A century of affection between men... can we work to rekindle more of this?

I was thinking recently about Norman Rockwell's paintings, and how they depict a very different kind of culture in small town America during that era. Men back then seemed to feel free to be embarassed, make mistakes, be bashful, and in general love learning what it was to be a man. The definition of what masculinity was back then seems very different from what it is, today.I was listening intently to Peter Paul and Mary's album "in the Wind" recently. These earnest Christian singers' songs seem to talk (between the lines) about the persecution of homosexual people in the day. The song "Long Chain On" for example, casts the homosexual man in the role of something like a wise and gentle prophet to society, who will likely at one point come up against the law. The picture that these songs paint about society seem to me to say that homosexual experiences were not at all uncommon in small town America back then. Everybody probably had one or two. There would be a huge difference between that culture and the culture of small town America, today... which prides itself on its platonic sensibilities, and is very stressed out when adolescents get weird ideas in mind from the internet or the culture of the big cities. Another band which seems to have talked about the various controversies and discussions in small town America in the 1960s and 1970s is Simon and Garfunkel. James Taylor was another popular songwriter of this genre.It seems to me that the idea of defined and disparate "sexualities" is kind of a modern invention. I mean rich people, for many centuries, have had the time to indulge in this sort of sense of romance. Lord Byron was a man who was famous for his adventures, and the playwright Oscar Wilde was sent to prison because of his. However, I don't think that 90% of people were that way. They courted members of opposite sex, and sometimes those of the same sex, but on an everday basis I don't think people defined themselves in terms of their feeings towards romantic feelings toward men or women like we do, today.The arrival of the "pill" and access to abortion options in the 1960s led to a new era, where we Westerners tend to feel free to define our personalities in terms of our sexuality.Today, when your penis goes up, we tend to think that it connotes one of these genres of sexual attraction. I think that's a wrong perspective. Honestly, I think that we men should understand that a rising penis is generally going to happen with all kinds of expressions of affection. That would be the healthier way to see things, and the healthier thing to teach our young.I think society would have better judgement when we choose our male politicians, managers, and other people if we men liked ourselves and each other more. Idealizing about other men in this pseudosexual way seems to help to get beyond these judgements we would otherwise make on eachother's approaches to life.