Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

where all my gamergate bros at

outmoded. deal

I remember Andrea Juno insisting that men hanging out in groups occasionally was good for them but I didn't understand why she thought that.

Marcos- I understand the male only sexual health group but not the other examples.

I've been to one small bachelor party, maybe a dozen years ago. I had some experiences, as the only queer there (afaik), that I had not had before. (The groom behaved impeccably btw.)

FWIW my "bachelor party" was just me and my close friends getting ethiopian food and drinks and seeing some music. There was a brief moment of me and a friend talking shit about a woman we had both dated, with a sort of knowing "Okay, just this once, since it's a *bachelor party*" wink. Even that shittalking didn't get all that ugly.

Being a straight, white male has pretty much always felt weird to me inasmuch as I don't relate to most of the things I'm 'supposed' to relate to as a straight, white male. Beyond even just like sports or whatever, I mean weird-ass competitive displays of dominance and strength and machismo and whatever the hell. Just trying to describe the prescriptive aspects of maleness that squick me out, I feel like someone who's always experienced it at a remove and barely has any idea what he's talking about.

yeah I hear you.

bewar! others have trod where you wish to tread: maleness

i think progressive men who don't want the world to be the way the world has always been need to STEP THE FUCK UP. but i don't know how you change the world. i just try to change myself on the regular. and evolve. i am all for evolution. which can be difficult for people. and which is a daily process. and this is why a lot of men just choose to put their hand down their pants Bundy-style and turn on the boob tube and fuggedahboutit.

One thing I was thinking reading the Weinstein thread is how important it is for men to kind of guide other men away from the wrong kinds of attitudes and behaviors and give them an alternative. I feel like I was extremely lucky that I had this freshman year roommate who happened to have this friend from home who was at the school and who became my very good friend -- he was a very confident guy and just wasn't having any of the bullshit. My first weekend we went to hang out with some junior that one of them knew and he was being a complete piece of shit, saying gross stuff about women, pressuring us to get wasted, etc. and the guy who became my friend made an exit for us and then talked on the way home about how much the whole experience sucked, and it made me feel like "Okay, college doesn't have to be like that, I'm not going to go that route."

I'm gonna be the contrarian and say....I don't mind when my buddies wanna hang with me away from wives and girlfriends? And I like/love their wives and girlfriends. I don't see the big deal. Maybe my gayness is the x factor.

also, marcos on the other thread describing his gross toxic high school was a description of EVERY school i ever went to. and i went to....five schools. just being around that for so many years was so detrimental.

I've tried steering other men's behavior before and ime it is thankless and usually unhelpful, which is not me saying it's not worth attempting.

i have a friend whose marriage ended and he has apparently quite literally gone down a rabbit hole of cocaine and escorts. meanwhile a mutual friend told *me* that guy actually has some kind of problems w/my low-key lifestyle, like how i don't actually want to party anymore (ftr, my partying w/him involved having two beers and him having three cocktails and then insisting we split the bill, so...)

dude i don't want to hang out w/you and listen to your BS "true man" advice about how to live while you're doing lines with someone you're paying to have sex with you.

Our friend group has never done all-male things (even the bachelor 'parties' were co-ed), but there are definitely 'ladies only' nights that get organized and my wife hates it.

That said there have been issues over the years with certain dudes tending to dominate the conversation (shocking I know), so I can appreciate wanting a different dynamic. But most of us who are in relationships, y'know, like having our partner at social gatherings with mutual friends.

xp

yea that's gruesome xp

i have better friends than that guy, fortunately. i think one aspect of this is that sometimes you change and other people don't change.

Maybe my gayness is the x factor.

yeah having non-heteros in an all-male mix definitely alters social dynamics in my experience

I'm often in the exclusive company of men when I socialize, and not always all-gay. Generally things don't get gross.

or should i say, sometimes you change in one direction and other people change in another direction. xp

I didn't have to deal with much toxic maleness as a kid/teen. I'm very thankful for the friends I had back then. I had lots of time with other young men and we were mostly never gross about women, or like weird and competitive. Began to experience it a lot more as an adult, which definitely made my social anxiety worse and led to me being pretty much a shut-in.

We discuss music, movies, politics, our sex lives in an adult, non-gross way, problems with dating/wives/girlfriends. They find it more helpful than I do. I don't see anything wrong with me for wanting to see them a couple times a month without their spouses and girlfriends. In fact, if anything, in Hispanic culture there's too much of an obsession with couples doing everything together.

I've tried steering other men's behavior before and ime it is thankless and usually unhelpful, which is not me saying it's not worth attempting.

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Thursday, October 12, 2017 5:54 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I feel like this is a massive public health issue and want to do something about it, but I have no idea where to begin

"I don't see the big deal. Maybe my gayness is the x factor."

i would be totally happy to hang out with a group of gay guys. i miss hanging out with gay guys. living with gay men in philly and knowing a wide range of gay men was one of my favorite things about living there. living in squaresville can suck sometimes.

i think men should make sure they listen to a lot of music by artists who are not male and read a lot of books by authors who are not male. that sounds like a very simple thing, but it's important.

i will say though on behalf of my squaresville that the men i know and am friends with tend to be mellow/creative/metrosexual/progressive/not gross/freak folkers and i can't say enough good stuff about them. but i don't really hang with men outside of music events that much.

xps: I would definitely not categorically exclude gay guys from the group of men who think they can let loose with their misogyny once they think it's 'just us guys'.

i mean a lot of the men i know COULD be gay if they just tried harder. those are the str8 guys i get along with best.

Several straight friends are gayer than I am.

i think men should make sure they listen to a lot of music by artists who are not male and read a lot of books by authors who are not male. that sounds like a very simple thing, but it's important.

― nomar, Thursday, October 12, 2017 1:03 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Totally. I can't really shut up about it, but I've been somewhat obsessed with Adrianne Lenker/Big Thief lately. The first song on the new album has been having a huge affect on me, the way I see male-female relationships, sex, etc., it really puts some things together that I sort of was subliminally aware of but hadn't allowed myself to get in touch with. In general her lyrics are so humanizing and I find her very therapeutic to listen to.

*effect

I would definitely not categorically exclude gay guys from the group of men who think they can let loose with their misogyny once they think it's 'just us guys'.

this is def true but gay misogyny is a different beast, it's coming from a different place where the sexual frustration/aggression angle doesn't come into it

xp

The most heinous group I know is around an acquaintance/former lover who never lets an opportunity to shame women slip by.

this is def true but gay misogyny is a different beast, it's coming from a different place where the sexual frustration/aggression angle doesn't come into it

I don't really buy that. The misogyny I've seen from both straight and gay men revolves around demeaning women and reducing them to objects that are at disposal; whether they want to touch them sexually or not doesn't drive the behavior, which manifests similar patterns of diminishing, gaslighting, and undermining.

one of cyrus's best friends has a gay dad - this kid has two moms and two dads for the total western mass package - who is totally into 80's/synth/disco and when he comes around i try not jump on him with madonna talk but i get starved! rupaul was his roommate in the 80's! how can i resist?

some sorta x-post

The misogyny I've seen from both straight and gay men revolves around demeaning women and reducing them to objects that are at disposal; whether they want to touch them sexually or not doesn't drive the behavior, which manifests similar patterns of diminishing, gaslighting, and undermining.

otm

Nomar OTM about reading books by women, listening to music made by women, experiencing art made by women. I've made a concious effort the last year to read more women, and I don't know if it has profoundly altered the way I see thee world, but it's also helped me understand some subleties abt the experience of women in the world. Idk. I try, but I'm no paragon of virtue. I think especially when I was younger, late teens/early twenties, I probably said lots of inappropriate or terrible things when hanging out with dudes. But it's important to be work at being better and acknowledge the fact that by making (even ironic) sexist or racy jokes we are perpetuating a bad thing.

Ass far as hanging out in male groups -- I think a significant portion (20%?)of my socializing is in a male only environment, but it's never organized or thought of in those terms. There are a couple of guys I get together with once or twice a month to listen to 78s. We're just the only ppl we know who are nerdy about that music at that level, and we're all happily married. Rarely does the topic of wives come up; too busy talking about alternate takes and who was playing 2nd guitar on a session. If anything, we most often express how thankful we are to have partners who indulge our weird hobbies and other quirks.

Helen and I don't go out with other couples very much in a "double date" kinda way, but our neighborhood pals are a healthy mix of men and women. A group of people coming over for dinner or to listen to records is never one or the other. Definitely having close friends who are women has helped me to be a better person and more concious of my words/actions.

Maybe ILB should stop having FAPs :(

i think w/the exclusively male nights out i've had, there is this sense of MEN, TO BATTLE, for tonight we etc etc. it's a little lame. i do have a few male friends with whom i have some record listening parties and talk audio shop and equipment and the like, though we've also had women involved w/both (just not most of the time.) that feels a bit more natural as opposed to a "just the boys" night out.

you need a gay man in your life, nomar

maybe it's because i think my friends skew younger but if there happens to be an all-dude hangout it's unintentional and ends up being like record shopping/listening and beers and n64 basically. and it's usually 2-3 guys, never like a big posse

xp no kidding, i mean none of my bros want to talk about saint etienne w/me

oh so you all take it seriously this time

This discussion has prompted me to try and remember the last time I hung out with just guys (who weren't my brothers)...and I honestly think it could've been a decade or more ago.

Like the closest I can think of was an all-male anxiety group (organized and run by my then-therapist, a woman). And that isn't quite what I'd call a 'hang'.

Heh, it's actually kind of a problem that a lot of my straight male friends are musicians who often want to talk to me specifically (and not my wife) about music shit that only we care about.

My gay friends want to talk about books (but are way better about including everyone in the conversation).

Wow, you guys have whole groups of friends!

I often see a conversation on twitter where
1. women will talk about how men have a responsibility to challenge problematic comments made by male friends, esp when in all-male groups
2. a bunch of men will respond saying that avoid hanging out with the kind of guys who say stuff like that, or avoid hanging out in all-male groups altogether because they find them toxic
3. women will respond saying that this is not helpful/an abrogation of responsibility etc, that men who consider themselves 'allies' or whatever have a duty to engage with these ppl/situations.

idk, befriending ppl you don't enjoy spending time with solely so you can admonish them for their bad behavior seems unlikely to end well for anyone? to actually maintain those friendships imo you would have to pick your battles to a certain extent, let some things slide, be complicit up to a point, and where do you draw the line? but I can see the logic of saying that a guy who avoids this kind of environment to keep himself 'pure' is actually doing less to help than someone who hangs out in groups that are problematic but makes some attempt to push back against that.

^^^ this is what I was thinking about earlier in the context of this thread, I don't have any easy answers but I sure don't want to hang out with assholes just so I can argue with them

i guess w/that i try to lead by example and live a more decent life, ian otm here:

I try, but I'm no paragon of virtue. I think especially when I was younger, late teens/early twenties, I probably said lots of inappropriate or terrible things when hanging out with dudes. But it's important to be work at being better and acknowledge the fact that by making (even ironic) sexist or racy jokes we are perpetuating a bad thing.

^^i mean i went through a period of my life where while i wasn't a terrible person i was certainly not ideal. the only thing you can do is try to change yourself and work on yourself, because if you sense that what you're doing is wrong then you need to reset yourself. it's never too late. i've seen a lot of people i know make a concerted effort to change and have been successful, and i think i count myself among them, or at least i hope so. i've seen others who have never changed and don't seem to want to.

^ 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.

that state of “not having to think about it” is really, for me, what best defines a privileged existence.

Definitely. That's why things like diversity training sessions, talking about things like unconscious bias — which most of us here would probably roll our eyes at in a corporate training setting, understanding it as mostly box-checking performance — can be actually enraging to some white people and white MEN in particular. For an hour, they are supposed to "think about it." They are expected, even if on a superficial level, to exhibit some awareness of their own privileged place in a system. But not being aware of that is exactly the nature and reward of that privilege, and so in a certain way to even contemplate the privilege at all is to give up a little of it.

tbh bosses telling their workers to check their privilege is enraging and almost guaranteed to bring out people's ugliest impulses

and I've known enough white men who know all the right things to say and still behave like their conservative brothers (at work, in their relationships, in politics, etc) so I'm not sure they're giving up much and are sometimes gaining things (unlike most of the people who were saying all this shit first) by being less egregiously awful than some on the most superficial level

Sure, that's all true but it's also true that for some number of those guys that kind of setting is the literal first time they're being asked to even consider these things. (Doesn't have to be a workplace setting, can be a college orientation or whatever.)

I'm familiar with these men and their reactions but I find it hard to believe they don't already know all this on some level esp given their political behaviour and the preemptive aggro-defensive nature of these reactions

broadening scope there is a tacit acknowledgement among the beneficiaries of colonialism that there is something deeply fucked about their position in the world and I think there us something similar going on with these guys (often the same people) since the reactions are the same and would not look the way they do if coming from a purely ignorant/innocent place

Sure, they’re aware “at some level “, but previously they’ve only been hectored by Them Wokes about it online or exposed to it through the lens of opposition — this is probably the first time it’s been painstakingly explained to them in a setting where they’re forced to listen (and maybe even to - gasp - engage with the ideas) — even to the point of being told by HR or whatever that checking their privilege is an expectation.

I used to hang out with some guys who played the Game constantly, I thought it was odd but it was pretty good-natured overall? Just a lot of fun to tell some shaggy dog story and then once you get everyone invested, shout "and then... you lost the game!" Or try and get someone else to say "The Game" via a series of questions thereby making everyone (including yourself!) lose. It wasn't even an especially dudely thing in my experience, all the tabletop gamers and RenFaire folk I knew played it, women included. I always assumed it was because these people were giant nerds and loved games of any kind, the more conceptual the better... one you could play anywhere, anytime, with no equipment necessary was irresistible. That group of folks used to play a bunch of other much more infuriating conceptual games like that, most of which turned on the fact that only some of the group knew the hidden rules. The Game at least was both straightforward and only worked if everyone playing to know the rules (well, rule).

I find it hard to believe they don't already know all this on some level

Maybe in some cases, but ... again, it's the nature of the privilege itself NOT to know. Do not underestimate the power of not-knowing. A lot of these guys have lived their entire lives in cultural, economic and political spaces where there is no reason at all to question the nature of existing power hierarchies. I talk to these kind of people a fair amount, as a number of them happen to hold public office around me. Their ignorance is not a front.

OK sure I guess I'm more familiar with the ignorance being a front since I've always been in mixed urban spaces where having an understanding of your relative privilege is pretty important if you want to exploit it without arousing too much suspicion

but I think of the ultimate aggrieved white guys - the CSA - and nothing about them makes sense if they didn't totally understand the price of their position in their society. I'm not sure how different their present day equivalents are. their political decisions suggest they know a lot more than they let on

maybe it's just hard for me to imagine not feeling guilty and neurotic and paranoid about power and social hierarchies but the closest I come to understanding the emotional appeal of right wing politics is the false promise of relief from all that - if you're not uncertain about where you stand why do you need to be so angry and violent about it all the time?

Oh I think they do feel under attack and under threat, but they think all of those attacks and threats are deeply unfair, dishonest and malignant. (All very much stoked by steady diets of right-wing media of course).

I guess you can get into epistemological debates about what people "know" on some level, but in my experience the daily existence of your average white conservative American male who spends most of their time in mostly white mostly conservative spaces is quite sunny and untroubled by nagging doubts or secret guilts. A lot of this is tied to the conservative/evangelical focus on "individual responsibility." They can't see how they could possibly be responsible for anything happening to anyone else, because people are responsible for themselves and rise or fail or rise on their own merits. Which is a very easy thing to believe if you happen to find yourself on the good side of an unequal system or society.

So yeah they get angry when people suggest even implicitly that maybe they don't "deserve" everything they have, but I think that anger comes more from a deep belief that someone's trying to take things from them than from trying to cover up for their own self-awareness of their complicity in an unjust system.

Not that it's excusable or defensible either way! I just think it's easy to imagine other people "know" things and are dissembling, when often they are just plain ignorant and happily so.

I hate babies; I also want a baby.

Babies is a really complicated thing to me. For a long time not wanting babies was kind of a proxy judgement. I was afraid of being the kind of parent my mom was, I was afraid of being the kind of parent my dad was. I didn't think I could be a "good enough parent". And at that time, I was probably right.

Also, for a long time I resented having been born. I wished I'd never been born. I felt like it would be... morally wrong to bring another life into this world. I don't believe that now.

Since I transitioned... I have lots of problems, but I do think I have the skills now to be a good enough parent. It's a bittersweet realization. That ship has sailed. Nobody was going to pay to cryogenically freeze my sperm. Even if I could have... my dysphoria made it really difficult for me to, uh. You know. So it was never much of an option on a practical level.

Anyway, starting to understand myself, that made a difference, and starting progesterone, that also made a difference. Expecting men to want children the way women want children is kind of unfair because to a certain extent there are hormonal factors.

A lot of trans women really want, to varying degrees, to conceive and bear a child. As far back as Lili Elbe, the first woman to get GRS. She wanted to conceive and bear a child so much she died just so she could have the chance. I don't want to conceive and bear a child that much. I radically accept that I won't ever have a child.

I don't resent people who can have children and don't want to, though. I feel like some people do, and I mean. I don't think of things in those terms. I don't see the point in being _jealous_ like that. People get to feel however they feel, though. It's just how people act on those feelings that's important to me. Someone who loves children so much they want to ban abortion for everyone... that's fucked. That's toxic love.

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?

― Premises, Premises (flamboyant goon tie included)

Sort of. For me, that sort of privilege was always a double-edged sword. I'm not cis or male or straight or neurotypical or... abled? I was treated as all those things, though, I was given the _privilege_ of ignorance. It wasn't just a privilege, though, it was an _expectation_. I wasn't visibly marked... well, not in the ways that were recognized at the time. I look at old videos of me and I was _incredibly_ marked, marked enough to get bullied. I guess that's the challenge, right? The pressure to not deviate in _any way_ from what's considered "normal". To not stim. To not do queer shit. To not, this is the most important thing, right? To NOT ACKNOWLEDGE ONE'S LIMITATIONS. You can do anything, I was told. Anything I could set my mind to. I could be an ASTRONAUT.

I couldn't be an astronaut. And people who could be astronauts... Sally Ride got to be an astronaut, but she had to pretend to be straight, all her life. I mean even aside from all the other considerations, the training facilities are in Texas. In my line of work, they hold professional conventions, and they hold them, a lot of times, in like Texas, and Florida. And if I don't feel safe going to those conferences... at least I have the choice. I have friends who don't have a choice, who have to go to those places for work. Privilege is not having to _think_ about those considerations.

I gave up that privilege, I walked away from it. And I traded up. I gained more than I lost. And it's reaching the point, I think... "Normal" masculinity is so constricted, so fragile, so _brittle_, that even if someone is a man, there's benefit to walking away. For more and more people there's less and less choice. The more patriarchy tightens its grip, the more of us slip through its fingers.

-

I was kind of surprised by... of all the things I said _that_ was what people grabbed onto, but reading my post back, I can see it. like I said, I try to be careful about how I express myself... I thought about clarifying that my last question was a rhetorical question, that it's...

Like one, it doesn't matter, two, there's nothing actually _wrong_ with "guys like that". Not fundamentally. When someone's a fascist, their decisions negatively affect me and I have to deal with it on that level. They have power, I don't. But "what the fuck is wrong with guys like that?", the answer to that one is "Mu", "nothing", in the Buddhist sense, in the "that's not the right question" sense.

It's interesting to me, though, that of all the things to question about my assumption, the thing people are questioning most is that the person is a fascist. I mean thinking about it I guess I get that too. Any of these other things someone could or couldn't be... the only thing that's really a _problem_ is the fascism.

I don't want to overgeneralize. I think people here are all acting in good faith, it's not a personal thing, but I do know that there's this tendency to...

I mean, I have context here that I haven't shared. It's a situation where we have asymmetrical access to information. You only know what I tell you. Yeah, "88" can mean a lot of things, it's not _necessarily_ fascist. It's the context that led me to that conclusion. And I didn't give y'all that context, I didn't meticulously document every bumper sticker on the car. I didn't talk about the Gadsden Flag or any of the other stuff. I didn't make it clear that of all the bumper stickers on the car, the "Obey" bumper sticker was the one that stood out. Just... just talking about things subjectively, I feel like I'm held to a higher standard, a higher burden of proof, than I was before I transitioned. I don't think that's intentional. I don't think that's even _conscious_. That's kind of the insidious thing about patriarchy. We've internalized all this stuff and often aren't even consciously aware of it. And when it's pointed out, there's this natural defensiveness. Like, it is in some sense... disrespectful, the assumption is that people know themselves, so for me to say, here's something I noticed about a person that they didn't notice about themselves... it undermines one's sense of, I guess... belief in their own power of self-determination. People want to say "I'm not misogynist" or "I'm not racist" or "I'm not transphobic" and have it be true, and because it's a structural thing, it's not true. At the same time it's not a matter for moral judgement, it's just actions and consequences.

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.

― Josh in Chicago

I mean I think that's part of the challenge of being a man, that if you're a big burly bearded person covered with tattoos one assumes that there's something offensive on there. When I think of the big burly bearded person I know... like, not only do people assume they're a man, even if they're wearing a dress, there's this idea that there's something offensive on there. They do have, by accident, two separate tattoos of Flea on their body, but that's the most offensive tattoo they have.

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.

― meatster of puppets (peace, man)

I didn't really understand how to talk to women either. Well now... I mean, I'm #notallwomen, but the whole idea of being a "smooth talker"... it's kind of a distortion. The people who I'm impressed by the most are people who are smooth _listeners_. I was taught to talk a lot, and obviously, I still do talk a lot, when I talk. Plus the autism means that I have a natural tendency to communicate by infodumping and explaining. Learning to listen is something I've had to work really hard on learning. I'm still working on it.

I wouldn't say I was ever "incel-ish", but I was frustrated. I was frustrated at my inability to, like, _understand_ women. Which is kind of funny in retrospect. The more I understood women, the more I understood the ways women are often different from men, the more I understood that I was different from men in very similar ways. The more I understood that oh, wait, maybe I'm a woman. Once that became conceptually possible, which for a long time it wasn't for me.

I'd say that if someone's transphobic than they kind of necessarily don't understand women. If someone doesn't recognize that I'm a woman, that to me belies a certain ignorance about womanhood. I don't know what being a woman is. I know I'm a woman. I don't understand what possible reason anybody would have to not accept that. No reason for it, just blind, ignorant bigotry.

-

Definitely. That's why things like diversity training sessions, talking about things like unconscious bias — which most of us here would probably roll our eyes at in a corporate training setting, understanding it as mostly box-checking performance — can be actually enraging to some white people and white MEN in particular. For an hour, they are supposed to "think about it." They are expected, even if on a superficial level, to exhibit some awareness of their own privileged place in a system. But not being aware of that is exactly the nature and reward of that privilege, and so in a certain way to even contemplate the privilege at all is to give up a little of it.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra)

They're being asked to put on the glasses. And they fight that. Because they know what happens if they do. They know what they'll see. And they're afraid of 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?

― Guayaquil (eephus!)

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's weird. Just like I'd find it weird if a guy with an 88 sticker was really into Battleship Potemkin. _They Live_ explicitly disavows Communism, it's not, like, "communist propaganda", and I get that fascists can't tell the difference between "RESPECT THE EXISTENCE OF PEOPLE WHO AREN'T LIKE YOU" and "OBEY", but, like. "Consume"? "Reproduce"? I have never heard _anybody_ claim that's the future the Woke Left wants. Anybody who thinks They Live is fascist propaganda is completely misconstruing the message of the film.

Out of all the things that piss me off most about the fascists, it's the conspiracy theories that piss me off the most. It's the dramatic crossroads thing again. I was a Subgenius in 1998. I was an edgelord conspiracy theorist. I put on the sunglasses. I see the billboards. I see what they say. Consume. Reproduce. Obey. "REAL MEN LOVE BABIES." I mean you don't even have to put on glasses to see that one. It's right there, right in front of everyone's face. The patriarchy is putting up literal fucking billboards and these dumb motherfuckers keep thinking it's the "woke left" who's keeping them down.

I have not watched this show, but like the writer of this piece it was mentioned to me and I’m interested. The reaction, I think, is apt for this thread because it gets into a certain aspect of masculinity and the expectations and validation of being seen as a man contingent on sexual activity:

https://decider.com/2024/03/27/im-glad-supersex-triggered-me/

I watched the first two episodes and gave up. I think I posted about it on the Netflix thread. I was sort of fascinated by Rocco 20 years ago — at one point, I pitched a book on him to Taschen, but it was rejected. I agree with the reviewer that the show does a pretty good job of showing what a cocktail of traumas — molestation, Catholic guilt, childhood poverty — he must be, and the actor who plays him as an adult conveys that really well, especially with his eyes. I just didn't feel like watching the whole thing, but maybe I'll go back to it.

I don't know if I'm interested in the show, but that's a great (traumatic) essay about it.

Thank you for posting that essay mh -- it's refreshing to read such honest writing from a man about that topic. I haven't even heard of the show and don't think I will watch it. i disagree with him about trigger warnings also, though I am glad he found the experience of being triggered useful in some way.

i prefer the term content warning, so if you choose to avoid certain types of content (SA) you can.

I'm glad Collins was able to talk about his experience, about how it affected him as a man. One of the big challenges of masculinity for me is, I have this perspective. I've seen a lot of the ways people I know got treated. People who aren't men. The way they, or maybe we, got treated... We were treated _as if_ we were men. It wasn't wrong because we aren't men. It's wrong to treat anybody that way. And it's hard for men to talk about. So it's really good to see Collins talk about it. He really expresses well something similar a lot of the experiences I've seen in... people who were abused _under the assumption_ that they were boys or men.

One of the things that struck me most about Collins' piece was this bit:

Sexually abused before being fully sexually formed, both Rocco and I decided, on some level, that our bullies were right — that our penises were, in fact, an important indicator of who we are as people.

That's _so much_ of my experience of... of the way manhood is treated in this world.

One of the hardest things for me personally to talk about is... talking about having my penis surgically removed. It's not something I really want to talk about or enjoy talking about. It's really personal and intimate and it's nobody's business. At the same time, I believe that it's really _important_ to me to talk about. I have these experiences, and they cut so hard against the assumptions I had about penises, the assumptions I see other people making about penises... even if people don't understand, even if people don't _listen_, I feel like it's important for me to talk about.

This idea, the idea that _penises are an important part of who we are as people_. It's not just men who are defined by the penis, but everyone. I think a lot about Dave Sim, when he went off on that first misogynist manifesto. He defined man as light and woman as "void". We get defined by what we _don't_ have, by what's perceived as a _lack_. I lack _nothing_. I was terrified, going in for GRS, terrified of what I could lose, and I lost nothing. That's why I talk about my GRS. Because from birth that was what I was taught, that the most important thing was for me to protect my dick, to keep it at all costs. That's the main reason I didn't see myself as trans, for years. Because I didn't "want my dick cut off".

Then I went ahead and did it anyway. Things change. People change. One of the things that changed most was this idea that... people who had GRS _hated_ their penises, couldn't stand them. I didn't. Still don't. When I say I "got my penis cut off" that's a deliberately provocative framing. That's me being directly challenging of the unspoken assumptions I was taught about penises. That's not actually what I did at all. That's now what I _wanted_ to do. It was never _about_ my penis. It was about this other thing that I wanted _more_.

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And mostly the reason I talk about this is because people have these assumptions about trans people but I also just... these bullshit assumptions don't just hurt _trans people_. My impression is that it's _routine_ for AMABs to be taught that our penises are, in fact, an important indicator of who we are as people. God, people still think I'm a man for, as far as I can tell, no reason but that I _used to_ have an anatomically normal penis and testicles. They really think penises are that important. My lived experience is that they aren't. At all. My experience is that a penis signifies _nothing_ but a few inches of spongy tissue. Based on what I've seen, I believe treating a penis as anything more than that...

I don't think that benefits men. I mean men are taught all their lives that they're, like, categorically better than women, on the basis of _that_? A man is supposed to base his entire sense of self-worth, of value, on _that_? I mean, penises are great and all, but let's be reasonable here.