Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

I love the phrase "puritanical amorality" - it sums up so much that's being discussed here.

These are dark times.

wow that was depressing
what does this mean? They make the soy face.

Ugh, I wish I didn't know the answer to your question: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1376587-soy-boy

I wrote a whole long post but it very well might have been bullshit. I find these people repulsive maybe bc I recognize in them a tendency I left behind a long time ago (maybe age 15), thisbkind of idea that being callous and “ironic” was cool and sophisticated. Also these people searching for an identity in toxic constructs of masculinity should be relatable for anyone in the sense that they are looking for an identity and an ethos and are petrified that society has no place for them. I think society is honestly failing to provide role models for all kinds of young people and this problem is just intersecting with changing gender norms in an explosive way.

I guess if you truly feel like the world owes you everything, there's no motivation to do anything... brush your teeth, recycle, make sense.

What this shit is basically is nihilism. They reject all traces of generosity and vulnerability and replace it with some kind of confused and inconsistent obsession with dominance.

Maybe it’s just entitlement, idk. The mra stuff alluded to in that article about dril tombot posted scares me a lot.

treesh, that sounds like jordan peterson's argument - but unfortunately his solution is utter cack

Peterson is one of these people. He insists on “dominance hierarchies” and asserts that “chaos” is “inherently feminine.”

^yup

just thinking of something that struck me as telling, my buddy who has long been single always seemed to defend the accusers of sexual assault victims (even CK, god); he once recalled a story where he went out with some girls and they were talking about guys, and it sounded like he felt put out by it. Anytime I would try to argue in the past that women had it worse than men (cat-calls, inappropriate comments, etc.) he would argue that women did this to - which is totally a false equivalency. I think he just felt sad these comments weren't about him - the worst part is he denies he has any problems with women, which I think is total bullshit, but I can see a splint of this behaviour in these MRAs/etc.

entitlement is deeming yr own version of "ugh, what is up with gross men?!" a contribution worth sharing

I think everyone should feel entitled to share their perspective all the time

also he is a christian and is super into valour and doing the right thing - like his ex (who he has pined after for years) tried to sleep with him at a party again and he thought it was "wrong" - talk about a self fulfilling prophecy of rejection!

But also they need to listen to others

I mean, every straight man has “issues” with women though, they just take forms that are sometimes super problematic and other times less so. People want to be loved and when they get rejected they come up with weird self-defense rationalizations. There is a vulnerability that is part of the human experience and a big problem is probably men feeling like they can’t truly acknowledge it and process jt.so that’s toxic masculinity, but I think women even (especially?) on the left help reinforce it with rhetoric about drinkig male tears and manbabies and whatever. Male vulnerability is still something people are uncomfortable with and this leads to the kind of pathological denial of weakness that leads these MRA types to try to murder their own souls.

Take out “especially” from my last post. It’s not the left wing forcing men into this emotional straight jacket. Just that the message to “straighten up” and “stop being entitled” is not in itself sufficient to address the kind of emotional darkness of contemporary masculinity. Also (key point) it’s not women’s responsibility to solve this problem.

Also no matter what happens individuals are 100% personally responsible for the hateful views they harbor. I’m talking about a more general malaise that forms the backdrop of all this

treesh is a 5yo who has inherited their family's hatred of another ethnic group responsible for their hateful views or does it activate on their birthday one year

next up on ilx: what's up with all these women with eating disorders?! just feed yourself like a grown up ffs

?

I was the one saying the dudes not taking care of their health are probably not simply “entitled”

xxp

found the incel

to ogmor damn it treesh

ogmor has posted for a long time and is definitely not part of the “incel” subculture

treesh im gonna slap u w a fish rn

p sure ogmor is being facetious

my favorite are the men who won't go near a bidet because it's not "manly" enough and use baby wipes on their ass instead

― dub pilates (rushomancy), Saturday, October 6, 2018

naw bruh

https://target.scene7.com/is/image/Target/GUEST_0789dcb8-e73e-47cc-93c0-710c151dc24c?wid=488&hei=488&fmt=pjpeg

That'll do pig, that'll do.

what the hell happened in here

In light of the Kavanaugh hearings and some hard conversations with my partner I've been diving into a reading list with the supplemental curating help from a bunch of women who are smarter than me

Here's what I'm reading now--survivor accounts, essays & fiction & poetry:

Alexandra's Truth http://www.verahouse.org/domestic-violence-sexual-assault/survivors/alexandras-truth
Are Women People? https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11689/11689-h/11689-h.htm
Dru's Survivor Story https://www.thesurvivoralliance.com/blog/survivor-stories/dru-survivor-story/
Fault https://www.thesurvivoralliance.com/blog/survivor-stories/fault/
Feminist Perspectives on Power https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-power/
Five Faces of Oppression https://mrdevin.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/five-faces-of-oppression.pdf
Gender Relations in The Female Man http://www.blue-stockings.org/?p=250
Half-Life Book: Fiction
Her Body and Other Parties Book: Fiction
How misogyny, narcissism and a desperate need for power make men abuse women online https://theconversation.com/how-misogyny-narcissism-and-a-desperate-need-for-power-make-men-abuse-women-online-95054
I Realized Women Are People (Satire) https://medium.com/@taliajane/i-realized-women-are-people-feel-free-to-sleep-with-me-now-821b6023603b
Lauren's Truth http://www.verahouse.org/domestic-violence-sexual-assault/survivors/laurens-truth
Lea's Survivor Story https://www.rainn.org/survivor-stories/lea
Misogyny and Homicide of Women https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/confrontingviolence/materials/OB11560.pdf
Samentha's Survivor's Story https://www.rainn.org/survivor-stories/samentha
Sex Object: A Memoir Book: Nonfiction
The Bad Wives https://eidolon.pub/the-bad-wives-fa0fb8a69aba
The Female Man Book: Fiction
The Girl in the Road Book: Fiction
The Logic of Misogyny http://bostonreview.net/forum/kate-manne-logic-misogyny
The Matter of Seggri Book: Fiction
The Worst Year of My Life To Date https://www.thesurvivoralliance.com/blog/2017-the-worst-year-of-my-life-to-date/
Woman’s Situation and Character Book: Nonfiction (Excerpt)
Women & Power Book: Nonfiction
Women Are People, Too https://www.endtimespeptalk.com/podcast/ep-42/
Throwing Like A Girl & Other Essays Book: Nonfiction
Acting Older Isn't Being Older https://www.thenation.com/article/acting-older-isnt-being-older-how-we-fail-young-rape-victims/

The desire to do this reading comes down to a difficult recognition I've had: even though I can throw around my pocket full of feminist buzzwords with the best of them, and even though I'm steeped enough in these things to consider myself well past the nigh inevitable Woke Bro 101 performative guilt & callouts, the simple fact is that my behavior, especially in my alcoholic 20s but also since then, has not aligned with the things I've said I believe. For example I know, unpleasant as it is to see in myself in retrospect, that I've benefited from subtly coercive dynamics in relationships I've had even if only resting on age difference. I've had a facile understanding of power in relation to gender, and my behavior has sometimes reflected that, and I must do better.

Thanks for posting your reading list! I just read Tanya Tagaq's new book Split Tooth last week, which might be a good addition.

Aaaaa I want that book v badly

thanks hoos, i'm still reading some pretty basic shit like "not that bad" and it rocked my world

I tend to think Laurie Penny can be glib, but I really appreciated this generous piece: https://longreads.com/2018/02/14/the-great-stink/

Part of adulthood is learning, slowly and painfully, how to rectify past mistakes, make amends, and move on. Many of us spend a lifetime learning how to do that within our intimate communities, and some of us never do. The dreadful truth, however, is that growing up in public as a political being is a wholly different experience now than it was in previous generations — we need to do it faster, smarter, and with more flexibility than was required of our parents and grandparents.

We are afraid of fucking up, and we are right to be afraid. Fucking up is embarrassing, and hurtful, and can damage both the fucker-upper and the up-fucked. It is also inevitable. It is part of learning how to be human, especially in a volatile and fast-moving political culture. The plain fact is that if you want to be part of a cause that’s bigger than yourself, you will, at some point, fuck up, unless you’re among the rare subset of the human species who tumbled from the womb with perfect politics.

So I do understand how it feels, and it’s coming from a place of sympathy, as well as love, when I tell you to suck it up.

Suck it up and let go. Let go of your resentment at women’s lack of patience, let go of your wounded pride, let go of your useless shame, and let go of the idea of being a “good guy.” “Good” is not a thing you are, it’s a thing you do, or don’t do. The world is not neatly divided into good and bad men. It never was, and we need to let go of the idea that it ever was, so that we can finally be better to one another, finally learn to deal with our shit like grown-ups in this strange new cityscape we’re crawling through together, trying to find our way to the light. That’s the only way we’re going to move from a place of holding abusers to account, into a future where abuse is less likely to happen.

We won’t get to that world by continuing to infantilize men, nor by clinging to the curiously sexist belief that they are too fragile to cope with the consequences of their actions. That sort of belief might be nice, but ultimately, it is not kind. It is not a kindness to have low expectations of men, to always be doing the emotional work for them. It is not a kindness to give in to the threat — so common in abusive relationships — that if we don’t do what they want, they will do violence to themselves, or to us, or both. For a long time, I thought that I was being loving to men by expecting less of them. I thought wrong. I was not being loving. I was not being kind. I was only being nice — and nice is not enough.

that is a good piece steen

ime ive found the most damaging part of toxic masculinity (amongst males) is the attitude that certain actions connote someone as not being manly, or a wimp
like when i was beat up earlier this year the dude actually said "that will teach you something about being a man" while i was crying
this shit needs to die in a fire

last night's svu about incels was very good pic.twitter.com/QM0pPVnmnG

— 𝚍𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚎 🦇 (@metaltango) October 12, 2018

is that a good piece idk is it

dmac:

https://media.makeameme.org/created/is-it-though-5b0c0c.jpg

in many ways yes i am chris hemsworth yes

Putting this in here because it contains a discussion of self-awareness and masculinity

https://longreads.com/2018/10/18/the-denial-diaries-on-metoo-men-with-no-self-awareness/

just to establish imo a bright line of ridiculousness:

i should have known the logical conclusion to the “pay me for my emotional labor” stuff would be “Woke Egoism” pic.twitter.com/pdZA52COhB

— authcom doomguy (@gaddafistfuture) October 19, 2018

Woke-ciopathy

The texting back part is true though. I am very bad at texting back.

just to establish imo a bright line of ridiculousness:

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver

i considered starting a gofundme to overthrow capitalism but decided against it on the infinitesimal chance it might go viral and undo all the work i've put in to not kill myself

makes u think

https://external-preview.redd.it/v_owXCe7jDiMDgIk_yvB5LoUSsNVeL92zRyvDsrVZDk.jpg?width=576&auto=webp&s=c62f0e0d4e173dbef8f035d57b330581b45b9dbe

don't want none of that Mamby-Pampyism

Don't go to Montecito

I didn’t even know that was an expression

Haha, it's a High Llamas song

I finally understand it