Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

I sent long winded emails to close friends while in a drunken stupor.

i'm sometimes sad about how little i actually write these days. there are lots of things i think about and don't say, even to myself, and in that undone writing are reckonings i'm avoiding, against my best interest.

I filled something like 40 handwritten notebooks (160 pages each) between age 18 and 28. I haven't thrown them out, even though I never go back and open any of them. They helped me learn how to write flexibly and fluently, and they gave focus to my random thoughts. But as for having lasting value, nope. It doesn't matter. It was good for me at the time.

Is "journal" just guy for "diary"?

Or is "diary" girl for "journal"?

I have written in a blank book almost every day for 30 years. I think I usually call it a journal. I don't think I have ever called it a diary. But I don't think there's an interest in difference.

* interesting difference

Interesting indeed. Many famous diaries were written by men, however (Samuel Pepys and Franz Kafka come to mind). Maybe the association with femininity is a more recent development.

I kept a diary from about 12 to 22 and this is the first time I've ever heard it's a "girl thing"

I kept a diary in high school only to discover that writing about your feelings is a fundamentally girly act, duh.

Besides, everybody knows that Anne Frank's is the only diary in existence.

add to the stew that women's writing is only seen as valuable when it trucks in feelings/interior life
diaries can be our attempt at our experience & writing having some sort of relevance
at least that was my impression as a young diarist

Veering off-topic here a bit, but an ex used to make a very personal zine about her life based on diaries, I thought her writing was excellent, then at the age of 30 she made a bonfire of the 50 or so books she'd kept since she was 10, said they were useless and uninteresting to anyone. In a world of many terrible things this is pretty minor, especially as she seems not to regret it at all, but thinking about it still makes me sad.

Kafka would have approved, I guess.

And LL otm. Letters also served that function for several centuries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2rIgsPlJd0

I viscerally really do not like that commercial/"film," although I am trying to parse out why. (1) Corporate social justice ads pretty much always miss the mark and there is always something gross about them doing it (2) IDK, it's just--the tone? The sort of portrayal of maleness reduced to a neverending toxic nightmare, with no one having even done anything about it until 2018/19?

I think it's encouraging that they think this stance is good for their brand, because they wouldn't do it otherwise.

I completely unexpectedly found it really moving even though I don't have the time/focus to research that url and see what, if anything, they're actually doing.

xp also true--it feels like a corporate pivot/commitment to this being the discourse of the future.

i thought it was nice that they used the terry crews clip. a friend of mine told me she used that testimony before congress as an example of leadership when the majority of her classmates included videos of sports people or corporate people to illustrate their conception of "leadership"

corporate leadership is usually pretty weak and self-serving but at least this video has the greater good in mind, even if it makes some eyes roll

The sort of portrayal of maleness reduced to a neverending toxic nightmare, with no one having even done anything about it until 2018/19?

Yeah, they're completely skewing history. #MeToo began in 17!

Marketing insider baseball: Gillette is suffering from fashionableness of beards and turning increasingly toward products for women. Men are not the target audience of this ad.

yeah well shaving sucks

like i said, corporate "leadership" is self-serving! at least this serves a wider swath of humanity than the average act of corporate "generosity"

xxp Oooh that's fascinating!

Shaving one’s face smooth every day is a weird prectice. Yet i did it for so long.

Also competition from Harry’s and dollar shave club and the like?

shaving is bad

I hate having to shave my face and I keep meaning to go try laser but ugh

wait I thought shaving was praxis

i don't think anyone should shave with a razor ever, except when you get your haircut

beard trimmer can tame facial and bodily hair if it's getting too long for your taste

this is now the shaving foibles thread

it is but I hate doing it xp

I’ve never gotten good feedback when I got rid of my cery short scruff—usually like the second shortest setting. To the contrary, I’ve gotten very bad feedback.

facial hair: uncomfortable, mild dysphoria. shaving: tedious, nick this same damn mole on my face 2/3 of the time. laser: intimidating, unknown.

Seems like a couple millimeters shouldn’t make a difference but it does.

the suffering of shaving is the feeling of toxic masculinity leaving the body

Laser hair removal on your face sounds painful

that's bc it removes so much of the toxicity in one go only the strongest humans can bare it

take a break Mordy

silby, I know there are some numbing creams that people use before laser hair removal. I preferred the digging my nails into my palms and trying to be zen method.

relax silbs - i found this great corp on the same page as you i'm just trying to hammer home the metaphysics of the situation

You guys want to talk about the new APA guidelines and really light the night on fire

?

i don't know anything about that so please give a brief description so i can weigh in peremptorily

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/science/apa-traditional-masculinity-harmful.html

Men are not the target audience of this ad.

That's really interesting. Do you think that this would be obvious to most people in marketing?

The guidelines, 10 in all, posit that males who are socialized to conform to “traditional masculinity ideology” are often negatively affected in terms of mental and physical health.

They acknowledge that ideas about masculinity vary across cultures, age groups and ethnicities. But they point to common themes like “anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence.”

I agree with the analysis fwiw. I wonder what it would mean as therapy guidelines. Many dudes need more risk and adventure in their lives.

Obviously not more violence or anti-femininity.

shavings good

first shave was back in 93 iirc but i met the president in 96 and i had to pretend that was my first time cos dad was home for it and it seemed important to him

The guidelines, 10 in all, posit that males who are socialized to conform to “traditional masculinity ideology” are often negatively affected in terms of mental and physical health.

more or less than yknow anyone else like?

I’m not anti the list by any means but it was still surprising to see this kind of analysis from a neutral body like the apa

is shaving for the first time with the president a custom in yr part of the world deems

neutral? hm