In this thread, Beaten Man shared the following wisdom:
What kind of stupid crap is this? “Feminizing men”?
As for it not being okay for men to cry-any statements like these piss me off. I’ve seen my father cry, and my dad is also the kind of guy you wouldn’t want on your bad side.
Guin, darling, he was looking for such a reaction. You have just given it to him.
Save the outrage, lest you use it all up and become a burned out husk of a doper.
It certainly is not okay for a grown man to cry. We’re rocks. None of that girly emotion here. There’s no feminine side allowed. We drown those womanly emotions in our gallons of testosterone! We are men, dammit! Men, Men ,MEN!
Aw, fuck it. Hold me Guin. I think I’m gonna cry.
I made my dad cry once. Talk about feeling like a real shitheel. It was over the stupidest crap, too. Total and complete misunderstanding, neither of us had any reason to be angry with each other and if we’d stopped screaming at each other for five second, we’d have realized it.
Mind you, this is the same guy who used to routinely drill holes in his thumb on his drill press and not notice, knocked out a 6’6" 300 lb Marine with one punch, and once nearly severed all his fingers when his Volkswagon started to roll off a loading dock and he pulled it back up by its bumper.
So, I’m with the OP on the “real men can still cry” thing.
As for the idea that our children are being “feminized,” all I can say is “So?”
I wouldn’t mind being feminized, it’s been a long time.
God damn! Your dad’s cool!
Man’s got a point though. Too much touchy-feely bullshit going on in schools. Zero tolerance on cards, games, gaming cards and playing games, gaming plays and so on. Just 'cause you got a bug up your ass doesn’t change that. I believe the class on men crying was a little thing called hyperbole.
Well, my father is 6ft3, almost 54 years old, and in better shape than a lot of men in their thirties. He also can look like one mean mofo when he wants to.
But I’ve seen him cry (when our cats died, even!).
I guess it was a lame rant, but this whole, “let’s feminize men” bullshit crap pisses me off. It’s like that article I ranted about-that if a man shows emotion, or is tender or caring, he’s a “wimp.” It’s so incredibly stupid.
Maybe Beaten Man was trolling?
Crying has nothing to do with being feminin or masculine. Its to do with being human, having emotions, feeling pain and sadness. Everyone cries sometimes, and men that claim they never cry are talking bullshit IMO.
What sort of touchy-feely bullshit? My high school neither catered to males or females exclusively. About half the teachers favored boys and about half favored girls.
Of course, where it came to sports, the males were more favored. But that’s not unusual.
I think “touchy-feely bullshit” in my school system would’ve been appropriate, especially since I knew at least 5 males (and a couple of girls, too) who had sexually assaulted someone else.
But then again, it probably wouldn’t have helped.
hehehe, he’s talking funny talk 
I’m not sure what he was trying to say but it definately involved lots of games and gaming.
What the hell?
Feminize is definatly not the right word. I think Beaten Man may be getting at how school sports have all become toned down to a point where anything that could maybe possibly kinda hurt a kid is forbidden. No rope ladders or jungle gyms anymore. No contact sports or even aggresive play. However Feminize is completely the wrong word. Its characterizing women as weaker and well, I know a few girls who could kick my ass at any sport.
while I too thinks it’s silly to discourage men not to cry, I do have a problem with the fact that it is indeed unlikely that martial arts and the discipline that go aling with them will probably never be taught in a public school.
Not just to men, however. I would like to see self defense taught to men and women in public schools. Along with lessons in how good it is for mind and body to cry when it is needful. And while I don’t see any great conspiracy to “feminize” boys, I do think there is a lack of positive masculine role models. Not “Rambo” types, but men who are responsible, self reliant, strong, and sensitive. It seems that we have polarized our image of masculinity into either Alan Alda or Rambo. What about the Eddies Father? He was sensitive but not a wuss. He tried to talk and reason his way out of misunderstanding but not because he was afraid of confrontation, just because he was smart and mature enough to know better.
While I do not cry as a part of any excercise, when meditating to unwind from practice I have certainly been known to cry, even cry and wail if my meditations have taken me to some new self understanding and awareness. A person who does not see the need to cry is unaware of themselves or their environment and will make no progress in either direction.
Damn grammar. What I mean to say is that I thinke it is foolish to discourage men from crying.
I gave him a tongue-in-cheek response in the other thread for his over-the-top remark. BUT, I have to admit I am also against men crying. Certainly I think it would be socially unacceptable in public except in the most extreme circumstances (i.e. just saw your wife get hit by a bus.) In private, it would still make most men feel very awkward to see another man cry. Only a very close friend under extreme pressure and stress might do so and be easily accepted. Otherwise, you’re unnecessarily burdening others with your feelings by making them so overt.
Like it or not, since that mostly is the male response to other men crying, it is expedient to teach boys not to cry. Crying really has no benefit for boys (I don’t know if it really benefits anybody), and it has obvious negative consequences. I suppose if you’re with people who are all touchy-feely and into crying, know they won’t mind, and you wish to indulge, knock yourself out. Otherwise, do it if you wish, but expect to alienate people. And don’t just say “well, then those people weren’t worth having as acquaintances anyways”, because you might have to deal with those people whether you want to or not.
Of course, the end of Rudy when he gets that sack on the last play, that’s exempted from the no-tears rule, but only if you’re alone 
Tears only though, crying is still verboten.
RexDart, if you ever have a son, do him a favor and be one of those absentee fathers.
I don’t propose he abandons his firstborn, but I agree with your sentiment, cuauhtemoc.
RexDart: I want to write a proper response but I have to leave work and don’t have time. 
Suffice to say I don’t agree with you.
I plan never to have any children. If I had one, I’d have no interest in raising it, so I’d just pay the money every month and stay away. The traditional ATM-father that society is turning men into. So consider it done. But I would like to know why you think it’s so bad to teach boys the realities of the world, that crying is socially unacceptable and will have negative consequences. Showing hurt so blatantly weakens your power position with everyone around you, it would only be the height of foolishness to do that with people you don’t completely and absolutely trust. Showing the weak emotions only serves to erode the respect of your peers, again unless they are a small group of people you know VERY well.
And I’d like to know what you think is so bad about not crying, when it appears to have no tangible benefits. It merely signals a feeling of sadness or other deep emotion, which is so rarely useful. I’m sure our cavemen ancestors found anger and displeasure to be emotions whose signals were far more useful, since they served a competitive function. Sadness or pain would have shown a weakness that could get you killed. So isn’t it natural that some emotions would be expressed publicly by men more often that others?
Rex: Your idea of reality may or may not be accurate. But you miss some very key points here. Crying DOES have benefits for men/boys. It helps eliminate tension and stress related illness for one. It als oacts as a catharsis from emotional stress as well as triggering what is known as a “surrender reflex” (look it up) which is a nessisary component to human evolution (and evolution to pretty much every animal out there).
Secondly even if the entire world was against men showing tears (which it isn’t. Western culture seems to be most afflicted with this illness of denial, and even then saturation is not 100%), that is no reason to accept the status quo. Denying civil rights to minorities may have been the prevailing wind at one time as well, so by your rationale you would teach your son to deal with it rather than to try and change things.
Whily I do have a problem with anyone being a crybaby, I have held my best (male) friend while he cried and he has returned the favor. To anyone who has not seen him cry he is a very masculine combat veteran and lovingly strong father of two wonderful girls. Me, I’m a skinny dweeb with glasses and also a combat vet who can do more than take dictation with my two hands.
Your brand of bravado is one reason so many men come home broken from their first brush with conflict. The fact that it becomes nessisary on occasion for members of the armed forces or law enforcement to take another human life is going to have one of three results. It will create efficient sociopaths (or reveal them), it will cause people to become wracked with PTSD because they cannot deal with what they have seen or done, and it will force some of us to relearn how to be men and to reconcile what is nessisary with what is not.