Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

team i'm not at all sure the quoted excerpt was supposed to be a finger pointing at the thread, this feels a little confusingly defensive

I have been to a strip club, but it was purely academic. (Not even joking, it was part of an assignment for a Film Studies course where, in groups, we had to watch pr0n and attend a "sexual public exhibition")

I got dragged to one on a stag do. Midday - a pub near Heathrow.

just in case anyone is wondering, "daytime near the airport" is not the correct way to do it.

all I'll say is that strip clubs and their ilk are, as that quoted text upthread implies, not about sexuality or sex but about power, specifically economic power, and the gendered exercise thereof.

attend a "sexual public exhibition"

aka Sauchiehall Street on any Saturday night.

One of Yerac's points I think is that there's not a nice comfortable bright line, ie "I'm not part of problematic masculinity because I've never been to a strip club." Patriarchy and misogyny are woven throughout all systems of society and life, and manifest on a spectrum.

If anyone has been reading the Girls' Room thread, you saw multiple comments that women posters feel less and less ability to engage in threads where we're just going to be argued against or told that we're wrong or whatever we're saying is unimportant or TOO CONTROVERSIAL to be considered by reasonable people. And the result is women posting less and feeling unwelcome and withdrawing from conversations. And all y'all don't seem to notice or care that we're disappearing from the board.

I mean it's great that you are looking at your own personal lives to make sure you are in the clear... whew.

Even if we were all doing this, you aren't likely to accept our right to a self-awarded clear conscience. The only convincing evidence of self-interrogation would be self-accusation and confession of our sins. What's the next step? Where will absolution come from, who will supply it, and on what authority?

there's not a nice comfortable bright line, ie "I'm not part of problematic masculinity because I've never been to a strip club."

ftr I def do not think this and I trust no one else here seriously does either

It would be pretty stupid.

OK now that we have figured out who has been to a strip club: Men in groups will sometimes do terrible things that they wouldn't do while on their own. Straight men who only hang out with other straight men, leads me to believe( personally) that they have never learned to dissociate women as being a person who is neither as complicated as themselves, equal, or useful other than a mother figure or prospective love interest. This leads to all sorts of inabilities to socialize with or work well with women.

Also, I am not absolving anyone. I can barely tell you guys apart.

Seriously guys...#notallmen

― Yerac, Thursday, December 13, 2018 2:03 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the point of your post was literally to back up an argument that straight men should not hang out in groups, so I really don't know what your getting at anymore, although the kneejerk #notallmen was very predictable

It's more like 'I am not a part of that problematic facet of masculinity you just brought up'.

(xps)

fwiw, I work in a majority female law office of a firm owned by a woman, and I work very well with my coworkers thanks. And I know you're going to throw out #notallmen again, but you are the one jumping to conclusions about what my social life says about me

OH wow, I totally boggled one of those sentences.

Aye, I've been to a strip club and now work in an outstanding school in an all-female department and get along just fine with my colleagues (all of whom know about the former, fwiw, and have called me out on it many times). Which is a bit notallmen-y but whatever.

That 'outstanding' was a reflex. What a muppet.

fwiw in orbit I find yr posts valuable. I don't know where the Girls Room thread is. Apart from a handful of older posters I don't actually know most posters' gender.

xp

And the result is women posting less and feeling unwelcome and withdrawing from conversations. And all y'all don't seem to notice or care that we're disappearing from the board.

Only one female in the top 10 posters of the month

Maybe I am using #notallmen wrong but I use it when I want men to stop recentering the discussion to their own personal deal. Sometimes, most of the time, it's not about you.

I went to a strip club a few times in my early 20s, by myself, to pick up my girlfriend from work, who was working as a stripper there

She loved the work, she told me most of the men who frequented the place were more interested in female attention than in boobs or w/e, that her job was 90% talking

Anyway I don't think "man who goes to a strip club" is a good indication of anything, or "man who engages the services of sex workers" or whatever

I hope women keep posting in this thread

Sometimes, most of the time, it's not about you.

In the Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread?

The general "you personally". For whoever needs someone to keep a record of how great of a coworker or non-strip club patron you have been in your "you personally" life.

Fair. It is in the spirit of countering generalities though, innit.

Anyway I don't think "man who goes to a strip club" is a good indication of anything, or "man who engages the services of sex workers" or whatever

I hope women keep posting in this thread

― flamboyant goon tie included, Thursday, December 13, 2018 2:44 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i agree w/ both of these points.

men are guilty in general theres no escaping that lads

possibly this the thread for it possibly theres no thread not for it

this thread is very bad now

look at these men being bad.

im not bad.

sic passim.

That's not a caricature of this thread at all.

Basically, men should altogether avoid bringing up their personal experiences as men itt and stick to the generalities. Did I get that right?

My strip club anecdote was more about how awful Americans are than anything else tbf.

yes tom!

but uh watch out, remember the witeppl controversy

It would be good to engage in a discussion about maleness and masculinity that has the premise that all men are in fact the problem, including us, just to see where it goes when we aren't using up all the air in the room carving out exceptions for ourselves.

pffy

set that up so im sure we'll all volunteer for it

Is that really what this thread has achieved? Has they really been no discussion whatsoever of our collective awfulness?

2xp

*there

Maybe you guys need a men only thread so you don't have think harder about all of this. I'll respect that boundary.

Further segregation. The American way.

i think we're just at an impasse and it's fine. for the record, and not that it matters, i was never trying to minimize gender inequality. but i do think there is an issue where men have a hard time forming lasting friendships with one another, both anecdotally from my experience and i've read studies that suggested this, i.e. https://www.salon.com/2013/12/08/american_mens_hidden_crisis_they_need_more_friends/

so i was trying to talk about this in light of an article about isolated men joining online hate groups and getting radicalized and in the worst cases going out and hurting women. i don't have any special amount of sympathy for these guys but i do think they are like, an extreme version of a larger mental health crisis built on the alienated way we live now.

I've said several times before that I wish the women on the board posted more (and that more women would migrate over here) but it never hurts to say it again.

So anyway, in case one was wondering why some of us are uncomfortable with all straight men hanging out in groups it's because of this dynamic (the rich guy angle is just a variation). There have been a lot of recent discussion/articles about things like "rape trains" as well. And this goes back to men who wouldn't think of participating in terrible behaviour who will engage when in a group with other men.

― Yerac, Thursday, December 13, 2018 1:13 PM (forty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Speaking even as a wite dude, no one makes me as uncomfortable as a group of wite dudes who clearly apply the concept of manspreading to the full range of their life endeavors, who give off a sense that they're all-too-aware that they could probably get away with most things.

the premise that all men are in fact the problem, including us

as definitions of problems go, this one seems so extensive as to make it impossible to use as the basis for any solution at all. if "all men are the problem", then "the problem" is coextensive with our identity as men and to solve this we must no longer be men, but something that falls under the category of not-men.

personally--and not that it matters--most of my closest friends are women and i always thought it was weird because the dudes i have been friends with seem not as good at keeping in touch. i also am not good at it. so i think this could be a problem in masculinity worth discussing.

xp to myself

& peace yall

no discussion whatsoever of our collective awfulness?

afaict the problem is that whenever this might come up it is immediately buried under a string of "NOT ME" posts

unlearning the patriarchy is a lifelong process, any man who immediately claims "I'm not sexist" in the face of generalized criticism probably has more work to do than someone who says "I still have things to learn and being less defensive helps me do that"

it's a p sad day when people wield guilt towards other posters on a messageboard in which barely anyone knows much about anyone else, seemingly for disagreeing with them. it isn't as if all women agree about everything ever said. many women would disagree with the hashtag slinging or the self-pity going on here - many feminists.

it's also sad people generally posting in good faith are reduced to citing jobs and coworkers etc in response to rhetorical traps/hashtags and p much bad faith posts, when the only acceptable response to the people making those posts would, i think, be 'i am sorry' or 'i agree'.

and even typing this is to be instantly challenged/examined etc because obv nobody could actually believe in equality and a better world and not verbatim agree with anyone who self-appoints as an unimpeachable guardian of the same.

i don't know how people are so certain that their way is the right way. it must be nice.

as definitions of problems go, this one seems so extensive as to make it impossible to use as the basis for any solution at all. if "all men are the problem", then "the problem" is coextensive with our identity as men and to solve this we must no longer be men, but something that falls under the category of not-men.

― A is for (Aimless), Thursday, December 13, 2018 12:09 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hey, this is actually true, tbh!

it's so easy to not be a man, you just stop and boom