Talk:Bromance

Nonsense sociology section
The Sociology section seems to imply that close intimacy between men is a modern thing, induced by feminism and its--stated implicitly--feminization of men. This is nonsense. Feminism and gay rights have devastated intimacy between men. Take a look at how men behave in Turkey or Pakistan, men may kiss each other and even hold each other without being thought of as gay or feminine. Or read or watch old prefeminist fiction where friendships between men are much more intimate than in many "bromances". I remember WWII photos with one soldier reclining, holding another soldier presumably a close friend in a casual context. The references are modern and from women. Women now force themselves into every male space and force men to deny intimacy with other men or accept "homosexuality". I read an article, clearly written by a modern woman, which implied that men hugging is a modern, metrosexual thing. This is such ignorant, oppressive nonsense. 99.152.34.238 (talk) 04:01, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
 * You're certainly free to add material attributable to reliable sources to the article. Otto4711 (talk) 04:52, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd be careful claiming that gay rights devastated intimacy between men. If anything, it was "homophobia" that did it, not civil rights activism. --SykoSilver (talk) 05:04, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
 * This is such ignorant, oppressive nonsense. -- yes, what you wrote certainly is that. -- 98.171.173.90 (talk) 19:43, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

While I do not share the OP's opinion in detail, I too found the sociology section highly disputable and POV. I have added the unbalanced-tag. I note e.g. that he is correct in that male friendships were often easier in the past, that a connection between feminist mothers and male emotionality is disputable (and would certainly not be the sole reason), and that the contents are limited to some western areas/cultures and do not apply in a world-wide perspective---nor necessarily in the entire western cultural sphere. 88.77.157.46 (talk) 11:26, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * This article is not about the general subject of "intense friendship between two males" or whatever. It is about the distinctly modern concept of "bromance". The reason that the references are "modern" is that the specific concept "bromance" is modern. If you want to write about the broader concept of friendship between men then go right ahead but this article isn;t the place for information about soldiers in WW2 or Turks or Pakistanis, unless there are references which specifically discuss bromances between such men. Otto4711 (talk) 12:23, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I note e.g. that he is correct in that male friendships were often easier in the past -- that you share an erroneous belief with someone else is not relevant. -- 98.171.173.90 (talk) 19:43, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I added a couple pieces of info to pump up the section including a race correlation. Would it be okay to be honest and say this is a "White Anglo-American man" thing? Stardude82 (talk) 04:28, 6 January 2010 (UTC
 * Kindly leave the English out of this farce of an article! Unless you meant English-American. Only sociologists could take 'bromance' seriously and write such incredible claptrap about it. 87.194.181.170 (talk) 21:40, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Somebody needs a hug! But seriously, if you can find some good sources write a section on critism. Stardude82 (talk) 08:43, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Farce? Claptrap? The term might be silly, but until men became aware that homosexuality was a persistent "orientation", rather than isolated/"perverse" behavior, they had no trouble expressing close feelings for other men, because they saw nothing inherently sexual in them. One can easily find 19th century letters in which heterosexual men effusively expressed love for each other. This general separation of sex and friendship apparently lasted until WWII. There are at least two books of WWII photographs showing hetero men engaging in physical intimacies they wouldn't be caught dead doing just a few years later. Similarly, there are books of 19th- and early 20th-century photographs of men in what today would be considered extremely intimate poses that, in most (but not all) cases are clearly portraits of close friends -- and nothing more.

I refer you to Chris Packard's Queer Cowboys which, despite the intentionally provocative title, is a serious study of "erotic male friendships in nineteenth-century American literature". (In this context, "erotic" means "intensely emotional", not sexual. There is a Wikipedia article on romantic friendship.) One doesn't have to read between the lines to recognize that the narrator of The Virginian is sexually attracted to the title character. Their relationship gradually develops into a "bromance". The Virginian's close friendship with Steve, whom he eventually lynches for horse rustling, is also an "erotic friendship", though we see little of it.

The real-life "bromance" of Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving is reduced by Larry McMurtry to a dysfunctional and abusive relationship between Woodrow F Call and Augustus McCrae in Lonesome Dove.

This article only scratches the surface of the subject. For example... The inventor of the literary essay, Michel de Montaigne, had a close friendship and deep (but apparently non-sexual) love for a fellow writer, Etienne de la Boétie. When Boétie died, Montaigne said that his life had become "darkness and night".

It's my opinion that a significant number of hetero men need intense emotional relationships with other men, but are denied it because of the implied (but generally non-existent) sexual component. I've had several such relationships, most of which were satisfying and rewarding. It seems that little or no research has been done on these relationships, so it isn't possible to cite authoritative sources. But, to paraphrase Galileo... "Nevertheless, they do exist."

WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 11:57, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not quite so sure about this idea that men were more confident in portraying their friendly feelings but just happened to do it in romantic or sexual ways. Some relationships would obviously be like this, but you cant say it is for all. Erotic has always meant a sexual element, all the way back to the language it was derived from (Greek) where it meant a sexual or romantic element. Everyone on this talk seems to be saying that the only relationships men had before the modern era were straight, and gay relationships are something new. It feels like everyone is pulling a massive "- but no homo." 194.230.95.82 (talk) 12:05, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I know this is an old discussion but human behavior is not a monolith, so beliefs and behavior vary between times, places, situations, groups, and individuals - it’s not as simple as some of the POVs here, I daresay Blu Moon (talk) 00:31, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Cleanup
It appears this isn't getting deleted, so I'm trimming the more dubious assertions. Revert as pleases you :) Chris Smowton (talk) 23:00, 11 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Done. Removed some nonsense, fixed references, and noted problematic sources in the "Characteristics" section. Two larger problems that I didn't really know how to deal with:
 * There are a bunch of categorical assertions in the first section, but source is just some opinion piece -- it seems to me the strongest thing you could say is "some guy that works for a newspaper reckoned this once". They could reasonably be substantiated with proper social science research though, so what now -- just squash them, or leave them with the warning?
 * The second section is just a laundry list of pairs of guys that the media thought were totally boning, which doesn't seem like a thing that would be in an encyclopaedia. But if I had my way and deleted that and the dubious stuff in point #1 then we'd be left with 2 sentences and delete the article, so... :)
 * Chris Smowton (talk) 23:43, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that the Portrayal of bromance section neither explains what the heading suggests it would nor is relevant encyclopaedic content. On the other hand, I also agree that removing it would make it a dictionary entry: the characteristics section is just the definition section (and badly referenced at that, but that would not be a problem on wiktionary) and the etymology section could be named just that. I think it's best to wait for the deletion discussion to die down before any action is taken. The Portrayal of bromance section might be expandable to a decent section on societal views of male-male romantic friendships. PinkShinyRose (talk) 06:11, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
 * "then we'd be left with 2 sentences" – Good. This article should be stubbed. It over-explains a slang synonym for friendship, and is worthy only of urbandictionary. Let's scrap it, and merge it into Friendship. — wing  gundam  07:16, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I think the opening portion should be worded a bit differently. There are many people, myself included, who would never, ever describe their close, male-only friendships using this term BlackAdvisor (talk) 19:36, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * How would you suggest it be worded? DonIago (talk) 01:06, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

@Donlago in some way that reflects what I described I’d hope BlackAdvisor (talk) 18:14, 16 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Such as? DonIago (talk) 20:04, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

List reference without name Comment
I've just removed this reference.

There's no source information other than the mention of CNN. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattwheatley (talk • contribs) 04:27, 22 February 2015 (UTC)


 * FWIW, the source is here. Samsara 04:33, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Done. FeatherPluma (talk) 18:07, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Still should be deleted
I'm not formally proposing this for deletion again, but I'd vote to delete it if it did get proposed again. I just read the last five sections (starting with Bromance) and they can be paraphrased by "The word 'bromance' was once used by someone to describe X".

This is a collection of links pretending to be sources pretending to be a topic. Gronky (talk) 17:52, 18 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I just came to this article for the first time a few days ago, but I agree with your sentiments about the content. Overall, I have no objection to the idea of a Bromance article, but the last several sections are complete fluff. – Robin Hood  (talk)  19:29, 18 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Culture is as culture does. Culture is sometimes fluff, sometimes it's serious. Granted, the content in question is indeed very simplistic. That's a fair point. The content merely points to the pervasiveness of cultural uptake of the concept as benchmarked by linguistic use. Because the point is so simple, in response to your input I decreased the header levels and pulled the previously subheaded aspects together, to de-emphasize them in relation to the most significant usage in film etc. This modification goes some way to acknowledging your point.
 * However, the references allow a reader to see for themselves that the concept has entered current cultural awareness reasonably widely, and that it is accepted and understood in a variety domains of life as connotatively capturing the implication of "particular closeness". It's quite clearly the case that once and once and once and once and so on makes more than once. The underlying criticism that the domains of use were "once off" examples is totally incorrect - the cultural context point is being made without over-referencing.
 * What is interesting is that this referenced content clearly contrasts with your documented argument as the February 11, 2015 AfD proposer - "Bromance" is just a buzzword for concepts that already exist and are already well documented at platonic love, romance, friendship, male bonding and in other articles." These usage examples point to the cultural conceptual niche introduced earlier in the article text, and the elements of the article separately and collectively put paid to the failed hypothesis that this is merely a denotatively non-specific buzzword, with no specificity versus friendship. You can't have it both ways, unless you are being inconsistent - but of course you can be inconsistent. Let's not miss the fundamentals of your opinion here - you plainly state you want the article deleted, and it would seem that you are going about undermining the content with the long view of reintroducing the same arguments as last time. But simply disliking concepts and wanting to delete them isn't intellectually compelling.
 * Unless cogent points are brought forward in favor of the redactions you have an eye on, the referenced usage examples, reformatted to decrease visual prominence, are probably reasonable content despite being simplistic.
 * Unlike multiplying the integral by pi, which is way, way off topic fluff, just some fun that might make someone smile. (The point, again, being that culture is sometimes not so serious. And sometimes "fluff" is pertinent, and sometimes fluff is off topic.) FeatherPluma (talk) 04:44, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

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Why sexuality?
I thought it was made pretty clear that "bromance", despite the name, is not actually sexual. So why does the lead state that it had led people to "reconsider ... sexuality"? Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 11:56, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

YouTube
YouTube has many examples of bromantic relationships. Here is one example where, while presented in a comedic way and at times overly-melodramatic, is free of homophobia. (YouTube). I am not suggesting any original research to be performed here, but this article could use some well referenced info on the reaction to bromances among circles of friends, specifically in terms of homophobia; ie., "I think you're getting too close with that guy." Similar relationships among women are more well known - the phenomena of women using the restroom together to discuss their dates as just one example. This article could be improved by being expanded to include reactions to these relationships among mutual friends. Overall, I'm happy with the article. I would just like to see it expanded with reactions to these relationships. Juneau Mike (talk) 01:59, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * References for what you suggest will not be found because "bromance" is just a fun name used by celeb gossip media for a bit of a laugh. And no, women going to the toilet together does not create a "womance" and thus does not imply that a male equivalent also exists.
 * Romance is about looking someone lovingly in the eyes (in a way that's different to how parents and children look at each other and how friends look at each other). Women don't look each other lovingly in the eyes while using the bathroom together and guys with no sexual interest in each other don't do it when spending time together.  Great floors (talk) 09:29, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

why in this article template {Close Relationships}?
…if in template there isn't such stub. ·1e0nid· (talk) 16:55, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

gender binarity
As I understand this article, it is written from a gender-binary point of view. What's the name for the kind of ***omance non-binary people can have? What about ***omance between people of different gender identities? 130.238.112.129 (talk) 21:38, 15 May 2024 (UTC)


 * It may be that there are no widely accepted terms for such, or that if there are widely accepted terms then there's no significant coverage of them yet. Might be something to research! DonIago (talk) 12:44, 16 May 2024 (UTC)