Romantic friendship -- just for my own reference

[yakalskovich]

The ideals of Romantic friendship (Romanticism being a proper cultural period, not a commercial label for candle-lit dinner and purple-prosed soft porn for women, in this context) may seem rather sensual, slashy and over-heated to us.

Newest example, via here.

Both links in German, say sorry -- merely for my own reference, should the issue come up somewhere.-

Comments

[minkhollow]

Running off previous encounters with the concept - Romantic friendship amuses me to no end. "Oh, you two girls are writing soppy love letters to each other! Ho, ho, how amusing and sweet! You'll be getting married soon anyway, and that'll take care of that!"

'course, that kinda makes it hard for us modern readers to tell how much is Just Friends and how much is No, Really, It's Love Letters.

[yakalskovich]

We cannot tell, in hindsight, which is annoying. Just as you say. In a way, there was such innocence about same-sex love that romantic friendship was considered wholly inconspicuous -- on the other hand, the 19th century was unspeakably cruel to those that were found in the sordid, undisputable depths.

The belittling of f/f love is another chapter that still perseveres, though. The example I quote, though, is a man addressing his friend (clearly another male, by grammatical gender, which German has) and then going on about, at great length, about the wish to kiss him again and again...

[carolinw.livejournal.com]

NOW I understand why Teja wants to kiss Asher all the time... :-) All in the spirit of Romantic friendship.

[yakalskovich]

ROFL!!!

I got the notify of this at work, and totally snerked at my computer screen, to the astonishment of all present.

Actually, it's the other way around -- I kept the link so I would have an argument in favour of how far Romantic friendship went, if anybod started arguing, OOC-ly, that Teja couldn't have been innocent about what he had been doing.

He wasn't, or isn't any more, but that's another chapter. Also, Asher is miffed now, and met Tonio. The plot thickens.

[carolinw.livejournal.com]

That Asher/Tonio thread made me cackle - would serve Teja right if Asher and Tonio got it on.... or ganged up eventually on Teja, conspiring how to peel him out of his armor - both physically and metaphorically :-)

[yakalskovich]

Narrative causality, eh? Something of that sort might be going to happen...