When I was in high school I often had to proofread my own writing, and since I was a horrible procrastinator I didn't often have the luxury of putting my writing away for a few days to become detached and unfamiliar with it for the benefit of seeing my mistakes instead of my expectations. To facilitate better proofreading in these circumstances, I learned how to dissociate part of my mind from the rest of my consciousness to act as a nearly pure observer apart from the influence of most of my expectations. It served me very well in school, but I also found a use for it after school. I've always been interested in figuring out how people think, and my own mind is the easiest for me to study. After I left school, I started directing the attentions of my observer towards the workings of my own mind and emotions and thus have learned a lot about myself over the years. This morning I turned the attention of the observer on myself once again.
I woke up very early cuddling with my body pillow, and while I was laying there I started wondering why I was holding the pillow in the ways that I was. So I engaged the observer and set it to analyzing my current and past experiences of pillow cuddling as I lay there half asleep. What it discovered was a personal answer to a question that I've seen asked over and over on this website: "Why don't men cuddle other men?" I've never before been able to answer this question for myself with anything more concrete than "I just prefer being close to women" or "I'm just more comfortable with women." The answer I found can still boil down to that, but it has a bit more background.
I noticed that the places I found my hands and other points of mental attention were always in contact with areas that (if the pillow had been a person) I associate with femininity. Keep in mind that none of this is sexual. When facing the pillow the important points of contact were where my hand held the chest area and where the pillow pressed against my crotch. To me the curve of a woman's breasts and thighs are categorically feminine. Another point of contact when facing the pillow was the hand of my arm that lay outstretched under the pillow; it often loosely holds a small stuff animal that fits as if it was holding my hand. I imagine that is a facsimile of the person in my arms holding that hand, and hands to me are very masculine/feminine depending on shape. Large hands with pronounced joints are very masculine while small hands with subtle joints are very feminine. When I was facing away from the pillow and holding it up against my back, the most important point of contact was where my hand rested on what would be the thigh and butt of the pillow person -- again, an area I only associate with femininity.
When I noticed this trend of focus on the feminine, I started analyzing my memories of other contact with people and comparing the differences between satisfying contacts and less than satisfying contacts. When hugging men, it's always masculine: large hand gripping large hand (or forearm), other hand on upper back/shoulder with fingers together (rather than spread out), chest to chest, often firm pats on the back, and we stand as far apart as is possible without causing imbalance. It feels like manliness acknowledging manliness. It does provide an emotional boost, but not as much as hugging a woman. Hugs with a woman are always different from hugs with men: we're not grasping hands, my arms either go farther around her (when above her arms) or my hands go to her middle and lower back (when my arms are below hers), her chest against mine is always appreciated as it calls my attention to her femininity and the differences between us, her fingers generally spread out on my upper back, and we stand close together. It's a very different experience and much more emotionally fulfilling hugging a woman.
Other emotionally satisfying interactions also involve contact with the feminine, and even more so when it's my masculine in contact with feminine: long hair between my fingers or falling across my arms, long fingernails against my skin (especially my scalp or upper back or chest, seeing a woman barefoot around me, a woman's hand against my face, holding hands, my head against her chest with both of her hands holding my head, or my head on her lap. Those last two are especially interesting in that they are the most emotionally satisfying and as they compare with how I prefer holding a woman. I don't ever want a woman's head on my lap -- I'm not against it, but there's no desire for it -- but I very much like holding a woman's head against my chest if she wants it there. It seems that I find something nurturing in the feminine that I don't find in the masculine. There's nothing that feels more nurturing for me than to lay my head (my center of consciousness) on a woman's lap, and no way to express more affection than to hold a woman's head against my chest (my center of affection).
I suspect that this difference in my experience between the masculine and the feminine is due to my relationships with my parents. I've always been more emotionally compatible with my mom and mentally compatible with my dad. My mom was the one that provided most of my nurturing care, and my dad is the one that I always compared myself against as he taught me skills and duty. So I have grown into a person that gains the greatest emotional benefit from physical interaction with women and intellectual/competitive interaction with men. Having a firewood splitting contest with a man and sharing a bro hug afterward can give me much of the same emotional and physical boost that I gain from cuddling with a woman. The inverse is also true; I gain minimal emotional benefit from contest with a woman or cuddles with a man. So there's why I don't like cuddling men. I don't compete with women (I show off or share affection) and I don't cuddle with men (I stand apart as a pillar of manly competence and reliability.)