>>3981457
I think a lot of it is because of neo-Freudianism. By that I don't mean I think Freud did anything wrong - despite his reputation, he's done a lot of good for the field of psychology. But because he misinterpreted some of his data, and regular people also misinterpreted his work, a lot of people have come to believe that there's a sexual charge to any degree of intimacy whatsoever. People like to make fun of Freud for this, but paradoxically his theories have seen a resurgence in popularity in the past 40 years or so. It's only gotten worse as society has continued to stigmatize sexuality to increasing extremes and project it everywhere. Honestly, people wonder why the Japanese are so brazen about sexual humor, but when you look at where radical puritanism has gotten us, particularly in America, it seems perfectly obvious that we're the weirdos and not them. That's not even getting into how much damage the concept of toxic masculinity has caused.