Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

How soon we forget the epic 2004 throwdown of Luna fans vs. Ok Go fans in Pittsburgh, both concerts were letting out at the same time and harsh words were exchanged about the quality of production on Pup Tent.

As many as two dudes got their glasses slightly scuffed in the ensuing melee.

Big gigs over here routinely involve more trouble than much better attended sporting events- I'm thinking specifically the events in the phoenix park (which is not usually an event venue)

LL's point is fair, you have to manage opposing fans in many sports so there's a heightened risk there

Here it's the norm to have mixed seating at rugby and gaa events and even soccer doesn't seem to need this type of management. Very rarely any trouble.

Ogmor you'll offer your Manchester events, fair enough. Maybe there's a major cultural divide between even there and here.

i wish i could say that musical performances are free from hostility but that wouldn't be true. they're just not the same as sporting events.

irish sports seem so charming and wholesome compared to football & english sport culture, chatted about this to a (completely unsporty) friend who moved to dublin about how much more appealing it is

It's probably relevant that gaa/rugby attendance in particular is imo much more mixed ito age and gender than yr stereotypical footy crowd

pep rallies are deeply weird

I guess regardless of culture or geographic location, kids who are so inclined will find an outlet through which they can exercise their desire to be shitty to other kids.

boys will be boys!

With sports it's this thing where it can be deployed as an organized and validated and authority-approved method of exhibiting your superiority over other kids and maybe even getting to beat them up a bit with a hard hit or two, and no one's gonna really get in trouble for it.

I always liked sports and gym class, I mean though during square dancing weeks the latter was pure hell.

Well there's playing sport and watching sport; the Feyenoord fans in Manchester right now probably aren't feeling very authority-approved.

eh not really the same imo since there is no competition involved in a crowd all gathered to see a musical performance

I know what you mean but I still reflexively am like "this does not match my experiences with attempting to see the stage at non-classical concerts"

YOU have trouble seeing the stage? I'm 5'2" and i still don't feel competition. Hostility, yes.

struggle to remember any non-classical gigs I've attended where more than 20 people were there and a percentage of them weren't dicks

Basically, unless I am practically sitting on the stage, some (white) dude 3-5 inches taller than me will invariably elbow his way in front of me and performatively enjoy the show while I jostle around for a better viewpoint, at which point some other tall (white) asshole will cut off my line of sight. It is very much "I must show my devotion to the band by getting as close to them as possible" combined with "well you don't really belong here anyway so why should I care if I block your view" posturing.

^^^ I have stood *right against the lip of the stage* and have big muscleheads jostle me out of the way, because I'm a dumpy, 5'8", 48 y.o. dude who is not going to start a fight and they know it.

that's just a healthy outlet for aggression iirc

ever since I got called out for obstructing someone's view at a Downtown Boys show a couple years ago (I'm not tall and have some hangups about it so it generally didn't occur to me to check behind me at shows) I obsessively check to make sure I'm not in other folks' way

I try to do the same.

I also try not to smash up town centres, whether or not I am in town to watch the football. I am some kind of paragon.

i neither elbow my way to the front of the stage nor performatively enjoy things, but as a tall (white) asshole there's not a whole lot else i can do to not block people's view

it's kind of funny how often the handful of ppl who are taller than i am end up right in front of me tho

Same as mookieproof - At 6'4", pretty much anywhere I stand, I'm going to block someone's view, so I'm most comfortable against a wall or at the bar if there's one with sightlines. Don't feel the need to be 10' from the stage anymore. But if I'm on the floor, like you, if there's one taller person in the venue, I always laugh that they'll move in front of me.

Speaking from experience and the anecdotes of others, tall white dudes at concerts are equal-opportunity dickholes to everyone. I don't know how many times I've probably very nearly gotten mashed for berating a dude 1.3333 times my size because he parked himself directly in front of a woman .5 his size.

some hard-to-say real talk coming up: afaict you are seeing this show of hostility through a competitive lens. to me, that kind of aggressive behavior is hostility. there is no chance of me "winning" that encounter. i have been studiously monitoring my choice of attire to ensure that i am not singled out as a person to grope for over 2 decades. by myself for about 10 years or so. it's tiring and yet i keep doing it because i enjoy going to shows. but like it's not a competitive environment. half the people don't walk into the show knowing "their team" will lose. i am no one's rival, opponent, or enemy. i am merely attending a musical performance.

i'm not even saying that monitoring my attire works, it's just a preventative measure that makes me feel safer
going to a musical performance can be dangerous for lots of reasons for lots of people, but that doesn't make it competitive

I agree with you re: this action being hostile.

This is not, from my viewpoint, an either/or situation; there is a competitive "I must have the best vantage point in the house" streak married with "I belong here more than you" hostility that informs all of this.

I guess "I must have the best vantage point in the house" is not something I even consider within my grasp 99% of the time -- I just go where I feel comfortable and can (hopefully) see what I want to see. The idea that I must (or even might) get "the best" view rarely enters my mind tbh. On the occasions when it does, I park myself there early and wait patiently. If I'm lucky, I will have a buddy to talk to.

"competitive streak" otm -- i don't think i have one, or it's very weak

It's basically a competition which the majority of the participants hadn't been informed of. Like so many of the pissing contests particular dudes perpetuate to the bemusement of everyone else.

i'm sorry you guys. that all sounds sucky. i look like a taller combination of larry, daryl, and his other brother daryl so people just tend to leave me alone. and give me room.

i tend to stay in the back when i see music. as long as i can hear it i'm good.

Im 6 3. i block people's view all the time, even though i never try and get close to the stage at shows. i have had aggro dudes give me shit for it. i don't hardly go to shows anymore so it all works out in the end

if there is an unhealthy injection of competition into a noncompetitive sphere, and it makes people feel bad because it's accompanied by hostility, let's try to squash that
just an idea

I think it's a capital idea. It might be a harder sell with those who are doing the unhealthy injecting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncSkQ4nOmiQ

metal shows are a whole other kettle of fish

indeed
i still think it's worth trying even if it is a hard sell. none of this is going to be easy.

go to shows with seating, problem solved

I once saw a woman in general admission at a concert aggressively box out a couple of kids (probably 8 & 10 yrs old) when they were trying to move up for a better view. Those front row fans will fight anyone for position.

xp
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSRU1G44fMGAdSeqFGLDZN5XziWU7IN6sVK4bdgFRN951g_rM6x

a friend recently confided to me that he treats moving in public spaces as a competition, so that he races against others to get to the next staircase or train platform faster than the people around him. He says he can’t help it, it’s not particularly pleasurable for him. I felt sorry for him!

I can relate. I have a similar mindset. It’s less about a race for me and more about optimization. I don’t want to beat you somewhere, I just want to get there as efficiently and quickly as possible.

this guy wants to beat you, it’s not about optimization

more about optimization

if you train your brain to solve problems all the time, it will find new problems to solve, even when they are not worth solving.

People are just obstacles, not competitors to me. I don’t know which is worse.

Competition is not inherently bad.

quoth treesh in response to tombot's assertion that 'when you’re under 25 you are still just a simian with a little less hair':

This is dehumanizing rhetoric and can only serve to alienate young men from feminist perspectives. I mostly see male feminists talking this way — people like Stephen Marche who wrote a column in the Times about the bestial nature of male sexuality. I don’t know why it’s considered constructive to make these essentialist arguments but people are doing it. Seems to have little to do with the purpose of the #metoo movement, which as I understood it was about stopping sexual harassment and assault, not insisting that we are all guilty in the eyes of God style fatalism.

I've been thinking about this a bit in light of a debate I went to about masculinity which had a lot of discussion about how we treat boys growing up and so on. this idea that there is a beastly predatory side to masculinity is v deeply ingrained and not at all unique to feminism - it's ubiquitous; it's the dad who's suspicious of his daughter's boyfriend. the other side of the coin to this distrust and dislike of other men is, ofc, a fraternity based on shared bad boy urges, that collective letting off steam after you're tired from fighting yr own bestial nature all the time cf. porn.

possibly related: I think a lot of men feel worthless in a particular sort of way. this idea that implicit in the notion that men have to prove themselves and be active, while women are prizes, is that men are in and of themselves worthless. it's tied to male homelessness, suicide, at least some criminal behaviour and general disregard of their own welfare. I think it's easy for men to embrace this under the guise of feminism or morality or whatever. but yeah, I wonder about nature and nurture and the effect of this understanding of masculinity on boys, on how they are treated and viewed and how they internalise it.

great post

this idea that implicit in the notion that men have to prove themselves and be active, while women are prizes, is that men are in and of themselves worthless.

"seed dispensers" iirc

I might argue that the subtext there is less that men are in and of themselves worthless and more that said worthlessness is framing device erected so that the women who get chewed up by the patriarchy have something philosophically comforting to fall back on (see also Christianity and slavery in the US).

only it's not comforting at all

...or a passive-aggressive ploy to fish for reassurance and require emotional labor of women?

He: I'm worthless because I haven't yet slain a mammoth for you.

She: Oh no, sweetie, don't tear yourself down so. You're great at gathering mosses!

i'm terrible at gathering mosses :(