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Masculinity in men and how society thinks making men more feminine will solve all our problems


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2 minutes ago, Lysandre, the Star-Crossed said:

I do find it comical that one side wants to "feminize" men and the other side actively wants to promote masculinity. Granted, this is an incredibly reductionist way of looking at it...but it's still interesting to me.

IKR??? I am not for any movement at all, I just find these types of arguments interesting and wanted to see what people on here think. ^_^

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@Calliers - there is a reason that several members have posted various things here to the effect of “are you trolling right now?” 
 

The talking points covered in these videos ( whose sources are not great, but that too has been covered) are very tired arguments that manage to miss the point of the movements they criticize to a laughable degree and/or construct arguments no one is making in classic straw man style.

 

For instance: why do feminists want to feminize men? They don’t. Nobody wants to “feminize men”, and frankly, it’s not clear what this even means outside very tired old orientalist views of femininity as weakness/decadence.

 

How come the same women who want to feminize men complain that men aren’t masculine enough? Again, they don’t. This should be obvious, as anyone talking about how they want men to be more masculine would definitely not be interested in making men more feminine, whatever you think either of those things mean.

 

Finally, incels. Look. I wrote a lot here and deleted it. I loathe the incel mentality for a lot of reasons, but high on that list is the fact that I could have easily fallen into that hole myself. So I’ll save my venom for my own self-flagellation, but I will say that the idea that other people owe you intimacy of any kind is repugnant. At the end of the day, the incel mindset definitionally assumes that the desires of the person with that mindset are more important than the desires of other people. If there is any more disgusting foundation for an ideology, I literally cannot imagine it.

 

 

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nutterwithasolderingiron

OKAY. so i'm not going to watch the video because it's pragerU and they have known ties to various alt right/neo-nazi groups and i feel like giving them a single view of mine is giving them what they want, attention. but i have a feeling i know what the argument is because i've heard it parroted so many times. 

 

when people criticize "toxic masculinity" what they are really saying is the they want to see the traditional idea of masculinity die off. stuff like the casual sexism, homophobia or transphobia that often makes people feel unwelcome in those groups. we want to see this emotionally closed off mindset that often drives men to only show emotions like anger die off. i've been told over the years that i'm something rare, a queer man who loves cars and working on them and i HAVE seen a lot of cases of toxic masculinity in my time. men saying they wouldn't date a trans woman because "ewwww dicks are gay", men causing genuine damage to their backs because "i don't need no help carrying this subframe because i'm a real man" and more than my fair share of dudes going through a divorce having genuine trouble but too afraid to talk about it because "feelings are gay"

 

i've got a transmasc friend who says i'm a positive example of traditional masculinity because i like traditionally masculine things, i work in a bike shop repairing bikes all day and present as traditionally masculine (i have a beard that's nearly down to my belly button) but i don't fall into many of the traps a lot of traditionally masculine men fall into. i don't mind some activities that are often seen as "feminine" and i'm cool talking about my feelings, which is not something most traditionally masculine men will do. fuck it, i've got a collection of romance manga. 

 

if men being more "feminine" means they're happy and comfortable in their own skin then why does it matter to these people? why do so many of these folk want men to be miserable? because if they're miserable then that means they'll be more likely to believe the people who say stuff like "you're miserable because the SJW cucks want to turn you into a girly beta male" even though NO ONE is saying that on our side. 

 

it's known knowledge that men and women commit suicide at a similar rate, right? but men are a lot less likely to get help because there's this common narrative that men shouldn't talk about that kinda thing. male sexual assault/domestic violence victims are way less likely to get the help they need because there's this idea that "oh a man wants sex" or "a man should stand up for themselves" and at the end of the day, that's the kinda attitude we want to see less of. no one's telling men to be less masculine if that's something that makes them happy. what we're saying is maybe less of the ideology that drive people away. you can still go to the gym, you can still work on cars, just maybe less of the casual sexism and homophobia that equates anything feminine as "gay" or "for girls" 

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Incel another term whose meaning has drifted from what it seems to say.

 

I have a lot of sympathy for men  or women who  are unable to have the sex lives that they desire. Often this is not really their "fault", they may be socially akward, physically unattractive, etc, yet still be good deserving people.

 

What I don't have sympathy for is people who blame others for their poor sex life, or who feel that they are somehow "owed" a better sex life.

 

Incel has come to be associated with men who both don't have the sex life they want AND who blame women for that . We really need a term for just the former.

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Sarah-Sylvia

This is why it might be ok to have sex robots around.

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SorryNotSorry
10 hours ago, E said:

 

You know the lame thing about all of it Calli? I think people need to stop giving a fuck about what's masculine or feminine. People automatically drift into a sort of category all by themselves, so we'll always have this fuzzy definition of what masculine and feminine is, and we'll never be rid of it. The actual source of most of our woes throughout history is that people give too much of a fuck about trying to box other people into these vague definitions.

This.

 

Something I never fail to notice is missing from these kinds of discussions is alternatives, or more accurately, an absence of them—and just as importantly, why some people would rather bitch and whine and piss and moan than accept alternatives, or develop them.

 

I mean, people thousands of years ago figured out bronze was a better alternative to stone, and later on, they figured out iron was an even better alternative. Petroleum was a better alternative to whale oil. Electric motors and internal combustion engines have all but replaced horse-drawn carts. Nowadays those of us who like colorful jewelry aren't stuck with gold—we can get blue, pink, green, and purple jewelry made from niobium (which costs a little more than silver). Look it up.

 

Similarly, incels need to stop being so bitter and start working on alternatives. If there's no way in hell women are ever going to like these guys, then they need to stop wallowing in their misery and develop life-like female robots so they can live happily ever after and shut up.

 

Sure, alternatives are market disruptors. That's what they do. There will always be a few people who'll be shit out of luck when some alternative comes along and wrecks their livelihood. But the rest of us will be better off for it. Sure, if incels develop bots, the result will be more crazy cat ladies. But at least the incels themselves will stop bitching about how life has dealt them a shitty hand and more importantly, they won't use the rest of us for target practice.

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12 minutes ago, SorryNotSorry said:

Similarly, incels need to stop being so bitter and start working on alternatives. If there's no way in hell women are ever going to like these guys, then they need to stop wallowing in their misery and develop life-like female robots so they can live happily ever after and shut up.

 

Sure, alternatives are market disruptors. That's what they do. There will always be a few people who'll be shit out of luck when some alternative comes along and wrecks their livelihood. But the rest of us will be better off for it. Sure, if incels develop bots, the result will be more crazy cat ladies. But at least the incels themselves will stop bitching about how life has dealt them a shitty hand and more importantly, they won't use the rest of us for target practice.

It would be so cool if you could stop framing women and access to women’s bodies as commodities.

 

I don’t think that anyone cares whether or not you have a sex robot, but they do care that you are framing the discussion as though a sex toy is a literal 1:1 replacement for a full human being.

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nutterwithasolderingiron
2 hours ago, Sarah-Sylvia said:

This is why it might be ok to have sex robots around.

i for one welcome our new sexbot overlords. 

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2 hours ago, SorryNotSorry said:

This.

 

Something I never fail to notice is missing from these kinds of discussions is alternatives, or more accurately, an absence of them—and just as importantly, why some people would rather bitch and whine and piss and moan than accept alternatives, or develop them.

 

I mean, people thousands of years ago figured out bronze was a better alternative to stone, and later on, they figured out iron was an even better alternative. Petroleum was a better alternative to whale oil. Electric motors and internal combustion engines have all but replaced horse-drawn carts. Nowadays those of us who like colorful jewelry aren't stuck with gold—we can get blue, pink, green, and purple jewelry made from niobium (which costs a little more than silver). Look it up.

 

Similarly, incels need to stop being so bitter and start working on alternatives. If there's no way in hell women are ever going to like these guys, then they need to stop wallowing in their misery and develop life-like female robots so they can live happily ever after and shut up.

 

Sure, alternatives are market disruptors. That's what they do. There will always be a few people who'll be shit out of luck when some alternative comes along and wrecks their livelihood. But the rest of us will be better off for it. Sure, if incels develop bots, the result will be more crazy cat ladies. But at least the incels themselves will stop bitching about how life has dealt them a shitty hand and more importantly, they won't use the rest of us for target practice.

 

I don't imagine there ever will be an alternative to this kind of problem. Actually scratch that. As far as incels is concerned, the solution for most of their problems that counts as an alternative is a shift in viewpoint in how they view people.

 

If we're going to talk alternatives and incels, there's a hole in sex bots as an idea. You're not taking into account that a facet of incel thought patterns fosters a victim complex. And if you need to know anything about a victim complex, it's that whatever is done is never good enough. If sex bots were the solution, then sex toys would have solved the problem a long time ago. Pretty much all the concept of a sex bot is, is just a rig for fancy sex toys. If the base stuff never solved the issue, the bots won't either, and I'll tell you why.

 

Because a victim complex can never be satisfied, even if you had bots, eventually it would come down to a question of "Why am I forced to get a bot instead of a human?" I could spout an endless set of easily graspable answers that would be given out, inevitably. The problem with incels isn't a lack of alternatives, it's that they won't face the alternative, which is reality without a narrative.

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Sarah-Sylvia

As a note, I didn't bring it up seriously xD.
But hey, 'some' sexual satisfaction is better than none ;p, and would keep some busy while people figure out how to change their views (not sure how much of that is possible tho ;))

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I feel like we're just ignoring all the single women of the world who blame men for their singleness on the basis that all of us with penises just want sex, or want to bang hot models, or would never get into a relationship with a lovely woman because she was just good for us. How many of us have heard women blaming men for the fact they're on their own instead of blaming themselves for having such toxic, negative opinions of the gender they supposedly desire to love? I feel like there's no link between masculinity and involuntary celibates. Failing to take responsibility for your own behaviour is not a gendered expression, it's a failure of adulthood and it can manifest itself in any person.

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10 minutes ago, JimmyJazz said:

I feel like we're just ignoring all the single women of the world who blame men for their singleness on the basis that all of us with penises just want sex, or want to bang hot models, or would never get into a relationship with a lovely woman because she was just good for us. How many of us have heard women blaming men for the fact they're on their own instead of blaming themselves for having such toxic, negative opinions of the gender they supposedly desire to love? I feel like there's no link between masculinity and involuntary celibates. Failing to take responsibility for your own behaviour is not a gendered expression, it's a failure of adulthood and it can manifest itself in any person.

I mean, I’m sure there are women like that, but they haven’t dominated online discourse and/or inspired multiple mass shootings.

 

I agree there are shitty people of all stripes, but it’s more than a little disingenuous to claim that today’s incel culture is not deeply tied to toxic masculinity.

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7 minutes ago, Epic Tetus said:

I mean, I’m sure there are women like that, but they haven’t dominated online discourse and/or inspired multiple mass shootings.

 

I agree there are shitty people of all stripes, but it’s more than a little disingenuous to claim that today’s incel culture is not deeply tied to toxic masculinity.

I think most of the women like that just get a bunch of cats and live alone.

 

holy-crap-enya-is-even-better-than-we-th

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2 minutes ago, Calliers said:

I think most of the women like that just get a bunch of cats and live alone.

See, but this is literally just shitting on a woman for living alone with cats. As far as I know, Enya doesn’t post manifestos about how men only date asshole women and that’s why there aren’t enough men for her to date.

 

To be clear, incels aren’t pathetic because they live alone or like anime or play video game, they are pathetic because they believe they are entitled to access to other people’s bodies.

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6 minutes ago, Epic Tetus said:

See, but this is literally just shitting on a woman for living alone with cats. As far as I know, Enya doesn’t post manifestos about how men only date asshole women and that’s why there aren’t enough men for her to date.

 

To be clear, incels aren’t pathetic because they live alone or like anime or play video game, they are pathetic because they believe they are entitled to access to other people’s bodies.

Wow???

 

Like how did I even shit on women there??? All I said is that a lot of women that want to live alone have cats most times. I mean if I as a man (which by the way I want to do this eventually, they just don't allow dogs in my basement suite) decided I want to be alone and have a dog, is that in and of itself bad? I'm shocked.

 

I didn't even say it was bad to live with cats alone. And whether or not Enya lives alone with cats is not the point, that was just a joke/meme picture. Dude, I don't understand why you had to come at me like that.

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I always forget that there’s no such thing as context. My apologies.

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The solution to physical intimacy is to divorce it from romance. I believe that once you separate the two it becomes less necessary to place expectations on each gender.

 

While incel-dom is a horrible ideology, I can't help but wonder when it was the last time one of them got a hug -- from anyone.

 

32 minutes ago, Calliers said:

I think most of the women like that just get a bunch of cats and live alone.

 

holy-crap-enya-is-even-better-than-we-th

About 50% of adult Americans are single, and I bet many of them live alone, not just cis women.

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1 minute ago, Epic Tetus said:

I always forget that there’s no such thing as context. My apologies.

No worries, I should have used a couple of smileys myself so that you knew I was joking lol, I oscillate between joking and serious anyway, so just keep that in mind for future posts. ^_^

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16 hours ago, Calliers said:

Society thinks that by making men less masculine it will solve the problems

I think that it's wrong if men start acting more feminine (whatever that means) as part of some kind of trend. Masculine men are fine, but men who display toxic masculinity (like incels can do) is not ok, that needs to change. I think the entire discussion is one that is pulled into the extremes again, like so many topics these days. Men are either discussed in terms of a masculinity that is of the knuckledragging kind and all masculinity is assumed in this way, or the kind of feminising of men that means they have to wear proverbial pink flowers in their hair. There is nothing wrong with expecting men to behave in a respectful way and not in a way that is offensive to other people, like you see in 1950s movies where the man almost forcibly makes the woman fall in love with them. The first is not turning men into pseudo women, the second is not masculinity. 

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15 hours ago, - 𝕱𝖗𝖆𝖌𝖌𝖑𝖊𝕽𝖔𝖈𝕶 - said:

More generally, it's a good idea to stay away from extremes. Treat people well, live up to your own standards because they're your standards, not others, be kind and try to understand others.

This so much! 

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14 hours ago, Snao Cone said:

I think this video offers some counterpoints worth considering on this subject. 

 

  Hide contents

 

 

🤣

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5 hours ago, Sarah-Sylvia said:

This is why it might be ok to have sex robots around.

Yes - I honestly think that will solve a number of problems. 

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14 hours ago, Phalena said:

I'm already struggling with 'male' or 'female' energy. That smells like pointlessly gendered. Everyone has all the energy and trying to split it into gender categories seems useless, dangerous even. Because it presses individuals in categories that they have to fit in at every price. It's that gendering that has probably made boys struggle to a point that they turned to incel-dom or MGTOW. Don't force boys to be 'boys'. Let them be who they are.

 

What I also struggle with is that being 'male' has to be the contrary to 'female' as it has been proclaimed to be since at least somewhen in antiquity. It might be selfish, but I rather avoid traditional gender roles as much as possible because I'm tired of being seen as the 'lesser' by default. Seeing gender in a traditional light without doing so has been proven to be pretty much impossible by all the people that I know that have or are following those views. And those that didn't end up in a women are 'the other' mindset while seeing it as 'unchangeable given' are in fact much more modern than they think they are.

I agree with you in 100%

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3 hours ago, nutterwithasolderingiron said:

i for one welcome our new sexbot overlords. 

I'm sure you will be able to activate the "overlord" software package if that is what floats your boat.

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If we drop the confusing term "masculine"  the question remains, - should men on average behave differently than women or should there be no gender expectation of behavior at all?

 

I'm in favor of no gender expectations.....but some are hard to resist.  I still can't tolerate a man allowing a woman to sacrifice herself for him - think of the last scene of Titanic with the genders reversed.  I *should* think its OK, but I don't.

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30 minutes ago, Acing It said:

I think that it's wrong if men start acting more feminine (whatever that means) as part of some kind of trend.

Sorry to pick this out, but I'm curious, why would that be wrong?

Speaking as an AMAB person who likes some things that are considered feminine, and while I don't think I have overtly "feminine mannerisms", some might consider some of my traits to be feminine and I'm fine with that if they do.

If it's the trend part, a trend could mean people are just doing something because it's popular or something, but it could be they are doing it because they actually want to. Trends can be good or bad (or both or neither), but in this case I am not concerned if more men jumped on the trend. :) 

 

Feel free to ignore this as it is kind of getting off-topic.

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Another comment - I see nothing wrong with people being attracted to more or less masculine men, as long as they realize that is a personal preference not some absolute measure of goodness.

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4 hours ago, Epic Tetus said:

I mean, I’m sure there are women like that, but they haven’t dominated online discourse and/or inspired multiple mass shootings.

 

I agree there are shitty people of all stripes, but it’s more than a little disingenuous to claim that today’s incel culture is not deeply tied to toxic masculinity.

My issue with the toxic masculinity reasoning is that we ascribe it broadly to different exhibited behaviours, in this instance it’s the weaponising of shame to promote the violent and troubling rhetoric of extremist incels. But we would call it toxic masculine if a man repressed his shame, hid it, refused those emotions and behaved as though his rejection does not upset him. I see it as a two sided coin, I’m not sure how these diverging behaviours and responses can be owed to the same explanation.

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Blue eyes white dragon
4 hours ago, Calliers said:

I think most of the women like that just get a bunch of cats and live alone.

 

holy-crap-enya-is-even-better-than-we-th

 But the reason women tend to live alone is because either they just aren't ready for a serious relationship, not interested in dating, or had too many horrendous past relationships that they don't want to deal wwith that anymore. *I do know you were joking but that did bring up something to talk about lol

 

4 hours ago, RobL2415 said:

The solution to physical intimacy is to divorce it from romance. I believe that once you separate the two it becomes less necessary to place expectations on each gender.

 

While incel-dom is a horrible ideology, I can't help but wonder when it was the last time one of them got a hug -- from anyone.

I mean yeah normalize the idea the physical intimacy doesn't have to be romantic but perhaps incels haven't gotten a hug from anyone is because they are being a jerk and not either seeking help or taking responsibility for being a decent person.... Just last year on here, I was in a bad situation because someone was interested in me but I made it clear I do not want to get with someone 20 years older than me. Then he started on how pitiful he is because i wouldn't give in and settle for him because everyone treats him like shit. Then I got into my current relationship so he started slandering me because I didn't give him what he thought he was owed. Two years ago I was in an abusive relationship because I got manipulated into pitying my "friend that would never get laid because people thought he was an ass" turns out he is an ass, an entitled one at that. So before you start pitying incles and toxic men, maybe think about why they act like that instead of saying that they haven't been even hugged in a long while. Pitying people like that just enables their toxic behavior and entitlement 

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4 hours ago, RobL2415 said:

The solution to physical intimacy is to divorce it from romance. I believe that once you separate the two it becomes less necessary to place expectations on each gender.

 

While incel-dom is a horrible ideology, I can't help but wonder when it was the last time one of them got a hug -- from anyone.

 

About 50% of adult Americans are single, and I bet many of them live alone, not just cis women.

Some (many?) people enjoy physical intimacy when it IS combined with romance.  Nothing wrong with people who just want casual sex, but I doubt they are even the majority.   One hint is that one of the more popular and expensive services from call girls is to act as a girlfriend for the day, not just engage in sexual acts.

 

I know that for me,  romance / sex / love are all tied together.  I can't really enjoy any unless I have all 3.  (that's just me, but I doubt its rare)

 

There are a wide variety of reasons people live alone.

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