Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

Historian Cornwell also points out that Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus, or Elagabalus, the Roman emperor from A.D. 218 to 222, is frequently presented in ancient sources as experimenting with cross-dressing.

"cross-dressing"

Dio says Elagabalus delighted in being called Hierocles's mistress, wife, and queen.[82] The emperor reportedly wore makeup and wigs, preferred to be called a lady and not a lord, and supposedly offered vast sums to any physician who could provide him with a vagina.[82][83] For this reason, the emperor is seen by some writers as an early transgender figure and one of the first on record as seeking sex reassignment surgery.[82][84][85]

"Elagabalus is also alleged to have appeared as Venus and to have depilated his entire body. ... Dio recounts an exchange between Elagabalus and the well-endowed Aurelius Zoticus: when Zoticus addressed the emperor as 'my lord,' Elagabalus responded, 'Don't call me lord, I am a lady.' Dio concludes his anecdote by having Elagabalus asking his physicians to give him the equivalent of a woman's vagina by means of a surgical incision."

yep, just your average cross-dresser

Elagabalus being one of the most despised emperors

my feeling about rome nerds is that it's one of those things that i'd call "culturally gendered". i honestly don't agree with the way lewis webb is quoted in the article:

“Ancient Rome was of course patriarchal and violent,” Lewis Webb, a historian of ancient Rome at Oxford University, wrote in an email. “But it was also a diverse place: there were numerous forms of masculinity, women could have agency and power, and there were multiple gender expressions and identities, as well as various sexualities.”

i mean that's _true_ but if you're using elagabalus as an example, this is someone who was roundly condemned by everyone as the Worst Emperor Ever. like sure, if you were a woman you could have agency and power like, for instance, julia domna did, but she doesn't really get held up as a hero. which of marc anthony's wives were lauded by the romans? not fulvia. _certainly_ not cleopatra. nope, octavia, who spent all of her time simping for marc anthony and raising her children.

elagabalus is a hero for a lot of outsiders, not just trans women but artaud, who called her "the crowned anarchist". did i mention i'm an anarchist as well? it's her _resistance_ to rome, though, rather than her allegiance to it, that fascinates me.

rome is interesting, but enlightenment civilization treats it as the root of Enlightened European Culture and... well the truth is that it _is_, rome was built on slavery, conquest, and plunder, the roman "republic" was blatantly oligarchical. as a trans woman, i find caesar's legion in Fallout: New Vegas (a video game with tremendous importance to trans women) to be representative of the true spirit of Rome.

I'm afraid all I know about Elagabalus comes from Horrible Histories.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6ESsouohLg

mary beard actually gave a really interesting lecture on elagabalus... she's really good on roman history and i think she makes some points about the nature of ancient history. someone like elagabalus is essentially a mythological figure. roman historians were all pretty strongly moralistic... the idea of the Five Good Emperors is a renaissance notion, but to my mind it tracks well with the tendency in Roman history to categorize emperors as "good" or "bad". and since historians tended to make shit up in order to support these categorizations, it's damn hard to know what's true or false about elagabalus. particularly since shortly after elagabalus' reign rome went through a fifty-year societal collapse, and so his reign isn't exactly terribly well-documented.

that's what fascinates me about ancient history, roman history in particular... how much of it is just... false. the seven roman kings, for instance, _hugely_ mythological. rome has twelve months, and we assume at some point there used to be ten, because the seventh through twelfth months were originally named "fifth" through "tenth", but nobody can say for sure _when_ exactly those first two months showed up.

the fascinating thing for me is that rome is a culture that had in some ways completely different values, completely different mores, despite the superficial similarities sometimes. for instance, being queer wasn't stigmatized. the infamous poem known as "catullus 16" exemplifies this to me - answering charges that writing poetry made him effeminate, he responds with "I will fuck your mouth and ass", which is just a fundamentally different framing than our current understanding of queerness. elagabalus wasn't hated because he had sex with men - many highly regarded emperors did the same. he was hated because he was _effeminate_ - and this was, in particular, associated with bottoming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVDvdGI6S-E

The John Zorn album Six Litanies for Heliogabalus has one of the single most upsetting pieces of vocal music I've ever heard on it (Mike Patton literally sounds like he's gagging and choking to death).

The John Zorn album🕸 _Six Litanies for Heliogabalus_ has one of the single most upsetting pieces of vocal music I've ever heard on it (Mike Patton literally sounds like he's gagging and choking to death).

The John Zorn album Six Litanies for Heliogabalus has one of the single most upsetting pieces of vocal music I've ever heard on it (Mike Patton literally sounds like he's gagging and choking to death).

― read-only (unperson)

that's the intent, right? the rose petals on the cover are, i assume, a reference to the story of elagabalus having a party and smothering the guests in rose petals (it's the thumbnail of the video above).

anyway. clearly elagabalus means a lot of things to a lot of people, and one of them is "dude this emperor was totally extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeme". which by all accounts they were!

I never think about Rome

a number of my european-descended peers in this part of the americas have very nebulous ties to an ancestry that’s many generations removed and the homogenization of culture means the closest many get to ethnic historical roots is in rediscovery

when people from that milieu get really into rome it tends to mean something different compared to people who could be digging around in their garden and discover some roman tiles. not always in either case, but often

that mary beard lecture has been a very enjoyable watch this afternoon

It has been entertaining to me how many people have been like "Well, actually ..."

I almost never think of Rome but maybe I should. I will say that visiting Rome had a lot more impact than I expected.

My main rhetorical use of Rome is reminding Christian nationalist types that there is no Senate in the Bible but there was one in Rome, and our governmental/philosophical roots are classical and Renaissance as well as Anglo-Saxon/Christian.

How widespread is this mindset the Dilbert guy attributes to men?

Women don’t understand that the civil war already started.

Men live in a continuous state of violence. We size up every threat and have a tentative plan to kill it first. We live that war and it never stops.

The battle to defend Texas and the homeland is already in full…

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) January 25, 2024

idk how many incels and fash are there?

Is there non-Twitter evidence that men and women react differently to threats ? In a fundamental way ? For example if someone physically assaults you, you're likely to fall in either of three broad categories (fight off, fold over, run away). If you're insulted, I assume the internal emotional experience is similar. Etc. Then obviously we have different resources that may or may not align with sex (confidence, strength, education), the threats will be different, the circumstances, the type and level of violence etc. But the way we react ?

Anybody trying to evidence "innate" difference is already barking up the worst possible tree

Women don’t understand that the civil war already started.

Men live in a continuous state of violence. We size up every threat and have a tentative plan to kill it first. We live that war and it never stops.

it's funny how much this sounds like dialogue that an intentionally ridiculous character in a 90s Dilbert strip would say, seems like a lot of comedians/humourists are people aware of their own absurdity to some extent, but also unable to transcend or accept it

one can only speak to ones own very narrow experience but in mine what women don't understand is that there is a right way and a wrong way to fill a dishwasher and when i say women i mean i have one specific one in mind really

will it lead to civil war? am i walking around thinking up plans to kill over it? hm

iirc there was a study done where the "wrong" way got the dishes cleaner because they hadn't been packed in together like the result of some kind of maniacal mensa tetris experiment

Rolling dilbert and dogbert thread

xxp didn’t realise you married my mother good Lord

I wash my dishes by hand and they are spotless

im sure your mother is a fine lady but im not going back to manual shift

how else would you shift bro

If anyone is vigilant about violence 24/7 it’s more likely to be women, not men. We are very very aware of potential threats of violence. Nabozo, you left off the fawning response - trying to placate a potential threat. Women smile, laugh, nod their head in agreement, because men we don’t know are unpredictable. A man says something creepy or weird and we’d love to tell him to go fuck himself but what if he responds violently?

only time I've used a dishwasher was when I was a kitchen porter. You still had to hand wash them after a cycle, but it had a point in an industrial kitchen catering to hundred people some nights. In a household I just don't see the point of them.

I used to be that way with violent thoughts; thinking "what do I do if someone comes at me? What do I do if someone tries to hurt my girl?" For me, I think it comes from watching way too many violent movies as a kid, where the response to a situation is almost always violence. I'm sure dude hormones play well with that? I don't know. There's also the social thing of how a tough guy is supposed to act.

As I've gotten older and recognized it I've moved past it for the most part. But it's different than being vigilant about violence; it's more like looking for an excuse to be violent.

I thought dishwashers were stupid until we had a kid and we started cooking more and the scale of the dishes changed drastically. I've had to periodically go back to doing them by hand when the washer is having problems and it takes forever, I will never go back.

i find handwashing to be an ideal headspace in which to meditate on which threat to eliminate next

How widespread is this mindset the Dilbert guy attributes to men?

🐦[Women don’t understand that the civil war already started.

Men live in a continuous state of violence. We size up every threat and have a tentative plan to kill it first. We live that war and it never stops.

The battle to defend Texas and the homeland is already in full…
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) January 25, 2024🕸]🐦

I eliminate the washing up, it's a better feeling than having violent homicidal thoughts when the job is done. Could probably turn that into a tea towel slogan with some work.

a good steeping regime is what is needed, let the hot soapy water do the work for you.

here come the hotsteeper

murderer!

*eliminates threat*

if I'm making some bechamel sauce I have a bottle of hot soapy water ready to pour straight into the pot after it is poured out, being a hotsteeper means always getting ahead of stuff that is going to cake up and be an absolute shit to wash off.

reading dilbert dude as an esoteric radfem laying out their case for male abolition. if men are anything like their supporters say they are they're just monsters who we'd best be rid of

In a household I just don't see the point of them.

― vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Friday, January 26, 2024 7:23 AM (forty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The point is that washing dishes is the worst household chore and dishwashers are pure magic. Couldn't be without that or a dryer tbh.

I don't have a dryer either, and that is a problem in the winter. I find housecleaning, mopping the floor, vaccing up dog hairs - that's the stuff that grinds me down.

because I have an autistic in the house who annihilates the bathroom I have to clean the toilet at least twice a day. If there was a toilet cleaning droid on the market.... fuck yeah!

i find handwashing to be an ideal headspace in which to meditate on which threat to eliminate next

it's about time dudes abjured the vacuum cleaner and returned to beating their rugs in the yard

if men are anything like their supporters say they are they're just monsters who we'd best be rid of

Men Are Not Cost-Effective : Male Crime in America (1991)

(Disclaimer: I have not read this; I don't know if it is any good or if the title claim has been challenged.)

If there was a toilet cleaning droid on the market.... fuck yeah!

I vaguely remember proposals for public restrooms that supposedly clean themselves after each use. Could this technology be adapted for residential bathrooms?

it's about time dudes abjured the vacuum cleaner and returned to beating their rugs in the yard

Try pitching this as the new Crossfit?

it's about time dudes abjured the vacuum cleaner and returned to beating their rugs in the yard

― fetter

you can get arrested for this

Many xps but I am a man who has lived 53 years in seven cities. The only time I've encountered even potential violence was in an elementary school in 1980something, when somebody decided it was very important to be shoved into lockers (and, once, a trashcan).

The open-carry tactical-gear camo weirdos who think their trip to Dunkin Donuts might suddenly become a bloodbath are very, very, very broken.

There’s been a lot written about that point from The Gift of Fear to Schroedinger’s rapist etc. I find these writings useful to illuminate the thinking behind female behaviour in public, but neither really address the main problem with male-on-female violence: you are far more likely to be assaulted by someone you know, most likely a family member or a partner. I know numerous people, including me, who have experienced violence from loved ones.

The question then, to treat that crackhead tweet with semi-seriousness, is how women should respond. Sure we are vigilant about strange men who might be violent in public if we don’t respond correctly, but how to go through life when 1 in 3 of us will experience violence from a partner? Which isn’t to say stalkers or stranger violence don’t matter, but it’s the tip of the iceberg ito lived experience.

xp to j.lu’s first point

Yeah the incel talking point that women sail through life with no responsibilities, while men are engaged in battles for survival, is just that: an incel talking point. And gets it exactly backwards. As one would expect from people who live in a parallel world of their own creation.

is how far along the molyneux trajectory is adams now?

I'm glad these men don't seem to be enjoying themselves much - they've made their own hell - but I wish they'd just go their own way already instead of trying to bring everyone else down with them. why don't they start a fight club or something

Certainly my behaviour has been conditioned through my entire life by both external and internal forces.

Don’t tell the taxi driver exactly where you live.
Carry your keys in your hand.
Make sure someone knows where you are if you’re going home by yourself.
Check in with people regularly.
Text your friend when she gets home to make sure she got in ok.
If someone is following you or menacing you on public transport, get off and wait for the next one.

And some specific to just me:

Keep proof of everything.
Are you sure? Are you really really sure? No really, are you sure?
Qualify your statements so there’s nothing objectionable. - obviously I have long ago decided I don’t feel like doing this anymore.

Is there non-Twitter evidence that men and women react differently to threats ? In a fundamental way ? For example if someone physically assaults you, you're likely to fall in either of three broad categories (fight off, fold over, run away). If you're insulted, I assume the internal emotional experience is similar. Etc. Then obviously we have different resources that may or may not align with sex (confidence, strength, education), the threats will be different, the circumstances, the type and level of violence etc. But the way we react ?

― Nabozo

I mean not _biologically_, there's no fucking biological difference. Gender isn't binary, it's not "men are like this and women are like this". People face perceived threats and based on what resources we have available to us, that determines how we respond to perceived threats. Hell, maybe there is... I hate to bring this up, but I do think "male socialization" does affect how I respond to perceived threats. Like, for the past five years I've been pretty continuously getting the message cis women (any AFABs, really) get all their lives, that they're inferior to men, that men are smarter than them, more competent than them, _know_ more than them, that women need to shut up and know their place or they're a bitch. It's not true, but tell somebody that enough and it has an effect. Not three times, or thirty, but just... always and forever. Justine is completely on the mark here:

If anyone is vigilant about violence 24/7 it’s more likely to be women, not men. We are very very aware of potential threats of violence. Nabozo, you left off the fawning response - trying to placate a potential threat. Women smile, laugh, nod their head in agreement, because men we don’t know are unpredictable. A man says something creepy or weird and we’d love to tell him to go fuck himself but what if he responds violently?

― just1n3

I actually agree with a lot of what Scott Adams says here, just from a slightly different perspective. When I look at Scott Adams, I see someone who legitimately believes that I am a threat to his existence. That I want to eradicate him and everyone like him. It's kind of an old story. The "Clash of Civilizations" theory. People who subscribe to that theory, you know... people don't tend to think of themselves as the aggressors. It's just _pre-emptive self-defense_.

Does Adams himself live in a continual state of violence? Is he continually hypervigilant against threats real and perceived? Yes. I also get the impression that he isn't necessarily great on the fact-checking part of it. And the thing is, because of, like, systemic power imbalance, he doesn't _have_ to be. Cis white men don't have to be. If they make mistakes, if they get it wrong, if they perceive women as a threat when we aren't, we're the ones who suffer. That's where the "fawning" comes in. If men hurt us, we're the ones who are held responsible, we're the ones who are blamed.

When Scott Adams says this:

We size up every threat and have a tentative plan to kill it first.

I mean, that's literal actual genocide, is what that is. To me, he makes that pretty clear:

The battle to defend Texas and the homeland is already in full…

Like I said, I do agree with Scott Adams that... like, I personally do live in a state of war. What Adams and people who agree with him are doing, to my mind, that falls under the umbrella of "pre-emptive self-defense". We're a threat to Texas, to the homeland, and the only way to keep Texas and the homeland is to kill us first. Where I disagree with Adams is in his statement that the plan is "tentative". Every week more trans refugees arrive here in Portland from Texas. A lot of the people I know are people in Texas or Florida or Indiana who are trying to find some way out while they still can.

It's not just about trans people, of course. We're just one of the more visible targets right now. I believe just1n3 is just as much a target as I am. It could be any woman everywhere. It's pretty obvious, honestly, to a lot of women, and what surprises me is how much men don't see it. But also not really? Because I didn't see it, before I transitioned. So I don't think it's necessarily a man thing, because I didn't see it, and I wasn't ever really a man.

I don't think that's necessarily a _man_ thing, what Scott Adams says, but I do think a lot of people genuinely believe what he says, and those are the people who are trying to kill us. I would urge anybody reading this thread to take what Scott Adams says very seriously. I don't see those words as being silly or ridiculous or empty. Those words are being put into practice right now by people with the power to do so.

why don't they start a fight club or something

― Left

IDK, fight club is pretty gay.

I'm not being sarcastic on that. Chuck Palahniuk's homosexuality very much informs Fight Club.

OK, I know I'm being very talky here, blame "male socialization" lol, but re: gyac's post... again, to me the difference for me isn't between "male" and "female" but my life pre-transition and post-transition. I'm just genuinely shocked sometimes at how ignorant I was about women's lived experiences. The sorts of precautions women typically take, I absolutely take them _now_. Pre-transition? I wasn't even aware of them. I didn't notice all of the little things women do to keep ourselves safe. Partly that's on purpose, I guess, because if men notice we're doing that kind of stuff, they get defensive and uncomfortable and like #notallmen, and if a man is uncomfortable, we're the ones responsible for that.

There's this difference between perceived fear, perceived threat, and actual threat. I had a lot of anxieties and worries and fear pre-transition and they were mostly, like, not reality-based. (The ones about being trans tended to be the more reality-based anxieties.) You ever look up the lifetime likelihood a trans woman will be sexually assaulted? OK, now take that and factor into that the extent to which sexual assault is underreported. SA went from being something I literally did not think about or worry about at all, like I would absolutely walk down a dark alley at night alone, to something I look at from a standpoint of, well, this is something I want to happen to me as _seldom_ as possible.

The fucked thing is, it's _not_ just something that happens to women. The fucked thing is, men often _genuinely don't know what abuse looks like_. It's not a man thing, not even an AMAB thing, but my gut is that it disproportionately affects AMABs. I've literally had to explain to other trans women that the reason they feel bad is because they were sexually assaulted. At the same time, I'm still really resistent to the idea that I, personally, was sexually assaulted. It's absolutely a double standard. Anybody else told me about the experience I had, I'd tell them unambiguously that they'd been sexually assaulted, but it just... I have this idea in my head of what sexual assault is supposed to _feel_ like, and it doesn't feel like that. And what does it matter, anyway? When women get sexually assaulted, everyone says it's our fault. Why be a victim if you can choose to say you're not, no matter what actually happened?

Now, the people I know are trans women and not men, but I don't believe for a second that this doesn't happen to cis men. I think cis men just are in less of a position to recognize and acknowledge abuse and assault when it happens. I'd say that this is a way in which patriarchy hurts men, like we all keep saying. There are a lot of people, _particularly_ men, who suffer from abuse and are unable or unwilling to recognize that, in ways that put them at risk of perpetuating the cycle of abuse.

trying to placate a potential threat. Women smile, laugh, nod their head in agreement, because men we don’t know are unpredictable. A man says something creepy or weird and we’d love to tell him to go fuck himself but what if he responds violently?

Don’t tell the taxi driver exactly where you live.
Carry your keys in your hand.
Make sure someone knows where you are if you’re going home by yourself.
Check in with people regularly.
Text your friend when she gets home to make sure she got in ok.
If someone is following you or menacing you on public transport, get off and wait for the next one.

And some specific to just me:

Keep proof of everything.
Are you sure? Are you really really sure? No really, are you sure?
Qualify your statements so there’s nothing objectionable.

wow i relate to this so much
i'm a biological male but this is 100% how i think and act.