# Generally speaking, how many masculine groups/cutulres are there? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 10, 2018, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579 "2018-02-10T08:43:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Luciano700](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Luciano700](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Luciano700)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579/201 "2018-02-17T01:42:18Z")
Will I appreciate the run this thread had. ---
**Author:** ![Luciano700](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Luciano700](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Luciano700)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579/202 "2018-02-17T03:51:35Z")
I got one more question to ask, I promise this is the last one What does society now expect from a man? My question is to make it more clear: For example, what kind of attitudes do you get expected it from your community as a man? How do you as a man contribute to the world around you? By being a leader? Role model? Is my question clear or should I explain more? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579/203 "2018-02-17T04:23:38Z")
What “community” would that be? Your place of employment? Your church/synagogue/mosque/temple/coven? Your social clubs? Your service organizations? Your barber shop? Your gym? Your mechanic shop? “Society” isn’t a monolithic thing–it is a collection of millions of people with millions of different opinions. Maybe you can get most of them to agree that a man is an adult male _Homo sapiens_. Maybe. ---
**Author:** ![Luciano700](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Luciano700](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Luciano700)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579/204 "2018-02-17T04:37:55Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > What “community” would that be? Your place of employment? Your church/synagogue/mosque/temple/coven? Your social clubs? Your service organizations? Your barber shop? Your gym? Your mechanic shop? > > “Society” isn’t a monolithic thing–it is a collection of millions of people with millions of different opinions. Maybe you can get most of them to agree that a man is an adult male _Homo sapiens_. Maybe. True. Let’s start maybe high school life for example. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579/205 "2018-02-17T04:42:16Z")
In high school you aren’t a man. (See: adult male _Homo Sapiens_.) ---
**Author:** ![Luciano700](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Luciano700](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Luciano700)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579/206 "2018-02-17T05:13:00Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > In high school you aren’t a man. (See: adult male _Homo Sapiens_.) Right, but isn’t it still important to step up your game? ---
**Author:** ![Luciano700](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Luciano700](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Luciano700)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579/207 "2018-02-17T05:35:23Z")
Also let me clarify, the insecurity of my masculinity has really in a more serious state been going on only for about 5-6 years. This is when I started to lose my will and self-esteem more as a person. And so my insecurity has been pretty steady for over 2 years now. I am still struggling quite with it. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579/208 "2018-02-17T12:41:16Z")
Nobody gets out of being a teenager without some emotional scars. It’s all part of the process. In what way is your insecurity about masculinity manifesting itself in your day to day high school life? In what way do you find yourself lacking? Describe specific incidents/events as examples. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579/209 "2018-02-17T15:08:48Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > In high school you aren’t a man. (See: adult male _Homo Sapiens_.) In high school, the instilling processes turning males into men is in its final routines (See: Socialization, gender) > [@Luciano700](#): > > Right, but isn’t it still important to step up your game? **Luce** , by far the most prominent signal of insecurity you’ve shown is your sense that you need to get a passing grade from outside of yourself on this being-a-man thing. On the one hand, that doesn’t make you unique; it makes you typical. That’s how the masculinity-instilling thing _works_, in fact, by making nearly every male sufficiently insecure about his gender legitimacy that he starts making some additional effort to resemble the culturally shared notions of what it “means to be a man”. On the other hand, the fact that this is commonplace doesn’t make it natural, healthy, or obligatory. It really isn’t good for a person’s self-esteem to internalize a bunch of other people’s ideas about how you should be in order to pass as a man. In fact, if you think you don’t match the operant definition of “what it means to be a man”, you should seriously consider the possibility of saying “So I’m not one. So???”, and shitcanning the whole masculinity sweepstakes altogether. I’m not saying you should necessarily _do that_, but that you should give yourself room, in your mind, for it being OK to do that. You should dare to question the notion that you should have to “be a man”, if it means anything other than “I have male parts and I grew up to physical adulthood”, because if you’ve never questioned them, if you’ve just blindly accepted them, then they aren’t your notions, it’s not your agenda, and you aren’t your own person but instead just a puppet being trained into being this thing called a “man”. ---
**Author:** ![Luciano700](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Luciano700](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Luciano700)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579/210 "2018-02-18T00:32:03Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > In high school, the instilling processes turning males into men is in its final routines (See: Socialization, gender) > > **Luce** , by far the most prominent signal of insecurity you’ve shown is your sense that you need to get a passing grade from outside of yourself on this being-a-man thing. > > On the one hand, that doesn’t make you unique; it makes you typical. That’s how the masculinity-instilling thing _works_, in fact, by making nearly every male sufficiently insecure about his gender legitimacy that he starts making some additional effort to resemble the culturally shared notions of what it “means to be a man”. > > On the other hand, the fact that this is commonplace doesn’t make it natural, healthy, or obligatory. It really isn’t good for a person’s self-esteem to internalize a bunch of other people’s ideas about how you should be in order to pass as a man. > > In fact, if you think you don’t match the operant definition of “what it means to be a man”, you should seriously consider the possibility of saying “So I’m not one. So???”, and shitcanning the whole masculinity sweepstakes altogether. I’m not saying you should necessarily _do that_, but that you should give yourself room, in your mind, for it being OK to do that. You should dare to question the notion that you should have to “be a man”, if it means anything other than “I have male parts and I grew up to physical adulthood”, because if you’ve never questioned them, if you’ve just blindly accepted them, then they aren’t your notions, it’s not your agenda, and you aren’t your own person but instead just a puppet being trained into being this thing called a “man”. I agree that some concepts of what it means to be a man are horeshit. ---
**Author:** ![Luciano700](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Luciano700](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Luciano700)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579/211 "2018-02-18T03:39:27Z")
And yeah I try to embrace my personality as much as possible. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579/212 "2018-02-18T04:00:06Z")
> [@Luciano700](#): > > And yeah I try to embrace my personality as much as possible. Is that what kids today are calling it? ---
**Author:** ![Luciano700](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Luciano700](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Luciano700)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579/213 "2018-02-18T04:51:50Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Is that what kids today are calling it? Facepalm I am pretty sure is always been that way. ---
**Author:** ![Luciano700](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Luciano700](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Luciano700)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579/214 "2018-02-19T05:36:30Z")
@Darren garrison@ if you’re reading, could you give me more advice on how to be more unique without feeling the need to try to fit into whatever random ass group or culture there is please? This is the thing about America, it over-values people by community too much. ---
**Author:** ![Luciano700](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Luciano700](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Luciano700)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579/215 "2018-02-19T05:45:05Z")
Please I really ask for the best advice you could give. Especially coming from a mixed race background and still having trouble exploring my personality. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579/216 "2018-02-19T06:13:22Z")
You can’t control what you feel, you can only control how you act on what you feel. [Take the advise of Bob Newhart.](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ow0lr63y4Mw) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/generally-speaking-how-many-masculine-groups-cutulres-are-there/808579.md?page=10)