Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

there's also the insistence by many that it's not about sex per se -- there's no interest in pursuing casual sex, or paying for sex, among most of the community (at least according to the articles I've read)

it really comes down to wanting a largely asymmetrical relationship, with a woman that meets their standards of attractiveness, that includes sex

a gross pejorative that attempts to twist reality around whatever internal shitscape the utterer is refusing to deal with.
― Home Despot (Old Lunch), Thursday, December 13, 2018 2:52 PM (forty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i just want to highlight that this is really nicely said & clear, otm

It's about "winning" in a very narrow sense, vanquishing other men in a hierarchy where only men matter or exist. Women are just vehicles for putting other men down. I think HOOS was otm with:

it feels like they have this sense that a Chad is all you're allowed to be, you're that or an outcast and a nobody, and it's such an impoverished sense of the world

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, December 12, 2018 1:39 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Is it about winning, or just being able to engage in some way with that male hierarchy?

^ Yeah, interesting question. There's kind of a vicarious power in identifying with the hierarchy, even if one renders oneself the 'loser'.

Going back to men hanging out in groups. Someone posted an article in the bitcoin thread yesterday and this part stood out.

One of the ways men bond is by demonstrating collective power over women. This is why business deals are still done in strip clubs, even in Silicon Valley, and why tech conferences are famous for their “booth babes.” It creates an atmosphere of complicity and privilege. It makes rich men partners in crime. This is useful if you plan to get ethically imaginative with your investments. Hence the half-naked models, who are all working a lot harder than any of the guys in shirtsleeves.

like a mode of gang initiation

Good job I don't know hang out with rich men, I think.

xp do you really imagine the hangouts of the guys posting in this thread in any way resemble that, even metaphysically? I have literally never been to a strip club.

I have, but only in the USA and only having been dragged there by some American guys - two different occasions. Hideous.

they do though

Seriously guys...#notallmen

I mean it's great that you are looking at your own personal lives to make sure you are in the clear... whew.

collective ilx male responsibility for #allmen always a success iirc

essentialism is really cool

I mean it's great that you are looking at your own personal lives to make sure you are in the clear... whew.

Yes, that's what's going on there.

i don't doubt that all of those dynamics are in play with certain groups of friends. i just object to that being seen as like the paradigm of male bonding.

groups of friends groups of men

if that's a #notallmen deflection then fine

One of the ways men bond
One of the ways men bond
One of the ways men bond

Original sin is an excellent doctrine to build a civilization upon iirc.

So anyway, in case one was wondering why some of us are uncomfortable with all straight men hanging out in groups it's because of this dynamic (the rich guy angle is just a variation). There have been a lot of recent discussion/articles about things like "rape trains" as well. And this goes back to men who wouldn't think of participating in terrible behaviour who will engage when in a group with other men.

I have virtually no male friends but I'm not going to pretend it's because I'm exceptionally well-adjusted or anything.

I got dragged to one on a stag do. Midday - a pub near Heathrow. We had to pay a big dude £1 to guard the car. I'm guessing, but it seemed to be mainly shift-workers in the 'crowd' and the dancers, who danced on a small raised stage in the corner, seemed to be mostly Eastern European. They came round with a pint jug after each dance. A private dance was £10 - behind a gingham curtain in what looked like a old toilet. Hideous doesn't even begin to cover it.

I suppose the key word there is dragged. I had a fair idea and went anyway. So I'm not in the clear, albeit I lasted about 10 minutes and made my excuses.

(xp) Or the opposite.

xp do you really imagine the hangouts of the guys posting in this thread in any way resemble that, even metaphysically? I have literally never been to a strip club.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, December 13, 2018 6:57 PM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

metaphysically? absolutely yes. the male gaze is real.

rich ppl are a problem group forsure nest pas

I've been to strip clubs, they just make me feel like I need to do more push ups and squats.

Never been to a strip club or a stag party and I have no interest in doing so. Does this count as #notallmen-ing?

team i'm not at all sure the quoted excerpt was supposed to be a finger pointing at the thread, this feels a little confusingly defensive

I have been to a strip club, but it was purely academic. (Not even joking, it was part of an assignment for a Film Studies course where, in groups, we had to watch pr0n and attend a "sexual public exhibition")

I got dragged to one on a stag do. Midday - a pub near Heathrow.

just in case anyone is wondering, "daytime near the airport" is not the correct way to do it.

all I'll say is that strip clubs and their ilk are, as that quoted text upthread implies, not about sexuality or sex but about power, specifically economic power, and the gendered exercise thereof.

attend a "sexual public exhibition"

aka Sauchiehall Street on any Saturday night.

One of Yerac's points I think is that there's not a nice comfortable bright line, ie "I'm not part of problematic masculinity because I've never been to a strip club." Patriarchy and misogyny are woven throughout all systems of society and life, and manifest on a spectrum.

If anyone has been reading the Girls' Room thread, you saw multiple comments that women posters feel less and less ability to engage in threads where we're just going to be argued against or told that we're wrong or whatever we're saying is unimportant or TOO CONTROVERSIAL to be considered by reasonable people. And the result is women posting less and feeling unwelcome and withdrawing from conversations. And all y'all don't seem to notice or care that we're disappearing from the board.

I mean it's great that you are looking at your own personal lives to make sure you are in the clear... whew.

Even if we were all doing this, you aren't likely to accept our right to a self-awarded clear conscience. The only convincing evidence of self-interrogation would be self-accusation and confession of our sins. What's the next step? Where will absolution come from, who will supply it, and on what authority?

there's not a nice comfortable bright line, ie "I'm not part of problematic masculinity because I've never been to a strip club."

ftr I def do not think this and I trust no one else here seriously does either

It would be pretty stupid.

OK now that we have figured out who has been to a strip club: Men in groups will sometimes do terrible things that they wouldn't do while on their own. Straight men who only hang out with other straight men, leads me to believe( personally) that they have never learned to dissociate women as being a person who is neither as complicated as themselves, equal, or useful other than a mother figure or prospective love interest. This leads to all sorts of inabilities to socialize with or work well with women.

Also, I am not absolving anyone. I can barely tell you guys apart.

Seriously guys...#notallmen

― Yerac, Thursday, December 13, 2018 2:03 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the point of your post was literally to back up an argument that straight men should not hang out in groups, so I really don't know what your getting at anymore, although the kneejerk #notallmen was very predictable

It's more like 'I am not a part of that problematic facet of masculinity you just brought up'.

(xps)

fwiw, I work in a majority female law office of a firm owned by a woman, and I work very well with my coworkers thanks. And I know you're going to throw out #notallmen again, but you are the one jumping to conclusions about what my social life says about me

OH wow, I totally boggled one of those sentences.

Aye, I've been to a strip club and now work in an outstanding school in an all-female department and get along just fine with my colleagues (all of whom know about the former, fwiw, and have called me out on it many times). Which is a bit notallmen-y but whatever.

That 'outstanding' was a reflex. What a muppet.

fwiw in orbit I find yr posts valuable. I don't know where the Girls Room thread is. Apart from a handful of older posters I don't actually know most posters' gender.

xp

And the result is women posting less and feeling unwelcome and withdrawing from conversations. And all y'all don't seem to notice or care that we're disappearing from the board.

Only one female in the top 10 posters of the month

Maybe I am using #notallmen wrong but I use it when I want men to stop recentering the discussion to their own personal deal. Sometimes, most of the time, it's not about you.