marketing of masculinity

The stupid conflation of gayness with femininity. Shit, from the pov of butch dykes, riding Harleys is GAY.

Can I -- do I even have to say that the word "mancave" makes every skin cell I have cringe in repulsion? There are whole shows dedicated to...them. I'm not saying it again. It's a terrible word. Also, really, just crawl back into a vagina and find a womb if you really need it to be warm and dark and infantilizing that badly.

^^exerting your own expectations of masculinity

plax: I kinda feel like everyone should have the right to be a fag, straight or gay

never felt in the right position to assert this myself, idk if I'd be co-opting or how it'd seem from outside, but I think this is space worth fighting for anyway.

Fear of gayness is apparently the only available effective tool to motivate men to get off the couch and buy something.

The stupid conflation of gayness with femininity.

yeah the underlying assumption behind "men don't bake" isn't "gay men bake" it's "women bake"

But also that being like a woman = gay, no?

yeah I guess the reaction of the other guys isn't like "oh shit... this dude might be a woman!!"

Is it an overreaction to think shit like this feeds shit like this?

This quote horribly lol:

"That was the pathetic reason as to why this terrible event happened - because he wanted to show he wasn't a pussy"
David Jeremy QC, prosecuting

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/10372678.stm

i guess it 'feeds into it' but you might as well posit other pop-cultural causes while yer at it. video games. rap music. action movies.

red bull imo

Can I -- do I even have to say that the word "mancave" makes every skin cell I have cringe in repulsion? There are whole shows dedicated to...them. I'm not saying it again. It's a terrible word. Also, really, just crawl back into a vagina and find a womb if you really need it to be warm and dark and infantilizing that badly.

This is OTMFM. My wife and I just bought a house, and there are several more rooms than we previously had in the place we were renting. I cannot tell you how many times people were like "Oooh. Now you can have a MAN CAVE."

Fuck that. If I want to watch a football game or play video games or watch a war movie, I'll do it. If my wife is currently utilizing the television, I'll either go somewhere I can watch the game or wait until she isn't. I don't need some sanctum infantatum to go do my "manly" things. At least back in the day the den was a place of work or quiet contemplation or reading or some such shit. Its replacement - the man cave - is a place of 50" plasma televisions, team logo stickers, and keggerators. Shit, dude. Leave that at a bar.

Its just so lame. I get that some dudes need to have a place where they can get away from the world and just kick it, watch a game, sit in recliners, drink beer, or whatever.

BUT WOMEN DON'T WANT THAT, TOO? FUCK!

Caveat: I do have an "office" because I work a fair bit at home, and am distracted relatively easily. This will not become a man cave, however.

How about an interact-with-your-family-like-they're-real-people cave?

(there are no caves or private areas, except the bathroom and my kid's bedroom)

At least back in the day the den was a place of work or quiet contemplation or reading or some such shit. Its replacement - the man cave - is a place of 50" plasma televisions, team logo stickers, and keggerators.

Haha. I went off the handle a little bit yest but I should maybe be more thoughtful and say, yeah, agreed w BLAM on this point: of course EVERYONE would like space for themselves, comfort, etc, but I have to main objections to the mancave:

1. It pre-assumes that the rest of the house is NOT his, meaning it must belong to his wife and he's somehow less welcome or less "in control" there, which is obvious gendered bullshit and demeaning to all parties.

2. Men are being sold the lowest common denominator of hopes and dreams for this little bit of space that is "theirs". And they're supposed to be MOST at home and most their "real" authentic selves there, somehow? Except the whole sports and beer and bravado and sloppiness thing, while I myself am a big supporter of all these in the right context, these are not qualities that exercise the "best self" even though they have their place in life. This is not what we need more of in the home, or in our heads really.

*TWO main objections. Fingers too fast there.

How about an interact-with-your-family-like-they're-real-people cave?

Nah. Fuck them.

how many people actually have these man caves? outside of beer commercials and sitcoms and mtv cribz.

Also related to expounding on point #2: I loathe the fact that advertisers have successfully made this kind of personal space in the home be about CONSUMPTION more than contemplation, or anything else the space could be used for. Maybe that's snobbish/elitist of me.

iatee, I have no idea, but people on home shows who're shopping for a new place or w/e seem to talk about them A LOT.

I agree that it's a concept of sorts and surely does exist in reality for some people - but to say that it's replaced the den? I dunno, I'd bet there are 5x as many 'dens' as 'man caves' in america...bet based entirely off personal experience.

New idea: Is the "man cave" a replacement idea for the garage or workshop, for "modern" men who don't have garages or wood-working areas or tools and hobbies of that particular "manly" sort? Like, a lot of people can come to the rescue with a cordless drill or some basic plumbing stuff like getting things out of the drain trap etc, in an emergency, but most of us "urban"(?) younger people don't spend the number of hours working on machinery or carpentry projects, etc, that I remember people doing when I was little. Or yardwork, because we don't have yards per se or we hire landscapers or something.

But, on the other hand, does this not take at least part of the recreation and socializing out of bars and bring it into the home? Is that bad?

I loathe the fact that advertisers have successfully made this kind of personal space in the home be about CONSUMPTION more than contemplation, or anything else the space could be used for. Maybe that's snobbish/elitist of me.

Holy shit, me too. At some point, the eating/drinking/buying must stop, right? READ A BOOK!

we call the room in the cellar with the couch, tv, and dvd player the "man cave" but we're both men and it really is like a cave so

oops i meant "man den"

usually said with a terrible british accent? ymmv

Was the den just the middle-class-ification of the "library"? Which was also a men's sanctum in houses that could afford one, iirc.

New idea: Is the "man cave" a replacement idea for the garage or workshop, for "modern" men who don't have garages or wood-working areas or tools and hobbies of that particular "manly" sort? Like, a lot of people can come to the rescue with a cordless drill or some basic plumbing stuff like getting things out of the drain trap etc, in an emergency, but most of us "urban"(?) younger people don't spend the number of hours working on machinery or carpentry projects, etc, that I remember people doing when I was little. Or yardwork, because we don't have yards per se or we hire landscapers or something.

this sounds right tbh.

I mean, when I think of the concept, it's less to do with masculinity and more with privacy (treehouse!). "hobby cave"

like when some lady tames this ~stallion~, I imagine I'll want some sort of space to do nerdy projecting ( bikes or w/e) by myself. just cuz I like to do that stuff alone, not because Ill expect my wife to be baking pies all the time

tho that would be dope, I love pie

yeah I mean people like having their own private space (not just men...) - I do think it comes down to the fact that most peoples' hobbies = watching tv

man cave pioneer:

http://a0.vox.com/6a00c225240649549d00d4141e3c30685e-500pi

yeah but calling it a "man cave" just conjures up bad smells imo.

what about "penis room"?
or "room for penises"

How about "room for athletic assholes"?

How about a room for shutin gamers?

That doesn't really fit in with the kind of party me and Matt P are having, sorry.

Frankly if there were a room that my family members/partner were reluctant to enter and where I was allowed to spend hours of recreation time basically unaccounted for except for occasional hobbyist projects that resulted, I'd spend every waking and non-working moment there.

Which would basically defeat the purpose of having a family/partner but you know, what can you do.

room with stuff in it for me to do

And I would really like it to be as boring as possible to everyone but me.

Frankly if there were a room that my family members/partner were reluctant to enter and where I was allowed to spend hours of recreation time basically unaccounted for except for occasional hobbyist projects that resulted, I'd spend every waking and non-working moment there.

Which would basically defeat the purpose of having a family/partner but you know, what can you do.

^^ This. Laurel, I feel like we agree on this topic whole-heartedly.

you can do it even if you have a partner, don't need to designate a room either

I need a bigger apartment. With a den.

:(

In Britain, this space is called 'the shed' and it's a place for men who like kamikaze home repair to isolate themselves from their houses. It is accepted by the type of man who celebrates Top Gear viewing as a 'blokey' pursuit.

Further to what Plaxico was saying about the doc above, this is just another take on projecting 'realness' or basically it's Paris is Burning in a lumberjack shirt. I also give a lot of traction to the idea that the gay fashion designer's first-collection 'muse' for menswear is the guy they were bullied by, or the guy they fancied at a time when they had less acceptance/control over how they, themselves, were seen.

found the trailer for that doc. btw. iirc the guy who says the line i was talking about is pretty much the only interesting guy in it, and not just bc of his awesome moustache.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oTB_NkZjLM

I'm not sure how comfortable I am w/ describing gay displays of masculinity in a kind of PIB realness context either bc it kind of implicitly suggests that straight displays of "masculinity" are in some way more real or authentic than gay.

Your comfort is not the issue, as the voguers were the ones who invented 'realness' categories and predicated it on the whole phenomenon of 'passing', but I would argue that all 'masculine' displays have that aspect.

you are being p. hasty w/ prescribing an element of a very specific subultural phenomenon existing in a very specific context as somehow paradigmatic of the vastly larger cultural spectrum of male gender performativity. But beyond that,I mean, a large part of the performance of "realness" in PIB is explained by the ballers as an expression of their desire to overcome marginality, that line about the appearance of success being an equivalent for success itself (framed against the backdrop of racism, homo/transphobia and the aspirational climate of american popular culture in the 70s, 80s in partic.)

PIB?

paris is burning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydA7-qCv570

dorian corey is such a hero

I loathe the fact that advertisers have successfully made this kind of personal space in the home be about CONSUMPTION more than contemplation, or anything else the space could be used for. Maybe that's snobbish/elitist of me.

Well yeah, me too - and maybe this is a bit off-topic - but one thing I've been noticing among my friends who are also urbanites, is a desire to return to the carpentry/construction/productive projects that we associate from the middle America of our youth. It's like everyone I know who lives somewhere with anything resembling a backyard wants to have a garden and grow produce and raise chickens.