Why is there a DNF thread nearly every day? Enjoy a book, or don't. It's a hobby, not a career.

More like countries where close relationships between unmarried men and women are socially unacceptable. Middle east, india etx

Just as long as it ends with "he was a hoopy frood who really knew where his towel was".

You're correct, but missing an important factor: there was no need to be "obsessed with not being perceived as gay" in Dickens' time, because homosexuality was closeted and considered unacceptable. Affection between men wasn't sexualized.

Fear of being perceived as gay only became an issue with the increasing visibility of homosexuality & its gradual social acceptance. Normal affection between boys was sexualized. The visibility of homosexuality had a direct negative effect on the expression of intimacy & affection between heterosexual men, just as it also put a damper on things like girlfriends holding hands while they walk (something I remember being normal & common when I was a kid but which gradually ceased when girls started getting called lesbians for doing so).

The sexualization of same-sex affection is what killed it.

You'll have to wait until March for what I'm sure is a riveting story of an elephant learning important life skills. Toddlers will be on the edge of their potties.

I will say that his method of having ghost writers that get credit on the cover seems to help aspiring authors get a foot in the door because I've noticed a lot of them go on to publish their own books.

Which cultures are still open with physical affection between men? I guess in some European countries?

Possible conclusion: "Dad, on behalf of all of us down here we'd just like to say: 'We apologize for the inconvenience.' "

​

Also, condolences on your loss.

Of course you wouldn't expect an equal number of mixed race marriages as intraracial ones. You would, however, expect a high percentage of the minority group to eventually be married to partners outside of their group. We see this with Jews in the West, who marry non-Jews at high rates now that religious rigor is relaxing and anti-Jewish sentiment is less normal.

Insularity is common among immigrants, but it normally does not last more than a few generations due to assimilation. The exceptions seem to happen when the group is legally made into a racial underclass or when insularity is a tenet of the group's religion.

I agree with this. I also don't 100% believe that "Men/women are wired to act the way they do because of (biological) reason"

What people fail to realize is that cultural norms have greatly shaped the way we think too.

There are still many cultures in the world where non-sexual/non-romantic physical affection between men is commonplace. Some Western cultures have just lost that aspect of platonic male relationships.

I disagree, his opinions on the music are shallow, and often miss the point. To use Hip to Be Square, Patrick sees it as a song about conformity, about how it's better to fit in then be an individual or buck the status quo.

Huey Lewis wrote the song satirically, it's meant to make fun if "squares" as it comments are people losing what makes them unique. Patrick doesn't understand this though because like everything ss he can only understand the surface level interpretation

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It's one thing that I often think about when people go off saying, "All men/women like (thing) because that's just how they have always been wired."

Okay, that would only be true if it was true across all cultures, for all of history. Typically it's something only present in a small number of cultures that has been true for less than a century, therefore there's no way it's just part of human nature.

Noted. I'll have to set a calendar reminder to come back to this thread.

That’s hilarious - especially as I’m potty training my 3 year old at the moment 😂

I read this book in high school after an acquaintance had finished it and said it made her so upset she just didn’t want it on her bookshelf anymore.

It hit very close to home, while I didn’t move around as often, my family was always struggling for money, and my parents made a lot of bad, selfish decisions. I was really parentified and I still have a complicated relationship with my parents, but they remain in my life despite everything, even if it’s at arm’s length. I think at the time I was probably a little young to have read this book, but I appreciated her story and it definitely left an impact on me. I remember thinking if she was able to pick herself up and become something, I knew I was definitely going to be okay.

I think I might go back and reread this, now that I’m older and have a little more space from the situation I was in when I originally read it.

I'm in charge of collection development for a public library and the reason Patterson stays on top of the popular authors list is quantity over quality. I swear it seems like he has something published weekly. Last week I was reading through a list of upcoming titles and came across a toddler board book he wrote about using the potty.

it's kind of fascinating how culture and society can change. Luckily classic books can give us a glimpse of how people lived in the past.

I remember this strongly from War and Peace as well. They didn't have the same stigmas as are popular these days.

It also depended strongly on class. All classes had less 'no homo' kind of bullshit, but upper classes in particular did not need to pose as manly in order to be powerful and respected. Working class folks still needed to prove dominance over each other and had less tolerance for genteel behavior.

I always recommend it when someone asks me what to read

that's also truee

Early on in The Moon, the Stars, and Madame Burova, Billie, a woman who's looking for her biological parents, makes friends with a piano player. In the last couple of chapters, she learns that >!he's her father!<.

Everyone had same sex relationships. There is no human culture that has ever existed where they aren't present.

However men being affectionate for each other and complimenting each is other is not the same thing

Racism probably plays some part but there’re also like more than 5 times as many white people as there are black people in the US so it’s not like it’ll ever even be physically possible for intermarriage rates to reach close to the same levels as others. Also other aspects would have an impact, like how different ethnic groups tend to form more insular communities and probably at least a few others that aren’t coming to my mind atm