Young men and relationships

In My Humble Opinion
161

Lmao. I meant we might want to say as a society that these characteristics are masculine ones, and that women exhibiting them are rather more masculine than they would otherwise be considered - if we want to have a positive version of masculinity, that is. Probably not height, actually, since it’s extremely hard to change, and the point is encourage positive behaviours that will both make men more attractive to women and benefit everyone.

Any virtue can become a vice if taken to extremes. It’s important to emphasise it’s the last part that’s the problem when criticising it.

IME most men hate being defended, so I generally try to avoid it.

Yeah.

IMO it’s weird to ask a guy if he wants to have sex when he just asked you out. Isn’t that kind of implied? People assume women have good social skills and its not always true; I think it’s at least as likely she was mortified because she felt like she screwed up and embarrassed herself as that she was angry with k9.

Yeah. It’s easier to entertain yourself, and social media and porn serve as a substitute for different aspects of relationships, reducing the incentive to put in the effort required to find one.

162

And to discourage them in women, by calling them masculine?

And to encourage, or even flat out state, that feminine women can’t be brave or protective?

“Mama Bear”, even, can’t be feminine?

I most certainly don’t see how that will “benefit everyone”. I’m a woman, damn it. If I’m being brave and/or protective, I am not being “masculine”. I find that sort of statement massively denigrating.

And it’s certainly not going to attract me to any man going around saying that sort of thing. It’s going to turn me right off.

163

That would be a likely result. Some would come to accept that they have some masculine characteristics/interests/whatever, and that’s okay - like I did. It helped that I found a guy who thought these things were a positive.

But what is your alternative, other than doing away with the idea of masculinity and femininity altogether? To saying “there is no non-toxic masculinity; everyone is a person, and should aspire to the same things”?

In our society, protecting children can be feminine, protecting men not.

Sorry.

I hope you won’t be offended if I say you’re not representative of the average woman (and neither am I).

164

Regardless of what traits can be called ‘masculine’ or not, it’s interesting that you find the comparison to be denigrating. That doesn’t speak well of how most people view masculinity.

165

I don’t understand your obsession with having some hardline division between masculine and feminine. Why?

166

This pretty standard conservative ideology at play. The new (ish) dark enlightenment krew is very very much about reestablishing traditional gender roles and drawing a very bright line between them

See:

167

Well, f*ck that.

168

Ah, the “washing their asscrack makes guys gay” mindset.

169

I think it connects back to the idea that if society doesn’t keep enforcing these gender rules then women will forget that they are women and should be bearing White children as their purpose (see Elon Musk and the rest of the krews obsession with so-called underpopulation). White Genocide is a direct consequence of relaxing gender roles.

170

That’s not why I find it denigrating. I find it denigrating to women, because it says that women do not have those virtues.

I find it equally denigrating to men to say that they can’t cook, or can’t cuddle babies, or can’t be empathetic, or whatever; or can’t do those things without being called “feminine”.

Yeah. Why?

Look – we’ve been telling everybody, from the day of their birth, that they’re a boy or a girl and that this means they Must Fit In This Box. (What box, precisely, depends on what culture we’re talking about; which says a great deal about whether any particular bit of behavior is essentially male or female – it’s not.) And this has been damaging people, of all genders, for the whole damn time we’ve been doing it. It’s what’s damaging the boys that you’re trying to use it to save. The problem isn’t that they’re being told women can do things, and the problem isn’t that they’ve got no examples of masculine people who are fine with that and are still masculine in the natural sense – the problem is that they’re being told they have to be Masculine™, and that they can’t be Masculine™ unless the women are being Feminine™.

How about we tell the kids that they’re human, and here are some various examples of how to be a good human, pick the version(s) that fit you? And there are a whole lot of things you can do to be useful and/or lovable and/or sexually attractive; but screwing other people over is never among the examples?

171

Exactly. When I care for a child or cute animal I am not ‘getting in touch with my feminine side’ In most ways I am not traditionally masculine. I am fine with that. My Dad, among many other problems, had a bad case of toxic masculinity. I am a man. I didn’t watch a second of the Super Bowl. I have been to Shakespeare In The Park in this neighborhood twice. I enjoy sewing. None of this changes that I am a man and a heterosexual man at that.

172

Perplexingly, although both her grandfathers are pathetically damaged men, my dad taught my daughter to place all seven in the ring with a Colt M1911, and her mother’s dad, two time all-Army welterweight champ, taught her to punch a creep’s lights out. Not a thought of imposing traditional gender roles. People don’t fit their boxes; even the boxes we enlightened ones think they inhabit.

173

I feel the need to clarify.

There is nothing wrong with being a gay man. But, if a man likes the theatre, sewing, etc many people will assume that he is gay. This also means that if a man is gay, many people will assume he likes the theatre, sewing etc.

There are heterosexual men who are not traditionally masculine. There are gay men who are very miuch traditionally masculine.

That is all I meant.

174

Now there is genuine masculinity.

Nothing toxic about it.

(Nothing toxic about watching the Super Bowl, either; or about not liking to sew; just in case I need to say that.)

175

Perhaps to the annoyance of all, I’m re-entering the thread on the abuse of “toxic” as a word to describe bad behavior.

Since I’d worked in industrial safety, both on the environmental compliance and workmans compensation sides, exact language was imperative IRG chemicals and medical terminology, respectively. Because words are what lawyers, judges and juries listen for.

But that’s not your line as you talk about shitty behavior: I get that. Toxic: an industrial byproduct that, if negligently released can have poisoninous results. A great analogy word, but no more than that. You could just as well use the other words from my field: corrosive, or mutagenic. Mutagenic: having the ability to cause permanent changes in an organism’s DNA. That’s just as good as any analogy for baked-in shittyness.

But if I were an editor and a reporter came in with “toxic,” I’d have to send them back to the thesaurus. Instead, use one or more of the Seven Deadly Sins. Or something more organic, although testosterone, estrogen, epinephrine, norepinephrine, serotonin, etc. aren’t “toxic” compounds. Something; anything besides mindless pop-psychology claptrap.

Please think about it.

176

I understand your point. But I disagree that this is “abuse” of the word toxic. Additionally, I just don’t see any chance of changing the phrase toxic masculinity now.

It used to be that it was Chinese New Year. At some point, people started calling it Lunar New Year. AFAIK, the Chinese calendar is not lunar. It is luna-solar like the Hebrew calendar. The only truly lunar calendar I know of is the Islamic calendar. The change from Chinese New Year to Lunar New Year bugs me every year. I realize that I cannot do anything about it.

177

My father was a straight cut, WW2, Korean, Vietnam fighter pilot.
He walked with my sisters in a ERA rally, not because he thought it was necessary.
But because they did.
Grumpy old white men, will often surprise if given a chance.

178

You realize that not only the Chinese celebrate it?

179

Gendered personality traits are culturally driven–but that doesn’t make them fake, any more than the cultural nature of money makes it fake. It just means that if we can change culture, we can change them; and we should regard gendered personality traits critically, with an eye toward whether they’re doing more good than harm.

Within the realm of culturally gendered personality traits, there are absolutely some that are culturally tied to masculinity. Strength, protecting the weak, stoicism, braggadocio, aggressiveness, competitiveness, etc. It also includes things like short hair, certain clothing styles, certain toys for children (and, I guess, for adults, but very different kinds of toys), and so on.

Toxic masculinity, to me, refers to the display of these traits in a harmful way. The opposite, though, is a lot trickier. For the positive personality traits, treating them as “masculine” becomes a kind of gatekeeping. If someone values protecting the weak, are they being masculine? Or just a good person? If a woman shows courage, is she manly, or just courageous?

I started this post yesterday, and in between, @thorny_locust wrote most of what I was going to say:

The tricky part, though, is that for the foreseeable future, people will identify very strongly with their gender. Is it possible to lessen toxic masculinity in an environment in which young boys want to grow up to be “masculine,” by giving a positive model of masculinity? Or will toxic masculinity remain a powerful force until we get rid of the idea of masculine traits entirely?

I dunno.

180

Yes, I know that. I would have been fine with changing Chinese New Year to something that included all the cultures going by that calendar. Instead, the term Lunar New Year is simply inaccurate.