One of the four forms of love Greek philosophy recognised, Philia is usually translated as "brotherly love". It is the love between true friends. It was considered a "higher form" of love than Eros - the romantic, sexual love. Philia is what Kirk and Spock shared, for example.
And the reason I chose Kirk and Spock as my example is of course the incredible amount of slash-fic that pairs those two together.
How can I indicate that a particular relationship is all Philia, no Eros involved? The tricky thing is, it is love, not "just" friendship. I've written two characters who share a very strong emotional bond, they are more devoted to each other than they are to their wives. It's just not an "Eros" bond. I would have thought that the fact they both have wives would be enough, but for all that Kirk is known for ogling (to say the least) every female human or alien around, and never does he show any similar attraction towards men, he's still getting paired with Spock.
(To clarify, it's not that I have anything against LGBT characters. I've got several LGBT characters. It's just that sometimes two characters do not have Eros for each other. They have Philia. They share a strong emotional bond, in which sexual attraction plays no part. That's what my question is about. Nor am I implying that only men can experience Philia. But for some reason, a strong bond between female friends is accepted, whereas whenever men are involved, sexual overtones get added in.)
Philia is different from Platonic love, to which this question relates: platonic love implies that physical attraction is at least possible, but decided against (see Wikipedia source). Philia is deeper than platonic love, or Eros, and has no Eros component even potentially. In a way, contrary to the other question, this is a love story - just not the romantic kind of love.
Answer
Shippers will always mistake close friendships as homosexual, because of all the natural chemistry that comes with written close friendships. Folks will have 'shipping goggles' on no matter what, and open affection between guys (who in fiction and real life alike are expected to be cold, distant and aloof to anyone that isn't their romantic interest) is often just the fuel shippers need.
In terms of how to deal with the phenomenon that is shipping goggles, I'd recommend lampshading it from time to time; accept that it's going to happen and that you can't mind-control readers prone to that sort of thing.
I have a pair of vitriolic best buds in my story, one being a naturally gentle, intellectual and paternal man who's thrust into a leadership position and the other a confrontational, callous, extremely talented archer who can't teach archery to save his life because his skill's largely innate. They argue all the time, but underneath it all, they both like each other and uncompromisingly act in each other's best interests.
When they have a particularly bad argument at one point in the story, they hug it out after making up. Here is where I lay the acknowledgement of the shippers; the callous, brusque one puts on fake machismo saying 'this is so inverted' (the in-universe term for homosexuality; 'this is pretty gay' is the modern equivalent), and the gentle, paternal one then saying 'you don't have to dismiss friendship as inverted, just accept the hug and move on'.
Essentially I both acknowledge the shipping goggles present and roundly mock the idea of it being canon in one fell swoop, while also having a thematic exploration in-universe (namely, deconstructing the idea that all men have to be unfeeling to their friends).
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