softcenter wrote:

I finally created an account for this website I've lurked on for a couple years just so that I could reply to this thread and tell you how much I relate to your post. 

I always knew crying and comforting wasn't a sexual thing for me, but I do have a sneeze fetish so maybe that's why it was so obviously non-sexual in comparison to me. I too re-watch comforting scenes over and over until I have them memorized. That's pretty much the only thing I cared about when reading fanfiction of my favorite books and movies. Always selecting hurt/comfort as the genre... skimming through to see if there were crying scenes... anyone who knew would think I was crazy.

But for me it's not really about the tears specifically, it's about the comforting. It's very rare for me to get a lot of pleasure (emotional pleasure that is) from a scene where someone is crying alone, unless it is a specifically male character that you haven't seen that side of before. I much prefer scenes where someone is crying and another person is there comforting them with words and hugs. It drives me mad to have scenes where a character is watching this person cry and provides no physical contact as comfort. I know some people don't like it and I'm not saying that people should always touch to comfort, it's just my preference in viewing and reading.

Anyway to sum up, this is completely relatable to me. It's such an obsession and yearning for me to comfort that it has become a key part of who I am. 

 
Hi softcenter, and welcome to the forums!

Looks like me and you have the exact same preferences. I don't find men crying by themselves arousing (I find it cute though), I'm solely into the comforting aspect of it. And I too get bothered by scenes where someone is with them, but refuses to comfort them.  It's a true obsession of mine as well! I've always dreamed of comforting a man. I've never got the chance to, but I hope that one day I will.

I'm a little bit of both.  When I'm comforting people generally, I feel good in the way that you describe, but I don't necessarily want to have sex with them.  Same goes for watching crying shows; it doesn't usually make me masturbate, it just makes me fantasize about being their comforter.  Even when I'm comforting my boyfriend, I don't automatically get turned on by the idea of him crying.  That being said, I am incredibly turned on by the idea of him crying during sex, and I think that if my comforting him ever led to sex, or if sex ever led to him crying (provided it wasn't because he didn't like the sex, of course), that would be my best day ever.  So I suppose, in short, it's sometimes sexual, but most often it exists without any sexual overtones at all.