I didn't say touching your son is considered gay - I said it's the only context in many (but not all) cultures where men are allowed to touch someone who isn't their lover. And that's one of the reasons why fatherhood can be so satisfying for American men.
"The psychologist Ofer Zur notes that for most 20th- and 21st-century American men, physical contact is restricted to violence or sex. As the sociologist Michael Kimmel, who studies masculinity, said in an email, touch between straight men can occur only when physical contact “magically loses its association with homosexuality” — as happens in sports."
I guess we have different definitions of "need." Of course, it's better for all kids to grow up in a stable, two (or more) parent household but mostly because of the 3 stable adults thing - not because it has to look any certain way. If a boy can grow up just fine in a lesbian house, or a single mother household then by my definition, he doesn't need to have a live-in father in order to grow up successfully. But that doesn't mean that men or fathers are inherently superfluous. The same might be said of single dad households - do girls need a live in mother figure? No, I don't think they do. Is it better to have that? Yes, probably, but not in every case - it depends a lot more on the quality of the person, and the environment they foster as well as the stability of the relationship between the adults.
