Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

Uncomfortable dining with anyone of any gender in a restaurant.

I’d take Alfred up on that offer if only because it’s very sunny where he lives

filial delphia

I’d take Alfred up on that offer if only because it’s very sunny where he lives

― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh)

Negronis for everyone!

brb hopping a plane

I have a pair of red cotton Gap shorts that I've been wearing for years; the last couple of summers they've attracted comments from strangers. It seems without me noticing they have faded to a perfect baby pink. I love 'em.

i would've thought those numbers would be flipped. my hypothesis is that because women don't have penises that need comparison, the appeal of being naked in front of others of the same sex doesn't hold the same appeal that it does for men.

― J0rdan S.

can confirm firsthand, women's penises are incomparable

fwiw, limited, anecdotal sample size, but the trans women i know aren't super into comparing dicks. a lot of the women i know aren't proud of their dicks and don't like talking about them or showing them off.

not a lot of comparisons in general either. mostly it's one woman self-deprecating and the rest of us attempting to counter the self-deprecation. the self-deprecation isn't compliment-fishing, it's more like a standard narrative that everyone else is gorgeous and amazing and the person self-deprecating is disgusting and unloveable. trans women are inculcated pretty hard with that narrative.

it's different from the social behavior i observed around girls growing up. a lot of my friends lament not having been born cis women, and i never have. i'm not sure my life would have been significantly improved if i'd grown up a fat, autistic _cis_ dyke. the girls i grew up around were pretty relentlessly cruel to each other in ways that boys never were. (i did pay a lot of attention to girls' social behavior. social behavior in general was kind of a mystery to me, but i never had any real desire to fit in with the boys. that song "i'd much rather be with the girls" is a great queer song, but for me, it hits hardest if you take sexual and romantic relationships out of the equation entirely.)

i didn't like locker rooms or changing rooms, but it's a little too easy to make everything about dysphoria, to put this filter on everything. i didn't swim shirtless because i was fat. body shame isn't something that only women have. i was fat, and a lot of the time i got bullied it was in the locker room, and i think both those things were significant causes of my discomfort.

the strongest locker room memory i have, though, is from a trip my boy scout troop took to the y, my first year in scouts. i don't know how old i would have been - 11? 12? - and a lot of people in my troop were significantly older. i got to see the effects of male puberty (i hit puberty late) firsthand. i remember catching a glimpse of the senior patrol leader, who would have been around 17, with his body just covered in thick matted hair. he saw me looking at him and said to me "kate, don't go through puberty if you can possibly avoid it". i felt like that was some of the best advice anybody had ever given me. body horror is very relatable from a trans perspective, and this was absolutely body horror. the thought that my body would turn into this disgusting, alien _thing_...

as it turned out i failed spectacularly at taking his advice. not only did i go through puberty, but i did it _twice_. oh well.

Going to a gay bar: I've done it, it was unremarkable, was a little confused by the arrangement of the bathroom

Wait. How are the restrooms arranged differently?

Gay bars have no bathrooms. You piss into each other's mouths while the audience applauds.

big "how does a czar eat potatoes" vibes

oh, and for the record, i only thought men were "disgusting, alien _things_" when i believed i had to be one. hairy guys with dad bod are hot.

last time I was in a gay bar I could not help but notice at the far end of the bar were two people, a man and a woman, who dancing with an extreme focus, but I could not see who they were dancing with. but whoever it was they were staring pretty intensely at them. anyway I had to use the bathroom and figured I'd take a look and it turned out to be a full length mirror. maybe its my small town Wisconsin brain but I was fascinated with those people

straight couples at the gay bar sometimes are of A Type for sure

petition to rename straight couples "strouples"

Wait. How are the restrooms arranged differently?

it was probably specific to the bar that I went to but there was a large open space with places to sit that were not toilets

just gonna check real quick you said 'sit' there that's 'sit'?

among other options

_Wait. How are the restrooms arranged differently?_


it was probably specific to the bar that I went to but there was a large open space with places to sit that were not toilets

i thought it was going to be more something like a trough urinal with an angled mirror above it, a feature at many a gay bar restroom ;-)

lol deems

have we talked about the "men think about rome every day" stuff?

huh?

https://wapo.st/3PD8Pjo

I guess I do think about "Floral Shoppe" a lot

gotcha. i'll leave this one to the clickbait reporters and armchair analysts

Fwiw I think about ancient Rome thrice weekly.

But I live in a world where it comes up pretty often - I'm surrounded by neoclassical architecture because of where I live, I am a decently passionate reader of ancient history, and my work in government and politics as a lot of ancient Roman influence. Just the word "Senate" is enough to evoke Cicero.

when I drive down the roadway I think "concrete" and then I furrow my brow and sigh, "rome"

actually I do probably think about Roam by the B-52s three times a day

I've often thought of the parallels between Commodus and Trump (for example).

men think about the next smack off every day

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/09/men-think-about-roman-empire-tiktok-trend/675341/

this week in “when tiktok jokes escape their confinement zones”

I've often thought of the parallels between commodes and Trump

I asked my husband, and after some pressure he said about once a week, but upon further questioning it turned out he just thinks about Rome itself once a week because he does a lot of travel research.

My answer was almost never but I do think about the napoleonic wars and/or the age of sail about once a day. I guess that’s similar as a conventional dad history interest but a particular interest in Rome maybe has this whiff of TheWest classicist fascism about it?

I think about lead poisoning pretty frequently, and I guess that ties into the (sometimes hypothesized fall of the) Roman empire. I dunno why I or anyone would regularly fixate on ancient Rome, but I imagine lots of people do think about World War II a lot. I know I do, one way or another.

My answer was almost never but I do think about the napoleonic wars and/or the age of sail about once a day.

It's the French Revolution for me.

for professional reasons, have been thinking about almost nothing but rome for the last month and expect to continue this way until at least mid-march, but on average it's prob only a few times a week.

was Seward in it

american civil war def my idea of the classic example of whatever we're talking about. i should think about the american civil war more tbh.

personal go-tos are the 30 years' war and the bronze age palace system lol; the latter is more or less the same as being rly into, like, pern

One day I'll finish Wedgwood's book on the Thirty Years War.

but a particular interest in Rome maybe has this whiff of TheWest classicist fascism about it?

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, 15 September 2023 22:41 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i just think maybe as a message board we could maybe just fucking stop, yknow? lads?

I was asked by two people today about Rome. Rarely, though I've been meaning to re-read Mary Beard's SPQR. When it comes to Europe I'm an early medieval to early modern lad with some Napoleon sprinkled in.

SPQR is fun.

Been thinking Lazio thoughts this week

but a particular interest in Rome maybe has this whiff of TheWest classicist fascism about it?

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, 15 September 2023 22:41 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i just think maybe as a message board we could maybe just fucking stop, yknow? lads?

i think thats fair tho!

but we're far from establishing the latter from the current meme turned thinkpiece

Studying something and glorifying it are, y'know, different things.

I wouldn't characterize my thoughts about ancient Rome (or, for that matter, the American Civil War) as glorifying them. Any more than looking at a weather forecast glorifies rain.

i never think about Rome that wild