I find this a bit silly. 1) comparing the male ego under extraordinary distress and then using that to make sense of ordinary male behavior makes little sense. Fact is, most men are not firefighters or frontline troops killing/failing to save babies, and so can't become inimate, because they cannot share what they have been through. Another explanation is called for. 2) How do women deal with similar trauma? Do they emoprionally curl up, or deal with it, or what? If they do not curl up, then again, the trauma is not the cause of the curling, but rather some gender/biological difference is at play. I honestly have no idea.
But I will suggest a different explanation of men's inability to be intimate: mental retardation combined with lack of concern. Mental retardation, in that what women call 'intimacy' men simply do not have the words/cognitive capacity to handle and this by and large does not bother them until someone forces them to try to put feelings into words. Both are probably a result of mental incapacity, I suspect driven by biology and augmented by culture.
As one of my friends says, "It takes 30 years to civilize a man." Her husband is the kindest, most considerate man you'll ever know, aside from my husband.
It can be done!
I think Hanno is onto something with the cultural aspect, although I'd want some sort of biochemical analysis to support any leanings towards biology. Machismo in our culture makes us look at the French, Italians, etc., as a bunch of nancyboys. But it's simply a matter of cultural leanings. Knights, the macho of their day, were expected to know music, art, and poetry. It was part of being a man. That definition has changed, and with it our expectations of men. We tend to try and fulfill the expectations we are given as we mature. Perhaps, if we expected more emotional cognizance we would get it.
This then falls into the realm of trying to teach an old dog new tricks, and we all know how that works.
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