itt blogs instruct you how to be a man

feel like the real test of masculinity should be higher level plumbing or carpentry.

i learned how to change a tire by watching the christmas story every year

Real men will have already torn up their car manual to use as kindling.

imo the true test of masculinity is being man enough to call a plumber instead of saying "oh yeah, I've got this" 30 minutes before water is spraying all over

the only "I am now becoming a man" moment in my entire life was when my dad decided to teach me to shave because my sisters were complaining about my incipient teen 'stache.

if you have a full grown beard but can't learn a blatt gemara... SHAVE

feel like the real test of masculinity should be higher level plumbing or carpentry.

electrical too

can we just agree that every expression of modern masculinity is terrible and we should all be thrown into the ocean
― i like to trump and i am crazy (DJP), Tuesday, April 12, 2016 8:55 AM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah but then all the men would compete to see who could hold their breath the longest while acting like it wasn't a big deal

omg lol

I like that the beard police meme tacitly accepts the idea of gender as purely performative, even hinting at a possible third gender for unbearded males

if you are a man who doesn't know how to shave tuomas, it's time to change your tires

the last time I had to help someone put on their spare I left the e-brake on like an idiot (had it on when jacking up the car since I was a little paranoid) and another dude came by and guessed that within a minute, how embarassing

― μpright mammal (mh), Tuesday, 12 April 2016 14:10 (1 hour ago) Permalink

not trying to call you out but i've had my fair share of flats and i'm pretty sure standard procedure is to set your parking brake because it prevents the vehicle from rolling away once it is lifted

if there is one common mistake i've seen is a lot of people struggle to put the jack below the strongest part of the vehicle, the pinch flange

everything else is pretty straightforward

i'm pretty sure standard procedure is to set your parking brake because it prevents the vehicle from rolling away once it is lifted

i know this from terrifying first hand experience.

frankly i think the main thing separating those who can change a tire from those you cannot is that the former have gotten a flat in an area where help was not nearby.

I've changed a flat before but it never occurred to me that it was masculine. But then I'm on team throw-men-into-the-sea.

Like the whole point of a jack is to use mechanical advantage to make the car go up, it's basically cheating, if someone were to change a tire on their own without a jack and just hoisting the car into the air while also unscrewing the lug nuts I might give them credit for being the beard-meriting paragons of hot masculine sex they see themselves as.

back to the thread topic, though, people just dislike the alpha male, not necessarily a man who conforms to stereotypical masculinity

i was taught stereotypically masculine things because of my age and background (chivalry, how to wear a suit, do a tie, shoot guns, hunt/kill an animal, cook)

but i know a few men who were also taught the same things and it's their domineering, loud, impatient attitudes that make them less than amiable people, and i never want to interact with them, not if they have beards. it's this calling attention to yourself that is funny

i *patched* a tire once, felt very accomplished. this was in not-great weather, outside my apartment. at the time i had no beard. this is my contribution to the thread at this time.

or basically giving yourself more credit than you deserve

like you say silby, there is nothing inherently masculine about changing a tire

what if you change it with your penis

Trans women and nonbinary people can do that too.

i change my own tires and then eat the old tires

there's a repair shop in our town whose motto is "fixing transmissions is our trans mission"

not really

i change my own tires and then eat the old tires

have you ever spread the resulting paste between two intact tires?

think i read about that in a savage love column

i *patched* a tire once

*bows down*

I agree with ∞ that most stereotypical male activities are just an assortment of applied skills, often useful ones such as using a saw or changing oil in a car (nb: this is equally true of stereotypical female activities such as cooking or cleaning). What makes them odious is their association with the domineering attitude adopted by some men to emphasize their imaginary ascendancy over others.

GIS for "manly tire"

http://www.capecentralhigh.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Blown-tire-01-26-2014_5905.jpg

note the beard

Patching a tire's trickier than changing a tire.

Though I wouldn't know first-hand, having never patched a tire.

yeah well the way i'd go about it is, first, grab th

goole? GOOLE?

i think a certain fetishization of "self-sufficiency" is what is really at the root of this stuff.

there's a paradox at the root of all this: that to sufficiently pursue "manliness" is to more or less call your own manliness into question. I think advertisers get around that by knowingly ironizing masculinity (like those diet dr. pepper commercials) so that your investment/detachment from notions of masculinity can always be subject to a kind of plausible deniability. hence you can enjoy your constructed "manliness" as derived from consumer choices while also being so manly as to know that your manliness is a real inherent quality not affected by consumer choices etc.

like, this is why hetero-normative guys wear pink shirts so often, maybe.

it's really all kind of clever way to preserve, in the last instance, some essentialist notion of masculinity.

Can we get into the cultural connotations of "peacocking" and how that factors into masculinity for a second? Because ryan's explanation doesn't make any sense to me in the context of why African-American men would wear brightly-colored clothing.

yeah scratch that...i just notice frat type dudes wearing pink a lot...no idea why.

in this context i often think about how brad pitt is sort of feminized towards the end of fight club (eye liner, i think, and fur--fashion conscious choices that also try to pass themselves off as not fashion-conscious)

idk the right term for it, not "contrary indicator", but something like that. the negating or shoddy effect of a fashion choice just highlights the underlying strength or desirability of the body -- shows of the essential (unfair) differentiation of bodies

like, american apparel can get away hawking garish and ill-fitting clothes because it's meant to be worn by skinny 19 y/o's -- ie people for whom clothing can 'cut against' rather than flatter. we sell ugly shit because it's meant for the beautiful, for people for whom fashion doesn't even matter (for now)

so pitt in FC can wear p much the same wardrobe as helena bonham carter because he's already brad pitt

white frat dudes in the prime of life can wear whatever goofy or fey getup they want, because it advertises what they can get away with and still be themselves

good stuff

i don't mind the preppy pink shirt thing, it's just another version of the pale blue/yellow summer shirt thing.

i'm less on board with dudes dressing like they're richie tenenbaum getting ready for coachella.

i think people should wear whatever makes them feel good

well of course. we're just doing amateur sociology here.

around turn of the century pink was a boy's color (a pastel version of red) and blue a girl's color (for the virgin mary) - i think anything that troubles the genderization of colors is probably a good thing (for our collective sanity if nothing else - colors shouldn't have genders unless you have weird synesthesia)

I'm on record as finding toxic masculinity toxic.

But if some aspects of femininity can be performed as a lark - that is, if strong confident women can kick ass generally, but still enjoy a spa day or a night of frivolous frilly frippery for fun with friends - then there might also be an equally harmless way to perform masculinity.

Anyway the trick about tire-changing is not to jack it up all the way at first. That is, if you get the flat tire completely off the ground, you've gone too far. It will spin too much when you're trying to unscrew the lug nuts, especially lug nuts put on by compressed air. So you should leave the tire touching the ground while you remove the nuts. One may even need to stand on the wrench. Then once they're loosened you can subsequently jack the car up far enough to fit the spare.

You're welcome, pansies.

personally i just lift up the car with one of my hands and loosen the lug nuts with the other, it's not that hard and it saves a lot of time

to ye

that is true

it's funny how we sometimes take things as a given

if the lug is (too) tight keep the tire low put a wrench on it and step on it to loosen it up

righty tighty, lefty loosey

righty tighty, lefty loosey

my manliest prayer

unfortunately about half of the things i'm obligated to regularly unscrew seem to be exceptions