Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

I don't know if I'm interested in the show, but that's a great (traumatic) essay about it.

Thank you for posting that essay mh -- it's refreshing to read such honest writing from a man about that topic. I haven't even heard of the show and don't think I will watch it. i disagree with him about trigger warnings also, though I am glad he found the experience of being triggered useful in some way.

i prefer the term content warning, so if you choose to avoid certain types of content (SA) you can.

I'm glad Collins was able to talk about his experience, about how it affected him as a man. One of the big challenges of masculinity for me is, I have this perspective. I've seen a lot of the ways people I know got treated. People who aren't men. The way they, or maybe we, got treated... We were treated _as if_ we were men. It wasn't wrong because we aren't men. It's wrong to treat anybody that way. And it's hard for men to talk about. So it's really good to see Collins talk about it. He really expresses well something similar a lot of the experiences I've seen in... people who were abused _under the assumption_ that they were boys or men.

One of the things that struck me most about Collins' piece was this bit:

Sexually abused before being fully sexually formed, both Rocco and I decided, on some level, that our bullies were right — that our penises were, in fact, an important indicator of who we are as people.

That's _so much_ of my experience of... of the way manhood is treated in this world.

One of the hardest things for me personally to talk about is... talking about having my penis surgically removed. It's not something I really want to talk about or enjoy talking about. It's really personal and intimate and it's nobody's business. At the same time, I believe that it's really _important_ to me to talk about. I have these experiences, and they cut so hard against the assumptions I had about penises, the assumptions I see other people making about penises... even if people don't understand, even if people don't _listen_, I feel like it's important for me to talk about.

This idea, the idea that _penises are an important part of who we are as people_. It's not just men who are defined by the penis, but everyone. I think a lot about Dave Sim, when he went off on that first misogynist manifesto. He defined man as light and woman as "void". We get defined by what we _don't_ have, by what's perceived as a _lack_. I lack _nothing_. I was terrified, going in for GRS, terrified of what I could lose, and I lost nothing. That's why I talk about my GRS. Because from birth that was what I was taught, that the most important thing was for me to protect my dick, to keep it at all costs. That's the main reason I didn't see myself as trans, for years. Because I didn't "want my dick cut off".

Then I went ahead and did it anyway. Things change. People change. One of the things that changed most was this idea that... people who had GRS _hated_ their penises, couldn't stand them. I didn't. Still don't. When I say I "got my penis cut off" that's a deliberately provocative framing. That's me being directly challenging of the unspoken assumptions I was taught about penises. That's not actually what I did at all. That's now what I _wanted_ to do. It was never _about_ my penis. It was about this other thing that I wanted _more_.

-

And mostly the reason I talk about this is because people have these assumptions about trans people but I also just... these bullshit assumptions don't just hurt _trans people_. My impression is that it's _routine_ for AMABs to be taught that our penises are, in fact, an important indicator of who we are as people. God, people still think I'm a man for, as far as I can tell, no reason but that I _used to_ have an anatomically normal penis and testicles. They really think penises are that important. My lived experience is that they aren't. At all. My experience is that a penis signifies _nothing_ but a few inches of spongy tissue. Based on what I've seen, I believe treating a penis as anything more than that...

I don't think that benefits men. I mean men are taught all their lives that they're, like, categorically better than women, on the basis of _that_? A man is supposed to base his entire sense of self-worth, of value, on _that_? I mean, penises are great and all, but let's be reasonable here.