And this gets into a related issue -- male/male affection in general is often strongly proscribed, at least in Western society, to the point where a risk of censure for the mere possibility of a sexual component is a real risk.

It should be noted this is a recent phenomena. This wasn't at all the case in the 19th and early 20th century.

Clearly a whole lotta lower-status creepy men who feel like social outcasts need to start doing something to shake this homophobia and this obsession with their own sexual dissatisfaction, and the rigidly-framed societal narratives they're willing to accept that being fulfilled within...

The vast majority of modern societies where male/male non-sexual affection is considered normal are incredibly intolerant of homosexuality, like say Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and to a lesser extent other Mediterranean cultures like say the Sicilian one, so I'm not sure it is useful to frame it in those terms.

The unfortunate norms basically arise out of the following: "It is socially acceptable to have sex with men, the standard social identity for that assumes you have sex with only men, how do I signal I don't have sex with men?"