On Crushes

From Thu, Mar 6, 2008

I wonder where the more recent variants of "crush" came from, specifically when used as a suffix like "man-crush," meaning a heterosexual man's strong liking/admiration/affection for another man. "Woman-crush" isn't used quite so often, but same idea.

Think of what these phrases imply, though. They are meant to express in a more socially "acceptable" way different degrees of liking or love that aren't acceptable. Or "normal." (Particularly for men, who seem as a social group to fear being emasculated, whether by having "their" territory encroached on by women or by accusation of homosexuality...my "women and communication" class has taken over my life).

English doesn't provide us with many options to express our different degrees of love, liking or lust. Those three words are pretty much it right there. Regarding the former, the oft-cited example of linguistic nuance are the Greek words "eros," "philia" and "agape," signifying passionate, fraternal/sororal and compassionate love, respectively. I'm sure other languages have better ways of putting it, too. In American culture, at least, not only the language is a barrier, but also the association of sex with love. Sex often underlies the use of "love," so what do we do? We qualify "crush" and "love" with other terms to avoid the sexual association. Using these qualifiers is at once apologetic and defiant: "Yes, I'm accommodating social norms by my indirect phrasing, but what I'm referring to, what I'm doing, is not the norm. I'm not following it."

Case in point, here's a song about "Guy Love" from Scrubs, the musical episode.