Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

K

Kinda bummed this thread turned into a clusterfuck a little

tbf I assumed it started that way, just looking at the title.

It was destined

Sorry for ruining your thread Marcos

u didn't! also man alive is the thread starter

i do think a certain thing happened to this thread and that what exactly happened to it should be fairly obvious to a dedicated reader. i'm not going to say anything more than that.

p much

Def but I don't think it's too late to get it back on track tbh

possibly, but it's difficult without addressing the underlying cause.

I read The Girls and Nugent Miller by Robert Sheckley the other night and it reminded me of this thread. It has such a bleak and scary ending. It basically ends with the idea that all men become monsters under the right circumstances. Kind of an insane story to find in the middle of an old space rocket SF magazine!

https://www.amazon.com/Girls-Nugent-Miller-Robert-Sheckley-ebook/dp/B002JIN6PW

Did I ruin it? Sorry if I did

no, fgti, you didn't ruin it.

Does anybody else mentally pronounce my username as "faggoty"?

I mentally pronounce it "lovely."

I mentally pronounce it as "flamboyant goon tie" :)

anyone who's anyone knows its an acronym

Did I ruin it? Sorry if I did

― fgti, Saturday, October 14, 2017 2:08 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

definitely not

Well, that's all right then.

For a while in my early-30s, I was really actively looking for an older gay man that I could look up to as a role model. Somebody who had figured out a way of growing old with dignity, allowing their "gayness" to not necessarily be defined by the man on their arm, or something? Because, I don't know if you know this, but all gay men die sad, lonely and broke. Or at least most of them.

I met this actor dude who has got to be in his 80s. Really great guy. Just met him through friends, we had tea together. He was hilarious and smart and funny. I invited him over for dinner, and was hoping to kind of gently open up a conversation about "how do you transition from being a sexually active young/middle-aged gay man into being an oldster? How do your goals and aims change? How does your relationship to your sexuality change?" Guy came over and basically reminisced about "all the dicks he'd sucked through the years". An entire dinner of dick talk. Lol!

Most humans die lonely and broke I suspect.

I know what you mean, though. I hope marriage equality changes that for y’all. It springs eternal, hope; that’s what I’ve heard.

Marriage is not a solution to any systemic issues, come on.

V curious about that Sheckley story scott! He's an interesting one

Um many xps

Does anybody else mentally pronounce my username

fagheddi, like spageddy, like T✧✧@K✧✧.E✧✧

this was and is inspiring to me. i think when i first read it was just good to remember that people have been fighting for the progressive evolution of humanity for a long time and even though it's probably an endless process (will the earth even be habitable long enough for people to evolve?) it's always worth fighting the fight. this is from 1839. my great great great grandfather on women's rights. i love the disclaimer at the beginning from the editors of the magazine. he speaks for himself not us! and i love the part where he basically says that women have no responsibility to the government because the government is a usurpation of women. punk rock!

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044011393303;view=1up;seq=366

that link doesn't go right to it. jump to page 350.

it's totally Too Long/Didn't Read. i get that. but there is good stuff in it!

Marriage is not a solution to any systemic issues, come on.

I know many people have happy marriages, but as a cure-all for "having a sad life" ... just no.

I am well on my way to dying sad, lonely and broke, so that's my part done.

When the system recognizes the right of a spouse to visitation in hospitals, it totally does. I’m sorry progress isn’t perfect.
― El Tomboto, Saturday, October 14, 2017 4:24 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have many relatives and friends who are physicians or otherwise involved in healthcare. The US government gives an insane number of perks to married people, but this is one that while technically true isn't usually an issue IRL. Hospitals and doctors are in the business of keeping as many patients as possible alive and well, and if they're told by a patient in critical condition that they'd feel better knowing their bf or gf was beside them, the hospital is going to let them in. They did for me, and for someone else who requested my presense though I was just her roommate.

if they're told by a patient in critical condition that they'd feel better knowing their bf or gf was beside them, the hospital is going to let them in

you have to be conscious to request the presence of your bf or gf

You'd have to be conscious to request you husband or wife too. I'm not sure how or even if a hospital goes about tracking down my next of kin if I'm in hospital and I'm unconscious, or if they even try to. Different phone numbers and last names. Do they actually check "in case of emergency" contacts on mobile phones? In any case, if they find someone connected to me that person will tell them who my gf/bf is and I can't imagine a hospital not letting them see me, unless they don't want any extraneous people in the operating room.

Yr spouse is normally your next of kin and has decision making power in event of the etc

They manage to find out who ppl are most of the time iirc

You'll maybe just have to believe that this matters idk

Not sure if your last post is rhetorical or not, Lee, but I’ve got an answer (via the person in my house who works in US health care/policy).

Essentially, if you’ve got a different last name from the injured party or admitted patient, you’ll be asked to explain your relationship when you try to see them. If the relationship is not close enough (which is to say unmarried, or a parent) the HIPPA mindset kicks in and walls start going up. Depending on the particulars of this situation and the person in charge of granting visitors access, you CAN and WILL be kept away from a loved one.

Lots of married couples have different last names too (over half of my married friends and relatives actually), and anyway HIPPA doesn't make many exceptions for family members re: privacy issues (obviously, lots of people don't want their medical issues shared with certain family members). I should really look into this and find out how hospitals know who's close to me and my primary emergency contact. I did put it in my iPhone where it's findable from the lock screen; not sure if hospitals look at these.

ok, here's the actual relevant HIPAA regulation regarding whom a hospital can notify if you're unconscious ("disclose to a family member, other relative, or a close personal friend of the individual, or any other person identified by the individual", emphasis mine). In most cases, the hospital finds out who you are and who's close to you by looking through your wallet, phone, or anything else you may have on you when you arrived there, or from whoever called the ambulance.

As for who's allowed to make medical decisions for you if you're unconscious or incapacitated, there your spouse gets preferential treatment since the government knows who your husband or wife is. Your girlfriend or boyfriend doesn't automatically get this privilege, which makes sense since the government (or hospital) doesn't know who my girlfriend is, or if the person claiming to be my gf really is my gf. However, you can gain this privilege by creating a medical/healthcare directive and a durable power of attorney for your finances naming your girlfriend. Regulations vary some by state, and obviously by country.

(/thread drift)

Useful info regarding above: http://family.findlaw.com/living-together/unmarried-partners-medical-directives-and-the-durable-power-of.html

so to change the subject away from hipaa (which i can't believe i'm doing, i guess there's a first time for everything)...

one of my friends posted that every man who's been a harasser, who's been an abuser, should be the one saying "me, too". i agree, but it was still hard for me to say that i'd at least once harassed a woman. any thoughts?

I have two instances of being sexually harassed by women though both were before I was 18, and two times doesn't even hold a candle to have often a typical woman is harassed by men.

it was hard for me to post "me too" but i did it

and i didn't do anything wrong

I've been sexually harassed by men more than women too, and in worse ways, although nowhere near as often as women get harassed. When I was a freshman in college I had a middle aged man approach me at a city bus stop and start asking increasingly intrusive questions about where i lived and my sexual habits and then asking if I wanted to get my dick sucked. I was 18 and even that one experience had a pretty bad effect on me and left me questioning for a long time if there was something wrong with me or some reason he chose me.

does not having done anything wrong make it harder?

no it should make it easier, but it doesn't
still hard

it is, and it sucks. it shouldn't be your responsibility.

It only occurred to me in recent years that I was kinda routinely sexually harassed by a friend of mine as a teenager, someone I'd known from childhood and who developed into kind of a shitty friend who routinely messed with me in a variety of ways (ex. my first experience with alcohol was when he plied me with glass after glass of this new peach-flavored Sprite that turned out to not actually be a thing that existed) until I decided I was just done dealing with it. Thankfully, he was never aggressive or overly-physical about it, but it was persistent and weirdly confusing. People have often mistaken me for gay and I'd often wondered if he was just confused and picking up on signals that I wasn't intending to give, but I realized at a point that he still should've relented when I explicitly told him I wasn't interested. I think I felt a little bad or guilty that I wasn't?

It's also weird because he was instrumental in introducing me to a lot of LGBT-positive entertainment at a formative time that I know helped me become a much more open and tolerant person than I might've become, given the geography and circumstances that were forming me at the time. But then that also has its own weird pall over it because I wonder if he was, like, trying to groom me or something. I dunno.

One of my perennial issues with modern-day discussions about sexual harassment and consent is that, in my experience, the definitions of "what is non-consensual" doesn't relate all the time to "what is traumatic".

Jia Tolentino wrote this in The New Yorker:

"If you have ever experienced sexual assault or harassment, you know that one of the cruellest things about these acts is the way that they entangle, and attempt to contaminate, all of the best things about you. If you’re sweet and friendly, you’ll think that it’s your fault for accommodating the situation. If you’re tough, well, you might as well decide that it’s no big deal. If you’re a gentle person, then he knew you were weak. If you’re talented, he thought of you as an equal. If you’re ambitious, you wanted it. If you’re savvy, you knew it was coming. If you’re affectionate, you seemed like you were asking for it all along. If you make dirty jokes or have a good time at parties, then why get moralistic? If you’re smart, there’s got to be some way to rationalize this.

When you are a young woman, and you believe in your own worth and personhood and agency, it can be hard, despite the clichés that govern this situation, to understand that an older man who takes an interest in you does not necessarily share these beliefs. And, of course, young women are not the only victims of such crimes. But this is a basic and familiar pattern: a powerful man sees you, a woman who is young and who thinks she might be talented, a person who conveniently exists in a female body, and he understands that he can tie your potential to your female body, and threaten the latter, and you will never be quite as sure of the former again."

This is, in my opinion, the missing link regarding traumatic relationships... if somebody in a position of power acts sexually toward you, regardless of any level of consensuality, there will be a synaptic link created. This link: "is my future as an actress less reliant upon my talent, and more upon my willingness to put out?" Or like, "academic future", "my future at this company", etc. The value of one's capability becomes compromised.

I've only read bits and pieces of this thread, but one thing that seems to be in question is how different, or not, rules of conduct are or should be for all-male spaces--which is to say, specifically gay spaces. It is something that has been on my mind a lot lately, both for academic and non-academic reasons. As any of the other queer men in this thread can undoubtedly attest, there are certain behaviours that are allowed to take place in gay male settings that would NEVER fly in heterosexual ones. One that comes to mind is the debate (which has recently come up again in Canada) over the legality surrounding disclosure of HIV status. I don't really want to start a debate on this particular issue, but one argument that I have found myself making, as many people seem to be arguing in favour of an HIV-positive person not having to their status to a sexual partner, is that this debate would probably sound a lot different if HIV as a specifically sexually transmitted disease specifically in Western countries were not one closely--I'm trying not to say exclusively--associated with gay men. Taking it away from the HIV issue again, I still don't think that, despite some high profile cases (Bryan Singer) shining a public light on the subject, that we still really conceive of sexual violence, harassment or coercion as being something that occurs among gay men.

I guess my point is that whether or not such issues should be considered differently when they take place in all-male spaces, it currently seems to be the case that they are.