You know, for ever man who accomplished something great like climbing Everest or landing on the moon or reaching the Arctic Circle, there is some woman badgering him about “why does he have to spend so much time hanging out with his immature friends”?
No, my idea of oppression is an entire gender of people being stripped of their public identity for no reason other than it’s what’s “expected” and because men think it’s some kind of imperative.
I don’t consider climbing Mt. Everest or going to the moon to be “macho bullshit.” Calling another man a pussy because he made a decision you wouldn’t make, and talking about how a man’s got to do certain things to warrant possession of his dick, now that’s macho bullshit. Maybe you’ve just been dating the wrong kind of woman. That could be why you’re so insecure and have to belittle other men for making choices that would cause you to feel so diminished.
No need to get into a slap fight with The Most Bitter Man In America. Any day now we’re going to hear another story about some misogynist shooting up a gym.
One could make the argument that surrendering a key component of your identity is not entirely harmless.
I would never ask or expect my fiancee to change her name, in fact I would encourage her not to. It’s been her name for almost four decades.
I think Melissa Etheridge and her ex, What’s-Her-Face Cypher did that with their kids. IIRC (it was in the information for a photograph by, I think, Liebowitz) their kids’ last name is “Cypheridge”.
I think that would be a neat idea, but high-risk for eye-rollingly tacky creations. You just know that people would come up with awful combinations and think it’s cute.
This is what friends of mine did. They just combined their two last names into a new name for them both. Granted, both of their names when joined together made an asthetically “cool” new name. I imagine it would not have worked if they’d had names like Mr. Hammerme and Ms. Ferrboxe. Or maybe it would… 
This is all about social norms. People get upset when the status quo is challenged, plain and simple.
That’s a way to detect telemarketers. When people call at my parents’ house asking for “Mr. <MyMothersName>”, we know it’s a telemarketer.
I second this question. That or “I just like my name, I don’t want to change it.”
My god. You’ve gotten inside my head and seen through to my very core. Please. Spare me your clumsy attempts at psychoanalysis.
I know Interweb hard on brain but I didn’t call anyone a “pussy”. That was Marley23 putting words in my mouth. But yeah, I think it’s a bit effeminant.
But the only reason it’s effeminant is because our society evolved that way. The man generally takes the woman’s name. So when you go against that established convention, people tend to look at it as odd. It could have just as easily been the reverse. “Dude, you’re KEEPING your name?! What’s next? Pushing a baby out of your vagina?”
Are effeminants like replicants, except with skirts on?
I have two pairs of friends that have done this. In both cases the combined last names sounded a bit convoluted, but they’ve grown on me over time.
Another pair of friends decided they were going to hyphenate their names, and go by Ann and Bob Hyphen. They didn’t follow through on that one. 
I gave a completely accurate summary of your attitude to this point. Yeah, the guy bucked tradition, so it’s not surprising that people think it’s weird. What I don’t get is why you responded by saying women won’t fuck him (uh, he took his wife’s name) and then went off into that rant about sitting down to pee. If you’re going to now say it was parody, by all means, go ahead.
There’s nothing to psychoanalyze. You just lay it all out for us. Sorry your woman bitches at you. Worry about the status of your own testicles, let other guys worry about theirs. Or not worry, which would probably be the better option all around.
Oh, sorry, you just implied he was a pussy. You didn’t actually state it, but you obviously believe that you can judge what’s masculant (sic) and what isn’t.
Really? I know, internet hard on brain, but I think you just argued against your own thesis there. Must think before type!
Yeah, established convention would have it that she be a virgin when you marry her, after which she would quit her job and raise your babies. You’d have to pay for everything, ask her father’s permission, and I sort of bet that none of that is in the offing. So, fuck established convention, except when going against it causes me to feel that the integrity of my balls is threatened, which case, I’m a traditionalist!
I don’t understand. What is so strange about a man drinking Cosmos, talking about relationships with his close friends, taking a bubble bath, eating comfort food, and sitting down to pee?.
Thank you for doing what I asked: admitting you have no argument.
I’m not a big fan of name changing in general, but to each his own. I used to work with someone who’s maiden name was Fear. Not only did she take her husband’s last name, but her husband didn’t take hers! Talk about missed opportunity!
That said, I was a little disappointed that the article was written by Mr. Neufeld. I was hoping for something like Skywalker or Asskicker. There’s not a man alive, no matter how masculine, who wouldn’t change his name when he married Natasha Vader. Not to disparage the name Neufeld, I was just hoping the reason for the name change was something I could get behind.
Huh. I’m going by my cousin’s wife, basically. That’s what she told me. (She’s from Brazil.) I haven’t seen her in years, though, so it’s possible I’m remembering wrong.
As for me, I really wouldn’t give a shit WHAT name I chose, as long as his name wasn’t something embarassing (like my teacher whose husband’s name was Dickensheets. She still took it, to please her inlaws, but went by Mrs. D. And HIS name was Hans. Why the hell HE didn’t take her name, I’ll never know)
I believe his point was that the fact that you assumed that those activities were effeminate indicates your own misogyny. When all it really indicates is pattern recognition: people who talk like that tend to be misogynistic.
Nah, that was a last-ditch effort to save some vaguely misogynist jokes on his behalf.
Right. This being a case in point.
“Vaguely”? I thought I was laying it on pretty thick. I mean really. Yes I was joking around, but you and Jamaika a jamaikaiaké immediately picked up on that I was being sarcastic because everything I mentioned were traditional female behaviors.
I guess the only difference is that you take this shit so seriously and I think it’s a big ole joke.