marketing of masculinity

the day they let that makeup wearing pussyboy alex reid into the ultimate fighting ring was a black day for real men imo

tbh imo all marketing of masculinity is really abt male-male homosocial desire but maybe in a way that is not specifically "gay" so

yeah i got lots of male-male homosocial desire, but i tend to descripe it more as 'fancy a pint after footy' for fear of putting guys off

kinky

Why? Why? Why? ...FOR GOD'S SAKE, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

tbh imo all marketing of masculinity is really abt male-male homosocial desire but maybe in a way that is not specifically "gay" so

a lot of it is, true. Like if you were phrasing it in terms of feminist film theory (the school that appropriated from Lacan & Freud), you could say that not only women are subject to the male gaze, but men are as well.

i saw this crappy documentary abt "straight-acting gays" which was kinda gross in its smug approval that sporty bear-ey homos are in some way bucking some rigid idea of what gayness is (it was pretty gross imo). But one guy said something that really stuck w/ me which was "how can i be the thing that I desire." I mean in a crisis of masculinity age I guess its prolly easier for gays to explore and represent their homosocial desire bc its not problematic to collapse the boundary b/w the social and sexual, but, you know, I feel for straight guys bc post crisis of masculinity or whatever they have to find some way of enjoying and representing their male directed desire that doesnt make them look like a fag.

it is interesting what connotes "looking like a fag" that isn't one of the obvious things, like taking pleasure in having a dick in your mouth.

I'm sure that "looking like a fag" has multifarious and purely coincidental roots in the complications of being closeted. The signals couldn't be too obvious, or straights would suss you out, but couldn't be too subtle, or you'd never hook up. But whatever signals were settled on, they were sure to be somewhat arbitrary.

I'm confused by what plax said, but I think I need to read it a few more times to get it.

i think the jist of plax's argument is the need for straight guys to say "no homo"

I guess I'm not surprised that there's supposed to be a "crisis of masculinity" at present, but it seems to me totally unnecessary.

I never fit any of the social stereotypes of being "a man's man" (an interesting phrase that has now slipped into desuetude), but I got around it by just deciding I was a man, so any definition of masculinity that left me out was a flawed definition. It seemed perverse to credit the definition as correct and to place the flaw in myself.

So, if there is indeed a "crisis in masculinity" it isn't because men are not men anymore. It is more a failure of prior definitions. But that definitional failure has been around for a long time. We need, among other things, a definition that leaves out any particular sexual orientation as a requirement.

In fact, it would be helpful to cut masculinity loose from gender altogether, so we all can recognize the inclusion of both masculine and feminine traits in everyone. This idea has long been accepted in Asia. See also: yin & yang.

It's about time we got with that program and laughed those silly ideas of masculiinity (as exemplified in the ads above) out of society entirely. Irony in this case isn't strong enough to do the job. Ridicule is the right medicine.

agree w/Lamp though - some of those Miller Lite drinking guys in that ad are v. cuet

ridiculing people and their ideas is always the anti-macho solution right

on the macho scale, where does playing devil's advocate rate?

I see what you did there. cute. but the sleight of hand came where you added ridiculing people to what I said abt ridiculing ideas.

all im really saying is that it seems from my perspective ther igid rules for expression of male-male sexual desire w/in a straight male framework make it inherently problematic for straight men to celebrate their masculinity because seeing and enjoying yourself as a masculine image involves an enjoyment and appreciation of an image of masculinity but the sexual element is kindof suppressed?

Can't speak for Sarah, but I definitely wasn't ridiculing plax.

Oh, nevermind. That's not what anybody meant.

lol - i thought crüt's comment was ridiculing me for commenting on the "cuet"ness of the guys in the ad!

if he was hes a retard cos those guys are pretty cute

this though:

"So, if there is indeed a "crisis in masculinity" it isn't because men are not men anymore. It is more a failure of prior definitions. But that definitional failure has been around for a long time. We need, among other things, a definition that leaves out any particular sexual orientation as a requirement."

I have no idea how this could work, any definition is going to be lacking, it might even be said that the more comprehensive a definition is the more explicitly exclusionary it becomes.

agreeing w/ aimless. why not describe ur genderness and what it means to you as something compatible w/ yourself and how you want to proceed? i think those ideas of masculinity shouldn't be ridiculed but ignored or exploded -- speaking as one of those gay guys with guilt issues who's tried to be what i desire or wanted to try to be what i desire. it's impossible and exhausting. x-post

haaaaate this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J73cdISF8wk&feature=player_embedded

whoa - that ad really illustrates plax's point

the reason i got pissed off with that shitty documentary was because it implied that these straight acting queers were

a.) in some way less queer (which in a way i kindof agree with, i mean, their version of gayness is a lot more digestible than faggy swishy hairdresser types)
b.) the implication that gay men desire "men" and that what constitutes a "man" is a lot narrower than the version aimless describes for himself above for eg.
c.) that these narratives of desire become just as easily applied to a rigid policing system for gender expression, which is really depressing considering the self-policing that most gays i know have experienced in the closet stage.

also lol @ late capitalism perpetuating heteronormativity itt btw

does it imply that the "men" gay men desire - what constitutes that masculinity - is narrower than that which straight women desire?

http://foodfacts.info/blog/uploaded_images/hardees-thickburger-shrinka.jpg

so is the Thickburger more "masculine" than the burgers at those fast food places that are tiny and kinda grayish?

you clearly do not understand the masculine cult of the grill

you know, because you're a woman

A definition of masculinity that is not anchored to gender would define various qualities or tendencies as masculine or feminine. The fact that most people display, at various times, all of the qualities assigned to masculinity or femininity would not be a problem, because this is accepted as given.

Otherwise, you are stuck with a definition that refers exclusively to genitalia. I have a penis and testicles, therefore I am masculine. But conflating masculinity with sexual equipment or sexual orientation renders the entire concept superfluous.

xp - that's what i'm getting at - like those whitecastle miniburgers that aren't actually grilled and are kinda gray and gross - how do they reconcile with masculine coding?

does it imply that the "men" gay men desire - what constitutes that masculinity - is narrower than that which straight women desire?

― sarahel, Monday, June 21, 2010 8:47 PM (4 minutes ago)

i guess its just that in that equation, women dont hold the same kind of stake in representations of masculinity, or at least don't experience it and the expectations of it in the same way. For gay men to demand an abstract and caricatured version of masculinity, and to hold it up as being somehow more authentic (that is, these guys are only gay in there sexual orientation and in every other way are just like other bros y'know) feels like particularly insidious appropriation and enforcement of the gender archetypes forced on them orig.

they are marketed to men as vegetables xpost

also - corndogs - is there a relation between the popularity of corndogs with hipsters and the way they "perform" masculinity?

xp @ aimless, if we're gonna drop the link w/ gender what is the point of masculine/feminine at all? why organise these particular set of traits around this (now disappeared) binary at all. And won't that binary kind of remain anyway, like I don't see how we could just drop something with such an accumulation of cultural baggage.

^^ exactly.

x-post so much of this stuff is about what "guys don't" do! or like, what's "less." it's passive-aggressive flattery with a keen awareness that what a man's doing when he sees ur ad is sitting on his ass watching tv or stuck in freeway traffic and needs to feel validated and inferior at the same time. many xposts

yeah, i mean advertisers obv have a vested interest in sustaining the neuroticism around men's idea of their own masculinity as a way to sell shit. But I think its pretty harmful. A point was made to me pretty recently that ANY attribution of femininity to a man could only really be phrased as an insult. I kinda feel like everyone should have the right to be a fag, straight or gay, and these are pretty fucking sexist.

advertisers obv have a vested interest in sustaining the neuroticism around men's idea of their own masculinity as a way to sell shit. But I think its pretty harmful.

Welcome to our lives! The cushions are hideous because someone bought them from Cindy Crawford's Walmart collection, but at least the couch is big enough for all of us.

xpost

The ads, btw, are clearly a variation on the usual theme, where buying the product solves the Big Problem, although the Problem is not the usual "I want more sexing", but rather "I feel unworthy of sexing".

i think these are equally common problems consumer goods are marketed to solve

i dunno if you could in this day and age be as blatant as the "put down your purse bit" and i swear i am in no way trying to downplay the societal pressures faced by women

xxxp to myself because it took me this long to respond and I hate to throw out a perfectly good comment:

Remember, when the front door shuts behind you, just close your eyes and wait for the Lysol/Clorox/Febreeze color-safe full-body disinfectant spray deodorant treatment to complete and the green light to come on before germ-lock door will open. We're doing it for the children.

well, i can't think of any ad campaigns targeted at women that operate on fear of being perceived as a lesbian.

No, that's true. But we are supposed to be afraid of being too much or not enough of every other possible personal quality lest it be antithetical to femininity. Our sexuality isn't in question so much because, well, does anyone care what women like in their sex? As long as WE are likeable to others and we can still badger our husbands about household chores, everything will be fine.

I truly don't want to derail, I'm just saying I think there's a reason there's not more widespread accusation of homosexuality leveled against women by advertisers -- they don't have to pull that lever because there are already 895,680,890 others. They don't even have to go that far.

I can bring home the bacon
Fry it up in a pan
And never ever let you
Forget that you're a man
ohhhhhhhh, Enjoli

my friend & i have had running jokes about that hardee's ad for a whole year now