Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

I also feel like I've read that article a million times and I always feel like there is something missing from them although I've been trying for a long time to articulate it. It's like there's some depth or nuance of the experience that they don't really capture, it becomes this very 2D sort of male pressure cooker where your entire life as a boy is just other boys punching you on the arm and calling you a bitch, and you're either that or the sort of 180 degree opposite of it and outside of "jock culture" entirely, in which case you are a skinny poetry guy or something. Maybe I just grew up in kind of an anomalous setting but I didn't feel like it was that simple. Separately I also think these articles often fail to capture what the participants in the culture get out of it, as though they're only in it because they're being tortured into it, and I mean "get out of it" in both good and more sinister senses. But the good ones are important too.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive)

i don't think an article can ever convey the true experience of cis male entitlement as well as reading esby's posts can

For some reason I was thinking about my late grandfather this morning and how I grew up admiring him as a "tough guy who had a sensitive side" and thinking about how (according to his own self description) had been sensitive when he was young but had to be tough because of circumstances (growing up in a poor neighborhood, fighting in the pacific theater etc.). But then it hit me, aren't all boys born sensitive? There's no such thing as a tough baby.

not reflecting on your grandfather obviously ma but of course there's growing up tough as in "learning to deal with other people being assholes for little to no reason" and then there's "learning how to become one of the assholes so you fit in" and that distinction is a part of the contest around performing masculinity

it's amazing to me how young kids are when they start to show distinct personalities

some kids are more rough and tumble than others

I wonder a lot about masculinity in light of Jacob + Esav (esp recently since it was the last couple parshiot) who are respectively described as a man of the tent and of the field (Gen 25:27) and I wonder if the problem in our culture is that it's too Esav focused. Nerdy or sensitive boys have always existed but somehow the dominant model for performing masculinity today became athleticism/aggression etc. I never felt much anxiety about being male I think particularly because I had this model within my community that I could aspire to and not feel emasculated because I lacked hand-eye coordination. I agree w/ the critiques above that the Orenstein piece doesn't offer solutions (I liked it because I thought it illustrated the issues in a non-judgmental/empathetic + almost ethnographic way) but I wonder if this is a possible solution. We have these models in our mythological + religious histories that we can use. xxp

xxp "Says you" - a tough baby with abs, smoking a cig.

In all seriousness though, that's OTM.

I'm always a little surprised to learn how common it is for fathers to try to raise their boys to be sociopaths, and how rare the reverse experience (my own) is.

not reflecting on your grandfather obviously ma but of course there's growing up tough as in "learning to deal with other people being assholes for little to no reason" and then there's "learning how to become one of the assholes so you fit in" and that distinction is a part of the contest around performing masculinity

― a very powerful woman in the dog world (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, December 18, 2019 12:36 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think it was more like "learning to deal with someone who is trying to slash you with a knife" or "learning to knock out one of the other guys with a brick and run when you are surrounded by 8 guys who might otherwise beat you near death"

yeah i realise i was playing it as gently as possible :D

but y'know, same applies - the ability to physically and mentally defend yourself is a virtue, sure, but there's this fine line in most cultures about where defending yourself begins and ends, and i think i streak of "necessary" cruelty is often considered a masculine virtue, not always openly

I really don't think it was a fine line at all in the situations he was put in -- the Italian kids in Chicago hated the Jewish kids and if you were on the wrong block you'd get beaten and had to defend yourself. I don't think my grandpa bullied anyone, but he may never have told me.

no of course, i was abstracting, not thinking of anybody's individual experience.

mordy posts reminds me of the contempt in the part of ulysses' "here is my son, mine own Telemachus", it's a good observation.

growing up in a rural/fishing society, the aura of masculine mystery thats given to guys in these (or any) primary industries needs piercing, for sure.

but a society that seems to always pit these guys against eg academic achievers if theyre put into a shared space needs examining rather than simply accepting that this animosity is natural and inescapable.

as with a lot of these questions, i find myself wondering if a small community was a serious advantage in this and other facets. theres wasnt space for people to fall into cliched roles, and nobody was a stranger that could fit into a neat 2d role in your worldview (and vice versa)

like, half the farmers/fishermen i know write poetry, and most of the honours class lads still go home to play in the parish cups

i think there's something in that, tho of course the Irish acceptance and appreciation of poetry is hardly a universal

I wonder if the problem in our culture is that it's too Esav focused.

The problem is that it's too Simeon and Levi focused! Yes those two fucking maniacs get their comeuppance when dad dies but the idea that "yes I murdered every man in Shechem but what was I supposed to do.... NOTHING?" is a normal male thought process is bizarrely still present in the contemporary world

Also as someone raising two boys in the UK I wonder what the culture is like here, and if it has changed since I was a teenager. We don't have jocks really, but we certainly still have the lads.

I suspect we might have jocks if rugby was the national sport and not football.

I didn't need another reason to hate rugby, but I'll take it.

in the US rugby is the official sport of lesbians

there's also a lesbian rugby following in the uk

while at the same time it is the sport of the uk equivalent of the preppy country club date rapist in an 80s US film

in the US rugby is the official sport of lesbians

Instead of printing that article they should just have printed that sentence.

ime the rugby society are the worst people in any university, ours was led by a man called "keemo" which was a nickname they'd given him because he didn't have any hair.

wait, I thought roller derby was the official sport of lesbians

that too. Also basketball and soccer.

what I actually mean is that as a USian I associate rugby almost exclusively with lesbians whereas surely in the Commonwealth it's mostly lads what play rugby

I guess Megan Rapinoe being the most famous US soccer player means people might mostly think of lesbians when they think of soccer here too.

Never heard of this lesbian rugby business. It's totally what the jocks at my school played.

(which was in the Commonwealth but I have also spent a lot of time in the US without hearing of this association)

my lesbian daughter has never heard of rugby as a lesbian sport but we live in France where rugby is probably the second biggest sport (unless pétanque counts)

I always thought softball was lesbians' sport of choice.

ok boomer

lesbians' sport of choice is any sport they enjoy playing or watching others play

Lacrosse was the sport of choice amongst lesbians in my day.

Jai Alai is the official sport of genderqueer

we need to dig deeper into this, for example, what is the lesbian board game of choice?

Sorry. Oh wait, that's Canadians.

Canadians were the sport of choice amongst lesbians in your day?

I've got the scars to prove it

i have to be honest that i have a deep aversion to guys using the word "dude"
it like revolts me
i can't pinpoint exactly what it is.......

:-(

omg i'm sorry! i mean, i'm trying to work on it

also who cares what i think really

It's okay, du- um... bud?

hehehehe i like bud!

the gas station parking lot was a complete mess last week so I ended up pulling up next to the air pump, and sure enough, someone pulled up as soon as I got out of my car needing to use it. "dude, are you using that air compressor?" "nah man, I'll move!"

hadn't been called dude in the wild for some time

really! i feel like it happens all the time
did you like it?

I get "hey man" a lot more than "dude" and it was somewhat refreshing

For some reason I was thinking about my late grandfather this morning and how I grew up admiring him as a "tough guy who had a sensitive side" and thinking about how (according to his own self description) had been sensitive when he was young but had to be tough because of circumstances (growing up in a poor neighborhood, fighting in the pacific theater etc.). But then it hit me, aren't all boys born sensitive? There's no such thing as a tough baby.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive)

you have clearly not been watching enough animal planet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsVk7MNNAeQ

"hehehehe i like bud!

― surm"

everybody likes bud these days, even people who don't live in oregon

i've been called "boss" a few times but it's always when someone is trying to upsell me on an air filter at an oil change place.

like, half the farmers/fishermen i know write poetry, and most of the honours class lads still go home to play in the parish cups

― Banáná hÉireann (darraghmac)

i think there's something in that, tho of course the Irish acceptance and appreciation of poetry is hardly a universal

― a very powerful woman in the dog world (Noodle Vague)

ahem

www.fisherpoets.org