Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

and it always worked out great for them in the end!

Also, "smells like fish" is lazy-joke-about-women #1 and I don't believe anyone who says they've never heard it before.

― Marcus Hiles Remains Steadfast About Planting Trees.jpg (DJP),

I heard it in gay circles when I was younger, never in straight ones.

let's not forget the super attractive woman who invades a successful man's life, seducing him and later trying to ruin his career and also KILL him

Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton?

my question to you all is: what are you going to do about this? i don't think you need to go around educating random assholes, but if some guy you know makes you feel uncomfortable when he (for example) objectifies the waitress, what are you going to do?

may i recommend shunning. it's about time people stopped inviting assholes to the table regardless of how powerful they are.

I'm an excellent shunner of assholes.

I def shun and will continue to shun.

I'm hoping-not-hoping this comes up in the course of my tutoring/mentoring so that I can hopefully engage in some conversations and healthy redirection in that regard. Which is probably more constructive than the freeze-out I'm more likely to give to adult assholes.

I'm an excellent shunner of assholes.

― the scarest move i ever seen is scary move 4 (Old Lunch),

first sentence of your memoir

ian’s post about not being perfect/an angel in his past really resonates w me because of the whole glass houses thing. trying to be a better ally for me is about shutting the f up and getting out of the way as much as possible when surrounded by friendly/strange company. i have no problem rolling on assholes if i am thrust into a situation that i wouldn’t be in by choice.

I already shun, both socially and professionally. I plan to continue doing so.

but if some guy you know makes you feel uncomfortable when he (for example) objectifies the waitress, what are you going to do?

honestly this scenario is so inconceivable to me, I can't think of anyone I know who would do this. and if it was just some random guy I didn't know but happened to be eating with, my immediate instinct would be "note to self: avoid this person". I guess I could start an argument but that's usually not a good tactic when in public with strangers.

how are y'all defining "objectifies"?

"The waitress is beautiful" is a level I can tolerate.
"Damn, them titties!" is not.

shunning is insufficient in most circumstances (though it's a fine step)

murder is against the law, though

I do shun but I usually just freeze people out, make it plain, non-verbally, I don't want to talk to them. That I'm pretty good at.

I suspect there are other options in most situations xp

I was defining it as "makes a comment on waitress' appearance" or worse

xp

as i mentioned in the other thread my field is 80% women so the gross outright sexist statements aren't as common (though they do happen obv, and even though it's 80% women i think the leadership positions are taken slightly more by men), it is more about men dominating conversations, not listening to or valuing perspectives offered by women, ignoring the labor of women that generally keep everything running in this field. when i see that happening firsthand i try do things like properly credit ideas, highlight the labor that was done for a given project, show active listening.

the only kind of gross thing i've seen firsthand in my field was at a professional conference chatting w/ two colleagues, one a younger woman about my age and the other a middle-aged dude. the young woman had to leave and when she left the guy said to me "boy she is a cutie huh" and I was kind of stunned and didn't know what to say so I didn't say anything :/

after the boys of shunner are gone

"The waitress is beautiful" is a level I can tolerate.

if one of my (relatively few) single male hetero friends made this comment I would look on them more with pity than disdain but I would still think it's kinda weird. Like, you keep those thoughts to yourself, I don't need or want to know about your preferences.

xp

Sometimes mocking can actually work, in the right scenario, like "Holy shit, the waitress is a woman and has breasts, so cool!"

treating a person like an object
i am against "the waitress is beautiful" fwiw -- it is objectifying

i think it's the same mentality that leads to phrases that end with a woman being called a "thing" (pretty little thing, sweet young thing, delicate precious thing) i loathe being called a thing and i've even had women call me a thing and it feels really condescending.

i'm kind of uncomfortable w/even that low-level flirting with women working at restaurants because they're not there to be flirted with, they're doing a job and as a part of the job they feel pressured to put up with it. i know a lot of people who do that, which doesn't rise as obviously to the level of objectifying but it's still something i'm not really into.

it IS objectifying

yeah I never publicly comment on shit like that and it's extra shitty to do in a service context

I've worked in bars and restaurants and I can count the number of bartenders and servers who enjoy being hit on at work on no hands

yeah I think especially in service industry jobs it's good to operate under the assumption that "this person is being nice to me because they have to, so I'm not going to abuse that relationship even a little bit." If you chat with a waitress and you actually like her, you can ask her, nicely, if she'd like to meet sometime, and she can say no. Just commenting that she's hot or whatever *is* objectifying, even if you say "beautiful" because it's like she's there for you to look at.

yeah and the other weird thing about it is um why do they feel the need to comment on it to another man? Like, what do they expect me to do - agree and chuckle? Why would you need my validation? what's next, a circle jerk? Like Marcos, I would just be stunned and feel awkward and maybe say "I didn't notice" or "keep it to yourself" or something.

xp

i guess what i mean by that is sort of when someone comes to your table, there's this very male tendency to extend the conversation, to flirt, to joke, to touch on the arm, etc.

i think it's rare in this day and age to ever have anything rise to the level of something outwardly inappropriate but i find it very awkward...

and i'm sure i find it much less awkward then the servers!

If you chat with a waitress and you actually like her, you can ask her, nicely, if she'd like to meet sometime

i don't know about that : [

maybe (maybe!) if you're a regular somewhere and you've become friends with someone who's serving you. or if you see them in a social setting outside of their workplace.

Definitely don't ask out the bartender.

i guess what i mean by that is sort of when someone comes to your table, there's this very male tendency to extend the conversation, to flirt, to joke, to touch on the arm, etc.

Not this male!

don't ask out servers for the love of christ

save it for tinder

I agree that hitting on service industry people is not a good luck, but a friend of mine did meet his fiancee that way. He wasn't gross about it though (and it didn't work out in the end, but that was years later).

luck = look

I would tolerate someone at my table telling me they thought our server was attractive much more than I would tolerate someone at my table asking our server out on a date.

Well, I guess I could see the argument for having a blanket rule to just not do it too. I asked a barista out once when I was in college and she said yes, and that's the only time I've ever done such a thing. It's sort of a hard balance to strike between "we don't stop being human beings just because someone is working" and "this might be a context where the person doesn't want the attention because they're getting too much of it already." I guess it would be better if men were just better at reading situations as to when attention is wanted and when it isn't, but since we're not so good at that, maybe it's better to just not do it.

I think there has to be some way to do it that isn't gross, but maybe as said above it needs to be a situation where you've talked to the person a few times already, not just like "you're pretty wanna go out?"

Sometimes I think I am too friendly or jokey to people without even realizing it. I have no problem talking to a stranger about some current events shit, especially lately when there is WTF news on a daily basis. Maybe I should keep it to myself. But it's also not a gendered thing. I'll talk to a dude about Txxxx or hurricanes while I order my beer; I'll ask someone how their day is going. I dunno, I hope it doesn't come across as weird. Especially before I was married, I was always cautious about even like, complimenting female friends cuz I didn't want ppl to think I'm a creep.

my first interaction with my partner of almost 20 years was as his waitress
he paid literally no attention to me -- we wound up talking at a show but he did remember me

Like, you keep those thoughts to yourself, I don't need or want to know about your preferences.
i call this "absorb your boner" -- a valuable skill if you want to interact with people

you can talk about whatever you want -- be friendly, it's nice! i like friendly people.
just keep your boner to yourself!

lol "absorb your boner" so otm

I dunno I feel like the benefit of apps/sites like OKC, Tinder etc is that there are dedicated spaces for this. In reality, let women take the lead and eat your fucking dinner.

i am against "the waitress is beautiful" fwiw -- it is objectifying

Unfortunately I've got a tendency to comment on people's good looks because my mother used to do it all the time! Still does. I think a 'fine looking man' is one of her all-time favourite expressions. Generally about Rock Hudson or Bryan Ferry or whoever, not about waiters or random men in the street though.

I feel like that is something I very much learned to do, to "turn off the vibes" as it were. Now it feels easy to do, there are all kinds of ways you can change your body language, eye contact, tone of voice etc. to take the horny connotations completely out of things.