Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

xp - I think just about all of us will be confronted with shitty status quo racism whether we're taught to be "colorblind" or not. Not sure if by "absorb", you mean accept. I wasn't taught to be colorblind (I'm white); I observed racism; I never accepted it.

self-xp: "smarmy-ass PUA manuals or lessons are not the antidote."

Which was what I was responding to!

I've got two sons and I've made sure I've told them everything I can about consent, respect and boundaries - because nobody taught me, and I wish they had.

(talk to my daughter about this stuff too but it's different, obv)

The complexity of society is such that we (meaning people in general) require laws and codes of morality in order to help prevent people from behaving in ways that are destructive to society, because we otherwise don't often immediately see any direct consequence of our actions. We reinforce these codes with consequences wrt transgression, because we otherwise might not feel particularly compelled to comply. If basic notions of kindness, empathy, etc. aren't taught and reinforced, we're simply rolling the dice and hoping that people will naturally come to accept the importance of these qualities in a society where, for example, the POTUS is a complete piece of shit who does whatever he wants and never suffers any consequence. I don't think there's ever been a time in my life when it was more crucial to have explicit conversations about how a person should ideally behave as a member of society. Because those ideals aren't just instinctual or picked up through osmosis. The viability of society rests entirely on people subscribing to those ideals, and the extent to which we're just like 'eh, people will figure this shit out for themselves' is the extent to which this shit will ultimately just unravel completely. </stridentdidacticism>

She is probably 2-4 years away from having to contend with boys who've probably had more or less unlimited access to hardcore pornography.

Have you considered that your daughter has probably had more or less unlimited access to hardcore pornography, too?

My young life was more or less like Scott's, except that I wasn't drunk - I discovered early (around age 19) that I couldn't write drunk, so drinking would have to go. Anyway, I was really bad at reading signals from women - I would be told, weeks later, "She was really into you!" and say, "Oh really? Huh." My wife and I were introduced by a third party. I would probably never have spoken to her were it left up to me.

I stated this upthread but it was surrounded by the detritus of other ideas and blathering

Consent is easy to teach, but it's only one aspect of a healthy sexual relationship.

A model I was taught was the CERTS model. Consent, Equality, Respect, Trust and Safety.

You can have harmful sexual relationships that are entirely consensual, if Equality, Respect, Trust and Safety aren't respected.

I feel as if focussing too plainly on "consent" is missing the point. "Consent" is the aspect that is policed legally, so it's usually where people tend to dwell when discussing unhealthy sexual relationships.

But it's just as important to ensure your sexual relationships are ones in which both parties feel an equal amount of agency, where both parties respect each other, both parties trust each other, and safety is prioritized.

*revise my fourth paragraph to read: you can have an entirely consensual sexual relationship that is harmful, if Equality, Respect, Trust and Safety aren't respected

Have you considered that your daughter has probably had more or less unlimited access to hardcore pornography, too?

It's def possible but tbh it's p easy to keep a 10yo away from that

(in my experience)

I mean, do people actually ask each other "can I fondle your hips?" or whatever?

Yes. It's called affirmative consent. "Are my hands OK here?" "What if I did this?" and "Do you want to keep going?" Online dating sites are good practice if you've been in an LTR and it's been a while since you dated; you'll end up going on a lot of first and second dates. It is not hard to get the hang of. Fair warning though, you'll get made fun of a little. But the awkwardness of it should not be your focus; sex is awkward for everyone. As I understand it, you're trading a bit of awkwardness to lighten a burden that women carry in sexual encounters due to cultural assumptions about consent. Our culture defines consent for women situationally; their consent is assumed merely by their presence in situations where sex is a possibility. Men's consent is defined volitionally; their actions declare a situation both sexual and consensual. As a man, you can short-circuit that asymmetry by sharing volition... asking explicit questions that challenge the assumption of consent (do you want to keep going?) for the benefit of both parties. You're doing it to avoid scenarios where someone wants you to stop and for a myriad of reasons doesn't feel like they can ask you to stop.

Addressing the messed-up cultural assumptions is a different problem. As has been said above, this stuff needs to be taught. I definitely was not taught anything about it by informed parties growing up.

Some of the most harmful sexual relationships I've observed, for example, have been entirely consensual, but fucked up regarding those other important aspects:

Equality: a relationship between a rich artist and a fan, where there is love, and consent, and enthusiasm, but the disparity of agency continues to fuck up everything about their relationship

Respect: a relationship between a white man and a black man, where there is love, and consent, and enthusiasm, but then the white man made fetishizing comments about the black man, and the black man required a year of therapy as a result

Trust: a relationship between two men where they were both lying about fucking other people, and the revelations about their respective infidelities basically destroyed both of their sanities, and their capacity to trust other people

Safety: unprotected sex that has resulted in pregnancies, unprotected sex that has resulted in STI transmission, even unprotected sex that has been entirely consequence-free but has caused significant anxiety in the aftermath of getting tested, going on PreP 'just in case', etc. etc. etc.

So true about trust/respect/equality, and yet this is an area I've found women to "absorb" almost as many unhealthy ideas they were exposed to when growing up as men do. I've often heard women talking amongst themselves about when in a budding relationship they should "put out" or "give up" sex, and I just had to intervene and mention how totally messed up this sounds as a man hearing this. As if sex is something a women "gives up" and by extension, something a man takes from you. Really, anyone in 2017 who thinks of it as "putting out" is so living in the dark ages I wouldn't want to be in a relationship with. I mean, you're not enjoying this or thinking of yourself as an equal partner but just doing it because you think you owe it to me at this stage? I mean, just, yuk.

Regarding affirmative consent, it frankly blows my mind that there are people out there who do not verbally check in at every stage of their intimate activities.

I told a female friend recently that I'd never, even in my 13-year relationship, engaged in any intimate activity without verbal confirmation. She said this was extremely anomalous, that she was constantly dealing with "what if it's just the tip" negotiations and "but we don't have any condoms" bullshit

@ Lee626

As a reluctant bottom who regularly "puts out" for no other reason than to make my boyfriend happy, I think it's a little more complicated than that

there is definitely a range in between those two points! plenty of people who take consent very seriously do not want the step-by-step verbal confirmation. for some people the ideal might be "i want to let you know at the outset that i am down for everything the two of us have done in the past but i want you to check in with me for anything else" - - - or "i want you to actively ask step by step" or "i want you to not actively ask but for me to assert something when we seem to be going in a direction i'm elss sure about," or some version of a red-yellow-green system or a multitude of other possible configurations. but this is why it can be really great to have meta-consent conversations: what type of consent are we each thinking in terms of? do they overlap someplace where we can have some confidence that both parties are going to have a positive experience here?

I feel as if focussing too plainly on "consent" is missing the point. "Consent" is the aspect that is policed legally, so it's usually where people tend to dwell when discussing unhealthy sexual relationships.

i disagree strongly though i understand the point you're trying to make about safety, equality, etc. the focus on consent doesn't stem from its legal policing imho - in fact a lot of the voices pointing us to think hard about consent are very critical or outright hostile to the legal construction of consent, the way the legal system responds to victims, etc. i would say that the focus on consent comes from the fact that experiencing a violation of consent is horrible and often traumatic, and also a problem of epidemic scale. there's a reason why we identify a wider body of problematic behaviors, customs and discourses as "rape culture" and not "unsafety culture" - it's a continuum and consent violations are at (or near) one end of that continuum in a way that defines and structures the problem. imho.

"the two points" referring to fgti's post about antioch-model verbal confirmation vs. awful skeevy "but we don't have any condoms" bullshit.

@fgti, but you're in an established relationship with your boyfriend that (i'm assuming) has already included sex. I was talking about two people who had never had sex with each other, and the woman (or bottom) feels a need to hook up against her real wishes due to cultural baggage. I think that's a different situation.

I understand the step-by-step verbal confirmation works and is desirable in many circumstances, esp with young people and/or sportfucking, but the idea of my using it at age ** in an encounter with another man is absolutely fucking hi-lar-ious.

(I have most often employed "If you don't like something, say stop")

@ Doctor Casino that's a very good response!

I'd never, even in my 13-year relationship, engaged in any intimate activity without verbal confirmation.

i agree this seems a little OTT personally but if it makes sense for you it makes sense. also, and forgive me for speculating, but i can definitely imagine this ritual being very hott

here's where i show my age and utter alienation from this stuff, but verbally checking in at every stage of my intimate activities... I'd rather watch movies, then.

@ Lee626, I wasn't talking about an established relationship, I was talking about preparing myself to act outside of my natural impulses (have a big dick in my ass) in order to maintain a new relationship with somebody. In my experience, I've approached being penetrated as something that I hope I can grow to enjoy-- this is something that I've talked about with reluctant-to-be-fucked female friends, too, that there is a desire to make-it-work and hopefully arrive at a position in which it is regularly pleasurable.

People don't suck dick because the sensation of having a dick in one's mouth is inherently pleasurable. The pleasure comes from the fact that it is an act of "putting out"-- doing something that causes your sexual partner enjoyment

surely it can be both!

@ Morbs, to be specific, in my case, it's like an opening "do you want to hook up" question, then a question preceding any kind of oral, and then a question preceding any kind of penetration. I don't think it's that weird? I myself get really weird when people don't ask

"People don't suck dick because the sensation of having a dick in one's mouth is inherently pleasurable"

speak for yourself, junior. oh wait i'm not gay. wait, am i? i just like sucking on stuff, i guess. #freudsucks

anyway, that's still not the same as feeling you're *obliged* to do it

and i am with tracer. the asking for permission thing sounds hott. gonna try that with the only person i am legally allowed to try stuff with.

OK fgti, I was probably misinterpreting into a Pythonesque micromanagement scenario... I guess I've most often begun with 'What are we gonna do?' at the top and dealt with fine-tuning on a 'speak up' basis.

"Would you prefer me to rotate my digits around your left nipple in a clockwise or counter-clockwise fashion?"

lol yeah

wow, we ended up at dick jokes and Monty Python really quickly

it's the maleness thread

That's just configuration post agreement tbf xxp

just wanna pop in to say f hazel otm as always
and have you guys heard of the FRIES model of consent?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CprgjYlWgAA_rtv.jpg

i do accept that some form of teaching or education (re-education) which challenged the stereotypical view of what a man's role is, in relationships/society, could be useful. there is so much confusion out there about how men should behave.

While I agree with the former, just because it helps, esp for young men who do not get this taught at home, from parents, I strongly disagree with the latter. Or rather, I do not recognize it at all. I'm well aware I'm probably living in my own bubble, but stories about it being "so much harder" or "confusing" for "men to be men" really get on my nerves (and this is not directed at you LG). Also because the only path out of said so-called confusion is always to be "more manly", to "stand up" for yourself as "a man" more.. Lots of parenthesis because stuff like that makes me itch.

Men are still men, with their testosterone high and in puberty forever trailing behind women who experience it sooner, which could lead to insecurity etc etc etc. But crossing the line in your behaviour as a (young) man has always been wrong, and still is. I don't think there is any confusion about how men "should behave". "Don't be evil" kind of covers it tbh. Be compassionate, be truthful, be considerate. Like every human being, man or woman.

I dread this "it's so hard for men now" because it implies it's getting harder for men now that emancipation is finally in affect (even though it's way too slow, moving towards equality in education, pay, positions in businesses etc; it should've been a given already). It's harder for men because women get their long awaited due, in a crawling pace still? Nah.

I'm not sure where anyone said "it is so hard for men now." Saying "early experiences with sex and hooking up are hard" is not the same thing.

xpost We're only used to having to (begrudgingly) show respect to people who can beat us up, do u see.

Saying "early experiences with sex and hooking up are hard" is not the same thing

I didn't even take these stories as being indicative of anything gender-specific - these things are hard for everybody!

Maybe not literally "hard", but " there is so much confusion out there about how men should behave."

xp to man alive

xxp OL :D

i think its pretty accurate that its 'hard for men' in the sense that bad behavior generally speaking is rewarded by capitalism, as is trading on your privileges and advantages, and so doing the right thing is generally punished in 1000 ways. is it harder than it is for women, obv no, but i think belittling the difficulties ppl face by pushing against the expectations of masculinity minimizes the full systemic reach of 'masculinity' as a construct, the way it's reinforced & rewarded at so many different levels despite pushing against individuals' long term/spiritual best interests

in no way saying 'its hard for men' in the sense lots of people probably mean it, as if it were a gendered competition, but i don't think its 'easy for men' either ... at some level this is also a gender-essentialist convo anyway

True words, D-40. I get that. I do wonder about the "belittling the difficulties" aspect though. (White) men are the most privileged people walking the earth. Sympathies for how confused they must be about their role in society only goes so far, especially when it considers misconduct, crossing lines they shouldn't cross (which is acting out - indeed, capitalism fueled - privilege).

xp no gotcha

i think one of the things that makes it difficult for men to comprehend the convo--and i'm not talking about the sociopathic-masculinity levels of weinstein per se but just men's broader, quotidian issues w/ women--is that we often see it in these reductive gender binary terms, and get easily confused w/ how women seemingly negotiate power w/ more self-awareness...which 'we' don't see as 'self awareness'/survivalist compromise w/ the system, but as a fundamental disagreement w/ feminism that undermines the feminist case about male behavior...i.e. the logic of women prefer alpha males/assholes etc., that they are themselves drawn to power. Men will conflate women in abusive power relationships w/ women doing complex negotiations with power, and in many many cases men simply confuse male self confidence w/ masculine arrogance.

the inability to recognize individual women as human beings who are sometimes fallible & who may not always have a completely developed political ideology, but as universal representatives who can speak for what kind of behavior is OK with all women, seems at the root of a lot of rationalizations abt hanging onto masculine ideas about gender roles... (The other side of which is probably fear of not knowing what exists outside these rules, which, as long as capitalism is in place...feels understandable? if you stand down, everyone else isn't going to, so all the most sociopathic men take all positions of power)

is it a characteristic of masculinity to see power in such all or nothing terms, like either i opt out of the system entirely or i become king shithead of shithead corporation? idk. that feels like a really deeply rooted thing though, which i feel at some level, a conflictedness vs an ingrained expectation

i look at a lot of dudes id know who were like super anti-THE SYSTEM despite having grown up w/in situations of lavish privilege as them at some very early starting phase of realizing shit is fucked up, and they either never get with it & develop substance abuse problems or just live w/ self-conscious anxiety about being failures, or they eventually sell out, or occasionally succeed & do so in a seemingly ethical way, but there's a lot of either-or

i guess this can also be true of women, maybe my generalization about them better negotiating power is wrong, idk, but it feels like there's some truth there

& who may not always have a completely developed political ideology

this part reads, i think, the opposite of how i intended ... i mean that men will read a narrative of 'developing an ideological point of view' in themselves that they wont read into women, who have an 'established political point of view' by dint of simply being women, a dehumanizing understanding of how women are just as much products of their backgrounds, social forces, etc

basically destroy the system, imo

https://www.thecut.com/2017/10/the-men-taking-classes-to-unlearn-toxic-masculinity.html

For the past 25 years, Mankowski has taught a course titled Psychology of Men and Masculinities, which, he says, “deconstruct[ s ] how masculinity is socialized as a performative mask rather than a biological imperative.” He argues that the concept of “toxic masculinity” has four main components: suppression of anything stereotypically feminine; suppression of emotions related to vulnerability, like fear, sadness, or helplessness; male domination over women and other men; and aggression.

“From those four distal expectations come the proximal attitudes and behaviors, like ‘I deserve to have access to women’s bodies,’” he explains. “What we don’t know is if it’s more effective to address the distal or proximal ideas and behaviors.” Mankowski says alcohol abuse is a perfect example. “It numbs feelings and allows men to act aggressive. We can effectively address it, but we’re not addressing the underlying issue. It’s functioning to help them display their manhood, so why would they stop?”

“We’ve spent many years addressing survivors and victim behavior, but ethically, and in terms of efficacy, that’s incomplete,” he adds. “We have to address the roots.” And while course evaluations show that his students typically absorb what he teaches, Mankowski notes, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the class is making a real-world difference: “It may change beliefs about gender,” he says, “but does it change behavior?”