So i was reading up on Boston Marriages, and came across the term "romantic friendship" The term romantic friendship refers to a very close but non-sexual relationship between friends, often involving a degree of physical closeness beyond that which is common in the contemporary Western societies, and may include for example holding hands, hugging, kissing, and sharing a bed. The term was coined in the later 20th century in order to retrospectively describe a type of relationship which until the mid 19th century had been considered unremarkable So I was reading up on some couples that were considered romantic friends back then, including quite a few women who were in "Boston Marriages" who lived together for decades, were unmarried but were called "friends" Do you think such a thing can exist, or were these people just being in denial about gays and lesbians that were living together back then?
hmm...maybe they weren't in denial but publicly were "just friends" because it was the 1800s and...y'know, lynch mobs?
I mean the term romantic friendship was coined in the 20th century to describe relationships that existed in the 18th and 19th century. So I'm wondering if these people were really Just friends, or were people in the 20th century closed-minded and not able to accept that these were gay and lesbian couples
I think it's more complicated than the dichotomy posed at the end of the post. I'm fairly certain the terms were used to whitewash queer relationships in many cases. Society was in denial that same-gender sexual/romantic relationships were a thing (well, partially in denial -- many people back then probably had more than an inkling of what these terms really referred to). There are modern concepts like romantic friendships. These vary from queerplatonic partnerships to traditional romantic relationships that simply lack a sex life (e.g. one or all people involved are asexual). These really do exist and probably did back then, too.
This reminds of me and my ex. Cuddling was cute. Kissing... sometimes I liked it, sometimes neutral. But sex just didn't come. I suppose that not all relationships are either "friendship" or "sexual relationship". Maybe there are more kinds of them.
I remember that there were two girls that were friends one was a lesbian and the other was straight (so she says ) and when the straight girl's boyfriend wasn't around she would kiss and cuddle with her lesbian friend , she had no idea her friend was a lesbian and her friend confessed that she was in love with her then she told her that she only sees her as a friend and they can't be anything more . They ended their friendship and it was pretty much over for those two .
Maybe the straight girl was scared to admit that she had feelings for the lesbian girl. Maybe she avoided to actually figure out how far would she get with her. Either she knew what she was doing or she was plain confused, she should have been more careful not to hurt her friend.
Yeah I think that was probably the case her friend was very pretty one of the prettiest women i've ever seen I felt so sorry for her when her heart got broken but I think her friend probably did like her that's why they kissed .
Hmm I have mixed thoughts on this topic. On the one hand I can totally see someone labeling it as a Romantic Friendship because they wanted to hide the fact that it was really a homosexual relationship. But on the other hand, I know that the relationship described actually does happen. Just looking at the aromantic and asexual communities shows examples of queerplatonic relationships and romantic asexuals. So in that sense, the definition provided does reflect real-world relationships.
