And masculinity is not diminished by the practice. A fact.
Was anybody arguing otherwise? 
Maybe not arguing but, and maybe I'm stereotyping in this case, in my experience when I have encountered a man who has a strong objection to physical contact between a male friend and himself it has been based on a fear of what society might think of this. Will they think that there is "something going on here"? How does that reflect on me? And from the looks of your avatar, Razor, it doesn't look to me as though you have a lot to fear from anyone.
There are exceptions to my stereotype rule of course. One year at the Chicago Men's Conference I had spoken in one of the workshops and what I had said brought me into contact with a guy when the workshop was over. He walked up and hugged me and there was something about it, when coupled with some things he said, that severely creeped me out. I avoided this dude the rest of the day. I was really troubled by the encounter, partly by what his side of it was and partly by my reaction. I thought about it a lot that night and the next day when I went back I saw him right off the bat and he saw me. He made a beeline toward me and at the point where he was just about to latch onto me I put out my hand and physically stopped him. I told him right off that I was troubled by what had happened the day before and he proceeds to start to read me the riot act. That, right there, told me I was dead on in my evaluation of his motives. I got into this guy's face and told him in no uncertain terms, so a 6 year old could have understood, exactly what my response would be were he to approach me again. Later one of the conference leaders told me that he wished he had the "balls" to say to this troll what I had said. He told me that the guy had been following him around all weekend and been in almost constant physical contact to the point where this "leader" was actually hiding out so as not to be seen or touched by this guy.
But this all goes back to the fact that a man has to make decisions about this kind of thing based on what he wants, not on what somebody else expects or what society dictates. Kinda the reason we're all here. So I'm not saying that you have to run around hugging all your friends if that kind of thing is something that you find objectionable. But what a men's movement guy would tell you is that I challenge you to look at the level of objection that you have and find out what is behind it.
Buddha, I always make a point of asking before hugging someone that I don't know for the first time, (and subsequently if there's any question in my mind). I don't want to be guilty of inadvertently violating someone's boundaries. I lived through clergy sexual abuse as a teen, and have had to go through years of counseling to get over it, so I'm particularly careful about making sure that I don't violate someone's boundaries or inadvertently send the wrong message. Sounds like this guy needs to learn some of that.
That is an excellent point and, I have to confess, something that I had not considered. In particular the clergy point. So I stand corrected with regard to boundaries.
And to the men who have posted objections to the hugging issue on this thread I post my apology. I did not take into account the fact that there may be a real obstacle to that practice for a lot of us. I, too, have some childhood things that came into play in the early stages but I had patient people who were willing to take the time to help me. For those who read the section of my post that dealt with the guy at the Men's Conference.....that whole thing played out the way it did because of a childhood occurrence. The difference in his case was that I had not only learned how to draw boundaries but also how to enforce them. And I gave (and give) myself permission to continue that practice.
And as far as this thread goes my original intent was to lead the cheers for men who were on the fence about going sly because of someone else's opinion and I have been more guilty than anyone else in this thread getting kinda off track. My original point was that a man does not need permission to shave his head any more than I needed permission to back that a$$hole off at the conference.
Maybe it's good that we went down this road after all.
