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SACRAMENTO Will Smith and Forest Whitaker did it on the red carpet at the SAG Awards last month. The men of TV's "Entourage" embrace it. The Soprano boys take it in stride.
We're talking about the man hug. Dudes hugging dudes. In public and with enthusiasm. Smith was at it again at the Oscars.
It's 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 I'm 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. It's 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...