Sunday Firesides: Are We the Prudes?

In letters men exchanged in the 18th and 19th centuries, they referred to one another as “bosom friends,” exulted in their “eternal” and “ardent” attachment, and affirmed that even when apart, “my heart is knit with thine.”

In photographs from the same era, men hold hands, sit on each other’s laps, and wrap their arms around each other’s necks.

We moderns…