男人們，來個擁抱吧！

I had thought about reaching for my father’s hand for weeks. He was slowly dying in a nursing home, and no one who visited him — from my mother, his wife of 42 years, to my three siblings — held his hand. How do you reach for something that, for so many decades, hinted at violence and, worse, dismissal?

父親在一家養(yǎng)老院里慢慢死去的時候，我一連幾個星期都在考慮要不要去拉他的手。所有去看望他的人都沒有這樣做——從我母親，他結(jié)婚42年的妻子，到我的三個兄弟姐妹。好幾十年以來，男人的手就暗示著暴力，更糟糕的是還意味著拒絕，你怎么能做到伸手去拉它呢?

In the flickering gray from the old black-and-white movies we watched together, I finally did it. I touched my father’s hand, which I hadn’t held since I was a young boy. His curled fingers opened, unhinging some long-sealed door within me, then lightly closed around mine. Before I left, I did something else none of the males in my family had ever done before. I leaned close to my father’s ear and whispered, “I love you.”

在我們一起看的黑白老電影發(fā)出的灰色光芒中，我終于做到了。我撫摸著父親的手，我從很小的時候就沒有握住過它了。他蜷起的手指打開了，仿佛在我體內(nèi)開啟了一扇封閉已久的門，然后他輕輕握住了我的手指。在我離開之前，我做了一件我家的男人從來不會做的事。我貼近父親的耳朵，低聲說：“我愛你。”

Since then, I have learned that many middle-aged American men share this discomfort with reaching for another man’s hand. But experts say that nonsexual touching contributes to greater well-being.

那以后，我了解到很多美國中年男人觸摸另一個男人的手時都會感到不適。但專家說，與性無關(guān)的觸摸有助于增加幸福感。

Touch is the first, and perhaps most profound, language we learn when we’re very young, says Tiffany Field, director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Touch might have a more immediate impact than words, Dr. Field said in an email, “because it is physical and leads to a chain of bioelectric and chemical changes that basically relax the nervous system.”

邁阿密大學(xué)醫(yī)學(xué)院(University of Miami School of Medicine)觸摸研究所所長蒂芙尼·菲爾德(Tiffany Field)說，觸摸是我們學(xué)到的第一種語言，或許也是最深刻的語言。觸摸的影響可能比語言更直接，菲爾德在接受電子郵件采訪時說，“因為觸摸是身體性的，能導(dǎo)致一系列生物電流與化學(xué)變化，可以令神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)從根本上得到放松。”

The benefits of nonsexual touch read like a 19th-century tonic advertisement, except that the outcomes have been scientifically vetted. Touch has been found, among other things, to reduce stress, heart rate and blood pressure. Touch has even been found to lower the level of cortisol in the body (especially in women) which, when elevated, impedes our working memory and, most critically, the immune system’s resiliency.

與性無關(guān)的觸摸的優(yōu)點，看上去就像19世紀(jì)的奎寧水廣告一樣，只不過這些優(yōu)點都經(jīng)過科學(xué)證實。在種種優(yōu)點當(dāng)中，觸摸被證實能夠降低壓力、心率和血壓。甚至已經(jīng)發(fā)現(xiàn)觸摸可以降低體內(nèi)的皮質(zhì)醇水平(對于女性特別有效)——皮質(zhì)醇升高會影響我們的有效記憶，最重要的是，還會影響免疫系統(tǒng)的恢復(fù)能力。

It should be great news that something free, widely available and lacking in harmful side effects is so good for us, but it gets ignored in a touch-averse culture like ours. Yes, Americans are generally gregarious but, unlike, say, Italians, Greeks, the French or Latinos, that friendly intimacy is largely limited to our mouths. According to Jay Skidmore, a psychologist, researcher and professor with Seattle Pacific University Medical School, “social-cultural trends in America have focused for decades on reducing touch.”

有這樣一種東西對我們有這么大的好處，而且還免費、隨處可得、無副作用，這本應(yīng)是個好消息。但在我們這樣厭惡觸摸的文化當(dāng)中，它被忽略了。是的，美國人通常都很合群，但和意大利人、希臘人、法國人或者拉丁美洲人不同，對于我們來說，親密友好的關(guān)系主要局限在口頭。西雅圖太平洋大學(xué)醫(yī)學(xué)院(Seattle Pacific University Medical School)的心理學(xué)家、研究員及教授杰伊·斯基德莫爾(Jay Skidmore)說，“幾十年來，美國的社會文化趨勢一直致力于減少觸摸。”

Of course, it would not be surprising if recent allegations of sexual assault by public figures make people even more skittish about initiating or receiving physical contact.

當(dāng)然，最近發(fā)生了許多針對公眾人物的性侵犯指控，如果這令人們對于主動發(fā)起或接受身體接觸感到更為不安，那也是不足為奇的。

Indeed, many men self-police their hands around each other. In younger men this manifests in the ubiquitous “No homo!” response if they accidentally touch another guy, and in older men it translates into the same awkward discomfort (read: fear) that I, and many men, experience when faced with reaching out to another male, even an intimate. Yet these reactions are a relatively modern phenomena. Men shared the same bed with strangers in early American taverns, and scholarship is unearthing letters — including ones from Abraham Lincoln — revealing how men sometimes nurtured same-sex friendships that were more emotionally and physically intimate in nonsexual ways than the relationships they shared with women. Some 19th-century tintypes, such as those collected in the book “Bosom Buddies: A Photo History of Male Affection,” illustrate this.

事實上，很多男人都在嚴(yán)格監(jiān)督自己，不讓手碰到其他人。比如說，在年輕人當(dāng)中，如果有人不小心碰到另一個人，對方往往會回答“我不是同性戀!”;而在年長的男人當(dāng)中，它表現(xiàn)為伸手觸摸另一個男人時，會產(chǎn)生尷尬的不適感(其實就是恐懼)，我和許多男人都有這種感覺，哪怕對方是很親近的人。然而這樣的反應(yīng)是比較現(xiàn)代才有的現(xiàn)象。在美國早期的小客棧里，男性旅客們得和陌生人睡在同一張床上。對許多信件的學(xué)術(shù)研究表明，當(dāng)時一些男人之間的友誼雖然不涉及性愛，但其情感和身體的親密程度堪與男女之間相當(dāng)，這其中也包括亞伯拉罕·林肯(Abraham Lincoln)的信件。一些19世紀(jì)的錫版照片可以證明這一點，《兄弟情誼——男性情感影像史》(Bosom Buddies: A Photo History of Male Affection)一書中收集了其中一部分。

The psychologist Ofer Zur notes that for most 20th- and 21st-century American men, physical contact is restricted to violence or sex. As the sociologist Michael Kimmel, who studies masculinity, said in an email, touch between straight men can occur only when physical contact “magically loses its association with homosexuality” — as happens in sports.

心理學(xué)家奧弗·祖爾(Ofer Zur)指出，在20世紀(jì)的大部分時期乃至21世紀(jì)，對于美國男性來說，身體接觸僅限于暴力或性行為。正如研究男性氣概的社會學(xué)家邁克爾·基梅爾(Michael Kimmel)在電子郵件中所說，在異性戀男子之間，只有當(dāng)身體接觸“神奇地與同性戀脫鉤”時，他們才會觸碰彼此——比如說在體育活動之中。

The fear that girds the lack of platonic touch among American men also fuels the destructive force of their hands, a 2002 study in the journal Adolescence found. Dr. Field was the lead author of the study, which looked at 49 cultures. “The cultures that exhibited minimal physical affection toward their young children had significantly higher rates of adult violence,” she said. But “those cultures that showed significant amounts of physical affection toward their young children had virtually no adult violence.”

《青少年》(Adolescence)期刊2002年的一項研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，美國男性對柏拉圖式觸摸的恐懼助長了他們的破壞力。該項研究涵蓋49種文化，菲爾德是其主要作者。她說，“在那些對幼兒極少表達身體感情的文化中，成人暴力的比例要高得多，”但是“在對幼兒大量表達身體感情的文化里，幾乎沒有成人暴力。”

A big part of the problem for men is how they handle that 21st-century scourge that kills men younger than it does women: stress. Women employ a tend-and-befriend approach that invites confidence in and cooperation with people who can help them externalize their struggles and find succor.

對男人來說，問題很大程度在于他們?nèi)绾翁幚韷毫Γ?1世紀(jì)，這個問題對年輕男性的危害比對女性的危害更加嚴(yán)重。女性往往采用“接近并且結(jié)為朋友”的方式，與那些能夠幫助她們外化內(nèi)心沖突并給予救助的人建立起信任與合作關(guān)系。

Not men. When faced with stressors, they tend to turn cowboy, growing stoic, emotionally withdrawn and, too often, isolated. (It’s true that, unlike men, women receive higher levels of oxytocin — the calming, bonding hormone and neurotransmitter — when they are stressed, which enhances their ability to cope. But research shows that men’s, as well as women’s, levels of oxytocin rise when they receive affectionate touch from their partner — and that with doses of oxytocin through the nose, fear is reduced and degrees of trust, generosity and empathy rise.)

男人卻并非如此。當(dāng)面對壓力時，他們傾向于扮演牛仔，他們會變得堅忍，不表達感情，而且往往會把自己孤立起來。(誠然，與男性不同的是，女性受到壓力時催產(chǎn)素——一種令人鎮(zhèn)定、產(chǎn)生情感聯(lián)絡(luò)的激素和神經(jīng)遞質(zhì)——水平會出現(xiàn)升高，從而提高應(yīng)對能力。但是研究表明，當(dāng)人們從伴侶那里得到深情的觸摸時，男性和女性的催產(chǎn)素水平都會出現(xiàn)上升——從鼻子吸入少量催產(chǎn)素時，恐懼會出現(xiàn)減少，信任和寬容的程度則會增加，共情心理也會上升。)

If this cowboy approach strengthened men mentally and emotionally, it wouldn’t be a problem. But the weight of having to suppress stress and the resulting emotions that are perceived as unmanly — “gender role stress,” Dr. Zur calls it — doesn’t make men more resilient. It makes them more vulnerable, triggering anxiety and depression, he says. It also prevents them from feeling that they have permission to seek mental health help. A 2000 study by U.C.L.A. researchers finds that “Men are more likely than women to respond to stressful experiences by developing certain stress-related disorders,” such as hypertension, alcohol and drug abuse.

如果這種扮牛仔的方式能讓男性在精神和情感上變得更強大，那就不是問題了。但是，被迫抑制壓力，以及壓力之下產(chǎn)生的所謂“不夠男人”的情緒，這樣的負擔(dān)——祖爾稱之為“性別角色壓力”——并不會增強男性的適應(yīng)能力。他說，它會讓他們變得更加脆弱，引發(fā)焦慮和壓抑。它還會令他們覺得自己不該尋求心理健康幫助。加州大學(xué)洛杉磯分校的研究人員在2000年的一項研究中發(fā)現(xiàn)，“在應(yīng)對壓力時，男性比女性更有可能形成某些與壓力相關(guān)的失調(diào)”，比如高血壓、酗酒和藥物濫用。

There’s a reason the majority of clients seeking private services from the nascent professional cuddling industry are overwhelmingly male, straight, educated, divorced and in their early 50s. Just as a crushing number of white working-class men are succumbing to opioid addiction and suicide, these men are also suffering emotionally.

職業(yè)擁抱行業(yè)是一項新興私人服務(wù)，它的絕大部分客戶都是受過教育、年齡在50歲出頭的異性戀男性，這是有理由的。這些人在情感上承受著痛苦，就像大量白人工薪階層男性被阿片類藥物上癮和自殺的念頭折磨。

They are a population Kory Floyd, a professor of communication at the University of Arizona, had in mind when he wrote about “affection deprivation” in a study of more than 500 participants, published in 2014. Dr. Floyd studied the effects of what he calls “skin hunger,” discovering that people who experience this phenomenon were, among other things, more lonely, depressed, had less social support, experienced more mood and anxiety disorders and an inability to interpret and express emotions. This lack of affection correlated with a “fearful avoidant attachment style,” the same reaction so common in affection-deprived children from orphanages — and in many men. Dr. Floyd said in an email that men are “more likely than women to report that they received less affection from others than they wanted.”

2014年， 亞利桑那大學(xué)(University of Arizona)傳播學(xué)教授科里·弗洛伊德(Kory Floyd)對500多名參與者進行研究并發(fā)表論文，在文中提出“情感剝奪”概念時，他所考慮到的正是上述群體。弗洛伊德研究了他所稱的“皮膚饑餓”(skin hunger)的影響，發(fā)現(xiàn)存在這種狀況的人有一些共性，包括更為孤獨、抑郁、缺乏社會支持、經(jīng)歷過更多情緒與焦慮障礙，并且沒有能力解釋和表達情感。這種情感匱乏和 “恐懼回避型依戀模式”相關(guān)，在孤兒院里缺乏關(guān)愛的孩子身上非常普遍，然而也存在于很多男性當(dāng)中。弗洛伊德在電子郵件中說，男性比女性“更有可能聲稱自己從他人那里得到的感情比希望得到的少。”

Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that a 2011 study from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, found that among more than 1,000 heterosexual middle-aged and older married couples in five countries, hugging and kissing were more central to the happiness of men than they were to women.

或許正是因為如此，印地安那大學(xué)金賽研究所(Kinsey Institute at Indiana University) 于2011年發(fā)表在《性行為檔案》(Archives of Sexual Behavior)上的一項研究就不足為奇了。該研究對5個國家的1000多名異性戀中老年已婚夫婦進行了調(diào)查，發(fā)現(xiàn)擁抱和親吻對于男性的幸福感來說，比對女性更為重要。

But some young British men are going back to the future. A study published in October in Men & Masculinities found that the 30 heterosexual undergraduate males interviewed felt safer cuddling, hugging and, especially, confiding in platonic male friends than they did with their girlfriends. These “bromances” provided less judgment and increased “emotional stability, enhanced emotional disclosure, social fulfillment, and better conflict resolution, compared to the emotional lives they shared with girlfriends.”

但是一些年輕的英國男性正在走向未來。今年10月發(fā)表在《男性與男子氣概》(Men & Masculinities)上的一項研究稱，受訪的30名異性戀本科男生認(rèn)為，同柏拉圖式的男性友人親近、擁抱，尤其是向他們傾吐心聲，比和女友一起做這些事更安全。和他們同女友的戀情相比，這些“兄弟情”之中沒有太多評判，并且能夠“鞏固情感穩(wěn)定性，加強情感表達，增進社會滿足感，更好地解決沖突”。

Recently, I had a few beers with a new friend. (My wife initiated this, knowing I’ve been feeling lonely since we moved to another city.) From the start we went deep, swapping stories about our fathers and the struggles of growing up in a culture that still holds male sensitivity in contempt. “Women have it right,” I said, talking over loud pounding on the nearby kitchen door that apparently had stuck. “They find friends or sisters to talk with when things are rough,” I said, as our server finally broke through the door.

前不久，我和一個新朋友喝了幾杯啤酒。(是我妻子建議的，她知道自從搬到新城市后，我一直感到孤獨。)從一開始，我們就深入地討論了各自父親的故事，以及在一種依然對男性的敏感情緒嗤之以鼻的文化中長大的種種掙扎。“女人們是對的，” 我大聲說，努力蓋過旁邊廚房傳來的巨大拍門聲，那扇門似乎被鎖住了。“她們有困難會找朋友或姐妹傾訴。”這時，服務(wù)員終于把那扇門打開了。

When we got up to leave, I did something I rarely do with even close friends: I hugged him. For the second time that night, a stuck door opened.

起身離開時，我做了一件即便是對親密的朋友也很少做的事情：我擁抱了他。那天晚上，又一扇鎖住的門被打開了。