Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

i guess the one good thing about being on dating apps is that it forces you to consider the age question and make a decision. i'm 39, i put the low end of who i can see at 30, high at 48.

i'm also currently just striking the fuck out on the apps.

also, off-topic but on-topic for the thread, in one of the last couples therapy sessions before my ex and i split, the therapist told me that i was one of the least straight straight people she had met. i take that as a compliment, of course (and she meant it as one), but combined with my perpetually broken nose face and hair that is just straight up immature, maybe it explains my lack of success. also probably that i don't have a job, that's always frowned upon in the 39 year old scene

the therapist told me that i was one of the least straight straight people she had met.

Regarding Neanderthal's revive: I think that the public discourse rushes to apply metrics of morality (and even illegality) toward cases like DiCaprio's. I think it's a bad look and unnecessary. Claiming "grooming" and so forth is so dumb. I wish people would be quicker instead to simply define what they're seeing, in DiCaprio's dating patterns, as what it is: ugliness. It's ugly to see a middle-aged actor dating a string of younger women. It changes my personal desire to engage with DiCaprio's professional work. I don't think he's a predator, but I do think his dating patterns make him look ugly, and that it should be considered a professional liability.

I have friends who are dating younger men. Sometimes it's beautiful and sometimes it's ugly. Sometimes it's clear that the relationship is founded on deep attraction, love, shared interests. Other times it feels as if the relationship is transactional. I feel like the "half your age plus one" rule is somewhat of a basilisk. Like, if you have to do a math to determine whether or not the relationship you're in is viable, you've lost the game already.

I don't think of it as "creepy and manipulative" because I don't think that gives enough credit to the young woman in the equation, who can presumably see a dude like this coming from a mile away and has made a conscious choice to go for it nonetheless.

Great post, gyac.

Dating younger men is common in the gay male world, often a transactional relationship: the older man gets companionship and maaaaybe sex, the younger an inheritance. I've never had a friend date or hit on a teenage boy, but I've seen more than my share of that creepiness in public.

Thank you gyac, that is the perspective I was really looking for

I do remember something I'd long forgotten, that one of my high school friends, who is in fact now married to my oldest friend, dated a 34 year old when she was about 17. It felt gross to us all.

She never really brought her boyfriends around us anyway - she liked to keep friends and boyfriends in separate worlds, though she tried much harder to keep them separate as she knew people disapproved. He showed up after school one day during our rehearsal and it felt really creepy, but fortunately he didn't last long.

The one trend that skeeved me out the most were those websites which were purely countdowns to female celebrities turning 18. That isn't borne out of healthy thinking, even if they thought they were making an innocent joke.

Lindsay Lohan: "Hot, Ready, and Legal!"

Supporting the point of a specific type of men that intentionally seek younger women out to avoid women that know better...one of my ex-friend outright admitted to me his intentions, because really, in his mind he was around another guy, and what was he going to say about it.

I think it was 2008, he was in his early 30s, his girlfriend (now wife) was 19. So nothing illegal, no. But, at least at the time, it wasn't a healthy relationship.

At the time, he was one of my best friends too, but very unhealthy for me - a charming rich kid who nonetheless was controlling and narcissistic, a type of people I wound up with often in my early 20s due to my refusal to willingly see red flags in people.

I hung out with them twice after they started dating, and it was normal, they were cutesy with each other. We were all going to NYC together and told me how he'd started going to therapy as he realized he had anxiety and going through therapy now and how it had opened his eyes. She held his hand.

This felt very out of character, because this was a conservative guy who was one of those "men's men", he had often used the "you need therapy" line on one of his previous girlfriends as a pejorative dog whistle for "you're crazy!". It became clear later he was putting on a show for us.

We get to NYC, and his behavior to her completely changed. Well, he was toxic to EVERYONE, but especially her. At one point, we were at the box office for Mary Poppins, and the two of them were talking about what seats they wanted, when the woman at the counter asked if she could help, and my friend rudely shouted "we're having a private conversation!" at her, which upset his girlfriend.

After he bought her tickets, we walked outside, and she said "That was really rude to yell at the lady at the coun-" and he erupted in a frightening way, "I JUST PAID $100 FOR YOUR TICKET, AND THIS IS THE WAY YOU'RE GOING TO TALK TO ME?". Both her and I went silent. It only got worse.

She was a positive, bubbly person, but she told me in private that day that it upset her when he would just flip out at people. But she forgot it and we moved on.

The next day, she didn't feel well and we went to a minute clinic type place, and he has berating her, first for being reluctant to want to go, then yelling at her for wasting her time when she started to feel better.

Later that night, we were having a great dinner and it looked like maybe the worst was over, but then he picked a fight with the waiter over something stupid, demanded to see his manager, and I finally lost it at him, telling him that for a guy who claimed to be going to therapy, that he was doing nothing but being toxic to people the whole trip. He didn't really yell back - he lightly mocked my criticisms, but he would instead center his rage on his girlfriend for agreeing with me at the table.

He got up in a huff and demanded that neither I or her leave the waiter a tip (I gave him a huge tip anyway, but she complied).

The two of them resumed fighting outside - she was on her way to Spring Awakening, my friend and I were going to the Fantasticks. My friend abruptly broke from her and I and aggressively power walked down the street, and she looked at me, tears in her eyes, voice breaking, saying "See you later, Rob".

This dude was a huge asshole and I'd be lying if I said there was "no sign" of this previously. He was a rich kid who often got his way, he was a misogynist, a classist asshole that treated everyone he considered "beneath his station" like shit

But...this was still an escalation from what I'd seen. I'd never seen him outright explode at a girlfriend before.

But then I remembered who his last girlfriend was. A woman his age, in her 30s, a very independent woman who would not take shit from him - she was a bit of a shitty person herself in several ways, but she could utterly disarm him when he got toxic, and then dumped him.

And then I remembered something the friend said to me the day before, which seemed gross at the time, but tied it together - he said "You know why I'm going out with her? Because I can do whatever I want. She doesn't tell me what to do.". That's it.

After that trip, I only saw the friend once more, then decided I was done with him. He eventually married this girl, but I didn't go to his wedding. They are still married and have a kid. Maybe he grew up and maybe he's better now, but it doesn't change the creepy fact that he didn't like that a female his age fought to be his equal, so he deliberately sought out someone much younger, who he knew he could keep under his thumb. And he did.

And he was comfortable doing it because who was going to call him out for it? I sure didn't. I stopped being his friend but I never really called him out on the fucked up nature of his relationship. I didn't exactly have healthy views of women myself at that time...but I still knew it was wrong.

Anyway, know that was long-winded, and not wanting to take up this much space so I apologize. But these recent conversations have had me thinking about this harder - that as gyac said, it doesn't mean every significant age-gap relationship is toxic, but that older men pursuing younger women consistently may be doing so for the sake reason my friend did, and using similar methods of lavishing then with gifts in exchange for doing exactly as they say. And that maybe we should take a closer look at some of the powerful people who seem to intentionally seek out women of this age repeatedly (as opposed to a single relationship where the age gap was coincidental).

Anyway... I'm done. But appreciating today's discussion. This was a bit of a blind spot for me.

the only people i've had to hang around, like those described by neanderthal just above, were in the televised sports industry. it's a bummer because i enjoyed the job (audio stuff, down on the field with the baseball reporters) and it was extremely well compensated with lots of free time, off days, and the fringe benefit of getting to watch games at field level, right by the dugout, getting to walk around on the field and see players in the guts of the stadium and stuff.

however, pretty much every single person who worked in the field was a gigantic caricature of a misogynist asshole. i hadn't really encountered "locker room" talk before working that job, but yeah, there are definitely just awful people who are exactly like that. i guess the key for them is to find other people that are like that and then to group up together. the last gig i worked, i was helping to unpack the truck near the beginning of the day and a sports reporter walked by wearing a dress. she didn't look at the crew or interact in any way, she just walked into the stadium. when she was still, like, 20 feet away and could definitely hear it, the lead tv crew guy - the one who hires everyone and kind of manages things - goes "look at the ass on that one!" or something like that, and before i knew what was happening there were like a dozen dudes "wooing" and whistling and stuff like it was the 1930s. i didn't like that at all and i guess i couldn't hide it, and i think i was persona non grata for the rest of the day. but fuck that entire industry. everyone was like that, at every gig, in several different cities, different production crews, different events, everyone was just a horrible person. and to work in that industry, you have to be ok with that

*ok maybe not everyone. i'm remembering this sweet old cameraman who didn't seem like he was like that, and went out of his way to teach me a few things early on.

but i don't know, the thing i don't understand is how people can be part of that kind of group of people who behave that way. i suppose people think that if they themselves aren't behaving badly, then they're just a bystander to the bad actors and not at fault. maybe that's how you have to be, in some situations. but i can't stand to be around that stuff, it makes me feel incredibly guilty and, physically anxious. the question of what you're going to do the next time it comes up, whether to say something and become hated by the worst dudes on earth, or just put your head down and get through it. eventually i could not take it. there's only so many times you can just ignore it or let it pass

Stories like that are so wild to me, because I literally worked as the editor of a porn magazine for five years in the early 2000s — basically right as magazines were dying and the internet was taking over — and the office environment was nothing like that. Women who came into the office, including many actual porn stars, were treated with friendly professional respect. No hooting, no sexist jokes, no expectations that they'd show us their tits, none of that shit. The worst hooting, apelike sexism and shit-talking I've ever encountered in a workplace was when I worked in the shipping and receiving department at a Barnes & Noble.

Unperson, you made a post where you referred to “young pussy” and also where you engaged in a bit of victim-blaming. You see that, right?

The phrase “young pussy” was quite carefully chosen as a way of inhabiting the mindset of the kind of saddo who chases after women half his age, and what you are calling victim-blaming I do not agree with because I was not thinking of the woman in my reading of the scenario as a victim. But I respect your perspective, because yeah, I know plenty of women with stories of men sliding up on them when they were, like, eleven and that shit is deeply fucked up and those men should be on a list.

I’m just saying. Don’t gloat about how much better you think you are, because the post you made indicates otherwise. I had to actually decide whether I would bring that up, cos guess what? I don’t like what it says about coming to post on this thread here and nobody else having a problem with it, and sometimes even I just cannot. But then my other half kicks in, and I think “Why should I tolerate this shit?”

I had to actually decide whether I would bring that up, cos guess what? I don’t like what it says about coming to post on this thread here and nobody else having a problem with it, and sometimes even I just cannot. But then my other half kicks in, and I think “Why should I tolerate this shit?”

Maybe nobody else had a problem with it because they understood it for what it was — a rhetorical flourish, not an attitude I hold myself. But if you think I'm wrong about something, tell me. I can take it. I'm wrong about lots of things, all the time.

I’m very sure you know more about sexism than me and I was just too stupid to pick up on your sophisticated rhetoric :) Consider the floor ceded.

being the thread reviver that kicked this off, I will admit to being uncomfortable with your original post unperson for similar reasons to gyac, but I opted to say nothing and that was a mistake. not really offering any excuse there other than an "I'm sorry" for waiting for someone else to call it out, especially when we should be helping with that.

Fair enough. I thought my intent was clear, but if it wasn't, it wasn't and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my phrasing.

To all the str8 husbands/boyfriends who posted about your relationships yesterday, I genuinely beg you to do some self-examination if the only thing you're saying about the woman you love is that they put up with your shit. This is not the romantic gesture you think it is!

— April Wolfe (@AWolfeful) February 15, 2023

That is not by any means a hetero or male only phenomenon!

not “not all men” but “not all are men”

Not to go an all fours
That is the law
Are we not men?
He who breaks the law
Must go to the House of Pain

We are Devo

Crack that whip

***SPOILER ALERT!***
http://www.tcm.com/video/470002/island-of-lost-souls-1932-movie-clip-are-we-not-men/

only just seeing this discussion now --

Sometimes it's beautiful and sometimes it's ugly. Sometimes it's clear that the relationship is founded on deep attraction, love, shared interests. Other times it feels as if the relationship is transactional.

I tend to have this view that fgti posted ... also wanted to echo what they said about "ugliness" ... in some cases that I've seen, mostly in the arts, it feels vampiric. Not just talking about the goth scene, lol. It reminds me of this "tradition" in my local experimental music community. There was (until recently) a local college that was wom*n only for undergrad and had a graduate program in experimental music that would attract a good number of women, most of whom were in their 20s. They would have concerts featuring graduate student work. And there would regularly be a handful of older male musicians (late 30s - 50s) who would attend these concerts who were "interested in what the new crop of (School Name) grad students were doing. Some of this was artistic interest but in the case of a few of them there was another type of interest, and they blended in a creepy way in this context ... like older man was anxious about his artistic relevance or creative output and ... what "better" way to validate that than the attention of a much younger less experienced female musician.

And I also want to emphasize this thing that gyac said (who had the courage to be the only ilx woman to engage with this on this thread so far)

much older men who routinely pursue much younger women should be looked at askance- don’t seek out those who know better. They have radar for people who are insecure, or sheltered, or who are vulnerable in that way.

Reading all the "me too" threads (especially the catch-all one for non marquee musicians), you can see this over and over again.

But I do think that unpersonn did say something of value by bringing up agency. Because as a woman who was once the ages in question, and who had female friends who also were those ages, and many of whom were in these types of relationships when they were younger ... I lost my train of thought there ... but, basically, denying agency tends to reinforce the objectification of young women. However, to gyac's point, these tend to be women who are vulnerable and insecure. They are working through their own shit by being in these relationships, but often, because they're dealing with trauma they experienced when they were even younger ... they aren't making really great decisions by being with these vampiric/predatory men.

I feel like most of my female friends who have been in these relationships were either victims of sexual assault by a family member/teacher when they were younger (i.e. prior to hooking up with creepy older dude), or had a father/step-father who was abusive to their mother. Someone with unperson's "rhetorical flourish" might say, these women have "daddy issues."

And even though some may have, as unperson puts it
made a conscious choice to go for it nonetheless.

there is definitely a major risk of harm involved. Maybe they are aware of that risk and are just saying "fuck it, I need to work through my demons, also I can't see myself in what others call a healthy relationship, so I'm going to hook up with this older guy who can take me out to fancy restaurants and maybe advance my career, even though I have to deal with being leered at and objectified by his creepy older guy pals, and maybe that's the best I can do?" ... but the man would ideally know that he is complicit in the harm? That just because she's going for it, doesn't mean that it isn't fucked up?

all of that otm. just want to say that the same kind of dynamic applies in gay / queer contexts too. i've engaged in that kind of transactional relationship, on the younger end, and it definitely didn't lead to me feeling great about myself. i'm glad i don't have the desire to use younger people in that way now that i'm 40, not like i even could since i don't have any kind of "stature" or "reputation" in the arts to begin with, but anyway it's a total boner killer for me tbh. it feels good to just be secure and look out for other people who are also secure for possible side fun from my primary. it's also led to a blanket "don't hook up with other people who are djs" rule now. like, i can't trust myself to mix work and pleasure like that, it's just too entangled and stressful.

"don't use your workplace / field for your casual hookup playground" is a rule a lot more people should institute for themselves imo.

I always felt like I wasn't cute enough to have older dudes want me in that way ... the closest I got to this dynamic was this Irish dude (as in he was from Ireland), M1ke Delaney, at a former workplace who would let me stay on the clock for an extra half hour while he complained about his ex-wife and his lazy brother-in-law that he helped get a job but was not grateful enough, and how hungover he was all the time, and he missed his kids, and some more about the horrible ex-wife, and how stupid the sales people were, and I got a bit of extra money, and he taught me how to use Excel to do the billing, and I got to fill in for him while he was on vacation.

and then I got to be interim manager after the company fired him for calling one of the sales people "a stupid fucking bitch" ... but again, the thing we're talking about is not that.

haha yeah i mean if you can get something by pretending to like a jackass and there's no sex involved that's a little different. i'm all for that tbh.

i'm just realizing that there was probably a specific moment when the bigwig older dj in my small city, j3ss3 w4lker, turned on me, and that moment was when i didn't pick up what he was putting down about hooking up with him. slc is a small enough place that there are quite a few of these types of scumbags in positions of power, and if you don't play along, you end up .. not djing / doing whatever it is you want to do. i ended up having to completely change my format from 'underground cool house and techno' to 'megan thee stallion and kesha' in order to keep at it after being stonewalled by that dude and his crew. and i'm STILL running into these kinds of people all the time, one owned the first bar i played at last summer, another works at the current bar i play at. i'm finally at the point of realization that none of the people i encounter while doing my job are my friends.

by play along do you mean "sexual acts" or just metaphorically "sucking his dick"?

haha, so it was after this gig we played together, the first one he had asked me to play with just him after a few months of me trying to be like "i want to dj with you guys". i was sick as a dog with a cold, the gig was a pain in the ass, like the setup was a nightmare. all of the interactions i had with him that night were sort of like ... this guy expects me to constantly kiss his ass and make sure he feels cool all the time, to the point of some pretty ridiculous situations. afterward i gave him a ride home. he was giving me pouty eyes and telling me how he was lonely. i was like "nope" wished him good night and naively thought my general friendliness that night while i was sick as fuck would lead to further work with him.

the following summer there was a situation where i booked a bar for a pride friday party. three days later, they basically steamrolled over me and stole that weekend. i agreed to it if they would let me play a "prime time" slot. ladies and gentleman, i did not play a prime time slot, i played warmup again. after that, i was like fuck these people and unfollowed all their socials. last year when i did my insta recap, j3ss3's right-hand man, m4tt d4ufenb4ch, posted to my ig feed "i'm glad you found your flow here!" to which i thought but didn't reply "yeah no thanks to you shitbag". m4tt and i were friends for a few years before i figured out everything he did in the context of friendship was transactional. anyway, rant over.

if anyone cares this is n3w c1ty m0vem3nt in salt lake city, just awful pretentious people who play boring fucking music at self-important parties.

good for you! also fuck them.

yeah! thanks :)

my scant experience with the professional dj scene (dating a few, hanging out in the booth occasionally, hanging with bookers) is that it is jam packed with transactional interaction

dating apps are a great reminder of what so many people really think about men and how they should present themselves.

looking at someone's profile right now that says "a man's man is preferable because if you walk in wearing skinny jeans, my family is probably going to roast you and i can't stop that." i'm an extremely skinny person, and if i wear normal fitting pants (what people under 30 wear, now) i look like i'm wearing jnco's. so i wear pants that are on the skinnier side and i do my best to be confident and tell myself that i look okay in them. but surf some of these apps for like 10 minutes and i realize that yes, a ton of people are silently judging me all of the time. ps fuck missouri

also, very much not the correct thread for this, but just saw someone that showcased a picture of them with elon musk! jfc that might be one of the biggest, clearest red flags that has ever existed

It's okay! I wear Xtra small shirts and skinny jeans in a croqueta-butt town

"a man's man is preferred" is insta dealbreaker for me.

Pants are a historically loaded article of clothing.

"Loaded, that is!"

https://i.imgur.com/YKDH4dP.jpg

Historically speaking.

Charles II would like a word

I don't know, if I ever read about another "brave" photographer who has made a career out of showing how vulnerable, skinny white boys can be sexy too, i'm gonna throw up.

Vulnerable skinny boys are the only boys I find sexy FWIW

Rona Jaffe’s novel The Best of Everything has a great depiction of a relationship between a young, somewhat naive woman (Gregg) and an older successful man, and how their different intentions can lead to tragedy. It prompts the question of how culpable the man is for failing to see how the power imbalance can be damaging, despite not having any intention to harm.