Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

The right-wingers prefer "Aryan" women who appear to be unconscious of their beauty and sex appeal (think classic Britney or Hannah Montana-era Miley Cyrus).

actually I hadn't considered that, like you're right there isn't anything too overtly sexual in Britney's lyrics

I was thinking of the more obvious reason though

At this point you might be saying “Come on, CHH, it’s not like being a real human actress is illegal now. What about Jennifer Lawrence? Taylor Swift? Margot Robbie?” Of course, all of those women are beautiful and talented, but—and I can’t really explain this—it feels like they are here for the girls. Maybe that’s why I like them. Sydney feels like she’s here for the guys, and in a way that feels completely unironic. I don’t mean to say that “hot blondes have gone woke” or anything, but lately I have noticed that popular actresses are expected to couch their hotness and femininity in a blanket of irony

https://www.cartoonshateher.com/p/are-we-sunsetting-ass-and-entering

I think the above put into words something I felt but couldn't really articulate about why the 'Sydney Sweeny's boobs mean wokeness is over' takes have a grain of truth (though I don't really agree with all the examples of that 'irony' she gives - "posing in a magazine eating pizza out of a greasy box" seems like it would fit in fine with a The Man Show era sex-symbol). I agree with frogbs, SS's celebrity persona and vibes feel reminiscent of an earlier era where the media was less self-conscious or coy about ogling famous actresses, or when it was more taken for granted that the media was 'looking' from the pov of a hetero man, I think? Like those magazine profiles of actress from the pre-2010s where the author is just openly horny in a way that you don't see so much nowadays. (idk to what extent this is something intrinsic to how Sweeny presents herself or to what extent it's something that is just being projected onto her)

Where does this idea come from that it's impossible to be liberal with a hard-on

― Guayaquil (eephus!)

from that morrissey song, "liberal with a hard-on", fascists love morrissey because he's racist even though he doesn't like boobs as much as they do

I think that just reveals more about how right-wingers think - there's no such thing as accomodation or empathy

― frogbs

or lesbians

"empathy" used to be a member of my polycule, i say "used to", it's still in my polycule but it changed its name, it now goes by "great big honking bazongas", because it has great big honking bazongas and is very proud of them

this week it's working on redirecting all donations to donald trump's election campaign to a slush fund to unionize sex workers.

anyway, yeah, us liberals are so owned

the discourse around her ending wokeness just by being hot is still deeply weird and confusing

― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac)

like when i see a hot woman and start keysmashing and go all "no thoughts head empty" that's a situational thing, it's not permanent... i think the right doesn't get the concept of a "sometimes thing". or they're deeply opposed to it. god, remember how mad they got when cookie monster started eating vegetables? to me, i mean, the way the right talks about food says a lot about them. mostly because i like food.

this lady i know was talking about how her dad's gun club was mad about anime taking over good old fashioned cartoons, like 40s and 50s looney tunes, which i understand, because a lot of that stuff was completely racist. that said it does tend to overlook how hot bugs bunny was wearing a dress. again, that says a lot about patriarchy too. they know bugs bunny is hot wearing a dress. they've seen the cartoons. they stan the cartoons. they just think nobody is going to pay attention to the fact that they totally find bugs bunny wearing a dress extremely hot. like my man that's cool and all but then you turn around and complain about trans people and nobody takes you seriously. you know who we take seriously? bugs bunny. more seriously than you. you shoulda taken that left turn at albuquerque. if you'd watched that doctor who episode you'd know that by now.

where was i

oh! fuckin'... food wars. i mean they complain about the anime influence on cartoons but have they seen food wars? they have not. you know what's in food wars? great big honking bazongas. no lie. but they won't watch food wars. you know why? they think cooking is gay. which it is. GAY FOR BIG HONKING BAZONGAS.

dear defenders of traditional manhood, if you're so heterosexual, WHAT WERE YOU DOING LOOKING AT A PICTURE OF SOMEONE AT THE GLAAD AWARDS? that means you're gay now. so much for "traditional masculinity". i've just made a five hour long video about it. it's called "the DOWNFALL of traditional masculinity". it has one million views on youtube right now. i have a tv show. it's run two seasons on amazon prime already. it is very gay and it is chock full of bazongas. what have you done with your life? nothing, that's what. you're still watching "young sheldon" looking for boobies because you don't know the difference between "bazinga" and "bazongas". THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR DEFUNDING EDUCATION, YOU FEEBS.

I mean, I didn't, but clicking around half of it is not understanding women and thinking they are dumb and brain damaged and then a bunch of stuff about fishing.

― frogbs

what is with the fishing thing

i just

it's that hat, we all know that hat. "women want me, fish fear me". they treat women like fish and then they get salty when they can't catch us. well you're not gonna hook me like that, i'm fresh.

like i'll get with a man i'm afraid of, if it's the right kind of fear. not gonna lie. at the same time... like, you know wearing a hat saying that i want you doesn't make me actually want you, right? like, what, you think it's a magic cap? magic cap was discontinued. like. 20 years ago. (even if it wasn't, i would rather be a danger hiptop sidekick than a magic cap envoy.)

bet these motherfuckers can't actually fish for shit, neither. YOU HEAR THAT, MEN? All those pictures of fish you're holding in your dating profile pictures - those aren't real fish, are they? They're robots. Robot fish.

Fuck you motherfuckers. Fuck you and your fake-ass robot fish and your lesbian erasure and your insipid major-network sitcoms. I want a REAL MAN. Preferably one with a small penis.

sorry i'm apparently very silly today, there's something about the stupider manifestations of "traditional masculinity" that brings out my inner goofball troll

i used to write like this all the time 25 years ago. sad!

I like fishing.. not very good at it tho

It's a stupid talking point being talked about by idiots and it doesn't bare analysis is how I break this down tbh

Altho I misspelled "bear" so maybe they've got me, game over woke lads

I like sitting outside doing close to nothing.

Going back to Kate’s “all women and 3 men” thing … as an AFAB who is primarily attracted to men … my instinct is to say that’s par for the course… just because I am attracted to men, it doesn’t mean I am attracted to the vast majority of men.

And I forgot if I have already mentioned the title for the next bestselling book “Men are Stupid and Women are Crazy” … reflecting how hets talk about the other gender among members of their own gender

When we go down these right-wing rabbit holes, I imagine having a co-worker in the 90s who would stop by my cubicle daily and talk nonstop with outrage about what Rush Limbaugh said today on his three-hour show, and then the same thing the next day, and the next.

When we go down these right-wing rabbit holes, I imagine having a co-worker in the 90s who would stop by my cubicle daily and talk nonstop with outrage about what Rush Limbaugh said today on his three-hour show, and then the same thing the next day, and the next.

― paisley got boring (Eazy)

i mean i couldn't do it every day, but sometimes they do something so ridiculous that even _i_ have to take notice. "the woke left hates boobs" definitely falls into that category.

And I forgot if I have already mentioned the title for the next bestselling book “Men are Stupid and Women are Crazy” … reflecting how hets talk about the other gender among members of their own gender

― sarahell

god, spending the first 43 years of my life hearing what men say about women when they think none of us are around was...

well, it was _something_ alright

Mrs HD’s friend’s husband has gone down some kind of Tate/Peterson rabbit hole and has started treating her like total shit, saying she’s not feminine enough, she’s not a real wife, like dude, the woman you married is a horse-wrangling iron-fisted bitch (in the best way), what are you even thinking? I was never a huge fan of the guy but this seems so out of left field. I’m like “shoot him in the dick and get the hell out of dodge” but of course it’s also logistically complicated & she also thinks the man she married is still in there somewhere… what the fuck is wrong with men? Rhetorical question; we know the answer.

Mrs HD’s friend’s husband has gone down some kind of Tate/Peterson rabbit hole and has started treating her like total shit, saying she’s not feminine enough, she’s not a real wife, like dude, the woman you married is a horse-wrangling iron-fisted bitch (in the best way), what are you even thinking? I was never a huge fan of the guy but this seems so out of left field. I’m like “shoot him in the dick and get the hell out of dodge” but of course it’s also logistically complicated & she also thinks the man she married is still in there somewhere… what the fuck is wrong with men? Rhetorical question; we know the answer.

― It was on a accident (hardcore dilettante)

i mean honestly when talk about men it's less "men are stupid" and more "what the fuck is wrong with men?". i hear lots of women talking about things the same way. and i mean it's a rhetorical question, i know more than most, there's nothing _wrong_ with men it's just that being "socialized male" means being taught a bunch of stupid wrong bullshit and also _not_ being taught a bunch of pretty important things.

sometimes i hear other women say like "when a guy says something shitty and hateful, can't you just say, like, hey, that's not cool, don't say that?" that's something i can do as a woman, but i never felt like i could do it when i passed as a man. i don't think it was just that i wasn't actually a man. people "socialized male" are just taught to _not listen_. like it's not just that we're not taught to listen... i mean, i _was_ taught how to listen. but i was also taught that when someone said something i disagreed with, i should argue with them. that i should debate them, bro. i've worked hard to try and learn that, but it's still a struggle. particularly since women and AFABs are taught to, like, not talk? that's something i fight against a lot. it's important for me as a woman to speak.

-

idk. something that's been a real challenge for me... i have friends who wish they'd been born cis women, wish they'd been born "real" women, and i don't feel that way about myself. with me... part of me wishes i'd been born a cis man. it feels kind of weird to say that, knowing that there are a lot of folks out there who are _absolutely insistent_ that i'm totally a man and always will be. it's stupid for them to say that. they have no idea what they're talking about.

to be clear, i _love_ being a woman. i am happy and proud to be a woman. i enjoy being a girl, in both an ironic and unironic sense. when i thought i was a man, i fucking hated it. it was terrible. it just didn't _work_ for me. i tried really hard to make it work, for a long time, and i just couldn't. ever.

i just kind of wish i could have, sometimes. i mean partly because it's so much easier to be cis than trans. partly because whatever gender i am, i'm gonna be gay as fuck, which is the _really_ important thing to me. a lot of it is, though... now that i know i'm a man, it's so much easier for me to see all of the ways in which men are great. all of the things they can do, they can be, that i can't. that i never could, because i wasn't ever really a man.

and a lot of it is stuff that just gets called "normal", because men are unmarked and women are marked, and women get judged as inferior for not being able to do it. which is dumb. like.

by the way i don't mean this in an absolute sense, gender isn't, like. there's a range of things in gender and they overlap. there are a lot of cis women who are way better at a lot of dude stuff than i am, and it doesn't make them not women, or less women, or anything like that. that's what i appreciate about women, it seems like there are _so many_ different ways to be a woman, but people act like there's only one way to be a man. i tried so hard to find a way of being a man that worked for me, and there just wasn't one. that's nothing to do with manhood. it's because i'm not a man and never was. still, i mourn that.

-

as far as "women are crazy"... idk, mostly i hear women saying that about ourselves. i've had to work really hard to stop describing myself as "crazy". i got _problems_. i'm not _crazy_. we're really pressured to put ourselves and each other down a lot... and like men put down women, but they put us down in different ways than women put each other down. like the first question a man is supposed to ask when he sees a woman is "do i want to fuck her?", and how he treats her depends on the answer to that question. and guys don't treat other guys like that. i really do think that's what makes a lot of men uncomfortable with trans women, they're kind of taught to instinctively ask that question whenever they see someone. and to then find out that a woman has or had a penis... like the only reason they feel "tricked" is because they're thinking of women in sexual terms when it's irrelevant.

it's interesting because that's one of the things i feel fortunate to have been able to unlearn. like that was behavior i learned, and in my case it got mixed up with "do i want to be her", the whole subject/object dichotomy - embodiment versus possession. particularly since there's a dialectical option, a "both/and" option. anyway i'm a lesbian, i'm still really into women, but not in the _same way_ i used to be. it's more _contextual_. that's something that's really hit me as a woman, that anything and everything is sometimes. if i'm attracted to a woman, if i'm into a woman, it's... i mean it's kind of like the man crushes i had before, but with added bonus "sexual" (or whatever it is that stands in for "sexual" for me) attraction. it doesn't override any other considerations, it's not a first-and-foremost thing.

the men i like as well... it's very similar to the man crushes i had before with added "sexual" attraction as well. just looking at a guy and thinking "mmmmm he's delectable". sometimes i do feel creepy and male-gazey for that, even though experientially i know it's not the same thing. it gets back to, like... looking at a woman's boobs and finding them attractive is _fine_. i mean women _want_ to be looked at sometimes, _want_ to be appreciated. it just sucks when that's done to the exclusion of all of our other qualities as a human being.

-

just some kind of half-baked thoughts.

Mrs HD’s friend’s husband has gone down some kind of Tate/Peterson rabbit hole and has started treating her like total shit

This is really sad and I didn't actually realize married guys were susceptible to this, I thought it was just never-girlfriend guys and divorced guys

i mean women _want_ to be looked at sometimes, _want_ to be appreciated. it just sucks when that's done to the exclusion of all of our other qualities as a human being.

it feels like this has been kicking around in the revive, and lately i feel like my understanding of it has shifted. the whole "men are stupid" thing... i mean, they are, but i think the actual problem is when "men lack awareness" and are "unable to balance". they turn their essential stupidity into rules and roles and a public persona, they go all the way with it, lack any perspective or self-awareness or lightness about it, and then it makes them miserable and they never break out of it. it's ok to want to fuck someone but if you aren't connected to the other things you want, the other human things in addition to wanting to fuck, you're just an impoverished void who everyone with any sense clocks as a potential threat. one of the great things i'm finding out about kink is that it allows me to get into a lot of really primal and "wrong" stuff within a safe and trusting frame. i think men mostly don't know what to do with their primal and wrong stuff so they put it up front and create an environment of real danger and diminishment. there's that simone weil quote "Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.”

xp my sense with guys who suddenly go down the right wing rabbit hole is that there is a certain need related to the "imaginary evil" of their manhood that they aren't getting and so they end up desperately going the way of "real evil" which is ironically a fake substitute for it.

xp My boyfriend (of 10 years) went through a spell of insisting that if I really listened to Jordan Peterson I would agree with his "points." I'm pretty sure he still thinks that but at least he stopped bringing it up.

Very unfortunately for me he also knows a rich eccentric VERY divorced man who is personal friends with Graham "Aliens built the pyramids" Hancock. Very, very divorced. So divorced. Living in an expensive house full of kooky unfinished projects and approx 0 feeling of home, complaining about his ex-wife and insisting that Graham Hancock has discovered really explosive proof that the scientific establishment doesn't want us to know about.

I think that was one of the longest days of my life.

barf

Sidney Sweeney is in a new--film? Series?--and the posters in LA seem intentionally not to emphasize her boobs.

xp i'm big into self-love and like ultimately i think correcting this falls into that category but coddled dudes who avoid struggling with anything internally are such a disease.

intellectualizing human relationships is an interesting exercise if you want to improve your generalizations about people, but if you want to connect with another human intellectualizing is a poor substitute for just paying attention to the person in front of you and responding to them. if that direct approach is not working out for you, then it's usually best to take a good look at yourself and what you're doing first, because no matter who you're with you're always half of what's happening.

^ nb: the "you" in that post is not directly about anyone else posting itt

the posters in LA seem intentionally not to emphasize her boobs.

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Well, it is LA, after all.

Which, tbf, is RARELY reticent about showing boobs.

it feels like this has been kicking around in the revive, and lately i feel like my understanding of it has shifted. the whole "men are stupid" thing... i mean, they are, but i think the actual problem is when "men lack awareness" and are "unable to balance". they turn their essential stupidity into rules and roles and a public persona, they go all the way with it, lack any perspective or self-awareness or lightness about it, and then it makes them miserable and they never break out of it. it's ok to want to fuck someone but if you aren't connected to the other things you want, the other human things in addition to wanting to fuck, you're just an impoverished void who everyone with any sense clocks as a potential threat. one of the great things i'm finding out about kink is that it allows me to get into a lot of really primal and "wrong" stuff within a safe and trusting frame. i think men mostly don't know what to do with their primal and wrong stuff so they put it up front and create an environment of real danger and diminishment. there's that simone weil quote "Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.”

xp my sense with guys who suddenly go down the right wing rabbit hole is that there is a certain need related to the "imaginary evil" of their manhood that they aren't getting and so they end up desperately going the way of "real evil" which is ironically a fake substitute for it.

― he/him hoo-hah (map)

god that simone weil quote just absolutely hits. and for me it's more than that. like imaginary suffering is a way for me to process and recontextualize the real suffering i've suffered, to resolve the complicated feelings i have about it. SA in particular... it takes something that should be amazing and makes it feel awful and sick. it's not the same as SA, but in a different way, that's how i felt about sex pre-transition... like it felt _good_ but something about it, something i couldn't understand or define, felt awful and _wrong_. i know what that was now, i don't feel that way now. it just feels good and _not_ bad.

it's the way all of this stuff gets mixed up in trauma, good and bad. right after my egg cracked and i met a chaser for the first time it was just so _weird_. i thought of myself as this ordinary middle-aged person and all of a sudden i was this guy's _fetish_? it was unthinkable that anybody would actually desire me at all in that way. (the way my ex-wife desired me is very different and is pretty much a her thing.)

i mean that's why the idea of "consensual non-consent", which wasn't around when i was younger, resonates with me so much. somebody does something i don't want to me and it feels _good_ and at some point it becomes the only thing i want, you know? and people judge and hate me for that. they judge people when they want to have things _done_ to them, and they judge people _more_ when they want to _do_ things. and the truth is that it's... it's the subject-object ambiguity again, isn't it? it's not knowing whether you want to be the perp or the victim. it's _contextual_. i've worked hard to not be ashamed of being who i am, of wanting who i want. it was a lot harder, i was a lot more ashamed, when i was carrying this "toxic masculinity" bullshit around with me. the white man's burden. fuck that. nobody wants you to carry that burden. you're not helping anybody by carring that burden. put it the fuck down and walk away.

i do think a lot of the "problem" with men is that a lot of men are ashamed of themselves for being men, they hate themselves, they think they're bad. and some jerkwad comes along and says the "woke left" is telling them that and, like. i can't even blame men for listening to andrew tate and not me, because men don't ever get to hear me, they only get to hear andrew tate. it's systemic, it's structural. men who have questions, those are the answers that are provided to them. i mean i know i keep getting back to this, but _that's_ why i hate capitalism, because it perpetuates the cycle of abuse for its own profit. it tells men they can be good IF. IF they're alpha males. IF they're chads. IF you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run.

FUCK. THAT.

you don't have to _do_ anything to be a man. i mean i could do all those things the manosphere tells men they have to do, and i still wouldn't be a fucking man. it's not in me. i don't know why, but it's not.

you can be a man if you want to be. just like i'm a woman because i want to be. no other reason.

there are these people who talk about "men going their own way", but it's not defined by anything they _do_. just by what they _don't_ do. which is to seek out and work towards intimate relationships. i don't think there's a problem with that! to me, "going your own way" means not being defined by what other people say you have to do, say you have to be, say you have to _perform_, it's about recognizing yourself, and then wise-mindedly expressing who you are to others. you do that, and the people who are worth having in your life will _recognize_ that.

i spent so much of my life living in fear, guilt, shame for how people would judge me if they knew who i really was. and they would have! it wasn't _wrong_ for me choose what i did. it was wrong that i had to make that choice. it was wrong that i had to suffer so much because of that. the world changed, radical queer people fought, my transcestors fought, and the world changed, and i _was_ able to go my own way.

i say over and over and over again that what people call "transition" has just been learning to value myself over what other people want me to be. really, though, that's not just a trans thing. that's an everyone thing. i look at a lot of these incels, and the most obvious thing in the world is that they hate themselves. i don't even care that they hate me. i don't hate them. i just don't understand why they hate _themselves_. i hated myself for a long time. it was a shitty way to live. there are still a lot of people who want me to hate myself, who want me to kill myself, and it's been hard, it _is_ hard, to stop taking on their bullshit. but goddamn if it isn't worth doing.

there's this amazing song that inspires me a lot, this underground resistance song, and the title, of course, means a lot to me, but it's not a trans song. it's just a song that happens to express the soul of my gender transition really well.

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

i mean i know i'm speechifying here but i've been through a lot of bullshit and it's limited what i can do and it's also just opened up so much _possibility_ for me. i hate that i've had to change as much as i have and it's _liberating_, if someone talks about "men's liberation" i agree with that, as long as they don't act like _i'm_ the one keeping them from liberation. what was holding me back was, you know, the cop in my head. he don't belong there. he has no place there, no right to be there. no right to be in any of our heads.

xp My boyfriend (of 10 years) went through a spell of insisting that if I really listened to Jordan Peterson I would agree with his "points." I'm pretty sure he still thinks that but at least he stopped bringing it up.

― Ima Gardener (in orbit)

i mean it's still hard. having to make those compromises. someone's a good guy _and_, a good guy _but_. like, the reason i left indiana, it wasn't because i thought i was queer or thought i would be a victim or anything like that. my fear, my horror, was the idea that i would become _like_ them. in a lot of ways i feel like i'm lucky that to be who i am. i don't have to make those compromises, i don't have to make those choices. i'm not going to have a boyfriend who's going to tell me i should listen to jordan peterson. that's just not going to work, for obvious reasons. the hard thing is that sense of _betrayal_. i haven't gotten that from a man, but i've gotten that from my mom. she taught me all these values and she's out here living in ohio and the stuff she's saying now is horrible and wrong and brain-worm-y. she always had problems, but that's not what she taught me. she's out here listening to all of these people because she wants to be "well-informed" and wants to hear "both sides" and i see what happens. it's terrifying.

who i am now, one can call it "social contagion" if one wants, but the truth is that all of us are influenced by our environments. we're all prone to "go along to get along". what i can, could do is limited by my environment. i couldn't transition in 1996. i couldn't _visualize_ or _see_ myself as trans in 1996. and i look at a lot of guys, and people who are listening to jordan peterson are limiting themselves in the same way. they hear someone who's half-right and it's more than anyone else has given them and they take the half for the whole. i guess maybe quarter-right, in peterson's case. he takes some shit he took from robert bly, who was maybe about half-right, and he mixes it with some hot fucking garbage, and because it goes out on everybody's feeds, because it's the best men know about...

i mean, being half-right is fine as long as one doesn't believe one's _totally_ right. as long as one recognizes one's limitations. women know things that guys don't, because of our lived experience, and they're always telling _us_ to listen, and like. we're _marked_. we _have_ to know. have to know maybe even to a greater extent than they have to know. because we're the ones who suffer first and most. guys, i think guys think that saying that invalidates their suffering. it doesn't. i'm going to keep saying that. it's important. men do suffer, of course, suffer strongly and deeply. it's not like their suffering doesn't _count_ or doesn't _matter_. patriarchy just hurts us first, hurts us deeper, than it hurts them.

i should take a walk or something. i'm clearly ranty today.

xp that's a great post. i very much agree with the idea that 'what's wrong with men' is essentially a repressive kind of force. "the cop in my head" is a good quick and dirty access point to it i think. masculinity exists and is beautiful. i think things like misogyny and other shallow hierarchies that twist desire into a blunt-force weapon are repressive by nature, that they aren't actually "manly", that they're unfriendly to men. i think that capitalism supports misogyny to a degree because other forms of desire/repression allow it to divide and conquer. my personal opinion is that true masculinity is embodied and therefore at odds with stronger forms of capitalist production... which are maybe all there are, at least these days....

does that mean butches and trans men are the keepers of true masculinity - since their gender generally puts them at odds with the demands of capitalist (re)production as currently constituted even if they don't want it to?

also is your point that the repression is generative for capitalism because it allows for certain divisions of labour to be established or maintained, or because the thwarted desire is rerouted and subsumed into other projects? is there a "let a thousand genders bloom" version of capitalism struggling to be born, or would such a thing be inherently too destabilising to capitalist production in some way (as well as being a threat to less exclusively profit driven social/political forces and projects)?

I'm not expecting there to be clear answers to any of these questions necessarily because who the fuck knows

sorry "true masculinity" was a poor turn of phrase i realized after the fact. i'm not sure what i mean exactly, other than in my experience gender arises out of being in my body, that i only hit dead ends when i look for gender in social norms or spectacle or the like. by "being in my body" i think of like .. imagine dancing in private, like it's a private dance one does for oneself? where movement and just like the buzz of being alive and being sexual are given attention and care.

i think that because it's an experience of being in one's body it resists all of the really "slick" kinds of behaviors that make up capitalism, because it's kind of a meditation i think? like a joyful but contained state. but yeah my experience has a sort of religious or mystical turn to it, so ymmv.

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Let us conider Chewbacca: tall guy, nice eyes. Definitely not balding. And he hangs out mainly with: a criminal, a strong-willed woman, a teenage boy, Billy Dee Williams, and some robots. He rarely dates, and we rarely see him with his own kind.

This forced, unnecessary diversity is clearly the result of rampant... WOOKIEENESS.

my sense with guys who suddenly go down the right wing rabbit hole is that there is a certain need related to the "imaginary evil" of their manhood that they aren't getting and so they end up desperately going the way of "real evil" which is ironically a fake substitute for it.

― he/him hoo-hah (map)

gonna think about this for a week or so, thanks!

Yeah, that jumped out at me too.
A very chewy insight, thanks...

He rarely dates, and we rarely see him with his own kind.

― alpaca lips now (Ye Mad Puffin)

well, yeah. chewbacca is gay. the wifflefist band "krapper keeper" established this, like, three decades ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6wKuyKL7-8

There's a new Netflix comedy special, Brian Simpson: Live From The Mothership, that's pretty good all the way through, but at the 55 minute mark he goes on about a 15-minute tear about masculinity as a prison, the Kinsey scale, the spectrum of human sexuality in general, etc., etc. that's pretty incredible (especially since if you close your eyes he sounds like Busta Rhymes). Recommended.

There's a new Netflix comedy special, Brian Simpson: Live From The Mothership, that's pretty good all the way through, but at the 55 minute mark he goes on about a 15-minute tear about masculinity as a prison, the Kinsey scale, the spectrum of human sexuality in general, etc., etc. that's pretty incredible (especially since if you close your eyes he sounds like Busta Rhymes). Recommended.

― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson)

interesting. i wish i could watch it - i don't have netflix. i googled it:

https://readysteadycut.com/2024/03/19/brian-simpson-live-from-the-mothership-review/

A serious special, indeed. Not only is Brian Simpson: Live from the Mothership the first hour-long special from up-and-coming comedian Brian Simpson, but it’s also the first special to be shot at The Comedy Mothership, the premier Austin, TX comedy venue owned by Joe Rogan.

i'm not mentioning that to suggest like "oh the venue is owned by joe rogan so this guy isn't worth listening to". i haven't seen it myself and i wish i could. to me it speaks more to the material challenges of grappling with one's own masculinity, the limitations men face. you're trying to make a career, you go after any opportunity open to you.

I had no idea about the Rogan connection, and frankly, given the views of masculinity espoused on his podcast, that makes this show even more shocking, like walking into someone's house and shitting on the floor.

I had no idea about the Rogan connection, and frankly, given the views of masculinity espoused on his podcast, that makes this show even more shocking, like walking into someone's house and shitting on the floor.

― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson)

I mean. Maybe?

Honestly, one of the things I struggle most with about... the way the world saw me is that it was pretty easy for me to be provocative in certain ways. Even encouraged, to an extent. Like, Frank Zappa was a personal hero of mine for a long time. I don't know how to feel about that. I'd do or say provocative shit to be provocative, and a lot of it was ignorant, and if somebody got mad at me for it I kind of laughed it off.

The thing I feel like I've had to work hardest at is... finding ways to express myself without being provocative. I mean, more than that, without _seeming_ provocative. In the Before Time, if people perceived me as being provocative, it was generally because I was doing some provocative shit. Nowadays, there are people who take my existence as a provocation. Hell, as a _threat_, sometimes. And it's fucking ludicrous that anybody would find me "threatening", just like it's fucking ludicrous that I could be anybody's sexual fetish, but I have to take it seriously, because I could face some pretty serious consequences if I don't.

I'm very self-conscious, these days, of what I say, how I say it, most of all _why_ I say it. I usually don't say things to be provocative. I don't feel like it's a luxury I can really afford. I work to be aware of when other people might find things I say provocative, work to be as wise-minded as possible about saying them. I think that's a good thing. I think I've become a better person from putting that work in. I'm _particularly_ careful when the people who might feel provoked or threatened are... people who are more respected than I am, who have a higher social status than me. For some reason Joe Rogan seems to be one of those people. I'm not really sure why. It's kind of surprising... like, I mean, it's possible to have a guy in one's life who values you and loves you and cares about you and for some reason values what Joe Rogan says on the Internet more than that. I mean. Radical acceptance, I guess.

I do feel like, based on my observation, a lot of it is about whether or not someone is perceived as "normal" - which is to say, a cishet white man. Joe Rogan, Alex Jones, Jordan Peterson - they all get perceived as "normal" in ways that I don't. I get perceived as "normal" in ways that Brian Simpson doesn't, Brian Simpson gets perceived as "normal" in ways that I don't. Either of us, compared to someone like Joe Rogan...

Like the hard thing is just to be honest. To talk about one's genuine experiences. Knowing that people are going to perceive that as a provocation, an attack, a threat, and doing it anyway just because to _not_ do that is too fucking hard.

I really am... I really do try to "go along to get along". As much as I was "provocative", "iconoclastic"... and I probably genuinely was, in some ways... it was really hard for me to... step outside the lines in certain ways. It was very hard and scary.

I haven't seen Simpson's special at all. I don't know what he says in it. I know that when I first transitioned I had... A lot of fire, a lot of passion, a lot of drive to make the world a better place. I think that was good, it was good that I had that kind of energy. It was frustrating because I had this kind of expectation that because I was _right_, people would _listen_. I don't believe that anymore. I don't say the things I say because I want people to listen. I say them because they're things I need to say. Because I feel like I wouldn't be valuing myself if I didn't say them.

To the extent that Simpson is challenging Rogan's ideas about masculinity, I think that's a good thing. I don't think it's provocative of him to do that. I think if anyone's being provocative, it's Rogan... it just doesn't get seen that way because it's _his_ house. Simpson is just a guest there.

Thinking a lot about men lately. Thinking about, like, The Game. You just lost the Game.

Do you know about The Game? It's got one rule: Every time you think about the Game, you lose. I never thought of it before, but it's the same game people used to talk about back in the day. They'd say "Don't hate the player, hate the game." When I was younger, like, in my late teens, when they talked about the game they'd talk about it like they did in War Games (1983), like, the only way to win is not to play. That just seems silly to me now. I mean if you didn't know about the game until now, it's not like you were _winning_. You just didn't know you were losing.

When I look at a lot of people... and it seems like, particularly, a lot of guys... it's not so much, like. People aren't stupid, no matter how stupid some of us may seem. These guys know they're losing. All of this stuff about "beta cucks" and whatever. They think they can win. That's why this thing... some of the blackpill 4channers have started talking about this thing which I'll euphemize as "transmaxxing". Where they really believe they're transitioning to, like. "Win". Like they actually believe that, like... all of the transphobic shit, they buy into it, and they're like, well, I'm not trans, I'm just doing this because that's how I _win_. It's hilarious and I kind of am like... I mean, whatever you need to tell yourself. I don't judge. We're not "winning", damn, none of us are "winning", but I love myself now, I experience _joy_ now, and I didn't before. That's not "winning". None of us are "winning", none of us can "win", on an _individual_ level. The best we can do is live our lives without thinking about it.

To try and be happy despite being defined by this thing we can't change, this thing that we're always being reminded of. Toxic masculinity is telling guys, you know, you could get away this. You could be a winner, if it weren't for those meddling kids.

There are these billboards where I live. I don't know if they have them anywhere else. The Catholics put them up. And they say "REAL MEN LOVE BABIES". I was so mad when I first saw them, last year when I was getting my last round of TMS. I don't know, maybe it was because they were new, maybe it was because I took things more personally then. Maybe it was because they reminded me of The Game. I was really bothered about losing The Game back then. Sometimes I still am.

Because that billboard is just a matroshkya of patriotic ... sorry, _patriarchal_ bullshit. It's bad and manipulative on so many levels. I mean, first off, that's dumb, loving babies doesn't make you more of a man. It's fine to hate babies. Second off, I mean, if you don't want a baby yourself, it doesn't mean you don't love babies. Even beyond that, though - you can love a baby, and want a baby, and recognize hey, a baby is a big responsibility, maybe I'm not up for that. Hell, you can drill down further on that. I love babies, I want a baby, I can take care of a baby... and babies don't stay babies forever. Someone who has a kid because they "love babies", I mean, I've seen plenty of people who have done that. It's not healthy. Someone who thinks like that, who's like "Oh I love babies, babies are so cute", I mean, yes, and having a baby is also a lifelong commitment. Living in this world is hard, living in this world means dealing with a lot of fucked up shit, and that doesn't mean it's not good to be alive, to live in this world, to be _born_. What it means to me is that someone who's a child in this world... children deserve to be loved and cared for. Someone who can't do that and decides they're going to have a baby anyway... that's not a virtue, I don't think. It's being unmindful, being unmindful in a way that results in hurting someone else who doesn't deserve to be hurt. Who deserves to be loved and cared for.

And that's not even the end of it. I mean that in itself would be enough, but it's not the end of it. We keep drilling down and we get to the real heart of it. Even if you love babies, even if you want a baby yourself, even if you _can_ care for a baby, even if you are willing to do the work to be a Good Enough parent, even after your child isn't a baby anymore... that doesn't give you the _right_ to tell someone else they _have to_ have your baby. You impregnating someone doesn't give you dominion over _their_ body. And of course that's the real message here, the real message the Catholics are trying to communicate. That particular manifestation of patriarchy. The idea that someone, as a man, has a right to control other people's bodies. Not just someone a man personally has impregnated, but an entire _class_ of bodies. Any body that's... I mean, when I talk about "marked" bodies, that's written into one of the creation stories Christians believe, right? That women become pregnant and bear children because we are _wicked_, because we are _inferior_.

Which is kind of weird because those of us women who _can't_ get pregnant and bear children are thought of as being inferior to even _that_. I mean those same people turn around and call me wicked, evil, say that I'm not a "real woman", and they come up with all kinds of bullshit reasons, lies they make up. And you drill down, again, through all those lies, throw out all the things that aren't true, and at some point they start saying, well, you're not a real woman because you can't conceive or bear a child. And even that, me personally, I don't think that's the real reason people say I'm not a woman. I think it's because I was born with an anatomically normal penis and testicles, and a lot of people are weird about that kind of thing. You know. Pineapple on pizza and all that.

That's not the point I'm getting at here, though, what's important is that they _also_ believe, they say, that I'm not a real woman because I can't conceive and bear a child. I don't read that as transphobia, because infertility _isn't_ just a trans thing. All my life I've known plenty of women who for various reasons were infertile, and these voices of patriarchy are coming out here and saying they're not real women either. That's not new. I was raised Catholic and the Catholic Church has been beating that drum all my life. They tried to teach me that women are wombs, vessels, handmaids. Nothing more.

I refused to learn that message. I can't understand people who did. I can't understand people who don't understand that the people pushing that message the ones who made the game, that one simple rule: "You lose." I can't understand people who think that people like _me_ are the ones behind The Game. Why would I make up a game like that? That's about the dumbest, least fun game I can think of.

-

There's this other thing I think about, when it comes to Portland. The street over from mine, there's this house being built. I call it either the Ugly House or the Fascist House. Either will do. It's the _style_ of the thing. It's all black, and it's kind of Italian futurist in style. People talk about "brutalist" architecture, which is huge and cold and grey. Fascist buildings, Mussolini-style fascist buildings at least, are just as inhospitable, but all black and edgelordy. I don't know whose house it is, who's building it. In my head it's some fucking techbro. I can't imagine anybody else who would _want_ to live in something that looks like that.

Anyway, outside the house.. I don't know if it's legally habitable yet, but I walk by and there's a pickup truck outside, and it's got an "88" bumper sticker, but it's also got one of those "OBEY" bumper stickers from the movie They Live (1988). And of course the person who owns it is a cis white man. I don't know that for sure, but if you told me that's not a cis white man's car, I really don't think I'd believe you. Because I don't know that I can suspend my _disbelief_ in the assumption I've made. It's fascinating to me, that They Live bumper sticker. Whoever has that bumper sticker, their brain is doing a lot of work to believe its message is somehow congruent with an "88" bumper sticker. I'm not saying.... I mean I've made plenty of far-fetched interpretations of art and artists to try and make their work to conform to my personal beliefs. I don't think that's a good thing. Taking "They Live" as an endorsement of fascism, though...

What the fuck is wrong with guys like that?

I hate babies; I also want a baby. Not any more, I don’t wanna be an “old dad”, my dad was 40 when he had me and he’s always felt impossibly old, my whole life.

Re: “the game”. I have always held that one of the unspoken greatest privileges of being male, or straight, or white, or able, or cis, or North American, et cetera, is the obliviousness that accompanies existing within that privilege. To exist without self-criticality, to have one’s being be the accepted “norm”: that state of “not having to think about it” is really, for me, what best defines a privileged existence. Perhaps this is somewhat related to “the game” of which you type?

Yup. I used to think complacency -- their lack of interiority -- was a cheerful shield against the world. Now I agree with James Baldwin, who said (I paraphrase) that as Americans we're most frightened of having to live together.

Kate OTMFM about “the game.”

Re: 88: Person could be a Dale Earnhardt Jr. fan. Which is almost as yikes.

xpost Not that it makes any more sense, but do you think that Obey has more of a connection to the whole Shepard Fairey-Andre the Giant thing?

I see lots of discordant car flair. A few weeks ago I saw one with a "Giant Asteroid 2024" political bumper sticker, but also a small "don't tread on me" decal. I guess that is pretty consistent with libertarian inconsistency. Not sure it was a man driving, tbh.

88 keys on a piano, too! I'm always on the lookout for crypto supremacy signafiers, but sometimes I think I am too attuned. Like, whenever I see a big burly bearded dude covered with tattoos, I just assume somewhere on his body is something offensive. On the other hand, maybe he's just a guy that likes tattoos. I know lots of guys covered with tattoos.

Anyway, outside the house.. I don't know if it's legally habitable yet, but I walk by and there's a pickup truck outside, and it's got an "88" bumper sticker, but it's also got one of those "OBEY" bumper stickers from the movie They Live (1988). And of course the person who owns it is a cis white man. I don't know that for sure, but if you told me that's not a cis white man's car, I really don't think I'd believe you. Because I don't know that I can suspend my _disbelief_ in the assumption I've made. It's fascinating to me, that They Live bumper sticker. Whoever has that bumper sticker, their brain is doing a lot of work to believe its message is somehow congruent with an "88" bumper sticker. I'm not saying.... I mean I've made plenty of far-fetched interpretations of art and artists to try and make their work to conform to my personal beliefs. I don't think that's a good thing. Taking "They Live" as an endorsement of fascism, though...

What the fuck is wrong with guys like that?

― Kate (rushomancy), Tuesday, March 26, 2024 5:31 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Was it a Buckaroo Banzai sticker? Maybe they just like 1980s sci-fi.

https://media.cgtrader.com/variants/6hi1zVUNimmGPh7f83HMNrB1/64d1262c1acde2eb3beef249c4695a8ad88c958dd79db36f763bf631017addd0/a13dd3a4-512e-4abe-ba4c-79a664cb142f.jpg

Or perhaps it's an Asian person's car. 88 is a good luck number in China.

It's interesting that you bring up The Game. I was thinking last night about the concept of having game, in the context of being a smooth-talker with women. In particular, I remembered an instance from high school, when I was around a group of female friends, and being told that I had no game. I was so frustrated at that. I didn't want there to be a game. I had not been previously told that there was a game and once I heard about it, it was something that no one was interested in explaining to me. That conversation definitely put me on the verge of some thoughts that we would now call incel-ish, at the time.

is the "OBEY" accompanied by a picture of Andre the Giant by any chance?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_the_Giant_Has_a_Posse

I mean I've made plenty of far-fetched interpretations of art and artists to try and make their work to conform to my personal beliefs. I don't think that's a good thing. Taking "They Live" as an endorsement of fascism, though...

What the fuck is wrong with guys like that?

You think it's weird that a guy with an 88 sticker would like a movie where a secret conspiracy of aliens rules society and controls what messages go out on the media?

I mean, spend a little time on ILX.