Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

neckbeard vs proudboy.

I think the weirdest stereotype re: alcoholic drinks I had at some point is that cognac is an effeminate drink... unless you're rapping about it?

like idk where this even came from, some sort of weird received stereotype. maybe because brandy is distilled from wine? cognac is fine

I always figure men in the US think drinking wine is effeminate because they know nothing about wine.

― Yerac, Friday, January 18, 2019 10:35 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

FWIW the received stereotype I always got is that red wine ok but white wine is effeminate? Which I always thought was dumb anyway because white wine is delicious and much better on a hot day than red wine.

bottles or jugs of wine, sure. but would you ever see those guys enjoying a single glass or having a bottle?

it's one of those things where it's perceived as one way with normal consumption, and completely differently when it's in a form meant for binge drinking

FWIW I think in the US the reason for the stereotype is that wine is seen as "high class" and things that are "high class" are also associated with being effeminate. Whereas in France wine is just what everyone drinks.

xpost, I don't think it's a recent thing and it's not anywhere in my solar system of people but there is a definite proliferation of "mommy needs wine" types of products, drinking of wine by female morning hosts, terms like cougar juice etc.

Yeah, I think that's the reason. French culture tends to be perceived as altogether high class abroad (not just in English-speaking countries), which is really confusing to the French.

xp

Yeah, people seem to not like white wine because they think they shouldn't like white wine. It's weird. Or they assume everything is overoaked chardonnay or sweet riesling. There are hundreds of white wine grape varieties. It usually goes better with food too.

xpost oh yeah and it's definitely a classist thing, plus wine labels are hard to decipher so the snobbery is packed in.

Not a huge fan of white but I couldn't live without a glass of Alsatian Gewürztraminer every now and then.

tbf north american stores really love stocking overoaked chardonnay and sweet riesling

there was no substantial culture of wine-drinking in the uk until fairly recently. find an old person and ask them about pre 70s wine. the US obv in large part derived from beer boys. there is no mystery.

The alt-right ruined a perfectly good haircut imo.

^^^ they did. Poor David Beckham.

I've become a big fan of sancerre and alsatian pinot gris

I've had contentious exchanges with bro servers before who were aghast about my being a dude and ordering "girly" drinks. I can get a bartender being disappointed I asked for a vodka tonic when they've got the skill to make much fancier drinks that will net higher tips, but the waiter getting mad because I want a strawberry-banana daiquiri makes no sense. They are both expensive and delicious, everybody wins.

xpost yeah I was about to say when I lived in London no one really drank wine but I see recently that a lot of people are drinking, like prosecco. And I've had some decent sparkling UK wine. Nyetimber.

You should always start your drinking evening with a nice cava or prosecco, it's like drinking a baby cloud.

So, to summarize: a 'masculine' relationship with alcohol is founded on unfussiness and sloshedness, whereas a 'feminine' one aims to please an aesthetically sophisticated palate. Or something. Doesn't account for craft beer, although you could view the entire phenomenon with masculinist suspicion and just continue chugging your Coors Light or Molson Canadian or whatever.

post If you like sancerre and alsace pinot gris, you will like Pouilly Fume, alsace riesling and italian vermentino, verdicchio, pigato.

Oh my thing about wine above and men thinking it's effeminate because they don't know about it is more about the knee jerk reaction of men to poo poo stuff they have no knowledge about.

what abt yr beard-oil applying single malt connoisseur with his expensive cigar cutter and many many opinions?

I remember being advised once that any wine with an animal on the label is for girls.

I guess if you add power (whether real or merely performed) to the equation, it suddenly becomes legitimate. But it works better with whiskey and cigars than it does with cognac or wine.

xp

So, to summarize: a 'masculine' relationship with alcohol is founded on unfussiness and sloshedness, whereas a 'feminine' one aims to please an aesthetically sophisticated palate. Or something. Doesn't account for craft beer, although you could view the entire phenomenon with masculinist suspicion and just continue chugging your Coors Light or Molson Canadian or whatever.

― pomenitul, Friday, 18 January 2019 15:53 (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dont think that holds true when you consider eg whiskey either tbh

the type of man this thread is comfortable making yknow broadly negative handwavey comment on is just i guess a dumb man who wants uncomplex stuff that everyone else wants idk its hard to parse rly

I think there's also an element where people think stuff like whiskey has a strong masculine flavor or some bullshit when in actuality it's more sugary and carmely than a bunch of other drinks

all the craft beer manliness was manifested in the endless race to see how many hops they could shove into there

like the main manliness thing with drink aesthetics is "nuance bad, bold good"

god bless darragh for also going straight to whiskey

Part of it is ancestral too: it stems from the desire to replicate a bygone model from your own cultural/linguistic frame of reference.

xps

i always go straight to whiskey

Wine with animals on it is "critter wine". It's basically because australia realized they had a winning combination on putting animals on wine labels (yellow tail). It sells like crazy. That's it.

did they not make a can of wine designed for men (as in: MEN!!!!!) or did I just imagine that

looks deems we don't understand men so we can only pooh-pooh them

canned or boxed wine is good because you can take it to the beach

post If you like sancerre and alsace pinot gris, you will like Pouilly Fume, alsace riesling and italian vermentino, verdicchio, pigato.

― Yerac, Friday, January 18, 2019 10:53 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Riesling is too sweet for me but interested in trying the others.

More broadly, agree that the bottom line is that men are not supposed to be too "fussy" or nuanced about their drinking. However I think it's interesting how successful the craft beer boom was, suggesting that there was actually a lot of pent-up thirst among men for drinks that, you know, tasted better? And it seems like that in turn has led to the craft whiskey boom etc. There still has to be this sort of playboy-esque air of "sophisticated manliness" to the whole thing sometimes, and that gets a little tedious.

this stuff!!

https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/mancan1.png?quality=90&strip=all&zoom=1&resize=644%2C261

now THIS, I can get into

that really gets at the fucked-upness of all the masculine marketing though: selling the idea that men are uncomplicated and just want a big old bar of soap that smells like soap should smell, and they market that by creating a completely new brand with its own high profile marketing campaign

frogs we were just discussing that, it's MANCAN

I was in a bar and ordered wine and the bartender gave me a Man Can to taste. It was basically a decent house wine and, theoretically, is a good idea in that it will save you a trip to the bar because it is two glasses worth. What isn't a good idea is calling it the Man Can. The bartender was looking for feedback so I told him to change the name because it's a stupid name. It's a Cleveland invention (where I live) and I think the bartender knew the owner or something.

Riesling is only sweet from certain regions. It's dry everywhere else. Normally from alsace it's dry.

whiskey is basically distilled beer.

You've had mancan! Yeah I am fine with wine in cans. It's lighter and more easily transportable.

xp by ingredients, kind of

before it's aged a bunch of it is basically just pure grain alcohol

pretty sure the cheapest well whiskey is equivalent to everclear that's sat in a barrel for two years to make the legal distinction and then tinted with food coloring

well i mean look

and the poo-pooing line to clarify, is that instead of listening or admitting to not knowing something it's the reaction to degrade instead of being open to learning about it.

there are gatekeepers of masculinity, and other men emulate them, including their irrational drink gendering. sometimes these men are grandfathers, or magazines.

yea if I liked wine I'd totally be down with the MANCAN just so long as it was called something else

can't get past the name so it's MANCAN'T

though really you gotta credit Mike's Hard Lemonade for coming up with that angle first. used to love the end of those commercials where the big hand gripping the can would just slam it down on the table and imagining the director yelling "CUT!!! Harder!! Slam it harder!!! Ah fuck too hard!!!"

I am picturing bottles of Zima being poured into Mike's Hard Lemonade bottles in a screened-off part of the brewery

don't worry yerac you're coming over loud and clear

f. hazel otm, half of the masculine marketing crap is "your granddad's cologne" or "grandfather's best whiskey" or whatever because masculinity is liking what old men liked and forever disdaining the new

I also love you all for bringing up Mike's Hard Lemonade, which came out when I was in college, and also bears my name

haha. zima is really popular in Japan. It's weird.