For many men, tenderness and lust are bifurcated, and for one woman they feel tenderness, and for another - a strong and aggressive attraction, which does not care about the feelings and experiences of the object of this attraction.

A mature, formed erotic feeling combines tenderness and passion into a single stream, from which it "blows away". The bifurcation of this stream in one of its extreme manifestations leads to the "complex of the madonna-harlot", when some women - "for love", and others - "for sex."
The combination of excitement and tenderness leads to the fact that activity goes from excitement to tenderness, and from tenderness to arousal - caring for a partner, which forms love.

Tenderness for a woman, if allowed to develop freely, begins to be accompanied by an erotic feeling. If left unchecked, it can spill over into excitement based on the experience of intimacy and intimacy. This is a much more powerful feeling than lusting for a woman for whom you have no affection.

Tenderness without fusion is a mutual experience in which we feel our partner and respond to his movements

It is similar to how some of us in childhood were simply raped by our parents with this “other tenderness”, demanding that we kiss our aunt, who grabbed us in her arms and did not let us out for a long time, ignoring our desire to distance herself.

Tenderness without fusion is a mutual experience in which we feel our partner and respond to his movements, even if this movement is detachment.

Where merging occurs, tenderness is transformed into other experiences. For example, in affection, for which the reaction of the one to whom this affection is directed is not at all important: from the gripping of the baby, who is already sick of it, to the frightened animal, which is passed from hand to hand with "cute" experiences.
"Since I like it and I feel such good feelings, then you, the object of my feelings, should be happy and feel something similar."

How do men show affection for each other?

This is a separate story. The tenderness of men for each other is not sexually colored, but it is much more inhibited than tenderness for a woman.

All these rude hugs, pushes on the shoulder, handshakes with a preliminary wave of the hand, constant "tricks" of each other - this is a disguise of that very tenderness that cannot be expressed directly.
This is difficult not only because it is associated with femininity or homosexuality, but also because most men have not had such a model since childhood: their fathers rarely showed tenderness to them.

Mothers can love and caress their "beloved boys", and fathers often restrain their feelings in relation to their sons so that they "do not grow up soft." And you can only express your feelings through clumsy hugs or comments and praise. If it works at all.

At the same time, the need to be gentle and feel tenderness towards oneself remains.
"Unspent tenderness" is nothing more than the need for love, for a careful, reverent and tender attitude towards ourselves.

It is also the need for our life to include people whose existence is experienced as important and valuable to us. It’s a separate pleasure to see how the other person responds to our concern. In the end, we are not so invulnerable and "shockproof" as it seems from the outside.