Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

Good example of the “all or nothing” mindset I was trying to get at upthread tbh

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/10/12/rise-bromance-threatens-heterosexual-relationships-warn-social/

Of the 30 men interviewed, 29 said that they had experienced cuddling with a same sex friend, and many said they often slept in the same bed.

One man named ‘Aaron’ told researchers: “We hug when we meet, and we sleep in the same bed when we have sleepovers. Everyone knows it, and nobody is bothered by it because they do it as well.”

Is this a real trend? If so it seems... good. I’ve always thought the lack of emotionally supportive friendships among men was a problem.

Hugging when meeting is not cuddling imo

The article also suggests these guys see women as nags and joykills but that probably isn’t due to their “bromances” (what a terrible term). Also if their girlfriends really are people who judge and browbeat them maybe their male friendships will give them the strength to break up.

https://longreads.com/2017/10/23/weinstein-women-and-the-language-of-lunacy/

laurie penny

The first example of this I came across personally was someone I vaguely knew on a web forum where he was very active - there was a minor scandal on the board about him (aged 17/18) chatting to a younger board member (aged 15/16) in the USA and discussing meeting up, and later being stopped by the girl's stepfather who was also a board member. The general reaction was to joke about it or say the stepfather was overreacting, that they were both young people and they would naturally be up to this sort of stuff. Then he became quite famous as a youtuber, and then a few years ago, well, he's one of these people - https://web.archive.org/web/20160207071205/http://unpleasantmyles.tumblr.com:80/post/79455706244/tom-milsom-hexachordal-sexual-abusemanipulation - and he's done a good job of disappearing since. Should we have known something was up from that early interaction? Hard to say, there wasn't much to go on (the girl involved said nothing about it) - but I'm sure that the community could have had a much better response than just making jokes about it. The whole humour around that site at that time was deeply unhealthy.

loooooooool that bromance article.

1. They sound very surprised that it's so enjoyable to have friends. Have they been living in a cave on Mars?
2. Please god let men learn to form supportive friendships where they hug and tell each other things so they stop expecting their female partners to bear the ENTIRE responsibility for their emotional stability.
3. If they think women are nagging or being "regulators" of male behavior, maybe they should stop being irresponsible doofuses who need to be taken care of like helpless babies.
4. If they prefer not to do that, they're welcome to stay single and not impose their learned helplessness on a functional human.

Christopher Garrod 16 Oct 2017 12:20PM
Having a daughter of 25 I can confirm that these touchy-feely blokes are a new phenomenon that is producing a generation of strong women and weak men. If my daughter shouts jump in a pub at least half a dozen wail 'how high'. Pathetic and not good for the girls either as they have to rethink their roles when involved in normal things like caring for babies for which they are genetically equipped, and running the show at the same time, which is too much pressure. It's very easy to blame it on the BBC gay-embracing view of life, the compulsory acceptance of homosexual mores and awful teaching in state schools...so I shall!

The article also suggests these guys see women as nags and joykills

this feels like a bit of a sweeping statement based on brief cherrypicked quotes in an article from one of the worst newspapers on earth

the laurie penny essay is really good
made me think about the gira/grimm situation

Definitely hug my closer male friends. Have slept in the same bed a few times, but mostly on band tour. Have never "cuddled" with one though.

I thought this article was bad:

https://www.thecut.com/2017/10/this-isnt-toxic-masculinity-its-sociopathic-baby-men.html

however, it got me wondering, is "toxic masculinity" a poor phrase for general usage? I understand what it means, but it's very easy to misread or misunderstand if you don't read an explanation of it.

hardly believe sensitive cuddles are a sign of real troo friendship which men are all missing out on. most of my female friends don't "cuddle" either.

and i say that as someone who hugs or handshakes with p much all friends on meeting.

I hadn't really thought about it before, but my comfort with others (male or female) is pretty clearly signaled by whether or not I hug them. Like, I can't think of anyone I'm close to that I don't hug (except my sister, who's just too cool for school and expresses her affection through idle threats of violence).

Maybe I am a broken man but I can't imagine a scenario where I am cuddling with any of my friends, male or female, that doesn't also involve hypothermia.

A true sign of friendship is how often a cute male bro allows you to make out with him imo

I have slept in the same bed with male and female friends, and I've cuddled female friends, but...yeah, it's difficult to imagine a scenario where cuddling a male friend wouldn't feel weird. Make of that what you will.

i don't remember the sleepover thing being so big when i was a boy kid and my kids and their friends are all about the sleepovers. my kids are 12 and 14 and they still want to have sleepovers. i was kind of a loner though. also, i never liked waking up in other people's houses. and have to talk to other parents and eat their weird food. also, i had no close friends when i was 12 and 14. maybe EVERYONE was sleeping over when i was a kid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rI-kg2IGAI

maybe they're emulating 1840s Lincoln! xxp

booming post from in orbit

Not necessarily full-blown cuddling, but I have long noticed my female friends tends to be a lot more comfortable with physical displays of affection e.g resting one's head on the other's shoulder etc

I guess you could technically call embracing someone who is experiencing great emotional distress in order to comfort them "cuddling" but the connotation is so intimately tied to a specific type of familial bonding for me (with sexual overtones when tied to my wife/past girlfriends; without when tied to my kids or my parents when when I was a child) that I would use "hugging" instead.

4. If they prefer not to do that, they're welcome to stay single and not impose their learned helplessness on a functional human.

this is the tack I have taken and I can personally endorse it

When I was a kid, sleepovers were definitely a Thing up through high school; even though there was the special case of needing to stay with a friend during the school year while my parents were in another state for a month while my brother was in the hospital, after that there were multiple times where I would sleep over at a friend's house on a weekend because it made the logistics of getting to another activity easier. We also did a big group sleepover after prom.

i guess i don't think we get to talk about how predatory men are while still expecting men to trust other men more

My sis and I seeping over friends' houses was not a trend my parents endorsed, in large part because they feared sexual abuse. They were honest about it. By the time I got to junior year high school I'd done it a few times and normalized it.

Still ended up gay, though.

uh *sleeping over

sleepovers were p big when i was a kid but we always slept in sleeping bags on like the living room floor or whatever. i would have shared beds with my brother on family holidays, or like with my cousin or whatever. subsequently with friends on holidays when we were younger/poorer. it's not a big deal to share a bed. it's not even particularly intimate, not least when both people are comatose from booze.

I feel like this has quite a lot of crossover with being an English man with serious nervousness about physical contact with anyone, even friends and family

I like that Laurie Penny article!

I’m worried about a lot of people right now. I’m worried about the several men I know who have hurt women in the past and who are now facing the consequences. I’m worried about the men who are analyzing their own behavior in horror, who stood aside and let it happen, and who are suddenly realizing their own complicity — and struggling to cope with the guilt, the shame of that knowledge. That’s allowed. Empathy is not being rationed here, and we can worry about whoever we like — as long as we worry about the survivors first.

That's nice. I gentle-fought with a friend last night. He was like, "why are you doing that emotional labour for that abuser friend? so you can justify continuing to work with him?" And I said, "partially, but also because I think the better response to the upending of rape culture is to hold your close friends accountable when they've harmed people. Not to abandon them but to help them reform themselves. I think it's a more productive move than screaming 'BREAK UP YOUR BAND' at them over the internet." My idiot friend was like, "lol. OK. I think he should kill himself, but whatever"

also, i never liked waking up in other people's houses. and have to talk to other parents and eat their weird food.

lol otm

i did lots of sleepovers as a kid but in the morning i just wanted to get the fuck out of there and go home. when i had friends sleepover my house by the end of the night i wanted them to go home too.

OTM. The worst part of having dates over is the mild anxiety of wondering if he understands I want him to leave, like, now. At least at someone's house I can leave when I want.

My idiot friend was like, "lol. OK. I think he should kill himself, but whatever"

While we're on the subject of toxic culture / relationships, about this friend of yours...

You don’t take them out for brunch?

If it’s a literal rapist we are talking about and this person suffered abuse or something, the attitude is understandable, if uncharitable and against how I try to live. Xp

I still think the “spectrum” model of this stuff causes confusion. Like if someone wanted all catcallers to kill themselves, or all people who made a clumsy pass at a female acquaintance at a party but backed off when they saw it wasn’t working, I’d say that was extreme. I know all this stuff feeds into each other but still. There is a line between toxic and criminal.

@ Alfo lol. I'm only in it for the cuddle. The brief period I was using hook-up apps, a guy asked "so, what are you into?" and I said "I'll do anything, anything at all, so long as you spoon me all night and eat the breakfast I make for you in the morning"

Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby aren’t mere casualties of a society with regressive attitudes. They’re sexual predators. They knew what they did was wrong and did it anyway. Over and over.

hugging = of course, sleeping in same bed = eh, if necessary, no big deal, "cuddling" = erm, no guys are gross.

Everyone has a different level of energy for doing emotional labor for others. I have very little these days especially for people with certain behaviors like domestic violence, harmful drug abuse, habitual coercive behaviors. Idk. I mean I don't actually want them to die but I'm indifferent to the prospect of their non-existence.

Ya perfect breakdown tbh xp

one of my Korean students taught me the best Konglish word for platonic touching: SKINSHIP
is that the greatest or what?! i bring it up because i had asked my students what some of their pet peeves were (conversation/idiom practice) and skinship was brought up immediately.

some interesting stuff here: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2017/10/anthony_bourdain_on_weinstein_john_besh_and_meathead_restaurant_culture.html

Everyone has a different level of energy for doing emotional labor for others. I have very little these days especially for people with certain behaviors like domestic violence, harmful drug abuse, habitual coercive behaviors. Idk. I mean I don't actually want them to die but I'm indifferent to the prospect of their non-existence.

― Conic section rebellion 44 (in orbit), Wednesday, October 25, 2017 10:54 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's totally valid, almost doesn't even need to be explained. Those types of behavior are black holes of energy and emotion, and it's rare for an effort to even pay off.

I could stand a world with more cuddling as long as it's not random douchebags in the street trying to sell me something or be wacky

"guys are gross" is hmmmmm, interesting, lie down on the couch and tell me more

some interesting stuff here: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2017/10/anthony_bourdain_on_weinstein_john_besh_and_meathead_restaurant_culture.html

lol I was about to be all "gawd we already TALKED about that" but then I realized I was bringing a conversation on Facebook over here

I feel like cuddling is reserved for my significant other and my children (who will also surely grow out of it/not want it at some point - presumably around puberty)

see I could not cuddle with a man without succumbing to...urges

haha sorry Dan
xp

"guys are gross" is hmmmmm, interesting, lie down on the couch and tell me more

lol well Doc you see it all started when I realized I was a hetero cis-gendered male...