Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

I didn't really mean to come at you like that silby, this whole discourse just depresses me endlessly

That’s understandable. It’s ok to have some compassion for yourself imho

hmm sounds fake but ok

At some point it needs to be mentioned that not all incels blame woman. I remember reading an article about the founder of some incel group on the net and how woman blaming became widespread but lots of the original losers that bonded never took that stance and just chose to ignore it. I’m sure some newcomers must have took the “I’m merely a dysfunctional loser (with possibly some mental or behavioral diagnoses)” stance as well. I don’t mean to interrupt the current gender discussion but felt the need to post this after having read 2 posts signifying that incels blame all women.

#notallincels

I really don't know what's going on here right now, but the question of what actually signifies masculine or feminine for you personally nowadays is interesting. I honestly don't care because it's everchanging and once you have any bit of power (money, status, support, platform) you can fuck it up however much you want. Indigenous americans and the five genders, two spirits had it right ages ago. You can posses masculine and feminine traits together or be transgender and it just was. If i had to determine where the masculine and feminine traits were between me and my spouse...he's a lot taller? I like cheese more? I am much, much more pro-moisturizing. There really shouldn't be that much of a divide.

“Incel” refers to people who subscribe to the hatefful ideology these people have. It doesn’t just mean “people who have trouble getting laid.” Those are just called people.

Xp mr duck

For clarification, I think the question is very interesting but for me personally I don't care about people exuding obvious feminine or masculine traits, because I think they should be interchangeable and non-gendered, and I think people adhering to that idea is going to hold them back.

I just realized I should ask pom how my approach to whatever problem is problematic.

I've given this some thought and I think what I recoiled at in silby's list was the implication, maybe a misinterpreted one on my part, that aesthetic choices about how to present oneself can help to unfuck patriarchy in some way. because frankly I'm not interested, in the context of my own life, in shaving as activism. I would feel like a moron.

― resident hack (Simon H.)

i feel like a moron on a fairly regular basis and i don't feel like it's a sufficient reason for me not to do something. but i also don't shave as activism, or to abolish patriarchy or capitalism or any of that shit. i shave because i don't like having all that hair and i'm willing to a certain extent to pay the cost of not conforming to arbitrary and stupid gender norms.

if you like having a beard and want to keep it, please do, but i find it's generally a good idea to question one's habits and be willing to change them or even just experiment with them. and i feel that that willingness to make what are often, yes, aesthetic choices, does have a role to play in challenging patriarchal culture.

Xp
You seem to think incels all follow the same long list of hateful ideologies. The original web group did not have widespread misogny or racism.

(Xp was to Trees)

I don't give a fuck about facial hair one way or another and I have no earthly idea why anyone else should tbh, of all the fucking things

oh god are we really making original intent arguments about fucking INCELS now, jesus christ kill me now

I don't give a fuck about facial hair one way or another and I have no earthly idea why anyone else should tbh, of all the fucking things

― resident hack (Simon H.)

unfortunately tsar peter i is not responding to my emails

Original and current intent dummy

There are still a large, very large amount of men who recoil at facial hair on women.

i'm not sure how ridiculous this sounds, but i feel like i've caught a few hints of some positive and non-controlling, non-death cult aspects of masculinity from listening to daniel ortberg every week on the "dear prudence" podcast and detecting or maybe imagining idk some changes in tone from what i'm assuming are the hormonal and certainly overall aspects of transitioning. like before his voice started noticeably dropping i feel like he was somewhat more clipped and business-like in his responses, but after the tone of his voice really started changing it seemed like a tenderness and almost a surplus of feeling arrived where there wasn't any before. i feel like aggression is so socially over-determined to equate to testosterone when it feels right to me to suggest that there are other emotional affects related to that hormone and what it does in male bodies including tenderness and sentimentality. also i've noticed him judging bad actors, especially men, as not behaving "honorably" -- i like how he uses that word. it attaches a masculine-coded virtue to treating others with respect and equality.

i feel like hearing more from people who transition from female to male would be really helpful for me in constructing a gendered masculine identity that i don't have to constantly pick apart.

There are still a large, very large amount of men who recoil at facial hair on women.

Of course. I got to see my mother bleach her mustache many times, from early childhood on, and felt it brush up against my face many times, and I still hold that as a strong associative memory.

What I don't see is how me shaving will help other men be less awful about their feelings towards women with facial hair.

good post map

simon h. facial hair shouldn't be associated with either gender as to whether it makes someone more masculine or feminine. Both grow body hair, both grow facial hair.

another thing is i think that our preferences regarding the presentation of our gender have been blown up into this sort of cancer in american society with rules and anxieties and fascisms because .. idk our society is fucking sick. but looking at the gendered part of our identities, ultimately i feel like it's one separate part of many, not the overlaying transparency that makes everything "work," you know? like it's a fun and charming part of us and a fun part of sex (at least for me), but when it starts to bleed into other parts of ourselves with socially administered, toxic rules of conduct, that's when i feel like it's time to put it in its place as a small and separate part of many that make up ourselves, not THE MOST IMPORTANT PART that we have to CONSTANTLY PRESENT or else we're worthless.

simon h. facial hair shouldn't be associated with either gender as to whether it makes someone more masculine or feminine. Both grow body hair, both grow facial hair.

My anecdote was meant to make clear that I understand this but apparently that didn't work.

No, I get it. But I am also thinking about women who can grow almost full beards and don't get an easy choice about whether to remove it or not.

another thing is i think that our preferences regarding the presentation of our gender have been blown up into this sort of cancer in american society with rules and anxieties and fascisms because .. idk our society is fucking sick. but looking at the gendered part of our identities, ultimately i feel like it's one separate part of many, not the overlaying transparency that makes everything "work," you know? like it's a fun and charming part of us and a fun part of sex (at least for me), but when it starts to bleed into other parts of ourselves with socially administered, toxic rules of conduct, that's when i feel like it's time to put it in its place as a small and separate part of many that make up ourselves, not THE MOST IMPORTANT PART that we have to CONSTANTLY PRESENT or else we're worthless.

― macropuente (map), Thursday, December 13, 2018 10:30 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

best post in the last 500 posts or w/e it's been

I really hope that whole post was about masculinity.

xp i'm glad you thought so, i feel like realizing this has given me a lot of space to "be masculine" in small ways i like without letting it overwhelm my other qualities with gender anxiety. part of the issue with masculinity in american culture is its aggressive totalizing, but gender is like a small flavor component in a dish -- america keeps dumping cupfuls of it in everything, and it's obsessed with slightly modifying the flavor of the ingredient so it's more "authentic" but ultimately every dish just becomes overwhelmed with that insipid flavor and boring / monotonous as a result.

The problem of masculinity isn't an American problem. Americans just have happen to have more guns and more freedom of religion that pretends to not sometimes blatantly subjugate non-straight men.

Yep agreed it is intersectional, I’m just looking at that particular intersection because it’s what i know best.

Somehow, I am not sure that "dudes, pls chop off your beards" is what the Combahee River Collective had in mind

i feel like hearing more from people who transition from female to male would be really helpful for me in constructing a gendered masculine identity that i don't have to constantly pick apart.

― macropuente (map), Friday, December 14, 2018 3:10 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is a line of inquiry I've thought a lot about too that's guided a lot of my reading & gratefully-had convos on this subject with trans guys I've been close to or dated. This article is interesting on the subject:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/07/20/feature/crossing-the-divide-do-men-really-have-it-easier-these-transgender-guys-found-the-truth-was-more-complex/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.179c354c1823

interesting article hoos and good posts map. that's the kind of thing i always hoped this thread could be about.

the "are beards sexist?" line of inquiry is by far the stupidest thing i've seen on ilx.

in my 87 years of posting

ftr I never said they were

no, i liked your post especially the part about dressing provocatively. it's more rushomancy's insistence that it's something we must at least consider.

I just realized I should ask pom how my approach to whatever problem is problematic.

Not at all this time around, but thanks for asking!

I enjoyed reading that article HOOS posted

Yeah, that was a great read.

no, i liked your post especially the part about dressing provocatively. it's more rushomancy's insistence that it's something we must at least consider.

― Trϵϵship

yeah that's not even remotely what i said, i don't understand how people keep interpreting my post as being some sort of rabid beard-hater.

i mean i do understand at a certain point i was pretty aggressively ignorant about gender, i guess i'm just frustrated?

maybe this thread isn't for me. maybe i am no longer sufficiently masculine to talk with cis men about masculinity in a way they can comprehend.

that wapo article was a good one, i talked with my spouse about it when it came out

The problem of masculinity isn't an American problem.

You'd never guess that from this thread.

lookit

youve to insert it yrself tom its easier and it helps

The problem of masculinity isn't an American problem.

There are no men in England. I’ve been there.

neither of us are english buck

No-one can compare with an American man tbf.

First sensible post. 🔥🦅🔥

not American fwiw

🔥🔥🔥🔥🤠🤑🤑🤠🤠🔥🔥🔥🔥

(xp) I think we all know that by now.

All North and South Americans are American tbf.