Reddit mentions of The Overflowing of Friendship: Love between Men and the Creation of the American Republic

I've started reading more on the subject, and it frankly does look look like it was more than a fad, and certainly not confined to literary flourish. For instance, the first dozen or so pages in the Overflowing of Friend: Love Between Men and the Creation of the American Republic are dedicated to two middle-upper / upper-class young men, of no importance whatsoever, and certainly with no expectation of their diaries being read in the future. And yet we find from their diaries the same poignancy as the quotes in the OP. We also find that their actions were as sentimental as their letters, e.g. walking with each other holding hands in the garden.

The phenomenon was in every part of society, it seems, as preachers often brought up the example of the Biblical David and Jonathon as the ideal relationship between two male friends.

Some passages from the beginning of the book:

>Declarations of love by one man to another would not automatically have suggested to relatives or neighbors that sexual relations might be taking place. Indeed, most Anglo-Americans living in the colonial and revolutionary periods treated emotional ties between male friends as quite distinct from sexual desire. Sodomy was illegal and denounced by religious leaders as an abominable sin, but nonerotic love between men was seen as decent, honorable, and praiseworthy. Acceptable expressions of love between men included not only words, either written or spoken, but also physical affection. Some readers may be surprised that I avoid describing these friendships as “platonic.” I do so because this word is often taken to mean a nonphysical as well as nonsexual relationship, which would be misleading since many of the friendships examined in this book were physically very demonstrative. Male friends often referred to the pleasure that they took in touching and holding one another; they delighted in the proximity of each other’s bodies.

Here's a decent blog post featuring photographs from the early 20th century and before. We can see that the affection was more than just in words.

It reminds me of when I was looking through my grandfather's old WWII photos years ago, and found him with a group of his friends, stark naked, arms around each other's shoulders, smiling for a photograph.