Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

I will say it's a relief of sorts when trans/nb ppl I know say, for instance, that they sometimes misgender themselves in conversation

sometimes in conversation and way too often in my brain, it takes a lot

map hit the nail on the head imo with that post about the heightened importance of gender in our society. Its like people are so obsessed with gendering themselves and others, drawing lines in the sand and defending them, that it gets blown up into this bloated and bizarre thing that dominates our entire being when it really is just a facet of ourselves

Sure okay. The consequences to women and people who present as atypically gendered are real, though. People who harass/harm/whatever these other groups don't stop to ask us, "Hey, do you feel, like, really feminine today? I figure if you're not prioritizing your gender identity, it's all good--I'll follow that other woman home from the train instead."

This may be common knowledge to some- I can never tell- but reading about the native americans and other cultures, the two spirits and their historical views on gender may be helpful, if not just interesting. There are many other articles that are more succinct but I am linking one from a more mainstream newsource. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/oct/11/two-spirit-people-north-america

io, i didn't mean to imply that women and atypically gendered people should place less emphasis on their gender as a means to be persecuted less. More so, I meant that societal gender roles, particularly male ones, inflate the importance of gender and breed convoluted rules, pressures, and the kind of persecution you are talking about

hard to know that you meant "men" when you wrote "people", boobie
just sayin

I've always been interested in things written about different experiences and ideas about gender by men who have transitioned, there's often some striving for solidity that I don't feel, or epiphanies and descriptions of 'ah, so this is what it's like to be a man' experiences that seem alien or off to me. mb not as alien as all these posts from americans, but still

not as alien as all these posts from americans

a board description imo

https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/a7dssc/how_do_im22_show_bro_love/

https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/12/old-boys-trump-kavanaugh-moonves-epstein-childish-masculinity.html

The Old Boy is so essentially dishonest that his lies seem almost innocent. An Old Boy lies fluently and to your face, and he will explode in rage if you point this out to him not because you’re wrong (this is key) but because you don’t matter and neither does the truth; an Old Boy gets to say and do what he likes. The Old Boy recognizes some authorities. He smiles at those he considers fellow Boys—there’s a faintly embarrassing abjection to this performance when it happens. (See Kavanaugh bowing and scraping to Trump when Trump introduced him as his nominee, or how solicitously Trump acts around Vladimir Putin.)

The flip side is that the Old Boy considers his mere presence a gift to those he sees as his inferiors. As a result, any honor conferred upon him is no more than his due. So yes, he lies, but only because that’s what a blinkered world requires in order for him to get what he is owed. To bring about the correct outcome, he gets to lie, and you get to believe it. That’s your privilege.

If you opt out of this peculiar script on which so much of the Old Boy’s worldview depends, the subtext of his answer to any question is “how dare you”? (Think of Kavanaugh addressing Sen. Amy Klobuchar during that hearing, or of Trump addressing the press. “No, no, we don’t answer that,” Bill Cosby replied when he was asked about the allegations against him.) This makes Old Boys slippery and confusing to deal with. The Old Boy doesn’t really answer a question because he denies that he can be questioned. And money and power have gotten plenty of people to play along and make this true. The Old Boy is fragility itself, buttressed by a hot and constant wind.

https://www.guernicamag.com/kiese-laymon-i-didnt-want-to-be-a-silent-survivor-of-moral-failure-anymore/

I just start every morning asking myself what I want to lie about.

hard not to love kiese laymon

Kiese is the best.

We just bought our 7yo her first diary and she asked me if boys have diaries and it struck me as sad that they don't. Diaries encourage reflection and interiority and there's no good reason we don't encourage our boys to use them as well. When I was a boy who wrote a lot I got the message from various authority figures that diaries were for girls and I could journal (whatever that was) if I absolutely had to. But there definitely wasn't the same culture that existed for the girls of my age.

all the boys on ilx have diaries

ILX is our collective diary.

stop snooping!!!!!!!!!!

I kept a journal till I was about 19. Never occurred to me till now that that was unusual.

I had a diary when I was 13 but people kept reading it (my sister, people at school) and that ruined the idea that I could write out my thoughts without people judging me. Kinda wish I had kept it up because it would probably be nice to read now I'm middle aged but I would've been so guarded I wouldn't have written anything honest anyway because I would've been thinking of who would read it and how they would mock me

i had a blog and some .docs

I sent long winded emails to close friends while in a drunken stupor.

i'm sometimes sad about how little i actually write these days. there are lots of things i think about and don't say, even to myself, and in that undone writing are reckonings i'm avoiding, against my best interest.

I filled something like 40 handwritten notebooks (160 pages each) between age 18 and 28. I haven't thrown them out, even though I never go back and open any of them. They helped me learn how to write flexibly and fluently, and they gave focus to my random thoughts. But as for having lasting value, nope. It doesn't matter. It was good for me at the time.

Is "journal" just guy for "diary"?

Or is "diary" girl for "journal"?

I have written in a blank book almost every day for 30 years. I think I usually call it a journal. I don't think I have ever called it a diary. But I don't think there's an interest in difference.

* interesting difference

Interesting indeed. Many famous diaries were written by men, however (Samuel Pepys and Franz Kafka come to mind). Maybe the association with femininity is a more recent development.

I kept a diary from about 12 to 22 and this is the first time I've ever heard it's a "girl thing"

I kept a diary in high school only to discover that writing about your feelings is a fundamentally girly act, duh.

Besides, everybody knows that Anne Frank's is the only diary in existence.

add to the stew that women's writing is only seen as valuable when it trucks in feelings/interior life
diaries can be our attempt at our experience & writing having some sort of relevance
at least that was my impression as a young diarist

Veering off-topic here a bit, but an ex used to make a very personal zine about her life based on diaries, I thought her writing was excellent, then at the age of 30 she made a bonfire of the 50 or so books she'd kept since she was 10, said they were useless and uninteresting to anyone. In a world of many terrible things this is pretty minor, especially as she seems not to regret it at all, but thinking about it still makes me sad.

Kafka would have approved, I guess.

And LL otm. Letters also served that function for several centuries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2rIgsPlJd0

I viscerally really do not like that commercial/"film," although I am trying to parse out why. (1) Corporate social justice ads pretty much always miss the mark and there is always something gross about them doing it (2) IDK, it's just--the tone? The sort of portrayal of maleness reduced to a neverending toxic nightmare, with no one having even done anything about it until 2018/19?

I think it's encouraging that they think this stance is good for their brand, because they wouldn't do it otherwise.

I completely unexpectedly found it really moving even though I don't have the time/focus to research that url and see what, if anything, they're actually doing.

xp also true--it feels like a corporate pivot/commitment to this being the discourse of the future.

i thought it was nice that they used the terry crews clip. a friend of mine told me she used that testimony before congress as an example of leadership when the majority of her classmates included videos of sports people or corporate people to illustrate their conception of "leadership"

corporate leadership is usually pretty weak and self-serving but at least this video has the greater good in mind, even if it makes some eyes roll

The sort of portrayal of maleness reduced to a neverending toxic nightmare, with no one having even done anything about it until 2018/19?

Yeah, they're completely skewing history. #MeToo began in 17!

Marketing insider baseball: Gillette is suffering from fashionableness of beards and turning increasingly toward products for women. Men are not the target audience of this ad.

yeah well shaving sucks

like i said, corporate "leadership" is self-serving! at least this serves a wider swath of humanity than the average act of corporate "generosity"

xxp Oooh that's fascinating!

Shaving one’s face smooth every day is a weird prectice. Yet i did it for so long.

Also competition from Harry’s and dollar shave club and the like?

shaving is bad

I hate having to shave my face and I keep meaning to go try laser but ugh

wait I thought shaving was praxis

i don't think anyone should shave with a razor ever, except when you get your haircut

beard trimmer can tame facial and bodily hair if it's getting too long for your taste

this is now the shaving foibles thread

it is but I hate doing it xp