Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

modern-day notions of manhood and masculinity have not been around for "millennia" - there is no single patriarchy that has dominated all cultures. what is considered masculine in one place and time is not the same as what is considered masculine in another place and time. just because andrew tate and jordan peterson are able to successfully market their bullshit doesn't mean they reflect a historical consensus.

i spent decades trying to figure out how to be a "good man". ultimately, i failed at that. maybe it was never in the cards. maybe it was never possible for me. and maybe if we had a healthy shared understanding about what "manhood" was, i might have figured out that i didn't belong there _far_ earlier than i ultimately did.

same here tbh ... even though I wasn't born with male anatomy, I was raised to look to these standards/codes because they were the dominant ones. Why be a woman if you could be a man?

neil cicierega is my masculinity role model. a straight white cis man who's been fully and deservedly accepted by fans of all identities because he's quite simply so gentle, along with his creativity and absolutely non-cruel (yet brilliant) wit

modern-day notions of manhood and masculinity have not been around for "millennia" - there is no single patriarchy that has dominated all cultures. what is considered masculine in one place and time is not the same as what is considered masculine in another place and time. just because andrew tate and jordan peterson are able to successfully market their bullshit doesn't mean they reflect a historical consensus.

― c u (crüt)

it's true that the model of patriarchy promoted by tate and peterson differs in substantial ways from that offered by, say, theodore roosevelt, or cato. at the risk of oversimplifying (reduce, oversimplify), the variances in ways patriarchy manifests are... not my primary concern. my concern is the existence of patriarchy _itself_, the notion that men, however defined, ought to _rule_ over people who are not men, however defined. that, i would argue, _does_ reflect a historical consensus.

the thing i find hardest to express about my prior gender experience was the that "cis male" is a _default gender status_, it is _normative_. men, by and large, just don't _have_ to think about their gender. and this gets seen as a "privilege"... well, it has aspects of it, but i don't think ignorance is necessarily a privilege!

Here's Christine Emba at the Washington Post with her own "how do we redefine masculinity" take: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/10/christine-emba-masculinity-new-model/

She doesn't really offer any prescriptions, but some of the guys she talks to have interesting thoughts.

the thing i find hardest to express about my prior gender experience was the that "cis male" is a _default gender status_, it is _normative_. men, by and large, just don't _have_ to think about their gender. and this gets seen as a "privilege"... well, it has aspects of it, but i don't think ignorance is necessarily a privilege!

yeah! i think of myself as "male by default". i've considered that i might be trans or nonbinary, or more accurately, i've tried not to consider it too seriously because i'm totally unprepared to deal with more major upheaval in my life than i already have at this point. but a couple of weeks ago i was filling out a form in the hospital and they asked me if i identify as male or something else, and it's the first time i've been asked to really *actively* or deliberately identify as male. that was a struggle!

needed a checkbox for "i really haven't thought about it enough", "i'm not sure" or "i'll get back to you"

that or "none of your business"

the thing i find hardest to express about my prior gender experience was the that "cis male" is a _default gender status_, it is _normative_. men, by and large, just don't _have_ to think about their gender. and this gets seen as a "privilege"... well, it has aspects of it, but i don't think ignorance is necessarily a privilege!

This is such an interesting observation, and one that I’ve thought about for years and years, albeit with a divergent feeling about what you call “ignorance”, and I’d describe as “the privilege of non-engagement”. I’ve always felt that that privilege is the gold ring of male privilege, the psychological aspect that isn’t statistically definable but is, in my opinion, of high value.

xps oh man i couldn't get through even a few paragraphs of that wp article, my eyes blurred over and just saw "panic over lack of worker discipline."

the good news about masculinity that many people seem to miss is that it has sooooo much room in it that you can literally just make it fit "you." there are no rules and a million possibilities. in fact you can add feminine qualities to it for spice if you want, but like you don't have to, it doesn't have to be hyper-gendered either. and you can change it up literally every day, or every couple of hours. AND you can fashion an infinite variety of personal progress narratives or "quests" or whatever you want if you're craving like a masculine linear thing. they just have to be personal with lots of space and not too mediated by like instagram or your career or whatever. if you're measuring your masculinity by social norms you've already lost imho. idk, that last statement comes from the fact that i've been really into going inward lately - movement, breathing, meditation, in the moment stuff. and god do i crave gentleness! and kindness! men are fucking traumatized, dehumanized. i want a huge fucking capacity for gentleness and kindness, to myself most of all.

i'm sure this sounds a little silly, but i'm truly amazed by "free running" and parkour athletes i follow on instagram, all of them men iirc. without knowing much about the culture / organization / economy of the sport, just seeing men be so creative with their bodies, doing ephemeral works of art in cities on the street. it seems heroic to me somehow, not sure i can articulate why very convincingly.

i liked that wapo article. it was interesting and it brought up a lot of stuff that i think about on my own.

"if you're measuring your masculinity by social norms you've already lost imho"

sometimes - a lot of times - this is just how people learn how to act. they don't have anything BUT the social norms around them. because most people are norms and want to act like the other norms. which is why i liked that article. it points to a positive direction for male energy. and maybe that will become the norm. probably not. but its nice to be positive.

i like your last post a lot, map. for the record.

oh hey thanks. it's nice to hear your perspective. the norms thing makes sense, but idk i find it depressing. i skipped ahead a bit in the article and there are some things i agree with, sort of half-heartedly. my pov here is queer to the core, so i'll lay that card out on the table. i think the lessons of queerness apply to everyone and that everyone is a little bit queer. but i recognize most people do not want to reckon with that. for the ones who do, i want to be able to validate that voice, because validating my own queer voice is how i've made my way through the grim heteronormative landscape the article provides a broad overview of without snuffing myself out.

i came home today to my 14 year old son hanging out in the back yard with two of his friends. they had rigged up the piano bench as a bench press and were spotting each other with weights. shirts off. i don’t know where this stuff comes from. certainly not from me. they weren’t being particularly macho about it though which was kind of touching. they were encouraging each other and bickering about how much weight was on the bar. still i was this close to going over to the stereo and putting on zz top or something really loud.

lmao! zz top!

they sound really sweet.

there is so much baggage when it comes to lifting weights but lots of people like it because it feels good to feel strong!

so um

is wanting to end maleness and masculinity now considered passe / reactionary / terfy / otherwise pathological in some way? is it very offensive to call for this?

all this softer non-toxic masculinity sounds quite nice and maybe I'd trust it more if I'd ever met it irl

i'm end-maleness-adjacent tbh but i enjoy aspects of mine too much and don't want to make myself miserable for a credo. also speaking as someone who has little power in the world, the male privilege of not having to engage can be really fucking nice! i don't want to give that up either. sorry not sorry.

i liked your post above a lot better than i liked the article itself

aw thank you :)

from that article:

"I’m convinced that men are in a crisis. And I strongly suspect that ending it will require a positive vision of what masculinity entails that is particular — that is, neither neutral nor interchangeable with femininity. Still, I find myself reluctant to fully articulate one. There’s a reason a lot of the writing on the crisis in masculinity ends at the diagnosis stage."

and this:

"People need codes for how to be human. And when those aren’t easily found, they’ll take whatever is offered, no matter what else is attached."

i really have enjoyed and learned from people here on this thread. there is a lot here! and i appreciate people being able to share their own stories. i haven't been on here in a while. this thread, i mean.

the good news about masculinity that many people seem to miss is that it has sooooo much room in it that you can literally just make it fit "you." there are no rules and a million possibilities.

This is very true and dovetails with a thought I had while reading the piece which is that people (dudes, mainly, but also op-ed columnists) need to stop getting hung up on universals. The key to being a "good man" is finding the right context for yourself. There are "masculine virtues" but they're not identically applicable to every situation in life. So figure out how to deploy those virtues in a way that makes you a valuable part of your immediate circumstance. Be the guy who volunteers at the animal shelter! Be a church elder who offers people useful life advice! Or whatever! Be that kind of man!

I've actually been thinking about whether there's something I can do as a volunteer/lecturer/advisor to dudes in my town. I mean, I've managed to build a pretty successful career and publish four books with only a high school diploma. I've been married to the same woman for 30 years. I have life advice to offer! But I'm not affiliated with any religious institution so I don't even know how to get in a position to share what I think I know with people.

all this softer non-toxic masculinity sounds quite nice and maybe I'd trust it more if I'd ever met it irl

This reminds me of that fake Gandhi quote about Christianity — "Christianity seems great; I hope to meet a Christian someday" or some variation of that.

Reporter: "What do you think of Western civilization?"

Gandhi: "I think it would be a good idea."

is how I have usually heard it.

- Bob Marley

maps post is very good but the free running part coming out of nowhere does crack me up, it's like a little rhetorical flourish that I could imagine werner herzog doing or something

I too have free running vids recommended on my youtube algorithm, along with vids for something called "assault style" inline skating

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KuiKWt4Wz0

I'm personally pretty resistant to "crisis of masculinity" framings because they so often end up as a yearning for a lot of the exact stuff we're trying to evolve our way out of, socially and politically. But I accept that the definition of "a man," a sense of what it means to be one, is important to us on some level, at least in our current circumstances. And so of course I want that definition to be broad enough to include me, for a start. And one that gives my sons a lot of agency and options in finding and defining themselves.

I think I find non-toxic masculinity in my friendships. I have a lot of male friends who are thoughtful and analytical about their feelings and experiences of things, but also like to just shoot the shit about the NBA. We have an all-male poker game (although the same circle also has periodic couples poker nights), and a group of us all go out together for each other's birthdays. We've taken some road trips together. It's all very guys-being-guys stuff, we listen to a lot of Rolling Stones and drink whiskey. But besides arguing about music and sports the conversations are also about aging parents and dealing with kids, checking in on each other and our spouses, there is an inherent caring energy about our relationships.

first off +1 to weightlifting. if someone's strong and well-built that's attractive. the thing is, a lot of the narrative and culture around weightlifting is toxic as fuck. Swolesome, who I know I mention a lot, is a fitness coach and does a good job talking about this. He's built and is a _super_ hot guy, but "fitness" in masculine culture isn't emblematized by guys like him, it's people like the Liver King, who fucking juice.

ok i'm gonna do it, i'm the living embodiment of the meme of the guy pouring a giant bottle of olive oil on a salad and the olive oil is labeled "the problem is capitalism"

the problem is capitalism

everybody talks about "creating good male role models" but the truth is there are _plenty_ of good male role models. boys don't see those role models. boys and men don't see these role models. they see andrew tate and jordan peterson. none of us should fucking have to know who jordan peterson is. none of us should fucking have to know who andrew tate is. but all the capitalist media outlets promote this shit and profit from this shit and deny any sort of accountability for platforming toxic bullshit, oh it's not my fault, oh it's not my fault, just like the bbc says it's "not their fault" for writing an article on trans people where their literal only source is someone who calls for the genocide of trans people.

and this is capitalism because it insists on ignoring systemic factors, "there's no such thing as society" don't you know, except when something you don't like happens and then we live in a society. i'm corrupting the morals of the youth, i'm an agent of the "trans agenda", there is no "cis agenda", "cis" is a slur, actually.

“The average hoodie made these days is weak, flimsy … ” growled a YouTube ad for a “tactical hoodie.” “You’re not a child. You’re a man. So stop wearing so many layers to go outside.”

that's the sort of shit that's normative. that's what boys and men are taught. the solution to bad speech isn't more speech, it's to _stop fucking blasting out the bad speech over every loudspeaker in the fucking world_.

and the people controlling capitalist systems of power are never, ever, ever going to do this of their own free will. ever.

ok, there, i said the thing, i had to say that, i feel better now.

to be clear, fgti is right, not having to engage with one's own gender _is_ a privilege. absolutely. current norms of masculinity, though, are so ludicrous, so disconnected from reality. if any man, anywhere, feels shame for _wearing a hoodie_, that's, to me, that's a textbook example of how patriarchy hurts men, and the only way i know for individual men to stop suffering, to free themselves from that shame, is to, well, choose to engage with one's own gender. at some point the costs outweigh the benefits.

i started off on this whole rant about how silly it is that men get all their advice on what women want from _men_ rather than _women_ and then i realized, wait, come on, i'm not wholly ignorant of why this might be. i wasn't ever a man but i was taught to think like one, to view the world like one. and i was afraid to talk to women. i was afraid to talk to women because i was never taught how to do it appropriately. i was so, so afraid that i might wind up accidentally abusing someone. and looking back i do think there are times when i... treated women in a way that, if somebody treated me like that today, i'd call that really inappropriate, because i wasn't born knowing this stuff, and the stuff i was taught, the stuff i was taught was bullshit.

this, ok, to me this is the single biggest problem with masculinity and whenever anyone starts talking about it there's this instant "#notallmen" defensiveness. and i will say - _there is an actual fucking problem here_. and it's not women, it's patriarchy, but having said that, i think there are a lot of forms of feminism that promote patriarchy. trans-exclusionary feminism, just to go for the low-hanging fruit. i'd definitely argue that trans-exclusionary feminism promotes patriarchy.

and something else i'd argue promotes patriarchy is the duluth model. to me it's really linked a lot to these essentializing gendered ideas. the idea that IPV is something that _men_ perpetrate against _women_ is, to me, this is a variation on what to me is the most horrifying statement i've ever heard a feminist make, which is that "only men rape". i'm just appalled that anybody would say that.

i know why i'm so upset about this today. i'm upset about this because last weekend i talked to a friend of mine, a trans woman who finally, after a year of us hoping for her to do it, left her spouse. cw ipv she told me about that this weekend, about how her ex railed against "men" all the time, and even after she transitioned, even though my friend's ex used her name and pronouns and everything, when it came to abuse? when it came to abuse, she was a "man", and everything her ex did to her was "self-defense". against her "violence". like, she would raise her voice sometimes. that was violence. and the physical violence her ex repeatedly perpetrated against her, that was "self-defense".

and honestly, i've been through that too. i've seen that same bias. my ex abused me and we saw a therapist and the therapist wouldn't listen when i tried to talk about it. because, i think, she saw me as the "man" in the relationship. and it's taken me so, so long and so many people telling me that what she did to me was abuse to even start to accept it. because that therapist was the _professional_. and the people who were telling me i was abused, sure, most of them were women, but we were all _socialized male_, so really, what did any of _us_ know?

that's a side rant, though, again, feminism _isn't_ the problem, feminism isn't _a_ problem. the problem is that _men are not taught consent_. they're frustrated because a lot of women, you know, tend to view men as threats, and that's not fair to them. and that perception men have, that perception _i_ had pre-transition, for me, it's true. i'm attracted to men, i like men, but i have a hard time trusting men. i'm afraid to even admit in public that i do, in fact, like men, because of the _kind of men_ that will attract, because of how those men will treat me, how they will come after me, and because for them to do that is _acceptable_.

what makes for healthy masculinity? i don't know for sure, but for me, part of it is _holding toxic masculinity accountable_. not _women_ holding _men_ accountable. men holding _other men_ accountable. in ways small and big. i was a spy, you know, i was secret agent in their midst. i know how men talk about women when we're not around. i've heard it. and there was so much pressure to not stand up, to not challenge it, and a lot of the time i _didn't_. because it's me and ten men and wow i know what _that_ sounds like and i was afraid, you know, i was afraid that if i spoke up _they'd know_. i'd blow my cover.

i wish i had spoken up more, but at the same time, i don't feel guilty, i don't feel ashamed for not doing it. guilt and shame aren't going to "fix" masculinity (i don't like that framing, i don't like the "broken/fixed" framing). men do need to be empowered, but they don't need to be empowered to... well, ok, they _do_ need to be empowered to clean their rooms, but they _also_ need to be empowered to _speak up against other men_. none of this "bros before hoes" shit. i mean you want to stop being an "incel"? stop calling us "hoes" behind our backs and stop putting your "bros" before our basic fucking rights. like, how fucking hard is that?

i mean, seriously, i'm gonna get real here, what do you think, i'm frigid here? you think women, we're all frigid, we're not _attracted_ to men, we don't _thirst_? guys, i am a _complete slutbag_, and it's not "because i'm trans". you want to talk toxic masculinity, how about we talk about the _complete erasure of female sexual desire_? you want to talk about the ways consent is fucked up, i know what i was taught, that i had to be the _aggressor_, that sex was a _thing of value_ that i had to coerce women into reluctantly parting with. that just fundamentally is _not how sex works_. patriarchy makes fun of negotiation, they say it's not _spontaneous_, they say it's not _sexy_. oh, do you not think negotiation is "sexy"? too fucking bad.

i wasn't taught any of this shit either. i've had to learn this shit too. i've had to learn that consent isn't just about making sure the other person doesn't say "no", that "oh god, yes, please" is a possibility and it is a _good one_. i'm really glad to have had the opportunity to learn that lesson. and the way you get there is by _listening_ to us, by _respecting us as equals_ - until and unless _we negotiate otherwise_.

or, i guess, a man can choose to make fun of these ideas as "woke" or "P.C." or whatever term of derision the patriarchy is employing this week to distract men from noticing the way they're slowly grinding us all down into nothingness. personally i think the first option is probably the better one for us _collectively_, but me personally? i'd much rather be with the girls.

"tactical hoodies". he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke the same cigarettes as me, right?

Caitlin is coming to save us lads: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/01/caitlin-moran-whats-gone-wrong-for-men-and-the-thing-that-can-fix-them

― Stars of the Lidl (Chinaski), Saturday, 1 July 2023 bookmarkflaglink

The high rates of middle aged male suicide place a dark note on this ridiculous all-over-the-place piece.

I think a big part of the male privilege is the feedback that men readily get from women. I heard a psychologist say that men benefit from marriage a lot more than women, and that sounded harsh, but that comes from studies and I'm ready to admit that men have a harder time finding their emotional balance and can easily feel lost. While women are largely educated to openly provide counsel, adjustments, compliments. That's the first thing I think of when we say that men don't know their luck.

At least it's probably the biggest factor I had in constructing my gender identity. As a younger teenager I was hanging out with guys by default. Male games and sports, driving dangerously, playing airsoft in the forest, conversations around beer, fallout with a best friend. Realizing that I could hang out with, befriend, tease girls was such a confidence boost, so I "switched" and started looking to be valued by the other sex. I observed that male friends who couldn't make themselves comfortable around women were hindered and stayed immature. To this day I need to do a conscious effort to value, listen to, and befriend men. And it's not so easy when you often don't have this immediate intimacy or sensitivity. And when I hear women comment about their catfights, while being a fountain of gentleness, I feel spoiled (I mean, not so much me, but in a general sense).

That probably could sound basic and naive, "oh hey girls give me attention", but I think it's about independence and openness, that moment when you realize your identity is maniable, what you make it, it's in the way you act and communicate, there's freedom. Until you're broadly happy with the way people perceive you.

I hadn't read Kate's post because TLDR but now I see she mentionned "not talking to women" as a problem nearly as big as capitalism :)

i always find the broad strokes used in these conversations completely alien to my experience (of myself and of "men") and i guess im pushed back by that in topics like this

are we really still "men are like _this_" or is it just shorthand- even if understood as so i think the implied universality of it is a problem, this holds true across any number of topics and the solution is v likely "don't read it" which is fair enough

Not quite the same point but perhaps related...in that piece discussed itt, when the kid comes to the professor and asks what "good masculinity" looks like, on a purely pragmatic level couldn't the answer just be "focus on being a good person instead and you'll be all right"?

Feels like a better way forward than all these twisting-yrself-into-a-pretzel defintion of non-toxic masculinity which will always end up exclusionary and essentialist on some level imo.

But I do realise this is the perspective of someone who's not had to struggle with gender identity much, I've never felt "not a dude" but also feel like my dudeness is probably the least interesting thing about me.

While women are largely educated to openly provide counsel, adjustments, compliments. That's the first thing I think of when we say that men don't know their luck.

yeah, the only men I know socialized into thinking of others first are non-toxic Christians.

Although 90% of my local male friends are thoughtful bros who read and listen to good music and vote correctly, I sometimes balk at these exclusively het spaces. None of these guys are obviously machista yet the presence of so much het maleness annoys me enough that I have to push back by being more camp. Maybe I'm wrong by connecting to a small degree masculinity + sexuality. If I feel the love, what's the problem?

It’s slightly more accurate to say that women are socialised into thinking of others first. This goes in personal relationships and the workplace. Don’t be too assertive, don’t push yourself forward, be nice, hold your tongue, all that shit comes from centuries of women being told to be non threatening and to make themselves less.
― (who is an amazing ice cream maker by the way) (gyac), Tuesday, July 11, 2023 2:07 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't disagree but I think women are now largely using this in their favor: in feminist discourse, as marketable qualities, as key to a society based on empathy and justice. Men are supposed to learn.
There's the corporate twist about how to offer gentle and constructive criticism about your boss and organization, but I've never seen a female colleague fall for that.

I observed that male friends who couldn't make themselves comfortable around women were hindered and stayed immature.

This is a good point and I can't emphasize enough the importance of my women friends over the years to making me feel comfortable as a guy. I've been lucky in that regard, had a close mostly-platonic circle of guy/girl friends in high school, then in college on a semester abroad I shared a house with my girlfriend and four other women — that was educational in lots of ways. In my current life, while my closest friends are male, I have a broad and diverse universe of women I rely on and can turn to for all kinds of insights. Most of my favorite bosses I've had have been women, I'm very comfortable working for and with women. During my own first stint as a boss it was a few women who worked for me who gave me valuable feedback about consensus-building and making sure everyone felt heard. (Which of course shouldn't be a "female" trait but is valuable for dealing with people in general and yes women are socialized to be more aware of it.)

So many of my early insecurities as angsty het adolescent had to with winning attention/approval from girls that once I realized you could just, like, be friends and talk to them as actual people, it relaxed me a whole lot about my sense of myself as a male.

I can see how generalisations can be helpful, otherwise it can be hard to talk things through but it still needs some work to be done, otherwise you end where Moran is at.

Does anyone have any serious writing on male suicide rates that go over trends and so on?

(Sorry if it's been posted here, not a thread I look at very often)

This is only looking at American men (with their easy access to guns), but alcohol + poor impulse control is a factor.

https://bigthink.com/health/why-american-men-suicide/

Greater investment and focus on mental health is undeniably needed in the U.S., but to make a dent in the tragic number of American male suicides, reducing firearm access, advocating responsible alcohol use, lowering poverty, and teaching males healthy coping methods to deal with acutely stressful situations might save a lot more lives.

advocating responsible alcohol use....teaching males healthy coping methods to deal with acutely stressful situations

Is this not part of mental health?

I think the point is that even many men who might not otherwise present with mental health issues don't have healthy stress-coping mechanisms.

Tipsy - thanks, will take a look.

i have always thought of poor impulse control - meaning quick/thoughtless/violent/destructive/stupid behavior - as being essential to biological maleness in a way. i don't know if this made me an essential biologist or a bio essentialist. i am not a scientist but i had always assumed it was the result of adrenaline created by testosterone. i don't know what i believe anymore. i don't really think anything is essential anymore. people are too varied. i like to think that i have been, for the most part, a quiet bookish person who keeps to themselves and doesn't like to exert power over others or be aggressive toward others and yet stupid impulsive actions and behavior was something that i struggled with MIGHTILY when i was younger. i have never really read about this aspect of manhood or young manhood unless it has to do with the consequences of this random stupid behavior. these are things that happen in a split second. throwing a bottle at a car. pulling a fire alarm. grabbing someone in a bar. whatever it is. and its great if you are a man and have never struggled with blind stupidness or obsessive/compulsive anti-social acts. or been a problem drinker for that matter. but i would totally read a book on the psychology of stupid behavior. (you folks probably know all about it.) (for that matter, i would read a book about the trauma of seeing what young men do to each other and say to each other. it can be so brutal and sadistic. my entire life has been affected by violence inflicted upon me as a male child by other male children and nobody ever knew/saw/or read about it and they wouldn't have cared if they had known about it because it was normalized behavior.)
i would say for the first year or more after i quit smoking five years ago i would wake up in bed in the morning and fantasize about getting into fights. violent fights. and my adrenaline would go crazy just lying there in bed! EVERY MORNING! for the record, i have never been in a fight. also related to that: i went on two anti-depressants when i quit and the lexapro i took took away all sexual feeling in me and i have to admit it was a relief for awhile. it was so nice not to think about sex for the first time since i was a kid. then that got old and kinda depressing. but for a minute there i saw a new way of living! they should really give that stuff to priests.
anyway, in a nutshell, i hung out with girls in high school because i knew that if i was walking down the street with them that they wouldn't jump up and smash a stop sign with their hand. okay, that wasn't consciously why i hung out with girls. but i hated the boy stuff. i never understood it in other boys or in myself. i spent exactly one night in the 9th grade riding around in a car while boys i knew knocked over mailboxes with a baseball bat and that was all i needed to know that i really needed some friends who wouldn't do that. girlfriends! and one boy who was gay. and also a fun boy three fan.
i just don't know if you can solve a problem like men until you figure out the thoughtless violence thing. everything rotten is rooted in that.

It’s slightly more accurate to say that women are socialised into thinking of others first. This goes in personal relationships and the workplace. Don’t be too assertive, don’t push yourself forward, be nice, hold your tongue, all that shit comes from centuries of women being told to be non threatening and to make themselves less.

― (who is an amazing ice cream maker by the way) (gyac)

hmmm. i think that men just like women are given mixed messages. women get all these messages of "girl power" and are told to be more assertive and so forth, but at the same time we're told to be subservient and not challenge men too much or bad things will happen and it will be our fault for stepping out of line.

anyway, men are told the opposite, they're told to stand up for themselves and push back and "fortune favors the bold" and all that stuff, but men have to do it in a _certain way_. and if men don't uphold these increasingly rigid forms of masculinity, if they wear the wrong hoodie or, i guess in 1965 if they smoked the wrong cigarette, they're not really men. and if bad things happen to these "beta males", well, it's their fault for not being Really Men. you gotta be alpha. you gotta...

You gotta be crazy, you gotta have a real need
You gotta sleep on your toes, and when you're on the street
You gotta be able to pick out the easy meat with your eyes closed
And then moving in silently, down wind and out of sight
You gotta strike when the moment is right without thinking

that's being a man.

(by the way that's a good contrast above, for caesar, "fortune favors the bold", but caesar's wife must be above suspicion.)

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so even though i was supposedly "socialized male", i was also socialized into prioritizing other people's expectations of me. i learned to value others first, and myself not at all. a lot of this toxic behavior, at the root of it is self-loathing. people who exhibit narcissistic behavior hate and are ashamed of themselves. people who exhibit bpd behavior hate and are ashamed of themselves. incels? incels, beyond their mask of entitlement and rage, hate and are ashamed of themselves. they blame other people as a way of lashing out against what they were told, which is that they are really "betas" who don't deserve love from _anybody_.

you know who's socialized into thinking of others first? abuse victims. i hear it all the time, i mean, i heard it just last night from one of my friends. other people don't deserve to be abused, but i do. i deserve it, i have to deserve it. that's what she tells me. and patriarchy? patriarchy is an institutionalized form of abuse.

the male privilege i had, it was _contingent_, contingent on me not violating norms of maleness. i did have a lot of freedom. i didn't have to dress well. i could wear ill-fitting clothes that looked terrible on me, i could be fat, i could do all these things and nobody would even notice. i could go a long way, but if i crossed that line - by, for instance, wearing a dress in public - all the forces of hell would be unleashed on me. that's the thing that... i think particularly men face. everything is fine and you deserve _everything_ or, if you cross a line, you're bad and evil and you deserve _nothing_.

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Although 90% of my local male friends are thoughtful bros who read and listen to good music and vote correctly, I sometimes balk at these exclusively het spaces. None of these guys are obviously machista yet the presence of so much het maleness annoys me enough that I have to push back by being more camp. Maybe I'm wrong by connecting to a small degree masculinity + sexuality. If I feel the love, what's the problem?

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

no i get where you're coming from, i feel that hard, and for me it's that phrase fgti uses, "the privilege of non-engagement". cishets can mean well, but while you and i, we _have_ to be aware of the cishet male experience, there's so much... i mean it's not just a matter of being a "good man" or voting the right way, that's what weinstein said at the end, right? that he voted D, and that exculpated him. it's so hard for someone who doesn't have that experience to be _able_ to look at the world the way we see it.

like, here's an example of "the privilege of non-engagement".

yesterday morning i went into the lab to get my blood drawn. it's a long line and even though i sat by myself people got up and sat down and at some point i had a guy sitting on each side of me. and i was _very aware_ of this, and i was _very aware_ that i was a woman, and before transition, i wouldn't have been, wouldn't have assigned any special significance or meaning to that. they were older white guys, both of them, it's mostly seniors who go in for labs. i doubt that either of those guys assigned any special meaning to their being seated next to a woman. if they'd clocked me it would have been different, probably, but it also probably would have been _very obvious_ to me if either of them had clocked me.

that's a privilege i _did_ have, and that's a privilege i gave up when i transitioned.

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so here's some random stuff i wrote last night when i couldn't sleep. i really... i have really strong opinions about gender and masculinity and i'm really afraid to express them, because i'm afraid i won't do it in the Right Way and people will go on the attack, which they do. that's a systemic bias that people don't acknowledge, women get held to a much higher standard than men across the board. and trans women get held to a higher standard than cis women. it's not a universal standard, it's fucking difficult to statistically measure, but i've seen it, all my transfem friends have seen it. i don't have direct experience, but i think it does also affect transmascs, that transmascs, their transness means they have _less_ privilege, so even if their being men gives them _more_ privilege than a woman would have, their transness kind of works against that.

i don't have any like intrinsic knowledge about gender or any of that stuff but the past four years in particular i've had the exact opposite of the "privilege of non-engagement". i've thought about this stuff, a lot. i don't know what it means to be a man. i know, though, that people are taught a lot of bullshit about what it means to be a man, how to behave as a man, and since i'm not a man i know that it's bullshit. it's a "god of the gaps" approach, except that there's very little dispute over whether or not men _exist_.

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for instance, i was taught that the entirety of the way i interacted with any given woman needed to be centered around the extent to which i wanted to stick my dick in them. which was really frustrating to me because i didn't want to stick my dick in _anyone_, although there were certain women i found _very attractive_, and it was just my terrible luck that they all turned out to be lesbians. there were, as we say, no signs.

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i was watching "the big lebowski" with my girlfriend recently. she'd never seen it. and there's this scene where jeffrey lebowski is all "what makes a man? is it the willingness to do what's right at any cost?" and the dude quips, "that and a pair of testicles". the joke is that the dude is puncturing jeffrey lebowski's self-serving bullshit, this idea that manhood is this lofty, elevated thing, like women _aren't_ willing to do what's right? manhood isn't about that, i was taught. it's about _literal testicles_. balls. all you need are balls. to succeed are balls. here, kitty kitty kitty.

when i came out to my department at work, one of my co-workers, steve, he came up to me afterwards and said that he was proud of me, because "it takes a strong man to do what you're doing". that man, that poor man, he genuinely had no idea what he was saying. it's "getting an orchi takes balls" but with no sense whatsoever of _irony_. i'm not a fan of irony, but i don't know of a better way to describe that experience.

there are so many people, so many people who, when they learn i'm trans, conclude that i'm "really" a man. and that's so fucked up. but it's also just... i mean it's not just people who _conclude_ that, it's because we're taught _so much_ to believe that. it's not a logical conclusion, it's an _instinctive reaction_. trans woman = penis & testicles = man. anybody over the age of 30, and probably most people under the age of 30, has had that association drilled into us so hard that wasn't intentional but i know what it implies, i'm leaving it. to have a healthy idea of what needs to be a man, one needs to let go of _unhealthy_ ideas, and that's _work_, and _everyone_ has to do, or has had to do, that work.

but at the same time we're told to be subservient and not challenge men too much or bad things will happen and it will be our fault for stepping out of line.

i have always thought of poor impulse control - meaning quick/thoughtless/violent/destructive/stupid behavior - as being essential to biological maleness in a way. i don't know if this made me an essential biologist or a bio essentialist. i am not a scientist but i had always assumed it was the result of adrenaline created by testosterone.

― scott seward

oh, hi! i can talk about this!

not from a scientific perspective, of course, just anecdotally, from my own experience and what i've heard from friends, _particularly_ transmasc friends.

for me, going from a T-based to an E-based endocrine system, there are some positive changes. when I was on T, I _needed_ to nut. not nutting... you know how "hangry" is a thing? i get real hangry to this day. but i used to also get the equivalent from not nutting. having to do that sucked and i hated it because dysphoria. it was the sense of relief, from not having to think about it for a little while, like thank god i can just be a normal person again.

a lot of stuff gets essentialized that to my mind isn't. testosterone is associated with rage and violence. the only emotion men are allowed to express is anger - more than _allowed_ they're openly _encouraged_ to express it. it's part of aggression. it's something i struggle with a lot because i am a woman and i am _extremely_ angry. that's why susan stryker's article on "performing transgender rage" resonated so hard. the ways in which i can express the level of rage i have in a healthy manner are really limited, and they're limited for guys, too - it's just that expressing rage in an _unhealthy_ manner is socially accepted. boys will be boys.

anyway, transmasc guys, i've heard transmasc guys talk about when they start guy puberty. they're adults and have the wisdom and maturity of adults but dealing with that rush of testosterone is challenging. there is more anger, more aggression, and it's difficult to deal with. trans men really aren't any different from cis men, and that means they can behave in ways... ways they didn't before the testosterone, ways that aren't necessarily healthy.

but of course, they don't have the privileges that teenage cis boys do. if they manifest _maleness_ in any way that's deemed to be unhealthy, it's instead attributed to their _transness_, used as an argument against allowing trans people to start hormones. well of course hormones are bad, i heard of this one person who started T and then they started hitting their partner... that was how it was portrayed on The L Word at least, back in the day.

and transfems, sometimes without meaning to we do perpetrate that myth. we talk about the Evil T, because for us, it _is_ like that. for transmascs it's not like that. it's good. it makes them better, healthier people. and those experiences are ignored, overlooked, it's way easier for me to get E than it is for trans guys to get T, because as always, the cis male experience is prioritized. T gets seen as dangerous, gets seen as being a drug of abuse. what's most important is not that they get gender affirming care, but making sure that guys can't juice.

T does change you, does change a person's feelings, but if you give guys the tools and the skills to manage it in a healthy manner, they can. Boys just don't get that.