Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

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.

Of course!

As long as we have to swear fealty to the queen I'll consider us closer to british but fair enough

Quebec would like to have a word with you.

revisiting the last week or so of this thread today to reconsider but wanted to pass along this suggested read for people who'd expressed curiosity about what a trans male orientation to masculinity can look like

In this groundbreaking new book, the author, a trans man, trains to fight in a charity match at Madison Square Garden while struggling to untangle the vexed relationship between masculinity and violence. Through his experience boxing—learning to get hit, and to hit back; wrestling with the camaraderie of the gym; confronting the betrayals and strength of his own body—McBee examines the weight of male violence, the pervasiveness of gender stereotypes, and the limitations of conventional masculinity. A wide-ranging exploration of gender in our society, Amateur is ultimately a story of hope, as McBee traces a new way forward, a new kind of masculinity, inside the ring and outside of it.

In this graceful, stunning, and uncompromising exploration of living, fighting, and healing, we gain insight into the stereotypes and shifting realities of masculinity today through the eyes of a new man.

https://www.amazon.com/Amateur-True-Story-About-Makes/dp/1501168746/ref=sr_1_1_twi_har_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1544999933&sr=1-1&keywords=amateur+thomas+page+mcbee

hmm

im not violent am i less inherently culpable in my masculinity as a result, and, if so, to what extent would you say

as in to say i think this is v much framing and begging the question:

the vexed relationship between masculinity and violence

I think people who are angry and violeny lack self-command, which is an important “masculine” virtue in my book. I never felt a gendered pressure to be less in control.

I think, though—and I’m not being sarcastic—that I might be too dumb to understand gender. I never understood caculus either.

you know I think that might be me as well, and the certainty with which so many make declarations about it is very alien to me

im sure yer admissions will be treated with the appropriate respect and admiration lads

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693622/

Atavistic residues of aggressive behavior prevailing in animal life, determined by testosterone, remain attenuated in man and suppressed through familial and social inhibitions. However, it still manifests itself in various intensities and forms from; thoughts, anger, verbal aggressiveness, competition, dominance behavior, to physical violence. Testosterone plays a significant role in the arousal of these behavioral manifestations in the brain centers involved in aggression and on the development of the muscular system that enables their realization. There is evidence that testosterone levels are higher in individuals with aggressive behavior, such as prisoners who have committed violent crimes. Several field studies have also shown that testosterone levels increase during the aggressive phases of sports games. In more sensitive laboratory paradigms, it has been observed that participant’s testosterone rises in the winners of; competitions, dominance trials or in confrontations with factitious opponents. Aggressive behavior arises in the brain through interplay between subcortical structures in the amygdala and the hypothalamus in which emotions are born and the prefrontal cognitive centers where emotions are perceived and controlled. The action of testosterone on the brain begins in the embryonic stage. Earlier in development at the DNA level, the number of CAG repeats in the androgen receptor gene seems to play a role in the expression of aggressive behavior. Neuroimaging techniques in adult males have shown that testosterone activates the amygdala enhancing its emotional activity and its resistance to prefrontal restraining control. This effect is opposed by the action of cortisol which facilitates prefrontal area cognitive control on impulsive tendencies aroused in the subcortical structures. The degree of impulsivity is regulated by serotonin inhibiting receptors, and with the intervention of this neurotransmitter the major agents of the neuroendocrine influence on the brain process of aggression forms a triad. Testosterone activates the subcortical areas of the brain to produce aggression, while cortisol and serotonin act antagonistically with testosterone to reduce its effects.

Not so vexing tbph.

I will say it's a relief of sorts when trans/nb ppl I know say, for instance, that they sometimes misgender themselves in conversation, or find some new bit of vernacular that they think more precisely aligns with what's going on with them. There's a fluidity that seems at odds with the didacticism of online that can sometimes crop up

on the flipside of this I also know someone who identifies as a trans TERF, a designation I find fascinating in abstract but uhh am obviously not rushing to discuss the particulars of with other nb people in my life

wau

im not violent am i less inherently culpable in my masculinity as a result, and, if so, to what extent would you say

as in to say i think this is v much framing and begging the question:

the vexed relationship between masculinity and violence

― gabbnebulous (darraghmac), Monday, December 17, 2018 5:33 PM (fifty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ah but you've zeroed in on a phrase on a book jacket; for a relationship to be vexed it's got to be complicated and worthy of nuance, and the vexation is presumably explored with appropriate nuance in the text itself -- i'll have the book by wednesday, looking forward to filling in some shading.

it looks good. we're all violent to some degree

I will say it's a relief of sorts when trans/nb ppl I know say, for instance, that they sometimes misgender themselves in conversation

sometimes in conversation and way too often in my brain, it takes a lot