If you’ve ever stumbled across a paparazzi shot of Justin Bieber, you’d most likely find him with his arm flung around his mates or locked in an embrace with a male buddy. While these spontaneous acts of physical affection might be small, they’re surprisingly rare in the shots we’re often fed of male celebrities interacting with their friends.
Having watched him grow up in the public eye, fans have often thanked Bieber for the physical and mental toll he paid for a life of fame (hence the positive response to his nostalgic 2026 Coachella set). However, what isn’t spoken about as much is just how much his approach to his male friendships is setting a positive example for the younger male generation that looks up to him.
And, he’s not alone. Pedro Pascal and Paul Mescal’s close bond after filming Gladiator II had fans obsessed, Tom Holland recently gushed about his friendship with Jacob Batalon on The Good Hang podcast, and well-known best-friend duos like Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman or Brad Pitt and George Clooney have proved that positive and playful male friendships are not scarce in the public eye.
Although the stigma around male affection has changed in recent years, there is still plenty of progress to be made, and public figures and celebrities like these men hold the power to steer the conversation.
Yet, for a long time, male stars appearing ‘too’ affectionate with each other in press junkets or on the street was often turned into an innuendo fitting for a headline, rather than signalling what it really was: affection. Physical intimacy isn’t restricted to romantic relationships or female friendships. It’s an ordinary – and often very necessary – aspect of any relationship.
While celebrities like Justin Bieber aren’t necessarily intending to de-stigmatise this form of intimacy in their daily outings, in a “manosphere” world where more and more male internet personalities like Clavicular or Andrew Tate (who promote extreme expectations of how a man should appear and behave) exist, seeing Bieber hugging his friends so openly and affectionately is the sliver of hope we need.
Speaking to WHO, Dr. Zac Seidler, a clinical psychologist, researcher and leading men’s mental health expert from the University of Melbourne, explained why we notice male affection more than in females, how stigmas have changed over the years, and that while the “generational shift is real and meaningful”, what’s really needed is “structural support in schools, clinical settings, and workplaces that actively make space for men to practise connection.”
Male affection hasn’t always been so controversial
These stigmas haven’t been around forever, and according to Dr Seidler, they’re a “fairly recent invention” in historical terms.
He explains how “the shift toward homophobic policing of male intimacy accelerated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries alongside the emergence of homosexuality as a medical and social category.”
“The historical picture is more nuanced than most people assume,” he said. “19th century photography and correspondence show men holding hands, writing to each other with extraordinary tenderness, sharing beds without apparent social anxiety.
“Once same-sex attraction was stigmatised as an identity, any physical closeness between men became suspect by association. Industrialisation, two World Wars, and mid-century suburban atomisation compounded this.”
The double standard in men’s and women’s friendships
The fact that I’m writing this article proves that we still have far to go in dismantling stigmas around male affection.
“Generations of conditioning have taught us to read physical closeness between men as either sexual or threatening,” Dr Seidler tells us, which explains why “So when it appears in a clearly platonic context, it registers as anomalous.”
“Men touching or expressing warmth toward each other violates what I’d call the “emotional containment” norm, the idea that masculine identity depends on a kind of affective restraint. When that norm is broken publicly, people notice, because the norm is still doing its work.”
This reveals how much we’ve “fused emotional intimacy with sexuality” in our culture, “as though the only reason a man would want closeness with another man is erotic,” Dr Seidler adds.
“More troublingly, it shows that homosexuality is still being used as a social sanction against behaviour that deviates from masculine norms,” he said. “The speculation functions as a policing mechanism, warning men that too much closeness will invite scrutiny. That warning has real effects on how men behave, often long after the cultural conversation has ostensibly moved on.”
However, Dr Seidler notes why physical affection between women has never been sensationalised in the same way it has for men.
“Within a patriarchal framework, women’s intimacy was coded as non-threatening, sentimental rather than powerful,” the doctor tells WHO. “For men, the calculus is different. Male intimacy has been policed because it blurs the boundary between homosocial and homosexual bonds, and in a culture that stigmatises homosexuality, that ambiguity is treated as dangerous.
Why physical affection in men is so important
This physical intimacy in male friendships has been proven to positively impact mental health, with Dr Seidler describing it as “one of the strongest protective factors against depression, anxiety, and suicide.”
“Physical affection activates systems that regulate stress and reinforce social bonding, signalling safety and acceptance in ways that words alone often can’t,” he says. “The problem for men is that they’ve been systematically deprived of this in their same-sex friendships, creating a kind of touch deficit with real consequences for wellbeing.”
“When men’s only legitimate access to physical intimacy is through romantic relationships, it places enormous pressure on those relationships and leaves men without the broader network of physical connection that humans genuinely need.”
However, when “emotionally open friendships” exist between men, it gives “men somewhere to take their distress before it becomes crisis, reducing the painful isolation that underlies so much male psychological suffering.”
Bottom line? Hug your friends.
What has changed?
“There’s genuine movement, particularly among younger generations, research consistently shows men under 30 report more emotionally open friendships and less investment in the traditional stoic masculine ideal,” he muses. “But the shift is uneven. We see it most clearly in educated, urban, younger demographics, and much less in contexts shaped by traditional masculinity norms: certain workplaces, regional communities, sport cultures.”
This is where figures like Justin Bieber come in.
“Representation matters as we take cues from what we observe modelled by people we admire,” Dr Seidler said. “When a high-profile athlete embraces a teammate with genuine warmth, it expands what feels socially permissible for men watching.”
According to social psychological research, “many men privately wish for more intimate friendships but assume other men don’t share that desire.”
So, while public figures modelling “closeness” can “disrupt that false consensus”, Seidler was candid in admitting that “if every act of male affection becomes a news story, we’re still communicating that it’s exceptional” – and therefore, not normal.
The way forward? Look up to positive representations of male affection, but don’t treat it as surprising or ground-breaking. Instead, male affection should be viewed as “unremarkable” as two women hugging in the street – a necessary norm.
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