Handholding is too lewd

So, Dan prompted me to think about stuff that's been in my head for quite the long time.

I can understand people getting frustrated with me about how I like suggestive content.

"Okay, that's a sexy thing, and it's building up to... Just hugging? WAIT, now they're... Cuddling? And literally watching Netflix?"

— El Goonish Shive (@elgoonishshive) May 10, 2019

This is a sign of a well-known mentality of... well, the internet from a decade or two ago.

This mentality has a few key points:

1. Lack of importance given to physicality. Dan outright states it. 4chan also outright states it when 4channers fawn over their waifus. It is related, even if only tangentially, to the purityfaggotry of Japan, and is in strict contrast to America's view of sexuality. Sexuality is not shameful, just a physical relationship takes second place to an emotional one.

2. Lack of importance given to language. 4chan's normal behavior is to use rude words. Which normalizes them and takes away their power. 4chan just doesn't care. Dan himself only started noticing that labels exist quite recently.

3. Compensating for the above two with importance given to the emotional connections.
3.1. That's where the handholding comes from. It is a sign of an emotional connection. That's why it is too lewd. Whatever the story up to there it may be - perfectly normal, or with strange fetishes but no sexual content, or even the most hardcore of /d/ shit - it's the emotional connection that is deemed too lewd. It's the sex in missionary position for the purpose of procreation that leaves impression, after a whole doujin of all imaginable and unimaginable poses, rape, and so on. Dan, obviously, strives for the exact same hook, but of the suggestive type, not of the brutal /d/ sex type.
3.2. And that's why 4chan has normalized being rude. Because when the importance is put on the emotional connection between the posters, it's better if you have more toolset to establish that connection. Just by being nice and commending the other person's taste, you will instantly manage to create a connection. Because the normal would have been to be rude. Dan also has entirely different focuses when writing dialogue. If it's the action plot, it's with less dialogue. If it's exposition, Mr Exposition does it as a monologue in as few pages as possible. And if it's about establishing emotional connections, Dan puts extra work and extra focus in the dialogue.

So yeah. That's about it.