Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

on the one hand it seems pretty clear that normative ideas of manly or womanly attributes are deeply problematic and often repressive or at the very least limiting, and on the other hand the vast majority of people - including many (most?) trans people - feel that deep down they ARE either one or the other

otm I think this is an excellent distillation of some underlying conundrums in this whole discourse.

Personally I don't think I do have that "deep down feeling", I don't feel trans or non binary but also don't see my cis masculinity as anything deeper than, like, historical contingency. But clearly a lot of ppl, cis and trans, do.

I more or less feel this, but then I wonder to what degree feeling that is also a function of privilege — to not feel particularly wedded to or defined by one’s gender is surely easier if you happen to be straight cis male.

I more or less feel this, but then I wonder to what degree feeling that is also a function of privilege — to not feel particularly wedded to or defined by one’s gender is surely easier if you happen to be straight cis male.

I think there's def something to that, and try be to be mindful of my position as man in a social context - I mean I present as male, I hold male privilege, I have a lot of traits that traditionally scan as male. I don't think I'm above gender or anything like that. But what I'm missing is the sort of platonic identity thing of feeling male outside of that social context. And I think a lot of people do, regardless of what category they're in! My status allows me the luxury of not having my position thrown back in my face at regular intervals sure, but I also don't think ppl who strongly identify as women, whether cis or trans, would say that this identification is solely about their oppression within current society. I do think there's something deeper than that for many ppl.

Yeah, for sure. And to the degree the spectrum metaphor works for gender, it probably needs to be more three- than two-dimensional where your sense of identity at any point on the spectrum floats closer or farther away from the line. (In that sense, non-binary might not be so much the midpoint on a line that has male at one end and female at the other as a y-axis to the x-axis. But I won’t presume to speak to how non-binary people experience it.)

I do think there's something deeper than that for many ppl.

I think it's probably a form of privilege to say that this is where I struggle - precisely with the 'where' of this question. As in, where does one *go* to ask it? It feels as if we're getting into questions of being and at that point it becomes an ontological philosophical position. By privilege, I mean that by *not* feeling any form of disassociation/discomfort in this area, I guess this means the question doesn't really exist for me. Or perhaps I'm not asking it in the right way?

right, that's the contradiction i keep returning to, that if gender is constructed, a performance we learn, how on earth to explain the trans experience which in many cases starts extremely young and feels rooted in something quite... dare i say.... essential??

― Tracer Hand

i mean this is a good question, i've thought about this quite a lot, innate reality vs. social construct

like, for instance, a lot of the external signifiers of gender _are_ socially constructed. there's this whole meme showing astolfo (who i think is some anime femboy, i'm not sure) and saying that everything he's wearing was at some point in time masculine clothing, high heels, makeup, hose, bright colors... what's important is not _how_ one differentiates between men and women only _that_ one be able to differentiate, clearly and unambiguously, between men and women.

and the reason for that is misogyny, is because throughout history there is a strong belief that _men are superior to women_. feminism is so important because it challenges that belief, and the belief still persists, is still normative, it's just the _expression_ of that that has had to evolve. people don't say it openly anymore. it's coded language.

anyway, i was always like "men should be able to wear dresses, gender isn't presentation, wearing a dress doesn't make you trans", and then i wore a dress and...

but a lot of it is this incredibly rigid stigma around masculine performance. the taboo around men wearing dresses is _so_ severe that you have to have a _real real real_ strong motivation to break it, and i did, in fact, have an _extremely_ strong motivation to break that taboo. so transfems are probably _overrepresented_ in the "amabs who wear dresses" category.

in the past year i've sort of... like the two narratives are "born this way" and "man who wants to be a woman", and they're both as false to me as the old "transgender/transsexual" divide is. what i relate to a lot is... one of my biggest trans role models, my biggest transcestors, is susan stryker, for a lot of reasons, so i wound up listening to this trans oral history project interview with her. and the way she frames it in terms of gender _orientation_. one is not born, but becomes a man, but nobody ever thinks of _manhood_ that way. and from a young age she had all of this pressure to grow in a direction that would lead her towards manhood, and that her orientation was to grow instead towards womanhood.

---

there absolutely is a biological component to it for me. we're all different, i'm just talking about me here. when god made my junk, he made junk. my dysphoria, a lot of it, is about my body. estrogen makes me feel _right_. my grs makes me feel _right_. most of the physical manifestations of my dysphoria, i have remediated them. wanting to conceive and bear children, that's something i'll never be able to do, but i just learn to live with that one.

to me, though, that's a comparatively small part of the problem. i have a lot bigger problem with the way i get treated socially. and mostly treated socially by men.

a friend shared with me this great piece from more than 50 years ago, and most of it resonates with me today:

https://transphilez.netlify.app/articles/dont-call-me-mr/

the part that _doesn't_ resonate me is the extent to which trans women struggled to be recognized and accepted by _women_. i was terrified of being rejected by women, especially, when i was coming out, but for all the talk about "TERFs", i _very very seldom_ have encountered anything other than immediate and enthusiastic support from the women around me. (this is portland, in the UK, i'm told, things are different.) the people who get weird about me are, for the most part, men.

and the feeling i get, honestly, is that they were taught, like i was taught, to view women entirely through the lens of whether or not they wanted to fuck them. and as a woman i send off the social signals where that deeply, deeply programmed response gets activated, but then a different part of their brain goes like "no, no, she has a penis". it doesn't change things, by the way, that i've had grs, the penis is considered to be such an important thing that _ever_ having had one, that's the permanent marker. people can talk all they want about "large gamete producers" but i'm not buying all of it. it's because i was born with an anatomically normal penis and testicles.

that's what i was taught, that's what we were all taught, over and over and over again and i can say that gender isn't anatomy until i'm blue in the face, but a lot of people who grew up learning that, i don't think they're ever going to unlearn that association. penis = man, vagina = women. and that _is_ a failing of manhood. why should you have an "aspirational" model of manhood when you already have everything you need? and with stuff like the vagina monologues, it's categorically different. women just aren't defined by vaginas the way men are by penises. afabs are taught to be ashamed of their genitals, and i was supposed to be proud of my penis, to think it was super important.

at the same time, though, i was taught that my penis made me a threat. that it made me dangerous to women. that my testosterone meant that i was an uncontrollable animal, that i couldn't respect women's consent, that i _had to fuck_. and that's bullshit. testosterone does, absolutely, cause strong feelings of aggression, particularly during puberty, but those feelings are _manageable_ in healthy ways. men just aren't given the opportunity to do that. and it's patriarchy that denies them that, but patriarchy also teaches men to blame women for it, and a lot of them are... receptive to that argument.

this categorical difference is particularly silly to me. i had a penis and testicles, i have a vulva, and there's _really_ not much of a difference, not just in biological terms, but in _lived experience_. take away hormones as a factor and a penis is just a big ol' clit. even hard-ons, clitorises can get erect. that's not something that's unique to the penis. (and of course the argument transphobes are going to make is that i don't know what a _real_ vulva is. they're speaking out of ignorance, i'm speaking out of lived experience. my vulva _feels_ like a female vulva, not a "feminized penis" or whatever. no, i can't describe that to you in concrete terms, there's no language for that. if you haven't had that experience, my saying that is going to be meaningless, but when i talk to other people who have had GRS... they understand.)

please, do not get me wrong, i'm not anti-penis. i am a big, big fan of penises, particularly now that i'm not stuck with my own. they're fantastic, and i certainly don't want the takeaway to be that there's _no difference_ between a penis and a clitoris. penises are absolutely not the same as clitorises. (is that the plural? how odd. i just realized that i've never had cause to refer to a clitoris in the plural before, even though i talk about penises in the plural all the time.) penises are not, however, categorically better than vulvas, and they have _nothing whatsoever_ to do with manhood or masculinity. that's a hard dick to swallow... wait, sorry, hard _pill_ to swallow... but it's the truth.

---

anyway. i do think that in many cases there _is_ a biological component to gender dysphoria. in my case, certainly, i'd say there's a biological component. for me, though, it's a _much_ bigger problem that people kept treating me, categorically, as a man, which, categorically, i'm not and never was. any form of masculinity which thinks of me as a "man" is not a healthy masculinity. full stop.

one is not born, but becomes a man, but nobody ever thinks of _manhood_ that way.

This is ...simply not true. Sure, it's at least partly true of lazy, secular, disassociated 21st century America, but that's far from a universal experience. I mean, read any anthropology textbook — all sorts of societies have always had all sorts of ways of marking the transition from boyhood to manhood, whether it's going on a hunt with your dad and his man friends, or getting specific facial scars, or having a bar mitzvah, or whatever. "You were a boy; now you are a man." There are rituals inducting girls into womanhood, too — bat mitzvahs, quinceañeras, etc. The idea that this is no longer applicable is likely a condition of people being alienated from their communities as much as anything else. If your village doesn't gather around you to celebrate your becoming a man, are you one?

This is ...simply not true. Sure, it's at least partly true of lazy, secular, disassociated 21st century America, but that's far from a universal experience. I mean, read any anthropology textbook — all sorts of societies have always had all sorts of ways of marking the transition from boyhood to manhood, whether it's going on a hunt with your dad and his man friends, or getting specific facial scars, or having a bar mitzvah, or whatever. "You were a boy; now you are a man." There are rituals inducting girls into womanhood, too — bat mitzvahs, quinceañeras, etc. The idea that this is no longer applicable is likely a condition of people being alienated from their communities as much as anything else. If your village doesn't gather around you to celebrate your becoming a man, are you one?

― but also fuck you (unperson)

i'm not talking about rites of passage. i was involved with the mythopoetic men's movement, a movement which evolved into, among other things, the ideas of masculinity espoused by people such as jordan peterson. although it was well-intentioned, my experience was that it was an awkward, culturally appropriative burlesque of male rite-of-passage rituals. it was also the first time where i tried to come out as trans. the men there had _no idea_ what to do with what i was saying. it was really awkward and honestly pretty traumatizing.

look, i don't know _exactly_ how simone de beauvoir meant it, but what i mean by it is that my womanhood is something i am _constantly_ made aware of, _constantly_ reminded of. it's not a one-time event, it's not a bat mitzvah, the first time i get fucked or my first period or any of that stuff. it's rather like transition itself, a slow change, imperceptible on a day-to-day level but extremely obvious and striking when viewed over long periods of time in retrospect.

See, I think that there’s something to what Stryker is saying, but also to what unperson has written. I do believe that one becomes a man, so to speak, as a gender orientation. Reaching one’s “gender maturity “ is commonly celebrated/recognized in multifaceted ways throughout many different societies.

But I also think that this gets at what some of us cis dudes have been saying about our experiences. I didn’t grow up with those rituals, or with a porn-obsessed dad, or in an environment where my friends and relatives objectified women. When I did witness this kind of behavior, I was always disgusted by it, and often vocal in my disgust.

As a gay dude, my masculinity has often been defined by my desire for other men, which has its own problems, but which for me relies strongly on tenderness and release, in the various forms such terms can take. I could never understand the misogyny of gay male scenes, and shied away from them in many ways. I am lucky that I found a person who feels similar to me around these issues, who understands masculinity in some of the ways that map describes.

Yeah I’m not sure rites of passage negate Kate’s point at all, those rites are all about becoming, “you weren’t one before but you are one now.”

really good posts, k8

the idea that this exists only for womanhood, though, is uh just not lining up with my experience? or the experience of others?

As a gay dude, my masculinity has often been defined by my desire for other men, which has its own problems, but which for me relies strongly on tenderness and release, in the various forms such terms can take. I could never understand the misogyny of gay male scenes, and shied away from them in many ways. I am lucky that I found a person who feels similar to me around these issues, who understands masculinity in some of the ways that map describes.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table)

mmm, that's one of the big challenges implicit in the idea of gender orientation, right? identity versus _desire_. one of the big gender anxieties i have, that i've heard other people express as well, is that of "do i want to _be_ her or do i want to be _with_ her?" (both. both is good.) and even though you are cis, that's not something that's part of hetero desire. and that's part of where the "born this way" framing comes from, queer _desire_ is stigmatized. what "born this way" teaches is that it's not ok to just _want_ something, you have to _need_ something. whether that desire is for a man's _body_ or, you know, for a _man's_ body.

and since we're both queer, in our own ways, we _do_ have to negotiate that line between wanting and needing, to know the difference. i wasn't taught that, men aren't taught that. men and people like me alike, we have to figure that shit out for ourselves.

well, let me think about this. let me step back and think about this. because i mean there is something to manhood rituals, real manhood rituals, not the parodies of them the mythopoetic men's movement tried to make. i guess what i bristle at is the binary framing of these rituals. boy/man. i mean it's better than nothing but the reality is, i mean, yes. yes, of course one _becomes_ a man, and the ritual is, to me, a signifier, a recognition of a lived reality. which is why so often the trial precedes the ritual, right? you live as a man and then you're recognized as one. a real-life test, if you will.

and i guess the thing is, the rituals happen whether you acknowledge them or not. there's so much scorn, you know, poured on the stereotype of the incel, the overgrown child living in his mom's basement playing video games, that's what he gets called.

and then you look back to, what are the markers of adulthood, what are the markers of adulthood i was raised with? you finish school, you get a career, a job you can spend the rest of your life at, you get married, you have kids, you buy a house. who has access to this shit? who can _afford_ this shit? friend of mine got laid off after working the same place for 25 years. that's just normal, that's just normal now, because what are we gonna do about it, huh?

i guess what i'm saying is that the real problem is capitalism. i know, it's really off-brand for me.

mmm, that's one of the big challenges implicit in the idea of gender orientation, right? identity versus _desire_.

This...I get why it is this way ("man" = "wants to fuck women"), but I've never seen why it had to be. Once you move past pure biological function (the purpose of dogs is to make more dogs, the purpose of humans is to make more humans), as most people at least pretend to want to do, then, again, your "identity" should not necessarily be rooted in what kind of person you want to fuck as much as how you want to relate to other human beings. The butch vs femme spectrum mentioned above makes more sense in terms of personalities rather than genders.

xp Yeah it's interesting how "productivity" in some ways defines a lot about traditional ideas of what makes a man a man and a woman a woman. For men, economic productivity — being able to "support a family" — and for women, sexual productivity, fertility. Men without work (or their own ride, per TLC) and women without children have both been often stigmatized as more or less failing their genders.

Meanwhile

You: Liberals need a positive vision for masculinity to compete with the dark version propagated by the likes of Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate.

Me: pic.twitter.com/jlKKmBQHBh

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) July 13, 2023

reminded now that i learned from my freshMAN year english professor that in old english “woman” was “wifman” eg one who weaves and man was “weapnaman” eg one who uses weapons

i feel like you folks are really getting somewhere! keep going, please!!

picked up a box of books at the store and found a paperback from 1976 called *The Hazards of Being Male: Surviving the Myth of Masculine Privilege*. Chapter three is called "The Wisdom of the Penis". wait, lemme give you chapter titles.

1. In Harness: The Male Condition
2. Earth Mother Is Dead
3. The Wisdom of the Penis
4. Feelings: The Real Male Terror
5. Men In Therapy
6. Impossible Binds
7. The Destruction of the Male Body
8. The Success Trip: A Fantasy Portrait
9. The Lost Art of Buddyship
10. Marriage: Guilt by Association
11. Divorce: The Penalties For Leaving
12. The Hazards of Being Male

blurb in the front: "Today one great difference between men and women is that women at least KNOW they are oppressed." "For American men raised by parents, conditioned by society, and often encouraged by women to play a role of lover-husband-parent-breadwinner-strong-and-silent-man whose impossible demands psychically cripple and eventually physically kill them."

"Unless, that is, you wield the wisdom of the penis."

Where's the potty? I need empty the wisdom of the penis into the toiling of the plumbing

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a4147098953_10.jpg

Tracklist:

1. In Harness: The Male Condition
2. Earth Mother Is Dead
3. The Wisdom of the Penis
4. Feelings: The Real Male Terror

for all i know the author of the 70s book was a proto-peterson men's rights god. i haven't googled them.

and since we're both queer, in our own ways, we _do_ have to negotiate that line between wanting and needing, to know the difference. i wasn't taught that, men aren't taught that. men and people like me alike, we have to figure that shit out for ourselves.

Yeah I think this is true, in a lot of ways.

One of the things this conversation has gotten me thinking about is the way in which so much of my masculinity was formed in opposition to a more heteronormative cis masculinity; that is, because I was obviously queer from a pretty young age, there was always a separation between me and other boys, and at a certain point, my masculinity began forming joyfully as a means of contrasting what I felt was the cruelty and bullshit of typical masc behavior.

That I still often desire those who represent some of that masc behavior is another subject entirely, but is also part of this conversation for a lot of gay dudes. Like, some of my favorite "scenes" (iykwim) involve jocks and lockerrooms. Is this because I desire what I could never have, or what repulses me? I'm not totally sure. Anyway, I am glad for this conversation, it's making me evaluate a lot of thoughts and feelings in a productive way.

This dumbass feels like he could do with the wanting vs needing dichotomy explaining a bit more.

To state the obvious: the queer voices in this thread bringing the wisdom and I welcome it hugely. So much of this seems to me to float around question of 'who truly knows their own desire?' and, forgive me if this sounds clumsy and (again) obvious, some people have faced that shit in a way I don't truly understand or haven't had to.

"Is this because I desire what I could never have, or what repulses me? I'm not totally sure."

I think it's pretty common for just about anyone to be attracted to and desirous of strength. physical strength. confidence. health. youth. and also duh, physical beauty. but its also common for a lot of people to have torturous histories with the jocks.

When I was younger I definitely knew without knowing that one of the reasons my gay friends - and women friends - liked my company - (especially out in public in a very scary decade for gay people (and heck its always a scary decade for women)) was that I was big and tall and "not gay". i was perfectly happy to be My Bodyguard because in their presence I could be who I really was 100%. Which was liberating beyond words.

And there are expressions of queerness we haven't mentioned (if we have, forgive me): bachelorhood, asexuality, both of which refute notions of species propagation, "settling down," leisure vs work time.

I realized several years ago that my family might've accepted a workaday gayness had I been the sort of guy who needs boyfriends. I've never brought a guy "home"! I never saw the point. Therefore, they regard me as a mysterious figure who hangs out with a lot of str8 guys and women and their spouses and kids but who may or may not do icky gay things without telling them (the family).

last night i got really stoned and thought to myself: was i lockerroom dudesplaining youth and beauty to a renowned queer history professor on ilx? haha, sounds like me. i have no shame. and there should be no shame in lockerroom love. that's why people watch the olympics. the olympics and porn are pretty much the same. exploitation. doping. strange endurance contests. questionable fashion choices.

anyway, i came here to mention the Equalizer episode called *Lady Cop*. story by Kathryn Bigelow for all you future gender scholars out there. in it the Equalizer goes to far with a crooked cop and he calls his old spy boss to his house and gets drunk with him and laments that THE EVIL came out. THE MANLY EVIL. did i mention that the Equalizer is a failure as a father?

also, in an episode right after that one, the Equalizer and his son bond in the woods by nearly killing some small town hicks together and they also have a very tense wood-chopping competition with each other. that episode you could definitely teach in a course on family dynamics.

then in another episode, the Equalizer basically emasculates Burt Young in front of Burt Young's son and then teaches Burt Young how to DO THE RIGHT THING and defeat the mafia boss. the Equalizer is a tricky all-knowing father. Flawed and yet wise.

the olympics and porn are pretty much the same.

Also opening cerimonies.

Can’t believe this thread got even worse lol

Tracklist:

1. In Harness: The Male Condition
2. Earth Mother Is Dead
3. The Wisdom of the Penis
4. Feelings: The Real Male Terror

― But his face would not turn into hot Kirby (Evan)

new feminazgul album fucking rips

lol Kate

Can’t believe this thread got even worse lol

for all i know the author of the 70s book was a proto-peterson men's rights god. i haven't googled them.

― scott seward

like this is the thing i really do recommend part one of the "behind the bastards" episode on andrew tate (people i get confused: andrew tate and geoff tate of queensryche, sorry geoff), which is all about the mythopoetic men's movement. proto-peterson was robert bly, these kind of lefty hippie folks. i was involved in that kinda thing in the '90s (rich hippie uncle who was really into it for a while, a great guy, really, i like him a lot). anyway regarding chapter 3, one of the things i remember was there was a thing called "cock talk" where people would pass a dildo or something around the circle and talk about their dicks. i mean if sharing a dildo with other men what it takes for guys to admit they jerk off, that's fine i guess. i'm a pretty open-minded lady.

the olympics and porn are pretty much the same.

Also opening cerimonies.

― Daniel_Rf

sooner than you think...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cruhEl3OFyw

(also wtf somebody do chromadot recovery on this already, apparently this looked amazing in colour)

whenever i think of robert bly i think of joseph campbell. i can't say that i read any books by them but i know they were both taken pretty seriously once upon a time. there is a robert bly and bill moyers movie on youtube called *A Gathering of Men*.

i hate Robert Bly so much that one of my books is simply an erasure of one of his books lmfao.

reminded now that i learned from my freshMAN year english professor that in old english “woman” was “wifman” eg one who weaves and man was “weapnaman” eg one who uses weapons

― Tracer Hand

oh my GOD wait until you find out about the old english word "baeddel", _so much_ tumblr discourse

I've talked about it a little bit on the streaming TV thread, I think, but as it's now coming to an end I have to recommend that anyone interested in the discourse on masculinity in this thread watch the show Mayans MC (on FX via Hulu). It started out as a spinoff of Sons of Anarchy, a show about a bunch of violent drug-dealing Mexican-American bikers, but in its final seasons (4 & 5, basically) it's turned into a weepy telenovela about a bunch of aging traumatized biker dudes trying to come to grips with their emotions and become better fathers and sons! It's insane how much time these guys spend hugging each other and crying. In between murders, of course.

sons of anarchy started out with quite a bit of that too tbh

they struggled to relate to the fathers of anarchy, who had their own issues ofc

I need to go to bed so won't write a lot now but just want to say:

all this becomes so focused and intense when you are the father of a son

but somehow simpler too! Because it's very clear what my particular job is -- there is a boy who is (very likely) going to grow up to be some kind of man, and no shit, I have a lot of influence over who that man is, much more than any celebrity or writer or ideological miasma does. The central way he learns what a man is is by watching me. So this takes you away from abstract ideas of "masculinity" or really precise definitions of any kind. And yet that IS where the notion of masculinity comes from for a lot of men, at least if we grew up in a loving home; it just means "the way my father was / is." It's a big responsibility, to be a man in a way you'd be proud of your son for being.

I mean, he's not fully done cooking yet so the jury's still out on what kind of a man he'll be, but my 19-year-old son has taken a lot of his ideas of masculinity from his friends' dads and other men in the community, rather than me.

I doubt that any of this crosses my son's radar screen. I don't know if/when he'll ever be able to grasp messages about what type of man to be or not be. Generally he's very simple and very sweet.

As far as I can tell, his schoolmates have been kind and accepting. This is a huge change from how "special" kids would have been treated in my childhood - at least where we live, there seems to be a lot less casual cruelty on the playground. Perhaps the cruelty has simply moved elsewhere (online, Mar-a-Lago, YouTube)?

i woke up this morning with the word "synecdoche" in my head. that's what it is, that's how penises get treated. as a synecdoche for "man". not in public, in public it's wearing trousers, even though it's been acceptable for women to wear trousers in america at least since, like, the 50s or 60s. anyway trousers is a terrible synecdoche for "man" and so is "penis". they're about equally bad, to be honest.

the only charlie kaufman thing i've seen is one of the episodes of "get a life" that he wrote. it wasn't very good. then again "get a life" as a whole probably hasn't held up too well. i wonder if the handsome boy modeling school record has held up.

you know, come to think of it chris elliot's work of that era does have some interesting things to say about masculinity. i'm not gonna rewatch "get a life", though. maybe i'll rewatch "the garry shandling show", i always got "get a life" mixed up with that show. i was really disappointed that when the butthole surfers appeared on the garry shandling show they didn't play "revolution". i mean seriously. why, if you're the butthole surfers, would you go on the garry shandling show and play a song that's _not_ "revolution"?

i think i should mention at this point that i haven't really gotten a lot of sleep this week.

Synec-dicky

xp so interesting, I would say my son has had close to zero contact with any of his friends' dads (and the same is true for me and his friends, except for the handful of his friends whose dads are independently friends of mine.) Other men in the community.... some of his teachers I guess? But not very many are men. I would literally say more than half of his lifetime conversation with adult men has been with me. Is that weird?

eephus - no. I don't remember interacting much with adult men until high school or maybe college? I think of myself as having lived in a very feminine world, dominated by mothers and sisters and teachers.

“The average hoodie made these days is weak, flimsy … ” growled a YouTube ad for a “tactical hoodie.” “You’re not a child. You’re a man. So stop wearing so many layers to go outside.”

what this reminded me of is some article I read about Why That One Kid Insists on Wearing Shorts All Winter, according to Exasperated Adults. i googled it once because a couple of my neighbors were giving me shit for doing just that. One of the theories was the boys think feeling cold is wimpy, so it was a way of showing how tough they are. LOL. they interviewed a kid who said it was a way of demonstrating his autonomy to classmates. his parents couldn’t tell him what to wear. he came to regret it because it was freezing, and being known as the boy who wears shorts, he was embarrassed to switch to pants.

for me, it’s about transforming myself. i want to become less brooding and intense, more playful and less "cool". becoming who i wanna fuck, to borrow from another poster and thread though i don't remember which. plus the synthetic fabric feels good and I like looking at my ankles.

about this,

That I still often desire those who represent some of that masc behavior is another subject entirely, but is also part of this conversation for a lot of gay dudes. Like, some of my favorite "scenes" (iykwim) involve jocks and lockerrooms. Is this because I desire what I could never have, or what repulses me? I'm not totally sure.

the good news about masculinity that many people seem to miss is that it has sooooo much room in it that you can literally just make it fit "you." there are no rules and a million possibilities. in fact you can add feminine qualities to it for spice if you want, but like you don't have to, it doesn't have to be hyper-gendered either. and you can change it up literally every day, or every couple of hours.

is this specific kind of gender fluidity specifically a gay or gay male condition? because some of us are drawn to imitate appearances and behaviors that turn us on even though they don't necessarily square with our values? and how do those values change after slipping in and out of different roles for a long period of time? assuming attributes that on some level repulse you seems like an opportunity for growth. to grow your empathy, to stop hiding or feeling ashamed of what you really want- at least, those are two of the positive outcomes i've experienced.

you could be talking about something entirely different, of course. but.

i love wearing waxed canvas and gym uniforms and I also love wearing eye glitter and feather boas once in a while and all of it feels extremely indulgent, like the fulfillment of a wish almost. the former two are sexually charged, and they're all sort of forbidden, the masculine items in the sense that the boy from the article is embarrassed for anyone to know he wants to wear long pants. it's not what people expect of me, or it wasn't when i started. putting it on is confessional.

athletic attire pushes me to participate in life instead of just observing, and whatever hang ups i have about conformity feel healthy to undermine. that is to say, while it's taking me out of my comfort zone, it's not totally disagreeable. waxed canvas suggests someone who hunts and kills animals, which is maybe the single most repulsive act to me personally. man as operator of puncture, breaching and opening vessels (such as other lives)... just to use words other than "penetrating". there's an obvious dissonance because it's armor, but it has a fortifying effect.

eye glitter, on the other hand, draws the fear and vulnerability out of me. it fosters an instinct, above all, to withdraw from danger (predation, persecution), but also to nurture myself and others (laundering and making my bed, brushing my dog's teeth and clipping his nails, brushing the fur of my plush animals and tucking them in).

i have a toy tea set which i play with and utilize in a divinatory context. it evokes the physical and psychic heaviness of ancient Zhou bronze altar sets, and so bridges that world with Disney animation and Tiffany's Table Manners for Teenagers. there's a flattening of distinctions between regression and play therapy, theater, ritual and transformation- all of which i'm pulling from this very potent object that, really, is taboo for me to use because i'm not a child. and i don't want to misappropriate or dilute terminology that the trans women and men use to communicate their own needs and experience, but i will say that there's a healing aspect to playing with girls' toys.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/810iIqRO-hL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/76974

as to the question of where is the true, authentic self in all of this- is there a gendered (or other) identity that "feels right" in the way some transgender individuals talk about, the answer for me might be "no." just speaking for myself, so far everything i do is a roleplay that on some level i feel distanced from, and i don't think i'm anything more than my responses to the stimuli that agitate me. if you strip all that away, i just feel abstract. i can keep plumming the depths, and it's bottomless, but it seems also to be hollow. table's post about how his own masculinity evolved in opposition to heteronormative aggression is really beautiful, i envy that in a way.

and i realize simply stating that i don't exist in a vacuum doesn't make me masculine or feminine, nevertheless, my gut is that the difficult task before me is to feel unburdened by the emptiness instead of trying to solve it.

Anyway, I do not see a "crisis of masculinity" in the world my son and his friends inhabit. It feels to me like the kind of thing I read innumerable newspaper articles about but which don't match what I see locally (see also: downtown is a no-go zone of burned-out buildings and street crime, groceries are twice as expensive as they were in 2019.)

I realize that writing this can be invalidating so I am really not trying to stomp on other people's experiences, just recording my own.

hey scott, if you're still reading this count me in on the people who would like to see you post more, if you feel like it.

When I was younger I definitely knew without knowing that one of the reasons my gay friends - and women friends - liked my company - (especially out in public in a very scary decade for gay people (and heck its always a scary decade for women)) was that I was big and tall and "not gay". i was perfectly happy to be My Bodyguard because in their presence I could be who I really was 100%. Which was liberating beyond words.

there is so much here and if you ever want to expand on any of this i'm interested to hear more

Anyway, I do not see a "crisis of masculinity"

that's because the cure has arrived:

https://spy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/tucker-carlson.jpg