Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

ime, identity is strongly shaped over time by the dialectic between one's present self and one's continuing experiences, plus a lot of selective forgetting and rationalizations. I can easily imagine that starting from the same circumstances, but minus the Y chromosome, my experiences would have invariably been different, if only because society does not socialize females and males the same and a divergence of one's experiences as each gender would be both very significant and unavoidable.

That's fair. The inclination to serenely intuit one's 'core' identity as irreducible to gender is more or less available to a given individual depending on a slew of historical, geographical, and socio-political factors. But in most of the West, these divergences are far less marked than they used to be.

Incidentally, Evryman comes off as a distinctly American phenomenon. For instance, while associations between one's trade and one's 'masculine' identity appear to be quite common across the globe, work is just such a crushing, hyperbolic presence in these guys' lives that I can sort of see why they would end up feeling inadequate. Other cultures have a far less exacting approach to work-life balance in general, and I assume that ends up having an effect on how men view themselves (and women too, obviously!).

Absolutely Jim, that is what I was getting at. All these men searching for how to "be more manly" (when they are already the very definition of man: they are men! (apart from Devo, Devo are Devo) when being a man alone is already manly enough? How manly do you want to get? And more importantly: if you feel the need to extrapolate your manliness, that is a problem of insecurity that I can relate to. But amplifying your gender will not solve whatever identity crisis you have.

The first time a man reckons with manhood is when he tastes his first penis.

Then the superstructure of masculinity shakes, slightly.

lol

^^ lyrics from a Radiohead deep cut, should've been on 'Kid A' if you think about it. xp :)

manly enough to impress the women who have "I like beards" in their dating profiles
manly enough to feel like a peer of men in the social group you admire, which is largely homosocial
manly enough to be sought out for manual labor, fixing things, opening jars, because those things code as male to you and your cohort
manly enough to comfortably align your own self-image with that of a ideal personified by a fictional character or celebrity that codes as masculine

kicking squealing gucci little piggy

:D

hehe

feel like I should note none of those things code as especially interesting or important to me, although when a bartender asked if I could open a particularly stubborn jar recently I did momentarily feel something like pride when I twisted the lid off with ease

being a man alone is already manly enough? How manly do you want to get? And more importantly: if you feel the need to extrapolate your manliness, that is a problem of insecurity that I can relate to. But amplifying your gender will not solve whatever identity crisis you have.

I feel like so much "inspirational" writing historically has focused on manhood = maturity & heroism. I grew up regularly getting holiday cards from my mom with quotes of Rudyard Kipling's "If" for example. So, I get that insecurity and identity stuff being ascribed to manliness ... I sure aspired to a lot of those romantic views of manliness. I still do? ... Oh yeah, and I'm female. But as the dominant gender, the default, with female being "other," why wouldn't I want to be masculine?

Totally otm. Said "inspirational writing" is what starts off the fucking bible, for one. Of course anyone would want to aspire to that, since the beginning of dawn we're (literally) being told man is strong and dominant and earning the money etc. The fabric has been entirely wrong, for millenia.

actually™ in the first version of the creation story in Genesis man and woman are created coequally, and jointly designated the masters of earth:

And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.”
27 And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
28 God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth.”

You can just see the fool writing that breaking the 4th wall and giving it his best osamathumbsup.jpg

I've got to admit, proclaiming the entire social structure and history of the last couple millenia was just outright wrong is a bold take

I mean, interrogate what we've learned and build -- it's not all water under the bridge, it's what we've built our current society on for better or worse -- but I'm not sure "this was all bad" is going to do anything for us

One nice thing about the 100+ millennia of prehistory is that it provides a lovely blank slate upon which to project one's beatific visions of paradise. Genesis is just a particular early version of such projection. New and better projections are being imagined by someone even as we speak.

my mid-70s biological father (with whom i have spent roughly one day or evening with per year) has recently gotten into something like this. he had a depressive breakdown circa 2000 and got married soon after; had another a couple years ago and got into the men thing. i vehemently do not want to know the details, but it seems to be helping him. he now says things like 'love ya, bud', which is weird as hell but whatever.

he said he's a 'mentor' to a 38yo guy who fervently wants to find a wife, though, and the vague outlines sounded a little incel-ish. making friends is nice, but gathering in groups that exclude non-men seems creepy.

anyway, good piece, and 'land-grant accent' is a great phrase

I counted and I have had ~16 male roommates in my life. A little under half seemed able to competently take care of themselves without need of female or parental intervention. One of them (42 yrs) just got married last year after internet dating for 2 months with a woman from the philippines. They appear happy. It seemed highly unlikely he was going to be able to find an american spouse. I used to get annoyed with him because he would monopolize the washer all the time to just wash one pair of white jeans.

camo print yoni egg for the soul

Serious applause/lolz at this

gathering in groups that exclude non-men seems creepy

yeah I think this is discussed upthread but somehow I have managed to avoid situations like this for most of my life (hating sports helps)

very impressive

I ... don't feel like it is? Like, I don't feel I had to make a concerted effort to work in workplaces that hire women, or live in living situations with women, or have friends who are women, or whatever.

Treesh wtf

Gah, I am pretty uncomfortable in male-only groups unless they include men I already know well and have things in common with. I am not very good at stereotypical dudely conversation (Uh, sports? Shooting small animals? Punching one another in the arm?).

Most of my life has been spent in very female spaces. In 25 years I have had a male boss... twice. Recently had to work for a guy for a while and I managed ok, but it unnerved me. Fortunately the nature of my work is that it changed back after less than a year and I was relieved.

yer a west coaster, Οὖτις, and I think that helps, if only that more of our institutions were established at a time when women's rights were further advanced.

Gah, I am pretty uncomfortable in male-only groups unless they include men I already know well and have things in common with. I am not very good at stereotypical dudely conversation (Uh, sports? Shooting small animals? Punching one another in the arm?).

there was this one website i used to post to that was mostly men called ilxor.com

very toxic. always talking about punching each other.

mostly men =/= male-only. it's a step.

drag em treesh

does a treesbro down homosocially on the regs?

:D xp

idk maybe Aimless is right - a lot of the environments I move in that would have conceivably been exclusively male in prior generations (jobs, bands, living spaces, religious institutions, stores I frequent like record/comics/bookstores) just aren't.

I suppose in a some cases this was just a natural extension of the social environment I came up in (I haven't had an exclusively male set of friends since... 8th grade?) and in others I made conscious choices (include female friends in music stuff, picked a temple that's run by women, stuck with a company for 20 years that has an explicit preference for hiring women, etc.)

But I don't feel like I made a concerted effort as much as I just feel more comfortable in these kinds of environments. Like I said upthread, yr standard aggro alphamale scenario has always been deeply off-putting to me, it just seems threatening and ugly.

i don't think it's healthy or intelligent to stigmatize male camaraderie this way. maybe men are more comfortable talking about certain issues with other men. that's fucking fine. people should do what they need.

like even the "treesbro" comment, and the idea that male friendships are "homosocial" or that there is a hidden psychosexual dimension to it. i mean, maybe sometimes? but this can't just be assumed from the outset.

homosocial is not a sexual term

in fact it's literally the opposite

i've only heard the term in reference to eve sedgwick. my apologies

maybe men are more comfortable talking about certain issues with other men

personally I can't really think of a scenario where I would feel this way, but whatever. You could make this statement a little less universal and I'd be fine with it. I don't understand it, but am happy to acknowledge that other men might have different needs from me.

i meant to write "does a treesh bro-down..." it was a typo.

i am probably a lot more bro'y than you and have socialized homosocially often in my life (though very rarely in the last 6 or 7 years)

but that doesn't prevent me from thinking that exclusively male getaway retreats to be men being men together masculinely is the greatest self-help scheme

xp shakes, that is totally fine. to be honest, i'm not like that either--like day to day, i'm mostly with women. but i think the idea that male spaces are dominated by -- as you said -- "yr standard aggro alphamale scenario," like that's the thing that doesn't square with me experience. men are just people.

There is definitely a brosphere that isn’t aggro and/or alpha but has an exclusionary quality when it comes to non masc ppl (ilx has similar elements)

I feel pretty masc but put me in a situation where there's an explicit "I don't know what phallocentric means, but NO GIRLS" sign and yeah I am instantly suspicious that someone is either about to get beaten up or everybody's gonna whip their dicks out or something

The thing is though— there are plenty of implicit signs that spaces (both physical and social and cultural) are bros only. I feel like as laws have changed, there are fewer explicit signs but the implicit ones are still there, and as an “other” sometimes the explicit signs feel more honest than the implicit ones

that bros only thread sucks for sure

Like dudes talking about sports with other dudes is just the same maleness as dudes talking about modular synths with other dudes—

But people are gonna self-select and there is value in that. It definitely is valuable to marginalized people. I am agreeing w Treeshy

Yeah. Make cliques that exclude women in situations where it’s not appropriate—a workplace, a public messagebord—are no good. But i distinguish that from men getting together—i wasn’t even really thinking of active exclusion of women, but more responding to the wariness toward male closeness/bonding i was seeing in some of these posts. I don’t think that attitude is healthy for anyone.

male closeness/bonding i was seeing in some of these posts

name names

cuz I don't think anyone was saying that. wariness towards these stupid seminars, sure, but that's not the same thing (the amount of closeness/bonding actually achieved at an Everyman seminar seems highly debatable)