Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

Trying to out-macho each other

i haven't been following this thread but this kind of unspoken dynamic is one reason i just can't hang with most dudes these days. there's just a weird one-up-mans-ship vibe/energy that's present, even if it's in a lighthearted non-hostile way or whatever. i just don't play that game.

since we were talking about ending masculinity earlier i think it's worth bringing up that there are generalizations about boys and girls that imo are true. i think boys have a harder time sitting still in a classroom for many hours a day. they're less refined and more rambunctious than girls of the same age. i don't think they're socialized this way - i think it's hormonal (and maybe chromosomal?). there was a lot of talk about a decade ago (that seems to have died down) about how boys were achieving less in schools and the theory was that schools aren't set up to engage them in the most productive ways. i think it's a mistake to say they're not very good people - as if it's a moral flaw as opposed to nature. we can ask them to refine themselves but the vast majority of males are never going to be feminized to the degree that ilxors think they should.

What age are fifth graders

like 11 iirc?

Ok

Even allowing that YMP is best people and has qualified himself in the selfsame post, and that the word 'gross' is a criminally overused and loaded term, I'm gonna opine that that is a gross sentiment right there

I mean....no doubt popular itt but I mean ctfo

Totally willing to acknowledge that I'm no angel. For example I am plenty fucking rugged and I do kinda want people to know it. I wish to be admired for my outdoor skillz, envied for the understated quality of my camping gear, and respected for my effortless self-sufficiency. I love it when I am faster than someone else to name a particular sort of bird call or tree bark. I am thrilled when someone needs a particular pocket-knife tool and I can casually offer it.

I just don't want to talk about football because I'm no good at that and it makes me feel stupid and unprepared.

I can't relate to boys and I don't understand them. That makes me feel like I am not good at something I want to be good at.

well like on ilx you're mostly going to get sensitive guys who are trying to be good allies, progressive, etc and are therefore going to be more reticent to challenge sacralities regarding gender esp as produced by gender studies academia. the v idea that gender might not just be performative but have a natural hormonal component is going to be controversial here (but pretty much nowhere else in the world). xp

certain kinds of behaviour are more obnoxious or trying especially as you get older tbf

i don't personally place that much in the biological realm, at least not in terms of how they manifest, so i'm not going to jump right onto the next generalization but

I'm kinda with Mordy here tbh re: biological/hormonal components of gender

eg the boys in my girls' montessori preschool classroom roughhouse much more than the girls. it's a gender sterile environment w/ exclusively female teachers. sure it could be that by 4yo boys are already socialized to roughhouse and girls are socialized to be more attentive or it could be that little boys are wilder than little girls like thousands of years of human experience suggests.

I believe in that to a point, but I think the range of "natural" within a gender is much wider than we tend to give credit, and the overemphasis on gender binary leads to a kind of flattening/normalizing a group that actually exhibits a very wide range of traits. I was certainly surprised by how much my first daughter took to the traditionally girly stuff, for example, in spite of it not matching my wife at all, but I was also surprised by how much my second daughter is mechanically-oriented, aggressive, even physically bullies other kids on the playground if I don't stop her.

are there hormonal/chromosomal differences between people? y obv

do these differences exist in such a way that statistically we could cluster them as maleness/femaleness? y in some ways, up to a point, majority of cases perhaps, but this doesn't function as a pure binary

do these differences have a causal relation to behaviours and socialization? probably in many ways but i kind of doubt that those ways are univocal, i.e. there is a feedback relation with socialization, and i see no reason why the underlying causality such as it is wouldn't express itself v different in different kinds of society, in fact this would seem to be largely the case

I was a boy who had/has enormous trouble paying attention in certain situations, but I also did not exhibit the more rowdy/rambunctious behavior you're talking about, I was much more daydreamy. xp

also what NV said

i mean it makes sense that if "these differences exist in such a way that statistically we could cluster them as maleness/femaleness" then that would itself exert a socialization affect. if more of the boys are wild then even boys who aren't as wild will be pulled into that behavior and boys who aren't wild at all might feel alienated. if more of the girls are attentive then girls who roughhouse will feel alienated. you don't need any feedback from adults for this sorting to take place.

in other words i'd say that "it's only performative" and "it's only biochemical" are extremist positions and that a lot of (most?) credible thinkers about this stuff would lie somewhere between the two positions

you don't need any feedback from adults for this sorting to take place.

But we get *a lot* of feedback from adults encouraging this sort of sorting to take place. Have you walked down a toy aisle lately, for example?

feedback from adults isn't the only kind of socialization, and i think it isn't possible to run meaningful experiments on unsocialized human beings, socialization may begin pre-birth

i agree that there is feedback from adults, i just don't think it's necessary. and the question of what is impacting what (are toy makers making toys that they hope will sell, or are they selling toys that are impacting their consumers) isn't easy to tease out either. it's probably a little of both. but a similar dynamic where appealing to the majority can create conditions of conformity. do boys like trucks bc trucks are marketed to boys or are trucks marketed to boys because boys buy trucks?

i don't think arguments from nature are very satisfying - all kinds of culture are about the belief that we can adapt or decide our "innate instincts".

but i think there is a place for the biochemical in how we think about ourselves Mordy, in fact i think it might be too overlooked in some areas of health care, social policy, criminology etc

some of those adaptations are quixotic. i don't know if we're ever going to breed competitiveness out of boys. (putting aside whether it's a worthwhile goal.)

Mordy, fifth is 10-11 btw.

the boys in my girls' montessori preschool classroom roughhouse much more than the girls. it's a gender sterile environment w/ exclusively female teachers. sure it could be that by 4yo boys are already socialized to roughhouse and girls are socialized to be more attentive or it could be that little boys are wilder than little girls like thousands of years of human experience suggests

We're not likely to completely settle nature/nurture here. But I will echo a common observation. The starry-eyed crunchy hippie parents who only give their children ethically-sourced gluten-free unisex toys still see loads of stereotypically gendered behavior. Give even the most thoughtfully-raised boy a doll and he might still turn it into a gun. (shrug)

My son's not very representative of boys-in-general, but I see him tending rowdier/more aggressive as he ages.

i admit a lot of these questions are up for me right now (or coming up) since i have a baby boy so i get to analyze in real time how he differs from his older sisters. nb that every individual is different so it's more of just wondering. like my wife said that he already looked very boyish (at 3m) and i was thinking is that even possible? why should you be able to tell the gender of a baby by their facial features?

competitiveness, as an example, if we believe it's an underlying biologically male trait or tendency - there is still a range of ways in which it can be expressed, and the range of expression is probably where the social is a dominant factor

some of it is inevitably going to be physical - one kid jumping on another kid. hoping we're going to channel that into productivity (like building stuff) is maybe asking a little much from preschoolers.

i haven't been following this thread but this kind of unspoken dynamic is one reason i just can't hang with most dudes these days. there's just a weird one-up-mans-ship vibe/energy that's present, even if it's in a lighthearted non-hostile way or whatever. i just don't play that game.

Got a haircut this morning at a barbershop run and mostly patronized by black and Latino dudes. The conversation was mostly about home ownership; the barber next to me was talking to his customer about mortgage rates and the virtues of a town house over a regular house. My barber didn't talk to me about anything because I give off a don't-talk-to-me vibe, plus he doesn't speak much English. But I've had conversations there with some of the other barbers; one once asked me if I'd ever been to Lincoln Center. There's never been that kind of macho competitive atmosphere described above, whether or not I'm part of the conversation. A lot of the time these guys are talking about their problems - health issues, bills, stuff like that.

Just an extra data point.

yeah, but we socialize them - hopefully! - by consistently telling them it's not ok to go round hurting other kids

you guys ever hear of these books? i have them at home. i don't know what people think of them now. i guess a lot of people didn't like them at the time. they are interesting though. kubrick was a fan!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Genesis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Territorial_Imperative

anyway, his big thing in the territorial book is that almost every male of any species is all about territory and then sex.

nice post unperson, I love barber shops, kinda miss having the $$$ to visit one on the regular (reduced to shaving my head myself these days)

one of the best things about following sports (besides the emotional investment and sporadic payoff) is that it gives you something to talk about w/ most men of any socioeconomic background. i've had so many conversations with taxi drivers about sports (and the few times they weren't interested in sports we talked music instead).

i get my hair cut in a salon staffed entirely by women but they do a really nice job w/ my hair and i like talking about music w/ them so i don't really feel compelled to find a male barbershop.

it's true that my hatred of professional sports cuts me off from that kind of default male convo but it just makes me resent them more tbh

xp

i spend a lot of time talking to men my age and older in the pub, just talking about whatever, and the vast majority of that conversation isn't one-upping or banterish

xpost to unperson right on man, it's good to hear examples of that, i don't know maybe i'm just more sensitive to it. like at work, some guys are just incredibly taxing to have a conversation with because they have to be all "big boy pants" all the time. it's probably all in my head. idk just bullshittin to make myself feel like a better man.

the phrase "big boy pants" will never not be funny

i always feel really uncomfortable in barbershops... i'm incredibly self-conscious and not all that stereotypically masculine-looking, though

there used to be a barbershop mini-chain around here called MAJOR LEAGUE TRIM which was staffed by women and catered i think almost exclusively to men.

Not just another guy-salon, MLT is a chopshop laser-focused on mannish needs: each seat boasts its own flat-screen, and the whole wi-fi'd shop's strewn with men's mags -- for a nourishing dose of softcore before a vicious shampoo/conditioner cycle.

i've been in warehouses populated by particularly lecherous men inc one in camden where the bathroom wall was literally wall to wall w/ softcore pornography. it made me feel extremely uncomfortable. if we could socialize this out of men or at least shame them into only looking at pornography at home in private i think that would be a good step forward.

even mellow men who weren't particularly rowdy as children will still play 400 hours of shooter games a week and watch tons of violent movies and watch tons of aggressive porn and tons of bone-crunching sports and fantasize about how they would survive in a zombie apocalypse or become champion of MMA when they can't sleep at night. so, you know, you have to watch out for the quiet ones too. ted bundy was a very articulate person.

my nightmare world of men of the future is something like what i see in one of those shows on Netflix streaming about the modern day Mafia or Camorra in Italy. it's probably a heightened version of reality but just these empty vessel types drinking and snorting drugs and killing everyone and fucking and caring about no one else.

I have to speak to my barber in Spanish, but her Spanish is rotten too, so it works out.

i did kinda enjoy that dumb Revolution show on Netflix because it was all about the power going out around the world and how that immediately made everyone go completely stone age. i fear that for sure. it seemed realistic! not the show, but the response.

also, i will watch any show with Juliet from Lost on it. cuz i kinda love her. but in a non-sexual way? she's just cool looking. though i don't want to watch the fairy tale show she is in. too girly. kidding. it just doesn't involve the end of the world. if it did, i would be there.

The barbershop I went to today (and have been going to for about six months now) is called Knockout and has boxing posters on the walls and a big TV showing, I think, ESPN; there was a panel discussion going about NFL football while I was there. Before that, I used to go to a Mexican-run place called Nealtican where the TV was always showing Latin pop videos. I liked it better there, but the wait was much longer.

you guys get a lot of haircuts

not nearly enough acc to my wife

i think the last time i went to a barber i was 10. sam's barbershop. sam laforte. he was a wonderful guy.

3-4x a year for me

Always tended to go to old Italian barbers.

About seven or eight times. Hair matters, especially when you like to comb and style the three you've got.