Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

From that Baffler piece about Queer Eye:

Women, queer people, and people of color are the people who are usually told that the problem isn’t the world, it’s us. We are told that we are to blame not only for the wreck of our own lives but also for everyone else’s as well, because we selfishly refused to flatten ourselves for the comfort of others. Men, by contrast, are perennially assured that the world is theirs, to be made over in their image. Or they were, until recently.

I know the novara/sarkar line on 'luxury communism' & accelerationism, the rest of the ironic dressing just makes it more glib & trite

anyway, I don't think responsible patronage is a moral imperative and I think there are virtues to having a broad skill set that are overlooked/undervalued regardless of what you think of self-sufficiency

that baffler article is unbelievably bad, I'm out

it's a guy's job to be running the world, get out of the guy's way.
therefor I, as a guy, have to be competent at everything in the world
i am not competent at everything in the world, so I feel like a pathetic loser
i feel like a pathetic loser and that leads to underachievement
hey, pathetic loser, why you underachieving after everyone's got out of your way?

I think this paintbrush is just a little wide but whatever
― El Tomboto, Thursday, July 26, 2018 7:33 AM (twenty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

laurie penny? a broad brush? you don't say????

sorry i'm not trying to one-up anyone i'm just exhausted

Yeah - it’s very much an argument by exaggeration, but I do think she captures something of the exhaustedness of heteronormative capitalist male identity.

It really depends heavily on the specific trope that Queer Eye relies on, though, of the boy-persons who never wash their sheets because they can’t figure out how to put the fitted one back on right.

Also the original queer eye totally had an episode with a trans man, that’s not new

https://i.imgur.com/nQYe88F.jpg

(no i didn't make this)

I didn't know till now that it was A Thing outside ilx.

o fer sure https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/fully-automated-luxury-gay-space-communism

automation is new since rails iirc

I like the Baffler article. It's showing up a lot on my fb feed.

When I talk about it, I'm mostly talking about modeling your life on Michael Mann movies. I've only ever read one Heinlein book, and it suuuuucked (The Number of the Beast).

― grawlix (unperson)

great led zeppelin album though

okay which one of u fux0rs made this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1flcGrb81M

Dalym

2 days ago

I enjoyed this video, though I wonder if this issue applies to most Incels. I agree that internet incels are mostly reactionaries, though there are single virgin men who don't carry that baggage. Most of my friends and me are virgin men approaching 30. I'm 28.
We're left leaning mostly, though I'm the only actual socialist as in I want worker owned production.

I feel there will always be some straight men that simply can't attract women, and that's fine, that's life. I continue my education, earn well, improve myself, and volunteer where I can, and that by itself is good.
Good for goodness sake is what sustains me, and I appreciate the many women I'm friends with as a result of my attempts at romance.

I hope to adopt one day, though single men generally can not adopt without much hurdles. If not, I'm happy on the path I'm on, and I'll die with no regrets.

I expect to be called some variation of cucked, white knight, and/or soyboy by some non leftist watching. : P

is it wrong to feel that being this guy would be even more abject than being someone who spends their days on incel forum ranting about chads and stacys? I mean, yes, it is, but still

itd be like worrying which area of venus you landed on in yr underwear tbh

(Dovetailing in from another thread...)

I spoke with a friend last week about how if the basic tenets of BDSM were understood by everyone, a great deal of misunderstanding regarding consent/coercion might be avoided. Specifically not regarding violence, but regarding penetration. The fact that so many people (men) cannot conceive, themselves, of the "desire to be penetrated", forms (what I think is) the basis of shitty male behaviour-- that they think women have to be persuaded, coerced, or pressured into doing something that the men themselves cannot possibly conceive of being pleasurable (or even necessary).

On the Weinstein thread, somebody stated that they could not conceive of "the desire to dominate" as being a healthy thing. I think the "dom" position is often equated with people having violent urges-- and, I've been told, the BDSM scene is populated by many men who assume dom roles with this misconception. "Doms" are there to get off on being useful, on being of service. The "sub" is the one in control, calling the shots. Violence is only a by-product of a reverse-power dynamic.

I think a lot of it comes down to partners discussing in very clear terms what their expectations are, what they want to happen, what's out of bounds, and what steps they can take to put on the brakes of things go too far.

Couples that steer away from that kind of detailed communication are bound to run into trouble.

I know plenty of doms who are service doms, and they're all great people. Is it true, though, that all doms, or at least all True Doms, are service doms? Even if this is so... I read "Mother Night" and more or less agree with its central thesis, though I'd phrase it as "We become who we pretend to be". Is there a danger, then, in adopting the pretense of dominance?

From the sub side things get more complicated. "Topping from the bottom" is frequently discouraged in BDSM circles. Sacher-Masoch himself was an abuser. The trick to submission, to my mind, is getting more or less what one wants without asking for it.

Overall I feel that BDSM sex is, generally, more consensual than vanilla sex, because it does involve negotiation. There are still a lot of complications when one starts thinking of consent in other than absolute terms.

Having been raised as a man, one of the things I have the most trouble doing, to the extent that I find it basically impossible, is consenting to something I'm less than fully enthusiastic about. This causes problems.

The fact that so many people (men) cannot conceive, themselves, of the "desire to be penetrated", forms (what I think is) the basis of shitty male behaviour-- that they think women have to be persuaded, coerced, or pressured into doing something that the men themselves cannot possibly conceive of being pleasurable

this strikes me as a fairly major assumption to be basing anything at all on tbh

it must be amazing to be able to believe hypotheses like that

i cannot conceive of that

Well, I said "so many", not "all". Even I kind of never really grasped the notion until fairly recently.

i couldve bolded all of the excerpt tbh

not an attack it just struck me as .... nonsense

Ya i kinda read that and thought i could not relate and came from left field

It's like that popular tweet "If you've ever tried to put your finger up a straight guy's ass during sex, you'll know that they actually understand ongoing consent, withdrawal of consent, and sexual boundaries very well. They act confused when it's our bodies."

men failing to understand or devaluing passive sexual roles has been going on at least since roman times, men taking umbrage at any suggestion they might not have something completely sussed even longer

"Doms" are there to get off on being useful, on being of service. The "sub" is the one in control, calling the shots. Violence is only a by-product of a reverse-power dynamic.

this is so, so, so otm

If a man were of the type that they wouldn’t mind something up their ass, I’m sure some would like it if you do it to them without consent, just as some might have a preference for letting them know before you do it

Making a blanket statement that sticking up something up a guy’s ass is equivalent to putting a penis in a vagina is the nonsense

i couldve bolded all of the excerpt tbh

not an attack it just struck me as .... nonsense

― dele alli my bookmarks (darraghmac), Wednesday, August 1, 2018 7:16 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

personally could use a break from you being willfully thick everywhere on here

personally take one

fgti i was hopping on bus, that wasnt meant to be as brusque as it looks there btw

don't be *too* willfully thick, some aren't into that

is it a consent issue here?

not to be too tmi here but i have been a straight man having sex with a woman who put a finger in my ass and i was fine with it tbh #notallmen

tmi

i won't even use contact lenses

xp Just kidding.

i have been a straight man having sex with a woman who put a finger in my ass and i was fine with it tbh

Can we presume it was HER finger?

Like, if someone severed someone's finger and put it in my ass I might be a little upset.

Didnt wanna go there but ya I thought it was not the womans finger

But that might be more than anyone is willing to admit

🤢

also wouldn't be okay with, like, a chicken finger. Just to be clear.

no it was not a "stop hitting yourself" type situation. there's nothing that suggests that in the sentence tbh

Considering this conversation that just followed, I really don't see why anyone was picking apart that original bolded statement in question.

this conversation has brightened my day

OK, to clarify:

There's a difference between being a person for whom "being penetrated is a no-go", and a person for whom "being penetrated is something that I will indulge in for the benefit of my sexual partner", and a person for whom "being penetrated is something that I enjoy, in small quantities-- a finger in the ass, i.e.", and a person for whom "being penetrated is the thing that my body craves, and I seek to achieve that end", and a person for whom "being penetrated in more extreme fashions-- either aggressively, or with large appliances-- is the thing that my body craves, and I seek to achieve that end".

I feel it's a safe generalization that "many men", even those who might enjoy a finger-in-the-ass, do not understand, or cannot identify one-to-one, with sexual partners who seek to be penetrated. If it were taught that men, if in the role of penetrators, were actually providing a SERVICE to many of their sexual partners, and to view it as such-- understanding that many (but not all) of their sexual partners actually desire to be penetrated, and thus to not approach the penetrative act as something that requires coercion, or pressure, or violent subtext, or belittling-- then they might perform better in their sexual role.

If a man were of the type that they wouldn’t mind something up their ass, I’m sure some would like it if you do it to them without consent, just as some might have a preference for letting them know before you do it

And this is exactly the type of thought that I'm talking about. Lots of men want their guts beat up, but NONE of them want their guts beat up non-consensually. The idea that even an eager power bottom would permit non-consensuality is the problem. Even a "fuck me bitte" Gudetama-looking West Berlin clown in the sex club with his prolapsed asshole in the air, begging for a fist, any fist, has tacitly given consent to having his yolk broken by a stranger.

But on a fundamental level

What I'm trying to say

Is that people who seek to "dom" are cool and good and should be applauded. People who seek to enact violence on others are missing the point of domming. Violent rape fantasies are for subs to devise and control, not for doms to devise and control. I myself love to get punched in the face. I literally want a black eye at all times. But I could never, ever date somebody who actively had a desire to punch me in the face, and the thought of being punched in the face non-consensually is terrifying to me.

Even a "fuck me bitte" Gudetama-looking West Berlin clown in the sex club with his prolapsed asshole in the air, begging for a fist, any fist

Well that is a thing the existence of which I would not have known about but for this thread

"If a man were of the type that they wouldn’t mind something up their ass, I’m sure some would like it if you do it to them without consent, just as some might have a preference for letting them know before you do it"

And this is exactly the type of thought that I'm talking about. Lots of men want their guts beat up, but NONE of them want their guts beat up non-consensually.

96% sure that infinity meant "without previously-acquired explicit consent via inquiry and subsequent discussion," not "against the recipient's will"

Sic otm

Probably true, but he literally said the opposite

"If a man were of the type" = there is an othering here of men who enjoy being penetrated
"that they wouldn't mind something up their ass" = a suggestion that men 'don't mind' something in their asses, i.e. "it is something they tolerate", instead of the understanding that some men actually desire, ravenously, to be penetrated
"I'm sure some would like it if you do it to them without consent" = some of these strange other men who don't mind things in their ass, they probably would love it if you gave it to them without asking

I don't think infinity actually thinks that men-who-bottom are these strange Others, some of whom enjoy being raped in they asses but this is what was explicitly stated