the option to only have friendships with people of the sex one could never be attracted to becomes an imperative not to have friends. The loneliness and limitedness of this arrangement becomes clear. You can avoid that if you are exclusively attracted to one sex, but my argument would be that you're still cutting off half the rewarding connections you could make.
I think it's worse than cutting off half of humanity.
If I was to cut off half of all friendships in a random manner, say by deciding not to be friends with anyone born on an ODD-numbered day of the month, then that would as you say reduce my good connections by half.
But I'm limited more by my own time and emotional bandwith than I am by the people who could potentially want to be friends with me anyway, so I suspect I'd still end up with both a similar count and a similar quality of friendships with such a rule.
We live in a world where different demographic groups have systematically different experiences in a number or ways. (and depending on where you stand on biological determinism, perhaps also statistical differences in innate tendencies)
In such a world, cutting yourself of from other groups creates the additional harm of reducing intra-group understanding and intra-group cohesion. A more gender-segregated world is also a world that risks beging more polarized than it already is, and one where the risk that instead of cooperating about improved gender-equality we get trench-warfare between feminists and mras where neither group knows, understands, or cares about the other.
This is a negative both on a personal and a social level.
I happen to think it's a good thing, not merely a neutral thing, that even if I limit the discussion to the half-dozen people closest to me that group still includes men, women and nonbinary folks, cis and trans folks, straight, bi and ace folks, people with Asian, African, European and North-American background, and Atheists, Christians and Muslims.
The assertion is that you shouldn't have any friends of a gender you're sexually attracted to. If that assertion was correct, it'd follow that bisexual people should not have any friends at all.
Someone who disagrees with that is forced to acknowledge that bisexual people can in fact have friends of a gender they're attracted to. And if bisexual people can do that -- what justification exists for claiming that heterosexual and homosexual people are not able to do exactly the same thing?
You are not really saying that you cannot be friends with men other than your husband. You are saying that you do not want to risk impulsively becoming sexually involved with any of them, so you guard against that by always having other adults present, your spouses, to serve as chaperones. You do not trust yourself or your male friends to refrain from what you regard as inappropriate behavior.
It is good that you know what you need in order to be able to maintain a platonic friendship with a man. What would not be good is if you projected your understanding of yourself onto other married women and insisted that they should never spend time with a male friend without their husbands being present.
Many people do project their understandings of themselves onto other people and assume that other people will not be able to refrain from becoming sexual with a friend unless they always have a chaperone when with that friend.
Holly, I appreciate your gracious comment about my deletion.
I’m going to try to reply to this without it becoming a dissertation (maybe I’ll do a longer piece on the topic on my own Substack), but here is where I disagree with what you wrote. It’s a question of tone. I don’t think of the word ‘chaperone’ nor do I worry (only) about a sexual context.
Marriage is a unique relationship. I think it is a precious one and can think of little more valuable than having a lifetime, loving marriage. That is not a default, and there are many cultural tugs fighting against that. I do what I can to protect my marriage.
I have close emotional relationships with relatives, with our children, with dear friends. But I don’t want a close emotional relationship with another man (leaving aside father, brother, son, etc.) Now, I protect my marriage from my women friends as well. I don’t participate in ‘gripe sessions’ where we put down our husbands. If I have a problem I may share with a friend who can offer support and advice, but I don’t gratuitously breach the privacy of my marriage to get a laugh or sympathy.
Every marriage is going to go through low points, times of disappointment, times of lack of connection and attraction. At the same time as I am not scared of ‘impulsively becoming sexually involved’ I think it would both arrogant and naive to think that I am immune from that type of failure. (Incidentally, this goes both ways. My husband doesn’t have independent female friends just as I don’t have male ones.) Look at newspapers, history, and just the real world and they are full of people who destroyed a marriage and family when they never thought they would. But even if nothing physical ever happens, it can adulterate my marriage if I lean on another man emotionally.
My husband and I have been together through tough times. We’re in our 46th year of marriage. We have faced those things that life throws at you including financial struggles, losing parents, difficult times with children, breast cancer, and watching a child die from cancer. All of these were made easier by our strong connection and solid marriage. That is a gift.
I’m not projecting anything on other people - though reality suggests it is a real concern - but when young men and women ask me for advice, which they do, I do encourage them to keep their marriage bond sacrosanct and that one way to do so is to carefully manage relationships with those of the opposite sex. Not because I think they are one step away from adultery, but because little will add to their joy in life as walking that path with a devoted, loving, spouse, and it is easy to damage that connection.
Thank you for expanding on your initial comment, and explaining how your concern goes beyond what might be the impact on a marriage of having friends of the other sex to concern about what the undesirable impact of having friends even of the same sex.
Your North Star is "little will add to their joy in life as walking that path with a devoted, loving, spouse, and it is easy to damage that connection." This has guided you and your husband through 46 years (and counting!) of marriage.
"I have close emotional relationships with relatives, with our children, with dear friends."
"I protect my marriage from my women friends as well. I don’t participate in ‘gripe sessions’ where we put down our husbands. If I have a problem I may share with a friend who can offer support and advice, but I don’t gratuitously breach the privacy of my marriage to get a laugh or sympathy."
You mention that you do have some "dear friends" and I assume those friends are all other women. That is how thing have sorted out for you over your lifetime, but some of us have "dear friends" who are of the other sex. That is what I think Helen has described in her own life.
Your husband is your main emotional support, just as I think Helen would say her husband is.
That is not true of all marriages.
But even for those for whom it is true, Helen has described how various friends can meet our needs in ways that our particular spouses cannot.
The issue of whether those who are heterosexually attracted (which includes bisexuals) can have friends of the other sex was really a springboard for Helen's discussion of the more encompassing subject of friendship and what different types of satisfaction different friends provide, whether of the same sex or other sex.
Thank you for all that you have written.
I think that the young people who ask you for advice are very fortunate in knowing you and being able to hear what your experience has been.
As we all know, increasing numbers of people in our culture do not have intimate relationships which are satisfying to them, and in fact have given up on the prospect that they ever will.
I agree with all of these points in favour of cross sex friendships and the ideal of the meeting of the minds.
But I’m not going to denigrate people who don’t see it that way. Our abstract thoughts live in physical bodies, and while it is a sign of maturity to deal with inconvenient attractions, some people just don’t want to find out if they can.
Yes, precisely. In the same way, I'd have respect for someone with a drinking problem who took responsibility for that by not entering establishments where alcohol is served themselves. Self-awareness is good. But when people start politicising this and making it a moral imperative for everyone, this is not about personal responsibility but moralising to the universal in order to feel better about their own limitations.
I feel like I comment about projection often enough in response to your Notes/posts, but yes. In my experience, it is absolutely those who know on some level that they themselves cannot be trusted to not develop non-platonic feelings for a friend of the opposite sex who are most adamant that "men and women cannot be friends!!!"
Feelings don't compel actions though. It's completely normal and something I dare say pretty close to 100% of people have experienced to at some point or other have experienced feelings that they can't ethically act on -- so they just don't.
For example you might have at some point in your life felt attracted to someone who was already in a monogamous relationship, or at a time when you were already monogamously partnered, or similar.
And this just isn't the enormous deal these people make it out to be.
Like Helen writes: "Mature human beings generally move through the world encountering many attractive people while simply not acting on that fact."
For sure it can be difficult to be close friends with someone if you have extremely strong longing for being in a romantic or sexual relationship with them.
But that kinda intensity is rare for most people. I've certainly never felt that way about >95% of the people in my life, and I don't think I'm the odd one here.
And even when it happens, it tends to in most cases fade pretty quickly in the absense of anything happening.
If they were just saying "I personally don't want to be friends with anyone of a gender I'm attracted to" then that'd be more or less fine. (though still kinda sad, frankly)
But that's not what they're doing. They're claiming that IN GENERAL women and men cannot or should not ever be friends.
These people are, simply put, imbeciles. We all can be imbeciles in some respect, and this is one of the most frequent: when an individual puts his/her own stunted, crippled relational life as a general norm, which prevents them from seeing how stunted and crippled this and their sense of self is are and seeking remedy.
These people, I am sad to say, either live in extremely closed up milieus where gender norms are believed to be monolithic and strictly enforced in the mind (does not matter if "back to the kitchen" conservatives or "men are all brutes" feminists); or they suffer from that kind of low self esteem that tells you that every person whom your partner has a meaningful relationship with -- your own sex, but often any sex, it does not matter, because the threat is the relationship, not sex per se -- will lead your partner away. Likely, both.
These people are in weak relationships and clearly capable only of creating weak relationships that need be protected by the absence of "temptations". They are those who look anywhere except inside themselves. (Of course they blather on Twitter/X or any other awful "make and impression and find your small tribe" social media.)
For centuries, the argument against the possibility of friendship between men and women was made on the grounds that women were too stupid to engage a man intellectually, while too innately, overwhelmingly sexual not to"seduce" the man, whatever man. I suspect that this is still the argument, concealed under talk of biological insurmountable differences and the like.
On the other hand, this is reinforced by people who are slaves of their sense of inadequacy and fear, which are the main root of jealousy. Jealousy is a legitimate emotion, which should be understood and balanced with self-searching... but if we posit a general rule, then there is no more need of understanding ourselves and what drives us. It is like the people who oppose divorce, in the idiotic belief that its absence will prevent the breaking up of marriages (learning from history is not a thing that our species does well -- likely because we are so short lived)
I, and a large number of my friends, have friends of the designated "sexual mate" kind (whatever that is for them; gay men happen to have other gay men as friends, and lesbians other women, without ever wanting to shag them. Bisexuals like me and Ms Pluckrose would be barred from any friendship at all except with their partner if this held any truth).
I have been happily married 25 years. I am also not monogamous (which is not for everybody). But my peculiar standpoint allows me to say with certainty something very simple: being that my wife and I have always been able to shag anybody else if we wanted, the sheer number of the friends whose souls we love and whose bodies/sensuality just do not inspire any desire, has always been overwhelming. And even many of those who inspired desires have been ruled out because of clearly foreseeable complications.
In the end, what these people are saying is that lust is overwhelming, all-encompassing, indiscriminate and ever present. Sorry for them that they feel that their partners (and therefore themselves) cannot be trusted to keep it in their pants and respect the commitments they made. Sorry to have to break it to them that it is not so very hard to be mature adults not driven by every passing whim. Truly you do not need to enforce the burka laws to avoid people jumping one another in the street. You just need to bring up decent individuals, and teach them to deal with their psychological issues.
But there it is. These people, talking of others, simply reveal who they are. Ladies beware Mr Molyneux, Mr Walsh, etc. Gentlemen beware Ms Sine and GameChangerGirl. They are maladapted adolescents projecting their desires. You have been warned.
A really important part of being an adult is knowing how to regulate your feelings and behavior so that your behavior is not controlled by your feelings of sexual attraction. This is an important part of adolescence: learning how to contend with your feelings of sexual attraction so that they do not continue to overwhelm you as an adult.
I agree with you. I find that when my female friends want to hear the truth instead of being puffed up, they call me up. A real friend is loyal and wants to keep you on the straight and narrow. Even if it hurts
This type of prohibitive thinking assumes that you are sexually attracted to your friends and would want to sleep with them given the opportunity. No offense to my male friends, but I'm just not THAT into you.
This is so true. And it feels like an extension of the belief that women need to dress or act a certain way so as not to arouse male attention. (Let’s not even talk about the fact that men are not required to dress a certain way to avoid female attraction.) Not only is this blaming the victim, it is an extraordinary insult to men everywhere: it assumes they are incapable of discretion and restraint, and therefore need to be protected from themselves. This is f**’d up.
I mean there is some truth to it. Male and female biologies are different.....especially in this regard. Like I am personally attracted to 90% of women, I think it is true of most men even tho it sounds pathetic to say outloud. Not saying women need to dress a certain way etc, as a liberal you should respect people's autonomy and choices (and honestly imposing certain expectations on others that you wont impose on yourself, does feels very non kosher). I do wish a more nuanced understanding developed on both sides, where female friends are not blanket banned, but these extra barriers are acknowledged. Like for some people, having female friends would be more trouble than it's worth. Comparable to having a friend that lives on the other side of the city, say, in difficulty. That is a choice that should also be respected
What I find disturbing is the quality of a marital relationship where each of the 2 individuals basically gives up their unique identity and becomes half of a couple - to the point where they do everything together unless it's their job, always socialize together, and often give up friends if their partner doesn't happen to like them or worse, is jealous. Jealously has always seemed to me to be an adolescent and immature emotion that one should grow out of as one ages. I couldn't live in a relationship in which I felt like my partner's "possession."
Great essay. I deeply value my friendships - I’m lucky to have female and male friends who tell me hard truths. Lovers come and go - Good friends are treasures beyond price.
Dear Helen. Thank you so much for helping me broaden my thinking on relationships m/friendships with the opposite sex. I have always believed in them but have often been bound by fear of not knowing my boundaries and of the opposite sex not knowing theirs. I believe my challenge is to build trust by honest dialogue and respect
I know it's a bit bad form to post two comments on the same post. But I was thinking about this today while on the road (A wonderful thing about working as a bus-driver is that your brain gets a lot of time to process things -- the job takes focus and attention, but isn't intellectually challenging)
Have you ever pondered the fact that the kinda people who say that women and men can't ever be friends because lust always gets in the way -- tend to be exactly the same kinda people who claim that monogamy is the only natural default for human beings, and that anything else runs contrary to our very nature and therefore is guaranteed to be a trainwreck?
Yes, that is quite a contradiction!
My boyfriend's best friend is female. I love her too. I am not jealous bc I understand their lifelong friendship. It doesn't matter that she is pretty. It matters we have honest communication and trust each other. Been together a couple years and I can't picture my life w/o him. One of my best friends is male and I've known him for decades, dating back to highschool. My dude is excited to meet him when he visits (he moved) soon. So yeah, I get his friendship, he gets mine.
We both also have other opposite sex friends. If someone isn't prone to cheating, you don't have anything to worry about!
I’ve never understood the claim that men can’t have female friends that are just that. I’ve had female friends my whole life and it’s a great addition to a life well lived. I suppose some men aren’t built for it. So be it, no judgement but don’t project your experience on me. And no, it’s not because of unattractiveness, or that it’s not possible. That’s a shallow argument. It’s because the friendship is what we want.
Precisely. It’s weird. A category error.
Great read:) Incredibly relevant to some of my own life lately..
So often when these topics are tackled it seems like a neverending barrage of men telling women how to be better women, to almost entirely male audiences, or women telling men how to be better men, to purely female audiences. So absurdly unconstructive lol.
This was extremely constructive though:)
So thankyou!
Well said and beautifully written.
This is a very enlightened article. Thank you.
This kinda thinking is deeply wrong on so many levels that it's hard to know where to start.
For one, not everyone is straight. It's strange that we should have to mention this fact in 2026, but a nontrivial fraction of people are STILL arguing in a manner that assumes everyone is.
If friendships worth having cannot exist between you and someone of a gender that you're potentially attracted to, does that mean bisexual and pansexual people can never have any friends at all, at least not while being partnered? That's clearly not reasonable, and yet if pansexual people can manage this balancing act then surely it's possible for at least some straight people to do exactly the same thing?
Secondly, the assumption that if nonzero sexual attraction exists between two people, then they can't be friends, is infantile. Like you say most mature humans sometimes experience attraction that for some reason or other it's best not to act on -- so they don't. The idea that lust is this all-encompassing thing that dominates your entire brain *permanently* to such a degree that your only reasonable choice is to organize your ENTIRE life around avoiding "temptation" is fundamentally the same one that fundamentalist religious people argue in favor of.
Men *can't* interact with women in a 1:1 setting without experiencing lust, so let's just ban that, at least unless a chaperone i present. Men also can't *exist* in the same space that visible women exist, so let's just chain down women to the kitchen, and if they have to go out in public at all, let's mandate that they cover up 99% of their body with black fabric in a desperate attempt to fight this demon of male lust. (in this worldview, women are usually assumed not to be sexual subjects in the first place -- an attitude that's *also* common in these folks -- notice how most of them will claim that it's the MEN who experience lust, and can't or won't control themselves)
I seem to be in the minority but I disagree with you here. I think the truth in many cases is precisely the opposite of "The claim that men and women cannot be friends therefore seems to me to rely on not valuing individual minds at all. I must conclude that is the stance of people who do not like to think."
It is because I value individual minds and can see having a true connection with a male friend that I protect my marriage by only getting together with that person along with each of our spouses. It's not a case of not trusting myself, or anyone else, not to act wrongly, but every marriage goes through dips and low points and having another male who "gets me" when I am not finding that my husband does, seems an emotionally bad place to be. I can't predict when that will happen, so it's a general rule I choose to follow.
If you rule out people being attracted to each other who were sure they never, ever, would be, it would cancel a high percentage of books and movies. Things often develop in ways we don't expect them to.
What kinda friendships would you have if you were bisexual?
Someone asked Matt Walsh this and he said the answer to that was to stop being bisexual. I don’t think he thought that through.
Matt Walsh should stick to opening pickle jars and not pontificating about other people.
I think that question is totally irrelevant to this article. Not every article has to be about everything.
Well, it's not. It's applying the same moral and practical reasoning to a wider framework to see if it still works. If one is bisexual, the option to only have friendships with people of the sex one could never be attracted to becomes an imperative not to have friends. The loneliness and limitedness of this arrangement becomes clear. You can avoid that if you are exclusively attracted to one sex, but my argument would be that you're still cutting off half the rewarding connections you could make.
I think it's worse than cutting off half of humanity.
If I was to cut off half of all friendships in a random manner, say by deciding not to be friends with anyone born on an ODD-numbered day of the month, then that would as you say reduce my good connections by half.
But I'm limited more by my own time and emotional bandwith than I am by the people who could potentially want to be friends with me anyway, so I suspect I'd still end up with both a similar count and a similar quality of friendships with such a rule.
We live in a world where different demographic groups have systematically different experiences in a number or ways. (and depending on where you stand on biological determinism, perhaps also statistical differences in innate tendencies)
In such a world, cutting yourself of from other groups creates the additional harm of reducing intra-group understanding and intra-group cohesion. A more gender-segregated world is also a world that risks beging more polarized than it already is, and one where the risk that instead of cooperating about improved gender-equality we get trench-warfare between feminists and mras where neither group knows, understands, or cares about the other.
This is a negative both on a personal and a social level.
I happen to think it's a good thing, not merely a neutral thing, that even if I limit the discussion to the half-dozen people closest to me that group still includes men, women and nonbinary folks, cis and trans folks, straight, bi and ace folks, people with Asian, African, European and North-American background, and Atheists, Christians and Muslims.
The assertion is that you shouldn't have any friends of a gender you're sexually attracted to. If that assertion was correct, it'd follow that bisexual people should not have any friends at all.
Someone who disagrees with that is forced to acknowledge that bisexual people can in fact have friends of a gender they're attracted to. And if bisexual people can do that -- what justification exists for claiming that heterosexual and homosexual people are not able to do exactly the same thing?
You are not really saying that you cannot be friends with men other than your husband. You are saying that you do not want to risk impulsively becoming sexually involved with any of them, so you guard against that by always having other adults present, your spouses, to serve as chaperones. You do not trust yourself or your male friends to refrain from what you regard as inappropriate behavior.
It is good that you know what you need in order to be able to maintain a platonic friendship with a man. What would not be good is if you projected your understanding of yourself onto other married women and insisted that they should never spend time with a male friend without their husbands being present.
Many people do project their understandings of themselves onto other people and assume that other people will not be able to refrain from becoming sexual with a friend unless they always have a chaperone when with that friend.
I started to write a reply and wasn't happy with it, hence the deletion. I hope to have time tomorrow.
I'm not going anywhere! I look forward to reading your reply when you have the time to draft it.
Holly, I appreciate your gracious comment about my deletion.
I’m going to try to reply to this without it becoming a dissertation (maybe I’ll do a longer piece on the topic on my own Substack), but here is where I disagree with what you wrote. It’s a question of tone. I don’t think of the word ‘chaperone’ nor do I worry (only) about a sexual context.
Marriage is a unique relationship. I think it is a precious one and can think of little more valuable than having a lifetime, loving marriage. That is not a default, and there are many cultural tugs fighting against that. I do what I can to protect my marriage.
I have close emotional relationships with relatives, with our children, with dear friends. But I don’t want a close emotional relationship with another man (leaving aside father, brother, son, etc.) Now, I protect my marriage from my women friends as well. I don’t participate in ‘gripe sessions’ where we put down our husbands. If I have a problem I may share with a friend who can offer support and advice, but I don’t gratuitously breach the privacy of my marriage to get a laugh or sympathy.
Every marriage is going to go through low points, times of disappointment, times of lack of connection and attraction. At the same time as I am not scared of ‘impulsively becoming sexually involved’ I think it would both arrogant and naive to think that I am immune from that type of failure. (Incidentally, this goes both ways. My husband doesn’t have independent female friends just as I don’t have male ones.) Look at newspapers, history, and just the real world and they are full of people who destroyed a marriage and family when they never thought they would. But even if nothing physical ever happens, it can adulterate my marriage if I lean on another man emotionally.
My husband and I have been together through tough times. We’re in our 46th year of marriage. We have faced those things that life throws at you including financial struggles, losing parents, difficult times with children, breast cancer, and watching a child die from cancer. All of these were made easier by our strong connection and solid marriage. That is a gift.
I’m not projecting anything on other people - though reality suggests it is a real concern - but when young men and women ask me for advice, which they do, I do encourage them to keep their marriage bond sacrosanct and that one way to do so is to carefully manage relationships with those of the opposite sex. Not because I think they are one step away from adultery, but because little will add to their joy in life as walking that path with a devoted, loving, spouse, and it is easy to damage that connection.
Thank you for expanding on your initial comment, and explaining how your concern goes beyond what might be the impact on a marriage of having friends of the other sex to concern about what the undesirable impact of having friends even of the same sex.
Your North Star is "little will add to their joy in life as walking that path with a devoted, loving, spouse, and it is easy to damage that connection." This has guided you and your husband through 46 years (and counting!) of marriage.
"I have close emotional relationships with relatives, with our children, with dear friends."
"I protect my marriage from my women friends as well. I don’t participate in ‘gripe sessions’ where we put down our husbands. If I have a problem I may share with a friend who can offer support and advice, but I don’t gratuitously breach the privacy of my marriage to get a laugh or sympathy."
You mention that you do have some "dear friends" and I assume those friends are all other women. That is how thing have sorted out for you over your lifetime, but some of us have "dear friends" who are of the other sex. That is what I think Helen has described in her own life.
Your husband is your main emotional support, just as I think Helen would say her husband is.
That is not true of all marriages.
But even for those for whom it is true, Helen has described how various friends can meet our needs in ways that our particular spouses cannot.
The issue of whether those who are heterosexually attracted (which includes bisexuals) can have friends of the other sex was really a springboard for Helen's discussion of the more encompassing subject of friendship and what different types of satisfaction different friends provide, whether of the same sex or other sex.
Thank you for all that you have written.
I think that the young people who ask you for advice are very fortunate in knowing you and being able to hear what your experience has been.
As we all know, increasing numbers of people in our culture do not have intimate relationships which are satisfying to them, and in fact have given up on the prospect that they ever will.
I appreciate Helen's site for the ability to have respectful conversations even when we differ. Thank you for that, Holly.
I agree with all of these points in favour of cross sex friendships and the ideal of the meeting of the minds.
But I’m not going to denigrate people who don’t see it that way. Our abstract thoughts live in physical bodies, and while it is a sign of maturity to deal with inconvenient attractions, some people just don’t want to find out if they can.
I kind of respect that.
"some people just don’t want to find out if they can"
Then it is great if they speak for themselves, and admit to the limitations with which they live.
In these cases, however, there is the attempt to promulgate universal rules based on personal limitations.
Yes, precisely. In the same way, I'd have respect for someone with a drinking problem who took responsibility for that by not entering establishments where alcohol is served themselves. Self-awareness is good. But when people start politicising this and making it a moral imperative for everyone, this is not about personal responsibility but moralising to the universal in order to feel better about their own limitations.
I feel like I comment about projection often enough in response to your Notes/posts, but yes. In my experience, it is absolutely those who know on some level that they themselves cannot be trusted to not develop non-platonic feelings for a friend of the opposite sex who are most adamant that "men and women cannot be friends!!!"
Feelings don't compel actions though. It's completely normal and something I dare say pretty close to 100% of people have experienced to at some point or other have experienced feelings that they can't ethically act on -- so they just don't.
For example you might have at some point in your life felt attracted to someone who was already in a monogamous relationship, or at a time when you were already monogamously partnered, or similar.
And this just isn't the enormous deal these people make it out to be.
Like Helen writes: "Mature human beings generally move through the world encountering many attractive people while simply not acting on that fact."
Finding someone attractive is very different from developing a non-platonic attraction to them.
For sure it can be difficult to be close friends with someone if you have extremely strong longing for being in a romantic or sexual relationship with them.
But that kinda intensity is rare for most people. I've certainly never felt that way about >95% of the people in my life, and I don't think I'm the odd one here.
And even when it happens, it tends to in most cases fade pretty quickly in the absense of anything happening.
If they were just saying "I personally don't want to be friends with anyone of a gender I'm attracted to" then that'd be more or less fine. (though still kinda sad, frankly)
But that's not what they're doing. They're claiming that IN GENERAL women and men cannot or should not ever be friends.
These people are, simply put, imbeciles. We all can be imbeciles in some respect, and this is one of the most frequent: when an individual puts his/her own stunted, crippled relational life as a general norm, which prevents them from seeing how stunted and crippled this and their sense of self is are and seeking remedy.
These people, I am sad to say, either live in extremely closed up milieus where gender norms are believed to be monolithic and strictly enforced in the mind (does not matter if "back to the kitchen" conservatives or "men are all brutes" feminists); or they suffer from that kind of low self esteem that tells you that every person whom your partner has a meaningful relationship with -- your own sex, but often any sex, it does not matter, because the threat is the relationship, not sex per se -- will lead your partner away. Likely, both.
These people are in weak relationships and clearly capable only of creating weak relationships that need be protected by the absence of "temptations". They are those who look anywhere except inside themselves. (Of course they blather on Twitter/X or any other awful "make and impression and find your small tribe" social media.)
For centuries, the argument against the possibility of friendship between men and women was made on the grounds that women were too stupid to engage a man intellectually, while too innately, overwhelmingly sexual not to"seduce" the man, whatever man. I suspect that this is still the argument, concealed under talk of biological insurmountable differences and the like.
On the other hand, this is reinforced by people who are slaves of their sense of inadequacy and fear, which are the main root of jealousy. Jealousy is a legitimate emotion, which should be understood and balanced with self-searching... but if we posit a general rule, then there is no more need of understanding ourselves and what drives us. It is like the people who oppose divorce, in the idiotic belief that its absence will prevent the breaking up of marriages (learning from history is not a thing that our species does well -- likely because we are so short lived)
I, and a large number of my friends, have friends of the designated "sexual mate" kind (whatever that is for them; gay men happen to have other gay men as friends, and lesbians other women, without ever wanting to shag them. Bisexuals like me and Ms Pluckrose would be barred from any friendship at all except with their partner if this held any truth).
I have been happily married 25 years. I am also not monogamous (which is not for everybody). But my peculiar standpoint allows me to say with certainty something very simple: being that my wife and I have always been able to shag anybody else if we wanted, the sheer number of the friends whose souls we love and whose bodies/sensuality just do not inspire any desire, has always been overwhelming. And even many of those who inspired desires have been ruled out because of clearly foreseeable complications.
In the end, what these people are saying is that lust is overwhelming, all-encompassing, indiscriminate and ever present. Sorry for them that they feel that their partners (and therefore themselves) cannot be trusted to keep it in their pants and respect the commitments they made. Sorry to have to break it to them that it is not so very hard to be mature adults not driven by every passing whim. Truly you do not need to enforce the burka laws to avoid people jumping one another in the street. You just need to bring up decent individuals, and teach them to deal with their psychological issues.
But there it is. These people, talking of others, simply reveal who they are. Ladies beware Mr Molyneux, Mr Walsh, etc. Gentlemen beware Ms Sine and GameChangerGirl. They are maladapted adolescents projecting their desires. You have been warned.
A really important part of being an adult is knowing how to regulate your feelings and behavior so that your behavior is not controlled by your feelings of sexual attraction. This is an important part of adolescence: learning how to contend with your feelings of sexual attraction so that they do not continue to overwhelm you as an adult.
Bravo!
Great read:) Im in my early