Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

Anyway y’all can and should continue to be men without participating in “masculinity” other than in the trivial, grammatical sense.

how do you opt out of participating in 'masculinity'? given that your sense of self will have been shaped by ideas of 'masculinity', your interactions with other people are shaped by (their and society's) ideas of 'masculinity', the standards you are judged by will inevitably be the standards of 'maculinity'? surely it's not just something you can discard?

you can't just say "i'm not playing this game anymore" when the game is woven into the fabric of literally the everything real and imagined

otm, and also I think that's part of the reason the phrase doesn't work in the way YMP suggests, which is that you can't simultaneously have "toxic masculinity" = "not all masculinity" and "masculinity should be discarded as an idea." But we have those messages coexisting in the same spheres of discussion right now.

You are both describing the 'trivial, grammatical sense'.

And masculinity is not considered toxic the way femininity has been considered delicate. Come on!

so much delicate masculinity itt

i mean i see man alive's point, but each word/phrase has its own history, and so their connotations change and differ depending on what period in history we're talking about

the word masculinity poses a problem in that it may refer to maleness, and in a post-gender world, there are different views on what is being talked about when you say "male" (biological/sexuality/etc), from what i can tell

so some guys think there is no way of escaping being a male if you were born with male genitalia, and masculinity encompasses this definition to some

language is a tricky thing -- feel like we're discussing semantics at this point

@man alive: You are comparing gender norms that have been societally imposed for thousands of years with, like, something some people have said on twitter recently.

so what's your semantic argument here, fred? words don't matter?

multi-xps

One difficulty with 'toxic masculinity' is that it adds an element of highly subjective hyperbole that is not present in the term 'spoiled milk'. Whether or not milk is spoiled is easily verifiable, but you can't determine when masculinity has become toxic by testing it for toxic substances. The same for 'testosterone poisoning'. Those are not statements of fact, but rhetorical constructions reflecting subjective judgments in hyperbolic language.

So, without the speaker expatiating on their intended meaning, it is quite possible to hear the phrase 'toxic masculinity' and infer that the speaker judges all masculinity to be toxic.

The benefit of transfeminist discourse to cis dudes should be that you should feel entitled to being a man without having to endorse, actively participate in, or seek to reconstruct any received cultural ideas about what "masculinity" is. If you are a man, great! Please be a good person. You don't need to seek to gender the process of being a good person, since you are no less of a man no matter how "unmasculine" you are.

so much delicate masculinity itt

― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 22 May 2018 18:08 (ten minutes ago) Permalink

cool

Like what is the purpose of a reconstructed and ostensibly nontoxic masculinity to you, man alive? What personal growth do you need it for?

xxp the process of 'being a good person' is gendered though, the things you say and do can mean different thing depending on whether you are a man or a woman, because society will treat you differently based on whether you are a man or a woman - you can't separate 'being a good person' from the system of gender relations/inequality and where you personally are situated in that system?

Like what is the purpose of a reconstructed and ostensibly nontoxic masculinity to you, man alive? What personal growth do you need it for?

― valorous wokelord (silby), Tuesday, May 22, 2018 1:24 PM (fifty-six seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What is the purpose of a transman identifying as a man then? What is the meaning of identifying as a gender other than your sex if gender is a mere vestige of a less enlightened era?

Yeah I mean I’m not saying you can dismantle patriarchy by thinking hard enough I just mean you don’t need to find a way to dismantle patriarchy while still getting to endorse or adhere to “manly virtues” or whatever else you think need out of masculinity as a concept.

Why do we need to go out of our way to attach positive and non-traditionally feminine traits to women, girls, femininity etc. if the goal is actually that gender should have nothing associated with it whatsoever, a pure blank slate?

To mitigate the harm of gender-based oppression, I guess?

Anyway the one step process to being a man is:

1. Be a man

The accoutrements have no obvious metaphysical function. If you are a man, you are already a man, and the state of being-a-man cannot be taken from you even if masculinity is itself a nullity.

If you are a man, you are already a man, and the state of being-a-man cannot be taken from you

see, i don't think this is right if we go by new gender ideas

No, silby is right.

Again, what is the meaning of an entirely blank slate gender divorced from biological sex? What does that actually mean? What is the difference between saying "I am a man" and "I am a blorf"?

whoa never seen blorf used before but that's definitely what i am

xxp

but if you are a man your gender can also be woman

so being a man is not enough to define the other parts of your self

Well sure like gender is performative and coercive and constructed and all those things but it is also metaphysical and so if there’s nothing that it means to be a man, then you succeed at being a man simply by being a man. Like a trans man isn’t a man because he medically transitions, or self-identifies as a man, he’s a man because he is. Which is the same reason a cis man is a man and a nonbinary person is nonbinary. Which is not to say any of these people could not be something else later, for some reason.

This is mostly my own half-baked concept of how this shit works, I have no authority to cite here.

man alive, there is no meaning you are free from meaning.

yeah, if you want to be a 'blorf', man alive, you should go for it.

xxp

okay seriously not trolling, but to play devil's advocate, what if i don't believe in metaphysics?

i feel like it just further confuses things because it creates an intangible concept

so my solution, call the person whatever the person wants to be called!

Idk; if you don’t believe in metaphysics my argument doesn’t apply. You’ll have to look elsewhere for a different argument.

fair

to blorfinity… and beyond!

i have a lot of ideas about this that i can't untangle into sentences but i've really enjoyed silby's posts itt

more multi-xps

What is the meaning of identifying as a gender other than your sex if gender is a mere vestige of a less enlightened era?

People create meaning both within and among themselves. What it 'means' for a transman to identify as a gender other than their sexual equipment at birth is a meaning the transman has created for themselves, in dialogue with other meanings generated by others. Such meanings tend to cluster together in a similar neighborhood, which is fortunate in terms of being able to live together in society, but ultimately that meaning is the transman's personal possession. So, ask them what it means to them.

<3 brad

So to sum up, "I am a man" = self-evident but can't mean anything beyond itself. But also there is a particular kind of masculinity that is toxic, even though masculinity doesn't mean anything.

It's ironic it's so hard for you to grasp what 'toxic masculinity' means, when 'Fedora Dostoyevsky' seems to capture it so well.

"I am a man" = self-evident

No, I would say it doesn't admit to any kind of evidentiary process or even some sort of Platonic discernment.

there is a particular kind of masculinity that is toxic

I wouldn't say that.

masculinity doesn't mean anything

No, it is the bare fact of being a man doesn't mean anything beyond itself. I have here construed "masculinity" as the received, performative, and culturally-determined collection of attributes commonly ascribed to people who are or are perceived to be men.

(I'm still really glad Mordy gave me this sweet dn, really works here)

it's very easy to grasp what it "means." It seems hard for you to grasp that words have multiple senses and subtexts. xp

as far as i can tell this is still the final word on masculinity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Lp_e4wUnz4

But "fedora" is just a style of crowned hat to countless millions of people, unless it has become a weighty cultural signifier, as it now appears to be to millions of others. And Dostoevsky is just a name most often associated with an author that the great majority of people have not read.

No, it is the bare fact of being a man doesn't mean anything beyond itself. I have here construed "masculinity" as the received, performative, and culturally-determined collection of attributes commonly ascribed to people who are or are perceived to be men.

― valorous wokelord (silby), Tuesday, May 22, 2018 2:07 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

But if you remove all performative and culturally determined attributes as well as biological attributes from the concept of "man" what is left?

The mere fact. You're a man! I'm really happy for you.

I mean this concept I'm working with here is probably subject to some major complaints from anyone who has read Wittgenstein more carefully than I have but I think it's both kind of true and politically useful so I'll defend it at least a little bit.

silby on fire

what is left?

an extremely malleable concept signified by 'man'. which is what it always was to begin with.

I mean this concept I'm working with here is probably subject to some major complaints from anyone who has read Wittgenstein more carefully than I have but I think it's both kind of true and politically useful so I'll defend it at least a little bit.

― valorous wokelord (silby), 22. maj 2018 21:11 (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

We need to go from 'being' to either 'doing' or 'becoming', etc ;)

The Fedora Dostojevski thing was an attempt at a joke, btw, nothing more. Sorry if it seemed snarky.

Please be a good person.

all else is commentary

Enjoyed yr subtle alanis morrissette reference freddie

Just found a YouTube Channel - Pop Culture Detective - doing hero's work analyzing masculinity protrayals in TV shows and media. Particularly liked the ones on Steven Universe and Big Bang Theory, and the videos go into elements of why I respectively love and despite them.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHiwtz2tCEfS17N9A-WoSSw

anyone else sit down to pee? was recommended to me by a friend a few years ago, and after an initial reaction of incredulity (mild offense, even) I have now come to love it - makes for a nice little break and it's never messy

if there is a urinal (or if toilet is trashed) will still stand, in a forest would ofc always stand

it's funny tho because it's (seen as) effeminate and not something I admit to everyone