Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

been following this thread without contributing so far and I want to thank everybody for their honesty and perspective, it's been really illuminating and refreshing and much love to the victims who have spoke about their experiences.

I'm an openly gay man, and I've never been good at masking or hiding it - my interests code as traditionally "camp", my voice is higher, I talk a lot with my hands, etc. I don't attempt to pass as straight and most people realise instantly. That's shaped a lot of my experience of what masculinity is, how I perform it, how I deal with it. It's only been the past two or three years where I've felt confident enough to enter a room or sit at a table in a bar with a group of men and not have to downplay my gayness in order to assimilate - before that I'd have checked myself, watching the way I spoke and the level of my voice, going along with conversations about "masculine" topics such as football that I have no interest or knowledge regarding.

The thing about homophobia that can't be stressed enough is that it's routed in misogyny - it's perceiving weakness in men because their traits resemble those associated with women. Which sounds pretty obvious, but sometimes it needs spelled out. "No fats no femmes" is so common in gay experience.

I think recognising what the impact of rape culture, homophobic social structures, etc, actually looks like in practice is vital. For me, it isn't about the names that people use against me or who has said/done things to me. It's the fact that every new situation I find myself in becomes a potential risk. It isn't about whether or not I've been attacked phsyically for being obviously gay, it's about the ambient threat that permeates my world, the fact that at thirty years old I still walk home with my key in my hand in case someone should appear ready to hurt me because of their prejudice. And I say all this as a white guy in a relatively safe existence: it must be so much worse for people with less structural privilege than me.

In terms of the sexual assault discussion upthread and the idea of power in relationships, I think about a few occasions where my own will has been compromised:

I don't like blowjobs from either side of the experience but I run out of fingers when I count the guys who've pushed my face down and I've let myself go along with it because this is what gay men do, this is what they expect. I don't think of those times as assault because I could and should have said no but in my eagerness to please I've went along with it.

When I was 15 and curious and there was no opportunity to explore my sexuality in my immediate small-town life, I did what everyone does: I went online. I set up an account on Faceparty, which was like a mix of OKCupid and Facebook in the early noughties, and like many guys my age I would chat via MSN to guys who I would then meet with at the under-age clubnights in the city in the weekend for a snog. But I would also get messages from older guys. One guy who was 30 who was insanely good-looking and said all the right things and I very nearly did meet up with. And at the time I would have been very willing and able. But as I've approached 30 myself it's gradually dawned on me how wrong that would have been - it was predatory, and I can't imagine myself ever wanting to cast myself in the older role of that dynamic.

When I was 19 I dated a guy who told me he was 29 but later discovered to be in his mid thirties. I was really into the relationship because this guy was into music and books that I was into, and he was academic and invested in the same cultural theory topics I was enjoying studying at university. His career was taking him in directions that at the time I wanted to pursue. But he was also very controlling. When we first started hanging out, before it became anything serious, he fell out with me for a week because I had friends over for lunch and it over-ran meaning our date (ie a takeaway at his house) would have to be postponed or cancelled. He was fairly vicious about it, and I found myself begging for a second chance, when in actual fact I should have taken it as a red flag. We were on and off for nearly a year. He would get drunk and tell me he loved me and was suicidal in the same breath, but I would also find myself waking up in bed with him masturbating beside me. It was manipulative behaviour and he clearly didn't respect my sexual boundaries. I don't think of waking up to find him pleasuring himself while looking at my body as anything more than "creepy" but it is uncomfortable enough to make me flinch if I think about it.

When I was 21 I interviewed a b-list 40-something gay TV comedian for a student magazine. The day the interview was scheduled came and I phoned up to ask my questions only to discover that his mother had died the day before. I offered to cancel but he was insistent the interview go ahead, and I ended up with a piece which I was really happy with - he was open and honest about his grief and it made for some really moving copy. When the interviewee came to Glaasgow he invited me to come see his stand-up comedy show and we ended up going for a drink afterwards. He told me more about his grief, his unhappiness, and the effect on his relationship. I wasn't naive enough to believe that a prime-time figure was opening his heart out to a university student without an ulterior motive, but when you're 21 and a famous person wants to have sex with you, it's thrilling. I'm not sure who was exploiting who there.

this is all a bit off-topic in terms of this thread's remit but I thought these thoughts and stories were relevant, and also I wanted to share them because they're not something I ever really talk about, even with my friends.

thanks for that, boxedjoy.

women are responding viscerally to this and let's just stfu and honor that

sleeve otm

my thoughts are that this is total bullshit, more "me me me" whiny crap, "why isn't there a National Men's Day" etc.

women are responding viscerally to this and let's just stfu and honor that

― sleeve

i mean, if this was just a consciousness-raising exercise, if it was just about recognizing and honoring women for their experiences, i'd agree. i'm not seeing it that way. this is something men do to women, not something "bad guys" do but something _any_ man can do, and i don't think just putting on our empathy faces is an adequate response to this. we, as human beings and as men, need to do something about this shit, and acknowleding our individual culpability seems like a good start.

then again i used to be catholic, so what the hell do i know?

if you want to atone for something you've done, making a public statement of contrition is a very self-centered way to go about it imo.
saying you're sorry directly (privately) to a person you know you've hurt is a better more compassionate (less self-centered) approach.

back when facebook first started to be widely used, i got not one but two genuine apologies
it helped and made me feel more positively toward these people who had hurt me

the people who have hurt me the worst are not on facebook (wonder why).
one is dead and i'm positive the other one is hiding

btw in case it wasn't clear these people were men

men: dud

that feels trite coming from a man. conventional masculinity: dud, maybe

Trite, sure, guilty as charged. An emotional reaction.

To expand then: if the topic were "men: C or D," the binary nature of the form suggests that one consider the topic as a whole, and make an overall judgment. I'd have to come down on the side of D. It's reductive, certainly flippant, and it doesn't address the very necessary topic of "what to do about it." Even the people in this thread (most of whom probably think they're pretty aware of the problems) don't agree.

If the topic were "men: S&D," one might plausibly say destroy conventional masculinity, sure, imago. But honestly trying to say what kinds of maleness & masculinity are acceptable is harder (see above) and sort of invites the rabbit hole of #notallmen, and right now that just seems like pointless posturing to me right now.

So, either way: what to do about it?

idk, listen to women more i guess

this thread has been an elucidating read though, especially the stuff from a gay perspective, kiu

'Listen to (members of demographic which is marginalized relative to your own demographic) more' is eternally excellent advice.

Alongside the very important implied prefix to that advice, 'Just shut up already and...'

My friends aren't especially woke or sophisticated, but there's no "locker room talk" when we hang

I don't know if this is what you are specifically referring to, but I feel the need to point out that, as "locker room talk" became a kind of signifier in the most recent American election, such talk, in my admittedly extremely limited experience (gym class, high school track and field, far too infrequent trips to the gym to work out), while often raunchy, does not generally consist of bragging about sexual assaults, and I heard guys far more experienced in such talk confirm this fact in the wake of 2016.

I really think we all should not just "listen" to women but learn to empathize with them more. I think there's a huge connection between men's socialization not to identify with anything feminine in themselves and their difficulty empathizing with women. FWIW this is what I ultimately came to feel is damaging about most porn, that it evinces and reinforces a complete lack of empathy. I think that's what the real problem is with "objectification," -- it's not that desire should never have an element of objectification to it, but that complete objectification = lack of empathy. And I think this can come out in more subtle ways even for guys who are not the "locker room talk" type.

It's so much easier to see and admit that at 38 than it was at 21 though.

I think disparaging men as a class is part of toxic masculinity. (If you're a man doing it.) So much of the interactions among men are based on competitiveness and mutual suspicion. I think the lack of close male friendships and suport is part of what leads to the aggressive, bitter spiral that leads some men to mistreat women, or see them and objects. In some cases. It's not a full explanation for sexual assault, but I think isolation lead to all kinds of psychological damage and the lack of communication among men makes it hard for men to keep each other in check.

Xp to ye mad puffin

massively otm

Also man alive otm

Also, I have to say that I loved everything about boxedjoy's post, but what is especially striking to me is the evocation that of the unease that gay men feel in society in the larger context of this conversation. I've never been (physically) gay bashed, but existing in the world as an open gay man brings with it a trunk of anxieties, and it sometimes occurs to me when we discuss issues such as this that my anxieties (I don't think that I'm especially flamboyant, but I am openly gay, married, and not shy about talking about any of it, so who knows if I might have said the wrong thing to the wrong person who wants to make a point of catching me out in the parking lot or whatever) are like a small fraction compared to what many (most?) women probably feel all the fucking time.

boxedjoy thank you for your post

trust yourself to do better and trust other men can, too

I loved boxedjoy's post too. As someone hetero it has been illuminating to read a lot of the posts in this thread, both learning about experiences that are different from mine and recognizing familiar feelings.

Agreed, man alive. I was suggesting but probably should have explicitly stated that listening more to women is really just a first step, necessary but by no means sufficient unto itself.

Empathy is a thing I've been thinking about a lot lately, particularly the ways in which true and deep empathy is not just about seeing and acknowledging and respecting another person's personhood but also striving to understand the ways in which the context and circumstances of another person's life frame their perspective. It involves a lot of ego suppression, acknowledging that that other person I'm interacting with is responding in part to the construction of Me that I'm familiar with but is also potentially responding to a whole host of other things that have nothing to do with me specifically, including that person's history of interactions with other people who superficially resemble me in one way or another. If any of that makes sense.

if the topic was humans c or d i'd vote d. if it was women "c or d" i'd have to assume also d.

who would vote that all humans are classic? or all of any mass group of them?

maybe the "classic or dud" format is straining here.

I don't want to turn this into some kind of #goodmenproject thing, but as long as men aren't going anywhere, I think we have a responsibility to try to envision a better maleness. As much as gender is a construct, I don't think maleness is akin to whiteness as a kind of invented and completely fluid category that we can just abandon. And as long as that's true, saying "men suck" (as a man) can mean abdicating the responsibility to try to do better.

i don't think that men suck or are a dud fwiw. there are some things about men *in general* that are problematic but i agree that men: dud isn't helpful. generally speaking, they don't listen to me so it's up to you to keep the shitty ones in check.

for example, if you excuse a friend for being "kind of a dick" because he is cool or has social capital, you are part of the problem. this was a problem on ilx for a long time. i don't want to (or need to) give examples but i do relish the feeling of being able to say this without the hovering terror of being attacked. maybe i should be scared but i'm not anymore.

the men who were shitty to me were permitted to be not just by themselves and their selfish desires but by culture, their peers, and society at large. they faced no repercussions for their behavior and no one believed me when i told them otherwise, which i stopped doing because it hurt worse than just carrying it around myself. that's as harmful as the harm itself. the harm we inflict on ourselves after being harmed by others can last a lifetime if it's not submitted to the light of day.

i recommend reading Roxane Gay's Hunger if you want to learn a little empathy. Her book is excellent in that it is unflinching in its honesty, nonpornographic* in its detail, and committed to a first person narrative that doesn't ever try to shy away from responsibility by slipping into "you".

*meaning that her book doesn't lavish detail on the assault she experienced nor does it glamorize the assault with florid narrative flourishes.

I will take that rec. I'm in a book club too (which is split about 70-30 male) and I may suggest it as a next book.

FWIW, I also think it's good for us as men to learn to empathize with women in general, and not just with the bad experiences they go through, if that makes sense? Because real empathy is humanizing, and you can't fully humanize someone just by seeing them as a victim. Like literally just imagining what it would be like to be a woman in a variety of situations and not solely from the perspective of pity I think is helpful and something I'm still working on letting myself do more.

With facebook I'm really hesitant to post anything because of wanting to avoid performative woke maleness and repentance as fishing-for-likes at a moment that is supposed to be about women. I'm tempted to just make my status "I believe you" though. LL do you think that's worth doing?

idk -- that's up to you. the line between performative wokeness and genuine expressions of care is as blurry to me as it is to everyone else.

I guess at least rewarding people for performative wokeness is better than rewarding them for performative machoness.

I think an "I believe you" status is fine

LL thanks for all your posts here

i feel like i am exploding. thank you for reading.

i also agree with man alive about not reducing human beings to the worst things that happened to them. no one wants to be defined by the worst experiences they've had.

I guess at least rewarding people for performative wokeness is better than rewarding them for performative machoness.

― IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Monday, October 16, 2017 10:37 AM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is kinda my take on 'virtue signaling' (a phrase I hate, largely because I almost always see it used pejoratively by subhumans) generally. People who 'signal their virtue' may not have wholly selfless motives for doing so, but I don't feel like aspirational expressions of equality and tolerance and inclusion can't be all bad even if they sometimes unfortunately veer more toward self-promotion.

don't, in that last sentence, obvs.

My reaction to the "me too" posts are likes and loves - BUT! this is just my personal way of acknowledgement, and I understand and accept that other men have other ways of acknowledging.

Second the thanks to LL for the posts, very helpful

it's true that only one man has liked my "me too"
crut <3

Ok I think I'm just going to go around liking the "me too" posts, that seems like a better and less self-centered way of responding.

it is!

A friend of mine posted a #metoo so devastating today that I hardly know how to react aside from an "I'm sorry this happened to you."

striving to understand the ways in which the context and circumstances of another person's life frame their perspective. It involves a lot of ego suppression, acknowledging that that other person I'm interacting with is responding in part to the construction of Me that I'm familiar with but is also potentially responding to a whole host of other things that have nothing to do with me specifically, including that person's history of interactions with other people who superficially resemble me in one way or another.

otm! imo. But, and forgive me if this is a cross-reference to the "why is it so hard to make friends over the age of 30" or wahtever, but isn't everything you said up there essentially the most basic building block of...knowing people and interacting with them?

Going back waaaaay upthread:

The DUI thing wasn't even an analogy, really! I mean, it was in my head, but I was just stating that I wished "creepy behaviour" could be de-stigmatized, and used DUI as an example of something that was just as commonplace, more harmful, but somehow less stigmatized

I think I agree with this if we're talking about a thing called creepy behaviour, the thing that everyone does at some point, that is understood to be different to like, a campaign.

I'd like to add my thanks to those who have shared personal stories here. I read, I learn.

One thing that strikes me reading through all this - for those posters discussing unpleasant things they've seen in the gay community, I would like to put across my general experience as a straight man, that the gays are generally a lot better than the straights at spotting the ridiculousness of any objectification they might be doing. The colleague I noted in my post above - the chap who was blaring out to the office that he wanted to fuck the woman who was a lesbian and thus cure her of the latter - was really, truly, 'lost in the game', was I suppose sexually stupid, in a way few gay men are that I've met.

I remembered a couple of other "me too,"s but again, by men, and when I was young. When I was 13 I struck up a "friendship" online (Prodigy message boards) with what I thought was an older teenager (turned out to be a grown man), who was going to come visit my area and wanted to hang out, but either right before or after he arrived revealed over the phone that he was actually older and also that he might want to "hug" me when he showed up. I told my parents about it and that it seemed weird, and they of course put a stop to the whole thing. I had actually forgotten about that whole episode.

Then when I was a sophomore in high school I had a drum teacher start massaging my shoulders and trying to seduce me.

As with the one I mentioned above, these left me questioning myself and wondering what it was about me that made them "choose" me, and had an effect on me for years.

I think because these situations are about exploiting a power dynamic, they're less likely to occur between adult men (although they certainly do occur) than between an older man and a younger man.

I'm searching my memory for anything on that level done by women and I can't think of anything. Part of it is just the power dynamic again. A woman I'm not interested in hitting on me in an unwanted way is just not going to feel threatening in the same way.

This seems like a good time to note that the aftermath of one of these incidents of sexual violence/predation can be the most harmful part. The "why me?" questions, the damage to one's relationship to one's own body, the rupture of autonomy over one's sexuality. It can reverberate for as long as it's able to. It's the quietest most disturbing bell that won't stop ringing, like psychological tinnitus that flares up when and wherever it pleases.

aka PTSD :(

it's true that only one man has liked my "me too"
crut <3

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Monday, October 16, 2017 12:01 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

<3 I'm glad this was taken positively! (hopefully)

I'm trying to figure out how to address the garbage things I've done to women. I've never assaulted anyone but I have been a creep and a pest and an emotional vampire and thinking about all those things makes me want to crawl into a hole and disappear, but that doesn't do any good.

it was, i felt understood. you are not a bad person crüt and i like you :)