The Love That Dare Not Appear in Print
By David Corbett | August 11, 2015 |
“Surreal Couple” — by Tanakawho
I want to write today about a topic so unthinkably scandalous, so perniciously wrong, so beyond the pale of human understanding that, for whatever reason, writers avoid it at all costs in their stories, novels, and scripts.
I speak, of course, about Platonic friendship between heterosexual men and women.
Now wait – I hear you say – I know a great many male-female friendships, and my own life is full of them. The writing community in particular, to name just one, is rife with cross-gender friendships. I bet if we poll those reading this blog, we’ll learn of dozens if not hundreds of such friendships.
[pullquote]Why is this seemingly ubiquitous aspect of modern life so absent from films and novels?[/pullquote]
And yet, you’d hardly know such a thing is possible from what one finds in the pages of books and on film screens. And though TV has tended to a bit more generous, it invariably caves to the presumed audience desire to have the characters “get together.” (Friends, perhaps the most inaptly named program in the history of broadcasting, was nothing but a prolonged romantic comedy where true friendship was just a kind of waiting room between hookups.)
The frisson of romance, if not rampant sexual tension, routinely bristles between a man and a woman in a story. The great Stella Adler, in a drama workshop I attended in my twenties, chastened two students who were tiptoeing through a courtship scene: “Every time a man and a woman are on stage they are totally in love. All they’re discussing is terms.”
And yet this seems a great loss. Some philosophers, Plato among them, considered friendship to be the ultimate human bond — it is chosen freely, is sustained only through mutual consent, and is often based on genuine affinities unadulterated by family obligation or sexual desire. Are straight men and women really incapable of it?
My life would be severely impoverished without my women friends. (The “best man” at my wedding was in fact a woman, my longtime friend Dawn Hawk.) Yes, there’s an element of flirtation about many of these friendships, and every peck on the cheek provides a whiff of perfume, the brush of skin against skin, a hint of la difference. But they are not “friends with (the possibility of) benefits” or “romances in limbo,” any more than my wife is a “main squeeze with equity.”
Why is this seemingly ubiquitous aspect of modern life so absent from films and novels?
I’ve asked a number of friends to come up with examples of cross-gender friendships in film and fiction, and boy, are the pickings slim.
Jane Austen abounds with some very tender friendships — but they are almost always romances-waiting-to-happen. And in Remains of the Day, Stephens and Miss Kent share a lovely friendship — but it’s only because the romantic longing goes only one way.
[pullquote]Jane Austen abounds with some very tender friendships — but they are almost always romances-waiting-to-happen. [/pullquote]
The same is true of Midge and Scotty in Hitchcock’s Vertigo. This sort of romantic gridlock has been codified, one might say cheapened, by the modern put-down, “He’s just not that into you.” (Hitchcock, a devotee of Freud, knew there was a great deal more to it than that. Why else would Midge say, when caring for Scottie after his breakdown, “You’re not lost. Mother is here”?)
In Peter Carey’s Theft, the connection between the mysterious Marlene and her lover’s brother, Hugh, is one of the great joys of the book: “And there she was — a type — one of those rare, often unlucky people who ‘get on with Hugh.’” As you might guess, Hugh is troubled. As in insane.
Two of my own favorite depictions of male-female friendship are in fact chaste romances. The major attribute of both stories is how and why the sexual tension is controlled: one through Victorian rectitude and mutual homeliness (Charlie Allnutt and Rose Sayer in C.S. Forester’s The African Queen), the other through a nun’s vows (Sister Angela and Corporal Allison in Charles Shaw’s Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison).
Apparently such tales had a particular appeal for the director John Huston, for he brought both to the screen: with Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn in one, Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr the other.
The workplace generates a great many cross-gender friendships, in both life and fiction, but there again the issue of repressed sexual tension heads its ugly rear due to the frequency of office romance.
[pullquote]The workplace generates a great many cross-gender friendships, in both life and fiction[/pullquote]
The introduction of women into police forces has been particularly generous in this regard, inspiring a whole new onslaught of buddy storylines, with men and women fighting crime shoulder to shoulder: Mulder and Scully of X Files, David and Maddie in Moonlighting. Of course, both these pairings ended up in romance to the fatal detriment of both shows. (Which is why, presumably, the creators of The Mentalist waited until the final season to pull this particular rabbit from its hat.)
A far more interesting example of this phenomenon appears in Tana French’s In the Woods.
The friendship between Dublin homicide detectives Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox begins with the former remarking, “I had no problem with the idea of Cassie Maddox.”
First, he disdains the “New Neanderthal” competitive locker-room overtones of the job, and he in general prefers women to men.
Second, she’s not his preferred type physically — she’s boyish, slim, square-shouldered, where he’s always preferred “girly, bird-boned blonds.”
Even so, Rob becomes vaguely attracted and lets this slip out backhandedly in a feeble attempt at banter, to which Cassie responds that she’s always dreamed of being rescued by a white knight, only in her imaginings he was always good-looking.
This snaps Rob out of his dog-on-the-hunt thinking, and he “stopped falling in love with her and began liking her immensely.”
It’s a friendship developed deeply and satisfactorily throughout the book, until the inevitable night together near the end, when the sexual tension breaks and they make the awful mistake of, as Pinter would say, “going at it.” Things are never the same, and it is a testament to the hunger we have for such connections that we feel this shipwreck of affection viscerally as the great loss it is meant to be.
[pullquote]In the end, the best example I could find — maybe I should say only example — was the novel The Chess Player by Bertina Heinrichs, adapted for the film Queen to Play.[/pullquote]
In the end, the best example I could find — maybe I should say only example — was the novel The Chess Player by Bertina Heinrichs, adapted for the film Queen to Play.
It’s about the cerebrally intimate, sexually charged but ultimately Platonic bond that develops between Hélène, a Corsican maid, and her American widower chess tutor. The sexual tension is there from the start — Hélène’s first glimpse of chess takes place as she’s cleaning the room of a honeymoon couple playing a game on the deck, and the man and woman clearly share an intriguing intimacy. Hélène’s own marriage has reached that sister/enemy stage, and this sets the stage for a possible affair.
But something far more interesting happens. (One of the best lines in the film is when, after her husband has followed Hélène and seen she is not having sex with Professor Kröger, her tutor, but simply playing chess, he confronts her, and tells her that what he saw was “much worse.”)
Hélène becomes intrigued with chess for reasons she cannot explain, and reveals an innate gift for the game that cannot be taught. As for Professor Kröger, he remains haunted by grief; though he has lovers, he sees in Hélène someone more like his late wife — a gifted woman who struggles to embrace her talent. His fondness for Hélène is tragic, tender, and genuine, and she for the first time pursues something that is not for the sake of others — her employers, her husband, her daughter — but hers alone.
Do any of you have a favorite story about male-female friendship—or any at all?
Have you written any yourself? How happy with them were you? How happy were your readers?
Why do you think we see this type of friendship explored so infrequently in fiction (or am I simply reading the wrong books)?
[coffee]
David Corbett (he/him) is the author of seven novels: The Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime (a New York Times Notable Book), Blood of Paradise (nominated for numerous awards, including the Edgar, Do They Know I’m Running?, The Mercy of the Night, The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday, and The Truth Against the World. He has also published the story collection Thirteen Confessions and the novella The Devil Prayed and Darkness Fell.
David’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in a broad array of magazines and anthologies, with pieces twice selected for Best American Mystery Stories.
His non-fiction has appeared in numerous venues, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Narrative, Zyzzyva, MovieMaker, The Writer, and Writer’s Digest.
He has taught both online and in classroom settings through the UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program, Book Passage, LitReactor, 826 Valencia, The Grotto in San Francisco, and at numerous writing conferences across the US, Canada, and Mexico. In January 2013 Penguin published his textbook on the craft of characterization, The Art of Character (“A writer’s bible that will lead to your character’s soul.” —Elizabeth Brundage), and Writer’s Digest published his follow-up, The Compass of Character, in October 2019.
Thanks for your reminder that not all male/female relationships end up in bed or must be portrayed like that.
You’re welcome.
This is a problem I’ve noticed as well and never understood; I had two grooms-“men”, my brother and a woman.
In Supernatural, the brothers are friends with a female sheriff. Sure, she had a relationship with Bobby, but her friendship with the boys has always been platonic.
In Firefly, Mal and Zoe. They even have a whole episode about the total lack of sexual tension in their relationship (War Stories) that culminates in the most awkward almost-kiss on television.
In the new Elementary, Joan Watson and Sherlock. I fear the day when ratings makes them decide to cross that line, though. I’m sure there’s a studio exec just salivating at the thought. But for now, there’s not even tension; they’re just good friends.
And to plug myself: In my epic fantasy book Letters to an Old God there are two platonic cross-gender friendships. The first is between two magical researchers who have been coworkers for a long time. The second is somewhere between a friendship and a father-daughter relationship between two sentient trees.
I’m quite happy with them. Too many stories have gender silos, and the only bridge between them is “romance”. The reality is, at most times in most cultures, men and women interact with each other at all times, and romance is only 1% of that.
Hi Azuaron:
I love the metaphor “gender silos.” And yes, I thought about Lucy Liu’s Watson, and had the same shudder of anticipation you did.
The two examples from your own work point out the “respect” requisite Alicia points out. Co-workers, especially in such a demanding, arcane field as “magical research,” have a great opportunity to build the kind of respect that helps create a bridge across the sexual tension. And a mentor-student relationship mirrors the one I noted in The Chess Player — though you do it one better with making them sentient trees.
Thanks for the comment — and for including such friendships in your work. I think they speak to something we secretly, deeply crave, but somehow find difficult to make credible on the page.
Mal and Zoe are a great example, because they’ve been through intense stuff together and pairing them up would be an easy and understandable thing for them to do.
Another example–one that annoys my daughter every time I mention it–is Harry and Hermoine in Harry Potter. They’re the two leads and it seems unnatural for them to not wind up together, at least to me. But if Harry and Hermoine wind up together, Ron just kind of fades away.
Chris
Agreed, Chris. I’m intrigued on why this annoys your daughter…
I think you don’t see as many because the potential for conflict – the blood of interesting drama – is not there. Too much conflict between friends, and the relationship deteriorates: there is nothing else holding it together.
On a similar note, the translation of a relationship from friends to lovers also suffers if the friendship is not believable or developed first.
Friendship is based on respect – respect is missing when one friend stereotypes the other.
The discovery that people really like each other is not given enough time or space. I’m trying – by making that the important relationship first.
And it comes with an element of wanting the best for your friend. Whether or not he ever turns into your lover or spouse.
I have a lot of friends who happen to be men. Or I wouldn’t be able to write a male character.
Hi, Alicia:
Is conflict really the blood of interesting drama? Or is it desire?
I believe desire trumps conflict, precisely because the one causes the other. Without desire, no conflict. So why is the desire for a friend of the opposite sex so inherently undramatic?
I think the answer lies with your second remark — that to create a credible friendship on the page one has to build it over time, establish the mutual respect necessary. The friendship has to be the thing they truly want, not the romance. And to show that one has to move BEYOND the stage of sexual presumptions and cliched response — “If we’re this close, we should be lovers,” etc.
But what an interesting story that would be. Why does no one write it?
Thanks for commenting.
You’re right that friendship between heterosexual men and women is much more common in real life than it is in fiction. Sometimes it feels a little like Chekhov’s gun (for those who don’t know the reference, Anton Chekhov once said that if you have a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, it has to be fired by the third act, or else it shouldn’t be there). It seems that we have the same idea here: if you have an unattached heterosexual man and an unattached heterosexual woman in the first act, they need to be romantically together by the third act, or they shouldn’t be there. The corollary is that once the romantic relationship blossoms, we’re now in the third act and the story is about over. So many long-running TV shows, for instance, go for years with a male-female friendship that gradually deepens, but once there’s a real romance things wind down. You mentioned X Files, but there are other examples (for instance, Warehouse 13).
Hi, Celia:
I agree, the greatest number of examples seems to come from television, and I think you get at why: it provides the long-wind-up necessary to establish the friendship.
This once again refers back to Alicia’s comment about needing to establish mutual respect to create a credible friendship on the page (or screen). And if you take the time to create that credible mutual respect, the audience (so goes the presumption) automatically presumes the payoff will be romance.
But what if, at the crucial moment, they elected to remain friends? What if they saw friendship as the GREATER expression of their love?
Oddly enough, I rather see that as more “romantic” — or Romantic, anyway.
Thanks for chiming in.
In the film Kung Fu Panda 2, Po and Tigress develop a platonic friendship, one based on admiration among equals.
In the first film, Tigress views Po as an interloper, a pretender who became “the chosen one” merely by accident. By the end of the film, Po proves himself and is accepted by Tigress and the others.
In the second film, a deeper relationship develops between Po and Tigress, a familial bond between two fighters who know and trust each other. It begins in the boat scene when Po relates his dreams about his past and his growing need to understand his history. When that concern interferes with the group stopping the villain Shen, Tigress confronts Po in Gongmen Jail. When Po finally reveals what’s driving him, Tigress relents and hugs Po, but it’s out of concern for his safety.
https://youtu.be/Q3P38sY_Lfs
“The hardcore do understand, but I can’t watch my friend be killed.”
There is another hug scene at the end of the story, this time initiated by Po, but it is an expression of relief that Tigress is still alive after the final battle.
It is this platonic relationship, this love among equals, that lends some some of the charm to the film and provides a look at what a narrative friendship can be between male/female characters without the need for overt or even hinted romance.
Hi, Will:
That’s a great example. Thanks. I think the co-student relationship, especially in martial arts or any other form of combat, provides excellent ground for friendship. But it’s important to note how recent the inclusion of women is such fighting stories is.
I was almost tempted to consider a “Kung Fu Exception,” because your example reminded my of the relationship between Mu Bai and Shu Lien in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But on reflection, I realized that their bond falls under the category of “unrealized romance.”
Thanks for the great addition to the gratifyingly longer but still far too short list.
Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper of the series Torchwood come to mind. That series broke a lot of new ground in its exploration of humanity in the individual aspect, and as a group.
I so miss Torchwood. When they tried a come-back with a dumbed-down, sanitized version for children, I didn’t even watch.
Hi, Bernadette:
It’s with no small regret that I admit both the Doctor Who franchise and its Torchwood spinoff have as yet escaped me. But that is precisely why I wanted to throw this question open to the WU community. I had a feeling that male-female friendships wre not as rare in the world of the written word as I’d thought.
But isn’t it interesting — the example again comes from television.
Excellent point! Would love to read more stories with male/female friendships. Wonder if platonic relationships are avoided due to being too normal and therefore, unremarkable, or that authors believe that readers have a preconceived expectation of a romantic (sub)plot?
Hi, Kris:
I hate to think of friendship as unremarkable, but I think you may be (sadly) right. But it’s precisely because the rewards of friendship are not celebrated with church bells and overtures that makes it, to my mind, truly intriguing and worthy of exploration. It goes to the heart of our humanity, our need for connection.
I also agree that audience expectation — or what publishers and producers think is the audience expectation — creates the principle barrier to championing this kind of connection.
Thanks for joining the chorus.
Thanks for the blog. I’d never thought about that. I have male friends and my husband has female friends. It’s definitely possible and common in my circle of friends.
Bernadette: Thank you for mentioning Torchwood. Such a great series. I miss it. It tried to come back, dumbed down for a younger audience. It failed miserably.
The only film that comes to mind that has male/female friendships is Four Weddings and a Funeral. Although many in the “pack” do hook up with each other, Charlotte Coleman’s character, Scarlett, .lives the Charley (Hugh Grant) as a friend. She ends up marrying a cowboy form the U.S. She’s completely NOT Charley’s type of woman. He ends up with Carrie (Andie McDowell).
I think, that in the remake of BattleStar Gallactica, Starbuck had male friends.
I remember, from childhood in the 1950’s, reading Nancy Drew. She had a friend, George. But when I Googled “Nancy Drew,” George was listed as her “boyfriend.” I don’t recall any romantic overtures in the original books, though. Maybe the Secret Garden is a better example from children’s literature.
Other male/female friendships are: Mary Poppins and the chimney sweep, Mrs. Peel and John Steed.
It would seem that we have to venture into Sci-Fi and children’s literature and film to find these true friendships.
Anita, I have to jump in here. My daughter is reading the original Nancy Drew series, and “George” is actually a female, at least in the originals. (Apparently her parents wanted a boy and so they named her George.) She and her cousin Bess are good friends with Nancy, and all three girls have “gentlemen friends” (boyfriends) who show up quite a bit: Nancy’s is Ned Nickerson, Bess’s is Dave and George’s is Burt. The romantic aspect is downplayed, of course; they’re there to help Nancy solve the mystery! I’m not certain why a google search would’ve listed Nancy’s boyfriend as George unless the newer titles have changed things up a lot.
Love The Secret Garden example!
Hi, Anita:
Steed and Mrs. Peel!!! How could I forget them? My God, yes. Of course, there was always a whisper of flirtation between them, but I think it still serves as a lovely example.
And thanks to Laura for her well-researched account of the mysterious George.
As I’ve gone through the various comments, I’ve been surprised as well at how many examples come from sci-fi. Curious…
Thanks to you and Laura both for the intriguing comments.
David, I have experience( and written about) the reciprocal; a FWB relationship that ran its course and become one of long-term pure friendship.
Keep up the good work! :-)
Thanks for this post — your reminder that platonic friendships are common in the workplace certainly resonated with me.
My novel, Playing the Game, is a corporate thriller set in the workplace that is full of platonic male/female friendships. Between co-workers. Between bosses and their subordinates. There is one relationship that begins to turn romantic, but when the man becomes the woman’s boss, they cut off the romance immediately, because the work is more important to both of them at that point in their lives.
The differences between individuals can give rise to plenty of conflict to support a story, even without sexual tension. Not to say that I don’t enjoy a good romance!
Sara Rickover
HI, Sara:
Good for you. I think school and the workplace are the great cauldrons of friendship — and a great deal else, as you note in your comment re: conflict — and yet this so seldom translates into print. I commend your contribution to the cause!
David–
Wonderful post. You’re right: the love we all know exists, but that must be denied isn’t any longer homosexuality. It’s friendship. I would also add kindness, usually interpreted as acts of self-delusion, submissiveness, etc.
I place most of the blame on Freud. By reducing all affective experience to sexuality, he demonstrated how blind he was willing to be, in serving his theories. He insisted that all friendships–between men and men, women and women, or what you dub–hilariously– “cross-gender friendships” were actually sublimated sexual yearnings.
How would he handle all the connections that develop at sites like Writer Unboxed? He’d come up with something plausible, but probably wrong.
I think sex in movies and novels is heavily relied on to evade more nuanced kinds of relationships. Like friendship. It’s a quick fix, a handy approach to dealing with relations among characters. So is violence. I write crime novels, and was criticized recently for not making my protagonist more action-oriented (code for violent). But that’s not the novel I wrote, or the character at the center of it.
I think you’re calling on writers to be more self-critical. Are we sidestepping what experience is telling us, in order to stay in line with conventional wisdom about who’s allowed to be friends with whom?
Thanks again.
HI, Barry:
Poor Freud. He gets kicked around so summarily by conservatives I’m usually prone to cut him some slack. Sadly, his approach has become canonical in evolutionary biology, where the whole notion that the human social construct might have other objectives other than reproduction of an individual’s genetic code is relatively new. (It’s even been conjectured that humans are really just vehicles for gene transmission — a kind of DNA bus.)
On the issue of what does and doesn’t constitute a “good” crime novel: Funny — I just learned from an editor in NY that my work is considered “too male.” I’ve been advised to tone back on the “street stuff” — even though this same editor conceded I wrote like a “drunken poet.”
But I digress.
It’s easy to develop male-female friendships online because the physical immediacy of the opposite sex doesn’t present itself. Pheromones don’t enter the pixel, as it were.
But such friendships also blossom everywhere all the time. Their relative rarity in books and films is, I think, well accounted for in some of the previous comments — a blind adherence to (presumed) reader/audience expectation, a lack of time to develop a credible respect that transcends sexual attraction, etc. The classroom and the workplace seem the most fertile ground.
I don’t think I’m calling on writers to be more self-critical, as simply to ask: Why do we tend to let romance always gain the upper hand over friendship — especially when this isn’t the case in real life? Why do we so often deny our characters a gratifying form of relationship we routinely enjoy ourselves?
It’s a bit of a puzzle, which is why I threw it out there for comments. Thanks for joining in.
I love a story used to illustrate how conditioned we’ve become in recent times regarding sex. In the seventeenth century, a Bavarian princess is on her way to wed a Spanish prince, a standard arranged marriage to secure power interests. She is making her stately progress, and in small Spanish towns, the locals pay homage. In one instance a hosier presents her with some beautiful silk stockings. An attending courtier grabs the stockings and flings them back at the gift-giver. Why? There’s only one answer people of our time can think of: the stockings are too intimate, too sexually suggestive for a commoner to be giving to a princess.
Except the courtier says, “Know that the princess’s feet never touch the ground.” The faux pas has nothing to do with sex, everything to do with status or rank.
Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. Though both did fall for someone (high school = romantic drama), I always loved that the strongest female character didn’t have to hook up with the male lead like you see in SO MANY story lines, many of which feel like there’s only a female “lead” so the male lead can “claim his reward” (namely, the love of a good woman–or at least hot sex). The fact Harry and Hermione’s relationship of genuine friendship and only friendship is modeled for young readers and is read everywhere in the world is encouraging. :)
Great example, Rebecca. Agreed on all points.
Dave,
Another stunning post on a truly fascinating topic. Male-female true friendships are fascinating. They are in real life true gifts when you know you value the person of the opposite sex for who they are. When we are lucky, we have siblings and family, by blood or marriage or choice, who are not just our relatives, but people we would choose as friends if we had the chance.
Romance between straight men and women, even when they are friends, is always there in the background because we are so hormonally driven as human beings. We spend much of our lives driven by the desire to be chosen for sex and to consummate that desire. So, we act on that drive even when our good sense tells us it is not in our best interest. (And, usually, we suffer for it in more than one broken relationship.) So, friendship has to be what we are always choosing over something that isn’t advisable, as it attested by some of our characters and us in our relationships.
Possibly, the best one story I know about friendships is the old cult classic “Islandia.” It’s about a utopia in which a young man finds out how he wants to live his life and the woman with whom he wants to do that. But, he gets there only by being burned badly by his first real love who tell him she wants to be friends, then flirts with him. Plot spoiler: in the end, those two wind up being friends because each of them discovers the kind of life they really want to have (and the spouse with which they want to have it). They admit that they will have to be careful friends because there has been real attraction between them, but they really do much better as friends.
Lately, I’ve been hearing of a new twise. Sometimes, it seems possible for people who have been married to each other, divorced without too much acrimony, and remarried to discover that they can actually be friends with their previous spouse from the safety of a better relationship. Perhaps, this is so because marriage is about living together and accepting each other in many important ways of which sex is only a part.
Lynn
Lynn — I goofed and submitted my reply to your wonderful comment as part of the general thread, not a reply like this. Please see below.
Dave,
Oh, how did we miss it! The Harry Potter series was premised on Harry and Hermione being FRIENDS. And, it succeeded, but only by giving each of them other love interests.
Lynn
Yes. And yet … I’m thinking of Hannibal, where Will has two close co-worker friends in Alana and Beverly. Once again, the workplace provides the arena. But I long for the friendship that is freely accepted and openly recognized without the need for some “blocking device” like other love interests or office etiquette. Then agian, those are probably the filters at work in normal life, so…
David, I rarely comment here, but feel compelled to in this case. (And not just to point out what I can’t believe no other commenter has yet: That this post is an excellent counter to Billy Crystal’s classic airplane argument in When Harry Met Sally!) As usual, your points hit home with me. A male-female friendship figures prominently in my latest novel-in-progress, in which a man’s new wife has become equally close with his female best friend. Complications develop from this triangle, but they arise from secrets kept as opposed to from romantic entanglements.
I knew, however, that readers as well as other characters would make assumptions to the contrary, and so decided, rather than fight against it, to try to use those suspicions to the story’s advantage–though whether or not I succeeded (or will succeed in further revision) remains to be seen.
Many of my female beta readers commented on how nice it was to see a plutonic relationship depicted without lines being crossed. “Finally!” one even said. So I know for a fact that you’re not alone in your thinking. (Interestingly, my most negative feedback so far came from a male, though that could just be a coincidence or related to other disconnects. If your writing is “too male” mine very well may be “too female”!)
Hi, Jessica:
How nice to see you here! Like happening upon you in a favorite cafe.
I love your set-up, and agree with your women readers. I do believe there is a genuine, deep hunger for this kind of connection — which is exactly why the ruin of the friendship in Tana French’s In The Woods is so devastating. Their friendship has become so real, so convincing, so gratifying, that watching it go down for so little a reward as a clumsy tryst feels genuinely tragic.
I can’t wait to read your book. Thanks for adding your voice here.
This is interesting and something I didn’t notice until you brought it up. I read adult romance and when it comes to hetero male/female friendship, the storyline has always been that friendship has turned to love for at least one of the friends, but they’re afraid to act on it because they don’t want to ruin the friendship part. But it’s acted upon anyway. Eventually. When I was writing my WIP YA series, the heroine had two besties: a boy and a girl. The boy was gay. LOL. So, there’s that angle. Currently, I’ve set aside YA to write adult romance since I’ve been reading that since high school and yes, my heroine has besties. But none of them are men. I’d like to write a romance in which the hero or the heroine has a best friend of the opposite sex and not have it turn into something more. I don’t think that’s been done yet.
Hi, E:
It’s a fascinating area to explore, and it may open up storylines you wouldn’t have otherwise imagined. I’m exploring it in my new book and it’s curious — and frustrating — how often you end up in the Romantic Bermuda Triangle: If they get along so well, why aren’t they lovers? (Maybe they get along so well precisely because they are NOT lovers.)
Thanks for the comment.
Hi, Lynn:
Boy, that’s a packed comment, with several exceptional points and observations.
I think it’s precisely because men and women have to overcome the hormonal noise to become friends that this kind of friendship serves well even under Alicia’s conflict-is-the-blood-of-drama scenario. To become — and remain — friends, straight men and women have to understand the pitfalls of falling for each other, and realize the friendship they have is more valuable — and possibly more likely to survive — than any romance they might attempt. That takes some serious self-insight and maturity.
Thanks for chiming in.
This topic fascinates me, and I enjoyed both the article and the comments. David’s comment really struck me: “But it’s precisely because the rewards of friendship are not celebrated with church bells and overtures that makes it, to my mind, truly intriguing and worthy of exploration. It goes to the heart of our humanity, our need for connection.” Exploring the possibilities and nuances of human connection is to me the real subject of most novels (the ones I like to read anyway).
Also, I know what Barry means about crime writers being expected to be more action-oriented. Action (i.e., fist fights and violence) is not my main interest either. Done for its own sake to create a “page-turner” such action bores me as a reader and writer.
And I have a Platonic male-female relationship at the heart of my historical mystery series! Finally, as far as an example from literature, I always think of Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle in Shaw’s Pygmalion (not the film). Higgins is incapable of passion, but he does develop a profound friendship with Eliza nonetheless.
Pygmalion — what a perfectly marvelous example. Kudos to you for including a Platonic bond at the heart of your series — I wonder if the historical perspective helps or hinders?
It’s really a shame we’ve come to equate action with violence.
Since you include friendships with at least a hint of potential romance, I think the movie Educating Rita may qualify. The A story is Rita’s (Julie Walters) quest to improve her lot in life. The B story, initially, is Professor Bryant’s (Michael Caine) romantic pursuit of Rita. Though Rita is never interested in a romantic relationship, she becomes the friend the professor desperately needs, someone to be firm with him when necessary and understanding when he’s at his most self-destructive. And the professor provides Rita not only with guidance but enough cynicism to bolster her resolve to succeed. In the end, it’s a much more collegial relationship with Rita in a somewhat superior position.
Great example, Keith. I’d forgotten about that film, and now want to watch it again. There’s something of that same mentor-student tension in Queen to Play, a film you might enjoy, and I think that relationship is a really interesting one to explore.
David, what a wonderful post. The first draft of a novel I ever finished had a platonic relationship but my critters felt I was throwing away an opportunity by not having the longing for romance. I must confess that after rewriting it, I liked it better. There is another dimension to explore with my MC’s story that fits in her overall growth. And there was more tension as they explore their changing feelings. A couple of agents want this aspect strengthened when I submitted it. So I think there is a natural tension between men and women (la difference as you call it) that brings excitement even between friends. Actually, I would like to see the platonic friendship more in books.
Today, being the feast of St. Clare of Assisi, I can only think of her and St. Francis. Two good friends in love with a common Love. Chaste. Pure. Lovely.
Hi, Vijaya:
It’s a sad reflection of our time that a bond like that between St. Francis and St. Clare can only be seen through a lens of sanctimonious hypocrisy and lurid longing. (Abelard’s abuse of Heloise doesn’t help, of course.)
It takes a deeper understanding of the medieval mindset to understand how such a friendship could not only exist but endure. And yet — would a modern friendship that did not have a mutual commitment to Christ, but simply each other, be any less “lovely”? As other commenters have noted, it’s often a shared passion for knowledge that unites the friends, but I’m not sure that’s what causes the friendship to blossom. For that, I think they have only themselves to thank.
I do believe that to convey a truly convincing male-female friendship you have to navigate the waters of sexual tension and romantic expectation. But it’s sad your publisher could only see a romantic payoff as worthy.
Thanks as always for chiming in.
We began as friends, became lovers and now are platonic roommates and friends. The relationship ran its course and now we are friends in a more deep and understanding way.
I’m living it in reverse. It’s not the first time either.
One of my all time favorite books is about the deep love between a man and woman that are friends. “No place like Home.” Barbara Samuel.
He is gay though. I have solid friendships with gay men as well.
I don’t know that as a woman I can separate love, sex, attraction and friendship in the beginning. But if its not a sustainable sexual relationship it can become a deep loving friendship after.
Hi, Sejo:
I doubt you’re alone in “living it in reverse,” and it speaks greatly of your capacity for understanding that you began and returned to friendship. Thanks for adding such a thoughtful, personal note to the discussion. I think it underscores just how much we crave these kinds of connections.
As Alicia pointed out, my first thought was that in fiction there’s the assumption that romantic tension is expected to create conflict. I like your assertion that desire is more crucial than conflict…it works for relationships where that sense of attraction must be negotiated, but it also works for relationships where there may be other conflicting goals, professional or personal. Lots of ways for characters to work together or at cross purposes without “falling into bed.”
In my current WIP, the female protagonist works in a lab with a number of male peers, but her primary motivation there is professional success, rather to the exclusion of anything else. So there’s lots of room for competition and resentment that may have a sexual attraction component without making that center stage. She is good friends with another scientist, and I’d taken the route that Evoletyvaine mentions above: he’s gay. But as I keep drafting, I’ve been thinking about how apparent that might (or might not) be, given that this part of the story takes place in the 1950s. What’s more important is what they mean to each other as friends, so I hope that will be clear when the writing and revision are done.
Another print example: I’ve enjoyed the Inspector Gamache novels by Louise Penny, and I didn’t even realize until I read your column today how many platonic male-female relationships are there. True, Gamache is a supervisor for members of his team (versus a peer), and sometimes takes on a more fatherly role with the younger ones, but he builds friendships with all the residents of Three Pines, male and female. And he has several colleagues and friends in Montreal with whom he has solidly platonic affection and respect.
Hi, Alisha:
I think you’ve touched on one of the reasons Louise Penny’s books are so popular — the world she creates, which includes so many genuinely engaging human connections.
I think having a gay male co-worker in a 1950s lab is an excellent choice. His friendship would be a real gift, because he can’t risk opening himself up to someone who might judge him. And yet your woman MC may wonder why he isn’t attracted, and fear the problem lies with her. So many intriguing avenues to pursue. (I’m reminded of the brilliantly sad relationship between the Colin Firth and Julianne Moore characters in A Single Man.)
Thank you for that! I have occasionally thought that making the one scientist gay was taking the “easy” route, except it most certainly wasn’t in that era–and as you say, the need to for him to be closeted and the potential for confusion seemed very challenging for the characters.
I haven’t checked out A Single Man…will have to do that. Firth and Moore are wonderful actors any day, and now I am intrigued!
Hey David, Excellent reading here at WU, both your essay and the comments. I love when a post gets me going first thing in the morning and keeps me thinking through to lunch and beyond. As has happened today.
I see several other commenters have mentioned fantasy, and I’ve recently mentioned Robin Hobb in another recent comment thread here on WU, but as WU’s resident fantasy geek I feel compelled to mention one of the most interesting and longest lasting friendships in current epic fantasy fiction: Fitz and the Fool. For years Hobb very cleverly kept us guessing about Fitz’s Beloved (as the Fool insists he be called by Fitz). She’s had the Fool appear as both a male and a female in various series, and it seems the character is more gender-less than transgender or a transvestite. And when Fitz finds himself wondering (after many years of friendship) about a possible sexual attraction on the part of the Fool for him, it nearly destroys their friendship. Such a clever pair of characters. The perfect tool for exploring the dynamics of human relationships. (And coincidentally the new Fitz and the Fool book releases today!)
As for my own work, you left me contemplating my own male-female friendships, of which there are several. I was at first a bit distraught to realize they all eventually succumb to romantic or sexual entanglement. But as I thought about it, I realized that this, for me, is part of my core exploration. I have always been very interested in exploring the strength of relationships that are built on friendship, and how couples who are friends first can lean on an extra layer of respect and trust – faith in one another’s capabilities and in the benefit of their combined perspectives and efforts.
Not to say I’m not interested in finding my way to better male-female friendships that don’t tread there. Thanks for raising the issue, and for getting me thinking!
Hi, Vaughn:
That is a wonderful, meaty comment to which I can only add: Thank you. In particular, thanks for turning me on to Fitz and the Fool (for the names alone). But also for returning us once again to trust and respect as the cornerstones of human connection. Maybe our hormones want something more earthy, but the rest of us longs for a connecton that allows us to see, and be seen — honestly, completely.
My own fiction is somewhat of a mirror image of the trend; most of it contains platonic heterosexual friendships, with sexual chemistry playing into things only once in a while. Perhaps I have not explored the proper story for anything else yet, but I think it is mostly due to the fact that my life has been in many ways shaped by platonic connections, and it would be somewhat difficult to never/rarely make use of such dynamics in my fiction.
I would say you’re onto something interesting.
Thanks for the wonderful read, David. (And thanks also to you and everyone else for the follow-up commentary.)
One approach has worked for me: don’t EXACTLY pair everyone up, but instead give a happily married/partnered heterosexual couple a close mutual friend. In a science fiction novel I’m working on, I’ve got such a, well, you can’t call it a “three-way” without suggesting something else, but you get the idea. In fiction — in fact, this was the springboard for my book — think of Nick and Nora Charles, and the cluster of people around them. It helps if both members of the couple are equally flirtatious, obviously, and if both came to the relationship in the first place with same- or opposite-sex friends of long standing. The idea is that with both partners committed, and a friend loyal to both, the sexual tension can be juggled almost indefinitely without having to cross that final bridge.
Anyway, as I said, thanks so much for the thought-provoking post! (And thank you, Vaughn, for promoting it to WU’s Facebook group.)
Excellent point. Create a center of gravity around which the other characters can circulate. I like that.
Great post, Dave. I have had a lot of male friends – confidantes, buddies, short term instant friendships, long term easy ones. Lots of deep secrets and longings have been shared with me. It all stays in the Vegas section of my head. I can honestly say I have never fallen in love (romantically) with any of them. None. That said, the “WORLD” seems to always have an opinion or issue about these types of friendships and have ruined most of them. The other women (wives and girlfriends) can get a bit wacky in these situations, too. Even now, I have to be cautious.
I’m smelling a story. Or two. Or …
It’s old and maybe doesn’t apply, but Gone With the Wind could be seen as a novel about female-female friendship. For all the romantic tension with Rhett Butler and the mooning over Ashley Wilkes, the major relationship is between Scarlett and Melanie. At the end, Scarlett realizes that for ten years, she and Melanie have been bound by mutual need and affection. She no longer wants Ashley, she vows to get Rhett back, but she grieves for the the one true friend who’s lost forever.
Hi, Kathy. Not exactly on-point, since it’s not about male-female friendship, but it is a great example of female friendship. (There’s a book coming out later this year that presents female friendship in a historical context. You might enjoy it.)
BTW: The title of the history I mentioned is: The Social Sex: A History of Female Friendship. It goes on sale Sep. 22.
What a great, thought-provoking topic, David. And it’s eliciting some equally revelatory comments. But I’m not sure I’ve seen this hypothesis offered yet: I think we don’t see many platonic relationships between fictional male and female characters because they are equally rare in the real world.
Before grabbing the pitchforks and lighting the torches, let me qualify this. I like women. I mean, I really, really, REALLY like women. I always have. I never went through that stage most little boys go through, where they hate girls. Nope, I thought girls were awesome. And I still do.
As a result, I’ve been fortunate enough to have many close female friends throughout my life. Okay, I’ll admit there were some who disappointed me with their steadfast platonicness (hey, it *might* be a word). That is to say, I’ve definitely heard “I like you, but only as a friend” WAY too many times. But I stuck around, and stayed friends with those women, because darn it, I liked ’em. Always have, always will.
But as I think about my male friends and acquaintances over the years – as boys and as men – I can think of very few who actually had close platonic friendships with females. Over the years I reached the conclusion that most heterosexual men want women, but they don’t necessarily like them. It makes no sense to me, and this is not a claim I would defend with any pride. Instead, I’m ashamed by what I’ve consistently seen throughout my life – by the scarcity of men who genuinely like and enjoy women as people, not as objects of desire.
That’s why I think you so rarely see this in books, TV or film. The only exception seems to be if the male is gay. Other than that, I’m afraid the vast majority of male society is accurately summed up by Billy Crystal’s character in When Harry Met Sally: “What I’m saying is – and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form – is that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.”
Again, I do NOT subscribe to this thinking. I like women. A lot.
But unfortunately I’ve always felt like I was in the scant minority. Your post – and the comments I’m reading below it – make me feel less alone. Thank you.
Keith-a-rooney:
Hmmm. You know, I wonder if I haven’t let my own experience skew my expectations here. I too never went through a girl-hating phase (I had only brothers and thought girls were inherently fascinating). One of the nicest compliments I ever received was from a woman friend who praised my ability my ability to be friends with women — but I didn’t quite get, perhaps, the subtext that such a quality is rare.
I guess I’m projecting a bit here, and thanks for pointing that out. I probably WISH there were more male-female friendship in thew world, and I do think the comment thread here verifies that there is a hunger for such a thing — at least among women. And a certain group of men. Perhaps a small group. Too small? I don’t know.
Interesting point. I have to think on it. It’s an intriguing take, and could have turned this whole discussion in an entirely new direction if it had slipped in earlier. Maybe we’ll need a follow-up someday.
Thanks. Now you’ve got me thinking…
Rainbow Rowell’s book Landline had the dynamic of a best-guy friend with the main female character. It wasn’t necessarily one of my favorite novels, but I did jot down a note in my book log of how much I liked the platonic friendship between the two as part of the storyline. I appreciated the realism as I’ve had a best-guy friend since high school who has always been like a brother to me, and neither of us has ever been attracted to each other. We bonded years ago over music and writing (two things I don’t have in common with my husband). His wife is one of my best friends from college, and since he was already a big part of my life before I met my husband, there’s always been the understanding that he is more like family to me than “just a friend” (as all dear friends are).
That said, it’s strange that I’m such a sucker for the friend-turned-romantic interest in storytelling. I suppose that’s a whole other phenomenon to explore, but I’m definitely more intrigued if there is a will-they/won’t-they dynamic within the pages.
Thanks for an insightful post. I’ll be on the lookout for platonic male/female friendships as I read. I’m also going to keep all this in mind as I work on my own novel.
P.S. I’m a little upset you had to insult Friends as part of your post, but I suppose I’ll get over it.
Hi, Barb:
My apologies. I didn’t really think I was insulting friends, just pointing out it was really a serial rom-com, not a story about, well, friends.
I think many of us with friends of the opposite sex have experiences similar to yours — we shared common interests but not a romantic bond, or we met the friend via marriage to another close friend.
And if you’re a sucker for the friend-turned-lover story line, I’ll take that as an indication you’re a big Jane Austen fan.
Thanks for chiming in.
I liked the friendship between Mulder and Scully of The X Files. Later, in a movie, they developed a sexual relationship.
The protagonist in my wip is female. Her best friend is male. He is not romantically interested in girls, but she is in love with him.
Ain’t that always the way…
This was incredibly insightful and timely article. My protagonist is female and has a male friend in my ms who are very close. But I’ve felt the subtle pressure, mainly from reading so many books and seeing it in so many movies, that people invariably want male and females to “get together”. That somehow if you don’t have that element in your story, then people will not be as interested in it. I don’t really touch on whether they are interested in each other romantically because it just isn’t in my mind as I conceive the story. But reading this makes me really want to stick to how I see the characters organically. As friends and nothing more. It’s almost a relief to know I’m not the only one who thinks that friendship is a unique and very special bond that often tran
scends the physical in so many ways.
Hi, Karyne:
I expect you may get some flack from your agent or editor about “reader expectations,” etc., but I think you need to stick to your artistic vision. That said, you may need to justify the lack of romance. It may be because they saw disaster lying ahead if they tried that route, and valued the friendship too much. (One hears that a lot, actually, among male-female friends.) Or perhaps you have some far more unique, creative, and interesting reason for why they haven’t “shacked up.” But I agree, it’s a truly fascinating, compelling bond. Good for you for embracing it, exploring it, and sharing it with your readers.
I’ve had many platonic friendships with men, but most with gay men. They are as deep as – or deeper than – my platonic friendships with straight men.
I will say that it’s easier to have platonic friendships with straight men since I got married. When I was single, those friendships took a major hit, because their significant others felt threatened. Even now, being married and friends with straight married men, their wives dictate how much access I have. I can have lunch with my friend, but not drinks after work or dinner. I don’t press it, and most of the time they make a lame excuse. But it’s obvious they are unhappy.
Some of the men I’ve interviewed for my books (about people grieving the death of a friend) have counted opposite-sex, platonic friendships as the most important ones of their lives. Mine have been, too.
Hi, Victoria:
Yes, sex rears its ugly head even when it’s not a factor between the friends themselves — it arises via jealousy of one friend’s partner or the other. Which again, to my mind, makes it fascinating territory to explore in fiction. Alicia kicked off this thread with a conjecture that maybe these friendships don’t engender enough conflict to be dramatically interesting. And yet, as the comment thread has progressed, I think we’ve seen that’s not the case — though I think Alicia’s point was well taken. The lack fo sexual tension between friends does seem to let some air out of the balloon.
I was very touched by your comment about grief and the loss of an opposite-sex friend. It made me realize how much I’d miss my best friend if she passed on, how empty my life would feel. Of course, my wife is probably my “best” friend, and I’m lucky in that. But you can tell a friend things you can’t tell your spouse — or need to work through objectively before you DO tell your spouse. I think that’s why men value their women friends — if, as Keith pointed out, they’re capable of such friendship.
Thanks for the comment.
David, Your post is outstanding. A home run over the center wall. Congratulations on a job well done.
JB Morris
Why thank you. I blush, therefore I am.
From television, again, but the friendship of Beverly Crusher and Jean Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation seems like a great example – long shared history, co-workers, just enjoying one another’s company and sharing thoughts. Of course since it’s sci fi they got to do a “what if” romance episode with a doppleganger, without spoiling the real relationship . . .
Hi, Sally:
Ha! My wife’s favorite Star Trek character: Jean Luc Picard. And how devious of the writers to give him a doppelganger for his romantic adventure. Sneakily brilliant. Thanks for that example. It seems that these kionds of friendships are found far more often in sci-fi and fantasy than elsewhere. Interesting…
David,
Thanks so much for this piece. It’s precisely the kind of thing I like to see at WU because it takes us a step beyond the day-to-day mechanics of the business and gives us a higher look at an issue that’s:
(a) really important,
(b) bigger than just us publishing chickens, and
(c) probably “ours” — meaning creative people’s — to solve.
We do write the stories, after all, as we never tire of reminding everybody.
You had me at your mention of television properties which almost inevitably will veer into the romantic in order to pander to the audience. All shows are “The Love Boat.”
Our society is inanely sexualized.
Two words: “wet” and “t-shirt.” What did you think of? Exactly.
We can barely walk four feet in any direction without running into an innuendo (and rarely a clever or artful one, either).
Show four people a fence post. At least one will call it “phallic.”
We’re ridiculous on all this. It’s embarrassing. Beavis & Butt-head Nation. Yes, I looked it up, that’s how Butt-head is spelled.
Our entertainment infrastructure promotes the sexualized view of life at every opportunity and this is why “sex sells” and why most romance novels are positioned with those “shirtless men kissing beautiful women” covers I talk about (and many romance writers wish to God I’d quit talking about, but I won’t, sorry, lol).
As obvious as all this is, we curiously don’t think of it as frequently as we need to, and your piece makes us do that. Thank you for that.
I don’t think cross-gender friendships are as rare as we believe. They’re all around us, just as sustaining, profound, and rich as same-gender friendships that last a lifetime or get us through hell.
But platonic relationships are discounted by almost everyone as not as valid, not as important, not as interesting, not as attractive — not as cute, baby — as sexualized relationships. “You’re Nobody Til Somebody Loves You,” right? Of course right. Who wants your dowdy old meaningful friendship?
American friendship holds an also-ran position to romantic relationship, period. If you can’t marry it, it’s not as important as what you can. If you don’t want to sleep with it, we don’t care and neither should you. Remember the first time your buddy cancelled plans with you because a girl showed up? That’s usually your first big lesson it What’s Important And What’s Not.
We are more sensationally sexualized in the States than are many other cultures, in my experience of living around (not sleeping around, thank you very much).
In Europe, a good deal more sexual content moves through popular channels than runs through ours, in fact, but it’s considered less racy, less dicey, less titillating because Europeans are less scandalized by it, they take it in stride, for the most part. Americans, by comparison, get all hot and bothered. Just ask HBO’s Pavlovian programmers. This seems to be a curious parallel to our nation’s adolescence in terms of its age by comparison to some of these ancient cultures. As a country, we seem to handle these things as teens might, which is incredibly unseemly. If an aging USA ever gets over all this, as European countries have done, you’ll see people jumping out of windows on Madison Avenue. Titillation is big, big, big business in the States.
Should writers want to focus on and cultivate concepts of non-sexualized relationship, I think they may need to make a major, noisy thing of it in order to break it through the red-light district of the norm. Don’t expect anybody to get it or be interested in it unless you’re willing to wave it around and make it the point. (“Hey, in this one, nobody gets laid. Something better happens. Read it and find out.”)
If you’re seriously interested in exploring fiction without bed-hopping, I’d recommend developing the point as a leading edge in a career or in a series of works. There are many Americans, as there are many citizens elsewhere, who are really sick of everything ending up in bed. And that’s not prudery. That’s an interest in a more complex, realistic, valuable life. But you’re going to have to flag them down with it and then push it relentlessly as a selling point.
Every heroine’s male friend does NOT have to be gay. He doesn’t even have to be her partner on the police force and call her by her last name. What he might have to be, though, is not attracted to her sexually. (Hear the air-raid warnings going off? I’m talking deviance now.)
It’s sad but we are wildly conditioned to this sexualized experience of our world. Good on you for even thinking of doing something better in your work. And for bringing it up.
It’s almost a turn-on.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Hey, Porter:
You win the Made Me Laugh Out Loud With Your Last Line contest. I agree that the sexualization of everything has a juvenile quality and it does pervade US culture. But the point that really struck me was that to embrace this kind of friendship in a story we’ll need to be bold, not timid. That hadn’t crossed my mind. But I think you’re right — and it just changed my whole outlook on the next book. (I hate talking about works in progress so I won’t say more. But you’ve lit a fire with your call to the ramparts — to mix a couple metaphors, there.) Thanks for chiming in, and sorry it took until today to get back to you (and a few of the others).
Fabulous, David,
I’m serious, there’s an audience for this, and I’m the alpha fan. You let me know when that next book is ready. As long as nobody in it says “BFF,” I want to read it, and I’ll help you spread the word that there’s something different between the sheets.
-p.
Hi David,
The only more difficult position of responding to one of your posts AFTER everyone has sounded off is following Porter. So much to consider and so little time.
Some threads of rumination:
Your post sets the net as being cross-gender friendship which automatically creates resonance and contrast with cross-gender romance. But I wonder if the Oz behind the curtain is Intimacy (capital I)–sexual versus heart-mind, regardless of gender. Porter rightly points out the primacy of American leering at sexuality. It is our God, even in many churches, where it is downplayed with geat resulting confusion, by limiting it to ‘only one partner and always forever.’
I wonder if we take out the cross-gender factor, do we shed any different light on things. Thinking of Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain. Was the tension about the sex or about the fact that it was two men. I think, both. There are a number of Lesbian stories as well, though in our modern era they tend to be more shunted off into Dyke fiction if there is such a category. Brokeback made it into mainstream for many reasons, though I wonder if it would have been as successful commercially if it had been penned by a man. (Shunted off into Gay-Lit.) And what would it have been if it were between a man and woman? My guess is more run-of-the-mill.
Brokeback Mountain without sex might have become a documentary on sheep herding. But is there an equally powerful story in having two men with sheep on a mountain who ‘could become lovers’ who choose not to, because they don’t want to spoil the friendship? Is it precisely because as a culture we place such high cache on the sex-part of intimacy that platonic becomes difficult regardless of gender?
And to carry one step further–or all the way back around to your court: what about cross-gender that is meant to be platonic (in all the ways we can think of) but does fall into sex for all the reasons enumerated above and then finds its true course as platonic? Does the fact that sex is now REALLY off the table render this a dead story, or at least a very difficult one? Hmm, makes me want to try, because in that case the bare elements of friendship will have to be compellingly exposed and tried.
One subset I explored in a previous novel was of an MC being drawn (almost spiritually chosen) to fathering a child for the survival of a tribe with the wife of the deceased chief. It explored his emotional relationship with that amazing woman with whom he would NOT stay, because he was on another mission, and their friendship around the child. A different kind of love.
Thanks as always for the push to break new ground.
Thanks, Tom. Sorry it took me so long to respond. Annie Proulx once remarked in an interview that she was so appalled by the reaction to Brokeback Mountain that she almost wished she’d not written the story. What she was appalled by wasn’t what you’d expect. The reaction she deplored was the tidal wave of emotional connection to the characters and the wish for a different ending — even re-imaginings of the ending to permit such a conclusion — riding off into the sunset together, so to speak. The reason this galled her was because it completely missed the point of the story, which was homophobia, not romance. The romance amplified the horrific nature of the hatred, but the focus, for her, was the hate.
As I said, I don’t think we can ignore our sexual feelings in a cross-gender friendship (or even same-sex friendship). The point is to have the maturity and the insight to recognize and moderate those feelings appropriately as we come to know the unique individual we’ve happened to encounter, and find we like.
Kant’s categorical imperative was to treat every subject as a subject, not an object. IN the end, I guess that’s all I was really getting at. And your story of the man raising the chief’s son seems to get there.
Thanks for chiming in. Hope the writing is going well.
I’m starting a second draft of a novel. I thought that I needed my POV character, a girl, to have a stronger friendship with a minor male character in the book to deepen her characterization. This post confirmed that my decision to have a stronger cross-gender friendship between these two straight teens was a sound one. Thanks, David. Your posts and articles have helped me a lot over the years.
Hi, Laura:
First, nothing makes me happier than to know writers find anything I say helpful in their own writing. Means the world. Thanks for letting me know.
You also reveal what I think is one of the most overlooked aspects of characterization — secondary characters are an excellent way to deepen your depiction of the main character(s). They aren’t just human furniture. They serve important dramatic roles. Good luck with the rewrite.
David, thank you so much for this post! You’ve brought up an issue that has bothered me for a long time.
My stories about women’s friendships, careers, and parenting have been pummeled in critique groups for not making romance the main plot line. I’ve sometimes–bitterly–thought that the U.S. culture just doesn’t have room for a story about a woman that isn’t a romance, as though romantic love is the only important thing in a woman’s life, the only story that we are allowed to have.
But you (and the other commenters) have dragged me off my soapbox. You’ve pointed out technical, writerly reasons why readers/editors expect and demand romance and why stories may need it. Thanks for opening my mind!
Since I’m writing in the Christian series, I can’t have my characters hit the bed. Frankly, I get a little tired of the hero and heroine ending up in bed. It kind of cheapens their relationship–if the sex is good, they’ll stay friends and get married. It makes them shallow. Don’t they have any other interests? I’ve always believed loving someone should come before the sex. Otherwise, when the sex is gone does that mean the love went with it?
Great post! I’ve been wanting to write more male-female friendships into my stories. I think it’s so important to express them and share them, especially for younger readers.
There are so few examples of these kinds of relationships in media, although there are two YA stories that have such friendships that I love. One is Buffy and Xander — although he crushes on her most of the time, their friendship grows and develops into a deep level of trust and respect as the series goes on. Another is Harry and Hermione in the Harry Potter series — at no point do either of them consider a relationship beyond friendship and there is a sweet and loving level of friendship that is just beautiful to me (and is one of the reasons why I hate that Rowling wishes she had made them romantic partners).
I’ll have to read In the Woods at some point, especially since it’s been on my shelf for ages.