Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

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.

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.

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Thursday, October 12, 2017 3:41 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

FWIW I was married before Tinder came out, so I never experienced the world of "dedicated spaces for this." I think it's probably better in a lot of ways.

make no mistake they are also terrible

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.

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, October 12, 2017 4:28 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there is something about the "little" that so often accompanies phrases like that that is infantilizing and awful

And I think there is probably some social confusion on the part of people who did a lot of dating in the pre-Tinder world, because, like, you needed a way to meet people, and that meant asking people out, often strangers, and that's harder to navigate.

so nerve-wracking, I don't miss dating at all

I don't see the problem with complimenting men and women in a non-skeevy way. I love objectifying men.

The least sexist office I ever worked in was when I edited a porn magazine in the early 2000s. Yes, it was porn, and we looked at photos and watched videos all day long, but actual women who showed up in a professional context were treated with courtesy and respect, and I don't remember anyone ever telling a "dirty" joke that devolved into actual misogyny. Most of the non-pornography-related conversations were about music (I burned a copy of the Steely Dan box set off a co-worker) or ridiculous pop culture (another co-worker was mildly obsessed with movies about animals playing sports - Air Bud, MVP: Most Valuable Primate, etc., etc.). Even when we all went out for drunken lunches after closing an issue, the product we were putting out never seeped into our interactions with each other, or how we treated live human women in the world.

Before I worked there, I worked in an auto parts warehouse, and there was this super-embarrassing try-hard guy there who was always talking about going out on the weekend and doing coke with girls and screwing them in a limo, etc., etc. I used to try to be busy whenever he came around, because he'd try to rope everyone else into a conversation explicitly so he could do his whole Andrew Dice Clay act, and it was just weird and sad. Like, the way he talked about women made me doubt he'd ever actually had a conversation with one go beyond the third sentence.

But as others have said above, I'm not gonna hang out with dudes like that just so I can tutor them in how to lift their knuckles from the sidewalk and become human. Life is too short.

so nerve-wracking, I don't miss dating at all

― Οὖτις, Thursday, October 12, 2017 3:46 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Total aside, but I was 18 when I asked that barista out, and it turned out she was like 23 or 24 -- we were both "in college" but I was a freshman and she had gone back to school. This fact came out at the beginning of our date, she was visibly displeased, and that made for a very awkward dinner and movie. Yeah, dating sucked.

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

i am definitely taking tips from my 12 year old son who when he sees something on t.v. that is inapropriate/sexist says out loud: "that is SO innapopriate/sexist!" and this is what i plan to say to anyone who says anything like that to me in real life. for years i just rolled my eyes and didn't say anything. because i figured people after a certain age were beyond hope. now i don't care if they are beyond hope i just want them to know that not everyone agrees with them and that some things aren't cool/right.

but this would be some random person. nobody in my life would ever say anything like that about the waitress.

non-skeevy way

the danger lies in where this line is drawn

yeah, gay men objectify other men all the time. Don't hate us. xxxxp

i don't see the problem with complimenting men and women in a non-skeevy way. I love objectifying men.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, October 12, 2017 4:47 PM (thirty-six seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya alfred/morbz otm, that's something i want to reconcile bc i honestly do think that objectification, to some degree, is an inherent part of sexual attraction

I just want my friends to know that if I say "Hey, that's an awesome skirt", I am not trying to sleep with them.

yeah, gay men objectify other men all the time. Don't hate us

I consider this yr own problem, I'm not getting involved! lol

yeah I restrict my edict to my fellow straights / people who are attracted to women.

i worked with an editor who enthused about all the times he'd go to Vegas and hook up with women, and how at a recent bachelor party he and his pals "ran a train" on a stripper. he would tell this to the a producer when it was just the two of them working on a show. i mean this is a married, middle-aged guy.

anyway he was later fired because someone walked in on him watching porn on his laptop, and he had a problem taking editorial direction from the woman who was the supervising producer. : /

complimenting what someone's wearing is fair game imo, there's nothing inherently sexual about that (although you easily *can* make it sexual if you're an asshole)

yeah, I also feel kind of unresolved about the objectification thing. I guess part of the problem is that objectification of women in particular has gone wayyyyy too far in one direction so there's some need to push back against that. xp

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

― Οὖτις, Thursday, October 12, 2017 9:32 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xps this seems odd to me, surely women and gay men also discuss the attractiveness of wait staff/work colleagues etc? (not talking about to their face or within earshot here, that seems like a different kind of thing) I can see the argument that context means it's problematic for straight men to do this and so they should avoid, but the I don't get being baffled that it's a subject that could even be of interest?

Also an aside but the waitress in my above anecdote later opened her own restaurant, which still later closed in part because certain kitchen staff and business partners had huge issues being told what to do by a woman. :(

i think w/anything it's just that you have to read the situation appropriately and yes: absorb your boner!

friendly interaction is great, flirting is also great, but i think there are times where the latter isn't welcome and i think it's just about reading when that time is..

sexism is a MASSIVE problem in kitchens particularly.

You've got p bad male friends groups, if the OP cluster holds true for ilx

If I think that may be a function of the typical make ilxor idk

I have a few male friends but not a "grouo" on them; by and large my closest, most reliable friends have always been women

*group

I literally never have conversations with other men about what real-life women they find attractive. It's just not something I am interested in hearing about, and it seems like the kind of thing that could rapidly go off the rails into gross/misogynistic territory. Maybe it's just me, it just seems like a weird thing to want to talk about with other guys. What am I supposed to do with this information? How am I supposed to respond? I don't feel any need - at all - to offer my own opinions or feelings on the matter. (Discussing the relative attractiveness of celebrities is fair game and less problematic, to me, since they're already objects by the nature of the medium)

For some reason I don't have the same aversion to discussing actual sex lives with other guys, which, while obviously still personal just doesn't carry the same connotation, it doesn't have the "let's objectify women!" subtext when you're talking with someone about how great/not-great their sexual experiences have been or their problems with their partner or past partners or whatever. It's more like sharing a story, commiserating, seeking advice, normal conversation-type stuff.

xp

the relative attractiveness of celebrities is fair game and less problematic, to me, since they're already objects by the nature of the medium

a-HA! j/k

"absorb your boner" as a pithy response to this makes me irrationally angry.

In college I found out I had a reputation as a massive sexual tease because I befriended several women and didn't try to sleep with them. I found this out when I started dating my wife and she spilled the stories that were circulating through our friend circles about me. The reason for this was because I grew up as the only black kid in a town full of racist white people and I was terrified of accidentally becoming a father at a very early age because everyone would 100% know the baby was mine; this paranoia spilled over into my gendered interactions when I got into a more diverse environment and had basically socialized myself into not expressing any type of lust or physical attraction until a woman expressly told me that she liked me as a self-defense/coping mechanism. Some of these women were people I would happily have dated/hooked up with had they shown any form of overt interest in me; none of them did. However, because I was nice to them, I got a reputation for leading women on and then not following through. (Note by "nice to them" I mean "talked to them, hung out with them, tried to make them laugh which is what I do with all of my friends, and included them in plans when I was getting together groups of people to do something"; I wasn't buying women things or arranging dates and then being platonically cold or any games like that. I was just being nice and non-threatening.)

There's something to be unpacked there about expected behavior in the 90s, probably. The wider point with regards to the original question about harassing/objectifying your waitress or asking her out or initiating flirting, etc, is no, of course you don't bother the server; she is at work and you are a customer. If someone said to me "I thought the server at that restaurant was really beautiful" as part of a private conversation, either at the table or after we left the restaurant, I'd likely say "okay" if I didn't agree or "yeah" if I did and then move on with my life. That's my level.

in somewhat related news I've found myself on a sort of anti-harassment task force in the context of an activist group I'm involved in and it's been interesting, especially because it's forced me to think about how informal hierarchies and a lack of clear behavioral guidelines in an org can allow space for people to behave badly (though in the context of this thread the behavior is fairly mild, it still needs to be stamped out swiftly). so basically when we look at tackling these issues, though it will involve one-on-one discussion with some folks down the line, it's really not *about* them at the end of the day - it's about effectively fostering a culture of mutual respect and making sure everyone understands what that looks like from the get-go. I've found it helpful, that need to separate the behavior from the person in some respects and I think that's maybe a good way to think about it if you have someone behaving problematically in your life and are thinking of intervening, though of course it's tougher when there's no organizational context to think about it in and it's your friend or acquaintance or whatever. this is why I recoiled a bit to the notion of just shunning people - not sure anything changes at the end of the day except that your life is less awkward. which is a fine goal in and of itself but I think we all want more than that.

Men can objectify even straight men because the straight men are so unaccustomed to being objects of desire. Not only do they deserve to be treated as man-flesh, but it might help them to know that they can be made to squirm.

In my club days, I would go out with my gay male friends a lot to try to trainspot what the DJ was spinning; my wife hated it because she would end up buying her own drinks and I'd end up drinking for free.

Gotta love those times I've been caught giving some guy the eye on the street and gotten a nod with a "How ya doing?" ie you were checkin' me out but no thx.

Best recent experiences: at a Starbucks the girlfriend of the guy I was eyeing top to bottom caught me. She mouthed "I know" and smiled.

i must have the male macho asshole look or something because the number of times i've been in situations with strangers or semi-strangers and they start talking inappropriately like i'm good with it is way too high.

― (•̪●) (carne asada), Thursday, October 12, 2017 2:39 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

BTW this raises a totally different "maleness" point I wanted to raise bc I know you post on the sw0le thread and I've come to my slight sw0leness pretty late in life, and sometimes I feel weirdly conflicted about it, like, am I basically consuming a lot of extra unnecessary protein in order to project a retrograde male image? Sometimes I feel like because I'm in a very traditionally "alpha male" industry I use it to compensate for the fact that I'm naturally more the soft-spoken artsy type. It gives me a little more physical presence and confidence or something.

lol Alfred. BTW I noticed in Miami people check each other out like 10x more brazenly than in NYC.

Best recent experiences: at a Starbucks the girlfriend of the guy I was eyeing top to bottom caught me. She mouthed "I know" and smiled.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, October 12, 2017 5:27 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haaaaa

xxp haha i definitely don't look too swole , i mean i'm a big guy i guess 6'2 about 225 right now. I don't why this happens to me but being in a situation where a guy out of the blue makes a remark about a woman in close proximity after she walks away or something sucks ! like do I tell the stranger to fuck off and get a life ? I think I just look at them like they have three heads and they get the idea .

yer my kinda big stud, carne.

lol <3

dumb dudes have never had ANY problem confessing any and everything to me. because they thought i was a member of their dumb dude tribe.

I've never dated anything but dumb dudes; I wish they'd been mutes.

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

― Οὖτις, Thursday, October 12, 2017 9:32 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xps this seems odd to me, surely women and gay men also discuss the attractiveness of wait staff/work colleagues etc? (not talking about to their face or within earshot here, that seems like a different kind of thing) I can see the argument that context means it's problematic for straight men to do this and so they should avoid, but the I don't get being baffled that it's a subject that could even be of interest?

― soref, Thursday, 12 October 2017 21:57

I find this weird too. If this is just something shared with friends it's lovely to hear. Why wouldn't I want to hear about something that enriches other people's lives? Just like any other kind of beauty in their life.

I love hearing Alfred, Branwell and others praise someone's beauty. Alfred's talking about Antonio Banderas had me looking and thinking about him more intently.
I loved that meme about how handsome the Korean president's bodyguard is.

All this just seems to illustrate that women's behavior or responses in these scenarios are policed a lot more strictly than men's ever are.