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Will Smith and Forest Whitaker did it on the red carpet at the SAG Awards last month. The men of TVs Entourage embrace it. The Soprano boys take it in stride.
Were talking about the Man Hug. Dudes hugging dudes. In public and with enthusiasm.
Its happening more and more, and not only among celebrity guys.
As American men, we used to have one option for greeting one another: the handshake, says psychotherapist and pop-culture commentator Joshua Estrin. Not anymore.
I travel a lot, and Im seeing it all over the country. You can walk into a Cheesecake Factory in the Midwest and see guys with their girlfriends greeting other guys with hugs. Its interesting and rather uplifting, I think.
Hip-hop artists are widely credited with introducing the popular pound hug or pound shake as a greeting between men. It consists of a combination of a handshake and a stiff one-armed hug, and includes two slaps on the back.
Depending on the circumstances, it can also include a loud exclamation, a general grunting noise to assert your masculinity, says Patrick Carone, entertainment director for Stuff magazine, whose readers are largely males in their 20s.
Thats just one of the ways that American Man Hugs are different from hugs between men and...