Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

Welcome to the MANCAVE bros! Lol psych, this is for contemplating serious issues NOT raised by the men's rights movement, and also we need to stop hijacking the Weinstein thread for real.

this is maybe going to sound incredibly dumb, i'm not trying to be #notallmen or #reversepence, but these days i just don't like to hang out with a group of dudes for a night out, or a party that's all men, etc...the energy weirds me out a lot of the time. most of my friends these days all are couples and we hang out as such, but i have other male friends who will just socialize with THA BOYS and i find when i join them that the conversations just go places i'm not comfortable with a lot of the time, or the vibe is just weird, the balance is all off, etc. i don't like the "men's club" feeling. i don't know.

― nomar, Thursday, October 12, 2017 11:39 AM (fifty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agree

― mookieproof, Thursday, October 12, 2017 11:42 AM (forty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I totally feel you. I am generally averse to 'dude hangs', particularly 'white dude hangs'. Speaking as a white dude, no demographic is more likely to creep me out than other white dudes.

― the scarest move i ever seen is scary move 4 (Old Lunch), Thursday, October 12, 2017 11:43 AM (forty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

same

― brimstead, Thursday, October 12, 2017 11:44 AM (forty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think the only time I'm in that situation is at band rehearsal but we aren't all white and we aren't all male so it's only intermittently when there's just a subset of us there. idk it doesn't bother me, there's no assholes in the band lol

― Οὖτις, Thursday, October 12, 2017 11:47 AM (forty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just don't hang out with assholes imo.

― IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Thursday, October 12, 2017 11:48 AM (forty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the classic Max Ophuls film Letter from an Unknown Woman is relevant on this point

Did you see the cuts Harvey demanded?

― Anne of the Thousand Gays (Eric H.), Thursday, October 12, 2017 11:48 AM (forty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"That's locker room."

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, October 12, 2017 11:48 AM (forty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

men who feel the need to exclude women aren't usually up to anything worthwhile ime

where does the conversation go that makes you uncomfortable? i'll admit to being curious.

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, October 12, 2017 11:48 AM (forty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean, IDK I haven't had that experience so much. I don't hang out with anyone that much these days, but I get together with a group of guys to play music and it's mostly just talk about music, being a dad, work sucks, and maybe football in which case I tune out.

― IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Thursday, October 12, 2017 11:49 AM (forty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Seems like a thread derail anyway.

― IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Thursday, October 12, 2017 11:49 AM (forty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

men who feel the need to exclude women aren't usually up to anything worthwhile ime

yeah I think this is the real issue

― Οὖτις, Thursday, October 12, 2017 11:50 AM (forty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I really hate the idea of stag weekends

― good art is orange; great art is teal (wins), Thursday, October 12, 2017 11:51 AM (thirty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

in the future they will figure out a way to lower testosterone in unborn male fetuses. or something like that. i'm an optimist! #scifireader

― scott seward, Thursday, October 12, 2017 11:51 AM (thirty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the company i work for has a large salesforce of mostly men . they come into the office from all over the country for training and meetings and want to go out in the City while they are here . I only went once and never again , the worst part was that most of them are married but when they come here it's like they are on some fucking weied free for all, it's horrible .

― (•̪●) (carne asada), Thursday, October 12, 2017 11:52 AM (thirty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's disgusting ^^^

it's not the testosterone -- it's the culture
we can change it if we try. y'all have kids. time to destroy the fratriarchy :)

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, October 12, 2017 11:54 AM (thirty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have a great core of friends, no assholes, but one of them keeps gravitating toward these sort of fratty activities. For example, he had his 40th birthday in Vegas, and my wife and were all, who actually does this? (So we decided not to go, since Vegas sucks - sorry, Vegas). The other week he made this half suggestion that we go back, but he added "and this time it should be just the guys!" And another friend of mine basically looked at him funny and said, "why? I like having my wife around." Which is to say I think some guys, even not assholes, sometimes get it in their head that they should do guy things in the most cliched guy way possible, and when a group of dudes, even good dudes, get that in their head, things can escalate into assholetry.

Or, like a different friend around the backyard fire pit the other night, actually take out his acoustic guitar and start strumming (and singing!) rudimentary classic rock songs. Don't do that either!

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, October 12, 2017 11:54 AM (thirty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^Harvey would have been a lot better off if he'd just done that tho.

― to fly across the city and find Aerosmith's car (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:00 PM (thirty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah that's my attitude to stag parties, just complete befuddlement. "A pre-wedding party, but no women allowed!" Lol what, no, that sounds fucking terrible and dumb. Where are we going, your treehouse?

― good art is orange; great art is teal (wins), Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:00 PM (thirty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The only all-male context I have in my life right now revolves around the alumni group for my all-male college chorus and even there enough of the guys are married to women that it's rare to have a meetup that is actually all male. (We do have an alumni chorus gig every two years, alternating between West Coast US and Japan, where the rehearsals are all-male but we are also in the middle of an activity so there's no real opportunity for things to go super gross.)

I will say that as a straight guy in this context, there is apparently some intragroup harassment that completely bypasses me; one issue that we've had in getting younger alums involved is apparently a core group of guys in their 60s-70s who make a habit of trying to prey on anyone under 30 who shows up. I knew nothing about this until one of my friends told me some stories about rescue missions he and his partner have gone on to keep things above board.

xp: lol, my wife had her 40th in Vegas, as did one of the guys I mentioned who was cockblocking old predators on the last alumni chorus trip.

― Marcus Hiles Remains Steadfast About Planting Trees.jpg (DJP), Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:00 PM (thirty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"we can change it if we try. y'all have kids. time to destroy the fratriarchy"

my kids were lucky enough to go to a really kind/loving/progressive school during their formative years and it totally helped form them in a really positive way. they are very quick to cry foul if they see/hear anything unfair/sexist/racist. not everyone gets that opportunity. i wish i'd had that!

― scott seward, Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:01 PM (twenty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a core group of guys in their 60s-70s who make a habit of trying to prey on anyone under 30 who shows up.

as someone who used to attend an LGBT church (overwhelmingly white men), this is not an unfamiliar phenomenon to me

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:03 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wholly reject the notion that ending toxic masculinity requires men not hanging out in groups together, that seems silly. I've had great groups of male friends where no such toxicity existed. But I'm all for ending what-happens-in-vegas style weekends and frat culture and the like. And there is definitely something to the idea that "good" guys will feel pressured to act in a certain guy way when in these situations. I was at an all-guy work dinner recently that got very close to crossing some lines, but thankfully a senior mgmt guy read the situation and was like "Ok, it's time to go."

― IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:04 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so happy i don't know what a "stag party" is and have to guess

and yeah i have/have had a lot of friends who are extremely "the boys" mentality. i.e. daydrinking & playing Xbox & doing blow. shit is dark. it's so stupid

― flappy bird, Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:05 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

La Lechera -- i guess it's that the conversations turn towards talking about women a lot or relationships in a way that feels a bit retrograde, there's always going to be a bit of that type of flirting w/servers that makes me feel like i'm with a bunch of embarrassing uncles, and it feels kind of gloomy for some reason in a very existential dude way. i can't really explain that latter part, it's more an overall feeling i have. that's probably not a great answer.

it differs from other friends where the couples will hang out and it's just fun and easy and no one has any hangups about the lack of dude nights in that particular circle. though there are times when i'll go hang out with one of those dudes. we just don't get all together as a group to visit the secret world of men, away from the women!

we have a son, and his two oldest friends are girls. and i think that's been more helpful than any advice i could give him. i think he's weirded out by dude energy too, maybe. it's good to err on the side of caution!

― nomar, Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:06 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

as someone who used to attend an LGBT church (overwhelmingly white men), this is not an unfamiliar phenomenon to me

As someone who used to host trivia in the only gay bar in town that attracted a 55+ clientele, me neither. The difference here, though, is that these men were not in positions of power, comparatively speaking. Not excusing, just observing.

― Anne of the Thousand Gays (Eric H.), Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:06 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Stag party = bachelor party. If they don't have those where you are, hopefully you can guess from "pre-wedding party for men" xp

― good art is orange; great art is teal (wins), Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:07 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xxxxp yeah man alive otm, ya gotta call em as ya see em. Shit is pretty widespread though. I didn't go to college, but a lot of the friends I was referring to above went to art school. "the boys" / frat mentality extends way beyond actual frats.

― flappy bird, Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:07 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wholly reject the notion that ending toxic masculinity requires men not hanging out in groups together, that seems silly. I've had great groups of male friends where no such toxicity existed. But I'm all for ending what-happens-in-vegas style weekends and frat culture and the like. And there is definitely something to the idea that "good" guys will feel pressured to act in a certain guy way when in these situations. I was at an all-guy work dinner recently that got very close to crossing some lines, but thankfully a senior mgmt guy read the situation and was like "Ok, it's time to go."
― IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Thursday, October 12, 2017 6:04 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for the record i'm not suggesting that but then again if men really never hung out in groups that were exclusively men...hmm

― nomar, Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:08 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I feel you, man alive, inasmuch as I have male friends (that I've known 15-20 years and who can comfortably hang out with like my mom) I can chill with as a group of just guys, so I don't condemn the practice in and of itself as much as I personally generally avoid it because the majority of my creepiest hangs have been dude-exclusive.

― the scarest move i ever seen is scary move 4 (Old Lunch), Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:09 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The difference here, though, is that these men were not in positions of power, comparatively speaking. Not excusing, just observing.

A detail I'm leaving out is that the people I'm talking about are all on the board of our alumni organization.

― Marcus Hiles Remains Steadfast About Planting Trees.jpg (DJP), Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:09 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There’s also work-related male hangouts before or after meetings where the women who don’t go/aren’t invited are not given career breaks or don’t get bondy face time with superiors.

― kim jong deal (suzy), Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:09 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This should probably be a separate thread, huh.

― the scarest move i ever seen is scary move 4 (Old Lunch), Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:10 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There's no "power" per se as far as other alumni are concerned but we do make decisions that affect the current students' abilities to tour, etc.

― Marcus Hiles Remains Steadfast About Planting Trees.jpg (DJP), Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:10 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, where can we move this discussion?

― IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:10 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

some kind of NO GIRLS clubhouse

― Οὖτις, Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:12 PM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Rolling Tree House Thread 2017

― flappy bird, Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:12 PM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― Οὖτις, Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:14 PM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

?!?!

"the boys" / frat mentality extends way beyond actual frats.
otm
i foolishly thought if i stayed away from broey fratty people, i could escape it. wrong!

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:15 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea i agree w/ man alive. probably a better thread for all this btw but whatever

i was extremely averse to all-male situations after going to a boys' catholic high school which was frequently toxic, homophobic, misogynist, crude, awful. after that experience, when i went to college i sought out friendships mostly with women, and i now work in a profession that is 80% women.

but eventually i've found great value in cultivating close, intimate friendships with other men and that sometimes that intimacy can be facilitated by male-only environments. they don't have to be toxic.

in the past decade, i've been part of a few all-male things, all of which have been super healthy, positive, and rewarding, and have never gone into that kind of toxic gross shit mentioned itt: 1) a men's group to talk about healthy sexuality in the context of being a man; 2) a regular "dad's night out" for special needs dads (mostly autism parents) organized by a local autism/special needs non-profit; 3) a regular friday night group w/ some of my childhood male friends, mostly we talk about music, politics, food, art, film, sex too but ime some men are able to talk about sex without being fratty creeps.

though i have talked to male friends and family members that work in male-dominated professions and tbh it sounds fucking horrible

― marcos, Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:15 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Rolling No Girls Allowed Treehouse Thread (All Gender Identities Welcome)

― IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:16 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's exactly what bob pollard said
"no girls in the treehouse"

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:17 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I could've sworn there was already some "masculinity" thread

― Οὖτις, Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:19 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i would like to add, perhaps relevant to this thread, that my bad-vibes groups are men who work in the entertainment industry. not all of them are these bad dudes, most are not, but the conversations which wind up occurring are often...not the greatest.

― nomar, Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:19 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's a few xp

plus like...... most of ilx sadly

― marcos, Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:19 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol, my wife had her 40th in Vegas
Ha! Well, women do their own shit in groups, but defending this from afar, I doubt large groups of women get together and turn into assholes the way men often do. Or at least certainly not the same way.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:20 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I doubt large groups of women get together and turn into assholes

lol sometimes I think there is nothing more terrifying than a gang of 10yo girls, the level of real emotional cruelty can just be insane

we're wandering rather far afield here...

― Οὖτις, Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:23 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

(ftr my wife made me go to Vegas with her for her 30th birthday - it was just us though. also I hated almost every second of it apart from the Star Trek experience thing)

― Οὖτις, Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:24 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Don't get me started on kids.

BTW, per "locker room," back when the Access Hollywood tapes came out, the same friend who was anti-"dudes only!" in Vegas didn't defend Trump but did observe that the shit he was saying wasn't that different from the shit any one of us (guys) might say in private. My first thought was, not me! But my second thought was that I at least understood what he was talking about. One man's ironic quip ...

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:25 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The last time I was in Vegas, for a wedding (bride was from Vegas), was actually fine, but after that my wife and I basically breathed a sigh that we would never have to go to Vegas again.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:26 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

where all my gamergate bros at

outmoded. deal

I remember Andrea Juno insisting that men hanging out in groups occasionally was good for them but I didn't understand why she thought that.

Marcos- I understand the male only sexual health group but not the other examples.

I've been to one small bachelor party, maybe a dozen years ago. I had some experiences, as the only queer there (afaik), that I had not had before. (The groom behaved impeccably btw.)

FWIW my "bachelor party" was just me and my close friends getting ethiopian food and drinks and seeing some music. There was a brief moment of me and a friend talking shit about a woman we had both dated, with a sort of knowing "Okay, just this once, since it's a *bachelor party*" wink. Even that shittalking didn't get all that ugly.

Being a straight, white male has pretty much always felt weird to me inasmuch as I don't relate to most of the things I'm 'supposed' to relate to as a straight, white male. Beyond even just like sports or whatever, I mean weird-ass competitive displays of dominance and strength and machismo and whatever the hell. Just trying to describe the prescriptive aspects of maleness that squick me out, I feel like someone who's always experienced it at a remove and barely has any idea what he's talking about.

yeah I hear you.

bewar! others have trod where you wish to tread: maleness

i think progressive men who don't want the world to be the way the world has always been need to STEP THE FUCK UP. but i don't know how you change the world. i just try to change myself on the regular. and evolve. i am all for evolution. which can be difficult for people. and which is a daily process. and this is why a lot of men just choose to put their hand down their pants Bundy-style and turn on the boob tube and fuggedahboutit.

One thing I was thinking reading the Weinstein thread is how important it is for men to kind of guide other men away from the wrong kinds of attitudes and behaviors and give them an alternative. I feel like I was extremely lucky that I had this freshman year roommate who happened to have this friend from home who was at the school and who became my very good friend -- he was a very confident guy and just wasn't having any of the bullshit. My first weekend we went to hang out with some junior that one of them knew and he was being a complete piece of shit, saying gross stuff about women, pressuring us to get wasted, etc. and the guy who became my friend made an exit for us and then talked on the way home about how much the whole experience sucked, and it made me feel like "Okay, college doesn't have to be like that, I'm not going to go that route."

I'm gonna be the contrarian and say....I don't mind when my buddies wanna hang with me away from wives and girlfriends? And I like/love their wives and girlfriends. I don't see the big deal. Maybe my gayness is the x factor.

also, marcos on the other thread describing his gross toxic high school was a description of EVERY school i ever went to. and i went to....five schools. just being around that for so many years was so detrimental.

I've tried steering other men's behavior before and ime it is thankless and usually unhelpful, which is not me saying it's not worth attempting.

i have a friend whose marriage ended and he has apparently quite literally gone down a rabbit hole of cocaine and escorts. meanwhile a mutual friend told *me* that guy actually has some kind of problems w/my low-key lifestyle, like how i don't actually want to party anymore (ftr, my partying w/him involved having two beers and him having three cocktails and then insisting we split the bill, so...)

dude i don't want to hang out w/you and listen to your BS "true man" advice about how to live while you're doing lines with someone you're paying to have sex with you.

Our friend group has never done all-male things (even the bachelor 'parties' were co-ed), but there are definitely 'ladies only' nights that get organized and my wife hates it.

That said there have been issues over the years with certain dudes tending to dominate the conversation (shocking I know), so I can appreciate wanting a different dynamic. But most of us who are in relationships, y'know, like having our partner at social gatherings with mutual friends.

xp

yea that's gruesome xp

i have better friends than that guy, fortunately. i think one aspect of this is that sometimes you change and other people don't change.

Maybe my gayness is the x factor.

yeah having non-heteros in an all-male mix definitely alters social dynamics in my experience

I'm often in the exclusive company of men when I socialize, and not always all-gay. Generally things don't get gross.

or should i say, sometimes you change in one direction and other people change in another direction. xp

I didn't have to deal with much toxic maleness as a kid/teen. I'm very thankful for the friends I had back then. I had lots of time with other young men and we were mostly never gross about women, or like weird and competitive. Began to experience it a lot more as an adult, which definitely made my social anxiety worse and led to me being pretty much a shut-in.

We discuss music, movies, politics, our sex lives in an adult, non-gross way, problems with dating/wives/girlfriends. They find it more helpful than I do. I don't see anything wrong with me for wanting to see them a couple times a month without their spouses and girlfriends. In fact, if anything, in Hispanic culture there's too much of an obsession with couples doing everything together.

I've tried steering other men's behavior before and ime it is thankless and usually unhelpful, which is not me saying it's not worth attempting.

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Thursday, October 12, 2017 5:54 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I feel like this is a massive public health issue and want to do something about it, but I have no idea where to begin

"I don't see the big deal. Maybe my gayness is the x factor."

i would be totally happy to hang out with a group of gay guys. i miss hanging out with gay guys. living with gay men in philly and knowing a wide range of gay men was one of my favorite things about living there. living in squaresville can suck sometimes.

i think men should make sure they listen to a lot of music by artists who are not male and read a lot of books by authors who are not male. that sounds like a very simple thing, but it's important.

i will say though on behalf of my squaresville that the men i know and am friends with tend to be mellow/creative/metrosexual/progressive/not gross/freak folkers and i can't say enough good stuff about them. but i don't really hang with men outside of music events that much.

xps: I would definitely not categorically exclude gay guys from the group of men who think they can let loose with their misogyny once they think it's 'just us guys'.

i mean a lot of the men i know COULD be gay if they just tried harder. those are the str8 guys i get along with best.

Several straight friends are gayer than I am.

i think men should make sure they listen to a lot of music by artists who are not male and read a lot of books by authors who are not male. that sounds like a very simple thing, but it's important.

― nomar, Thursday, October 12, 2017 1:03 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Totally. I can't really shut up about it, but I've been somewhat obsessed with Adrianne Lenker/Big Thief lately. The first song on the new album has been having a huge affect on me, the way I see male-female relationships, sex, etc., it really puts some things together that I sort of was subliminally aware of but hadn't allowed myself to get in touch with. In general her lyrics are so humanizing and I find her very therapeutic to listen to.

*effect

I would definitely not categorically exclude gay guys from the group of men who think they can let loose with their misogyny once they think it's 'just us guys'.

this is def true but gay misogyny is a different beast, it's coming from a different place where the sexual frustration/aggression angle doesn't come into it

xp

The most heinous group I know is around an acquaintance/former lover who never lets an opportunity to shame women slip by.

this is def true but gay misogyny is a different beast, it's coming from a different place where the sexual frustration/aggression angle doesn't come into it

I don't really buy that. The misogyny I've seen from both straight and gay men revolves around demeaning women and reducing them to objects that are at disposal; whether they want to touch them sexually or not doesn't drive the behavior, which manifests similar patterns of diminishing, gaslighting, and undermining.

one of cyrus's best friends has a gay dad - this kid has two moms and two dads for the total western mass package - who is totally into 80's/synth/disco and when he comes around i try not jump on him with madonna talk but i get starved! rupaul was his roommate in the 80's! how can i resist?

some sorta x-post

The misogyny I've seen from both straight and gay men revolves around demeaning women and reducing them to objects that are at disposal; whether they want to touch them sexually or not doesn't drive the behavior, which manifests similar patterns of diminishing, gaslighting, and undermining.

otm

Nomar OTM about reading books by women, listening to music made by women, experiencing art made by women. I've made a concious effort the last year to read more women, and I don't know if it has profoundly altered the way I see thee world, but it's also helped me understand some subleties abt the experience of women in the world. Idk. I try, but I'm no paragon of virtue. I think especially when I was younger, late teens/early twenties, I probably said lots of inappropriate or terrible things when hanging out with dudes. But it's important to be work at being better and acknowledge the fact that by making (even ironic) sexist or racy jokes we are perpetuating a bad thing.

Ass far as hanging out in male groups -- I think a significant portion (20%?)of my socializing is in a male only environment, but it's never organized or thought of in those terms. There are a couple of guys I get together with once or twice a month to listen to 78s. We're just the only ppl we know who are nerdy about that music at that level, and we're all happily married. Rarely does the topic of wives come up; too busy talking about alternate takes and who was playing 2nd guitar on a session. If anything, we most often express how thankful we are to have partners who indulge our weird hobbies and other quirks.

Helen and I don't go out with other couples very much in a "double date" kinda way, but our neighborhood pals are a healthy mix of men and women. A group of people coming over for dinner or to listen to records is never one or the other. Definitely having close friends who are women has helped me to be a better person and more concious of my words/actions.

Maybe ILB should stop having FAPs :(

i think w/the exclusively male nights out i've had, there is this sense of MEN, TO BATTLE, for tonight we etc etc. it's a little lame. i do have a few male friends with whom i have some record listening parties and talk audio shop and equipment and the like, though we've also had women involved w/both (just not most of the time.) that feels a bit more natural as opposed to a "just the boys" night out.

you need a gay man in your life, nomar

maybe it's because i think my friends skew younger but if there happens to be an all-dude hangout it's unintentional and ends up being like record shopping/listening and beers and n64 basically. and it's usually 2-3 guys, never like a big posse

xp no kidding, i mean none of my bros want to talk about saint etienne w/me

oh so you all take it seriously this time

This discussion has prompted me to try and remember the last time I hung out with just guys (who weren't my brothers)...and I honestly think it could've been a decade or more ago.

Like the closest I can think of was an all-male anxiety group (organized and run by my then-therapist, a woman). And that isn't quite what I'd call a 'hang'.

Heh, it's actually kind of a problem that a lot of my straight male friends are musicians who often want to talk to me specifically (and not my wife) about music shit that only we care about.

My gay friends want to talk about books (but are way better about including everyone in the conversation).

Wow, you guys have whole groups of friends!

I often see a conversation on twitter where
1. women will talk about how men have a responsibility to challenge problematic comments made by male friends, esp when in all-male groups
2. a bunch of men will respond saying that avoid hanging out with the kind of guys who say stuff like that, or avoid hanging out in all-male groups altogether because they find them toxic
3. women will respond saying that this is not helpful/an abrogation of responsibility etc, that men who consider themselves 'allies' or whatever have a duty to engage with these ppl/situations.

idk, befriending ppl you don't enjoy spending time with solely so you can admonish them for their bad behavior seems unlikely to end well for anyone? to actually maintain those friendships imo you would have to pick your battles to a certain extent, let some things slide, be complicit up to a point, and where do you draw the line? but I can see the logic of saying that a guy who avoids this kind of environment to keep himself 'pure' is actually doing less to help than someone who hangs out in groups that are problematic but makes some attempt to push back against that.

My dad is like 80 and unreconstructed Catholic and hugs every time.

I can't say there's any barrier in life to hugging or touching male friends.

And fwiw men touch and hug extremely visibly in sport or whatever, constant hugging and touching, and that doesn't mystically make that world better.

It does take two people also, important to remember.

There's prob a case to be made that there's more physical contact among some more problematic groups of men, but equally that doesn't mean there is none of a deficit among men in general.

or*

i may be talking out my ass but i kind of understood that in catholic and latin cultures touch among men is very common. obviously doesn't mean patriarchy is any less embedded in those cultures obviously.

touch starvation among men seems more common in an american middle class protestant liberal setting. but my impression is younger generation men esp in the west are a lot more free with hugs. all my straight friends growing up were like that, thankfully. and it's definitely much less like that among my queer friends, bless em.

there are certain age and demographic things at play with patriarchy, it's surprisingly variable and subtle. the thing i liked most about that video is the argument that men have a soul and that patriarchy tries to remove men from their soul. i think it can be easy to feel like patriarchy is this all-encompassing thing since we're all shaped by it to a degree, but it's important to remember that the majority of men are basically just trying to find a point of balance between how the demands of patriarchy factor into their life and the needs of their human soul. only really unstable people go "full patriarchy" - those people are scary but i think they're in the firm minority. i got kind of teary at the description of that phenomenon where men reach retirement age and suddenly become kinder - give them an environment where they can heal and they will.

sort of feel the conflation of physical contact and positivity is complicated maybe? don't mean that it's traumatic for someone to hug another man, tho it could be, but there are loads of aggro/strange incidents of men touching or hugging or whatever, or just meaningless ones. feels a kind of inverse of actions speaking louder than words imo, physical gestures can be ritualistic and empty. you could have a relative or friend who never hugged you once who spoke the right words, or one who hugged you every day and it meant nothing. also I doubt women have no experience of these issues.

i have been hugging men all my life— kate’s post totally doesn’t resonate with my experience in the slightest

Agreed tbh. Also, even if the men someone knew never hugged presumably that person knew some women.

The idea that men don't ever make physical contact with each other is a delusional cliche, and is strongly reminiscent of the unthinking #mensmentalhealth bromides that we see a lot, but which are completely inaccurate and don't help anyone.

A five-second Google and I'm sure we can find Trump absolutely bear-hugging JD Vance.

I half embraced the garbage man the other day

one of my Korean students told me like 18 years ago that this platonic touching is called "skinship"
it came up during a conversation about pet peeves (ESL class)
i have mentioned this 1000x because 18 years later we still have no word for platonic touching in English that i'm aware of so we might as well borrow from Konglish?

A five-second Google and I'm sure we can find Trump absolutely bear-hugging JD Vance.

A five-second Google and I'm sure we can find Trump absolutely bear-hugging JD Vance

Trump doesn't hug. He didn't even used to shake hands, pleading germophobia, but once he became a politician he started doing that thing where he squeezes the other man's hand as hard as possible, to exert dominance.

I'd agree with the table is the table and LocalGarda, but I'll note that the line is 'guys should cuddle more'. At the risk of sounding like a stiff-bearded patriarch, I don't cuddle anyone who isn't my wife. But I don't think a lot of female-female (or female-male!) interaction reaches the level of cuddling either. Or, of course, I might have the bar for 'cuddle' set differently than others?

(on LG's comment on aggro) One thing that comes to mind (newish?) trope in TV/movies of "big man" villains hugging to impose control - like come in behind/beside someone (at 8 o'clock!), one arm around the back to immobilise the other side, whisper a threat, control and power and menace.

There's prob a case to be made that there's more physical contact among some more problematic groups of men

"Let's you and me wrassle" ... though apparently that's from Daffy Duck. It makes me think of rugby clubs, squaddies and general, boozed up or otherwise, horseplay.

i have mentioned this 1000x because 18 years later we still have no word for platonic touching in English that i'm aware of so we might as well borrow from Konglish?

Do they have a word for horseplay though?

Portuguese custom is men shake hands (often w/ hug), women give two kisses on the cheeks, if it's a man and a woman it's also the two kisses.

France does the kisses on the cheeks between men too.

I don't think this says much about patriarchy in these two countries but on a purely personal level it felt good to get over the hang up of kissing guys on the cheek - I don't even mean "hang up" in the sense that I would have previously had some actual objection to it, just lack of habit.

To hug a friend in Cuban culture is expected, much more than a handshake. Male relatives kiss each other's cheeks. When I'm drunk, I'll kiss friends on the cheek.

Haha I wrote a whole thing before I watched very much of the video and then said exactly what he says around min 34. Yes, sure.

map, sensational posting

the closing aspect- men removed from their work, removed from (presumably by that stage) the familial direct disciplinarian role (which may or may not have been much their own self appointment, depending on any number of personal and cultural factors) are certainly two aspects I think of in my own experience of seeing men im close to from previous generations move from very classic negative controlling/frustrated/etc male trope characters into more complete, relaxed and - thinking of a word here - "modern" male figures. grandfathers discovering that they could have done it like this all along, but the stakes were higher then and how many other things different since. i reckon a lot of people do their best and its not good enough, that's life.

im from a society that cuts several ways, one way I don't think obsessively about it is whether catholic or otherwise in most contexts (mar dhea fish haven't a word for water), but _post_ catholic is something i watch for when i think of when i first started to see more questing and questioning from the men i had as possible templates to follow or not in my own journey.

the currency of certainty, which i think as a philosophy to excuse mediocre dictatorship flows from army through politics through work hierarchy into the family in many cultures, took a beating and was replaced by any number of inrushing alternative possibilities around and upon which to found a persona.

im not an expert on the timings, but give or take ten years either side of the church scandals breaking and I feel that that was also a time of critical mass for the normalisation of women working, maybe especially _mothers_ working (perhaps before and after the childrearing, but even so).

from my perspective of watching that play out in the half generation ahead of me- older cousins and suchlike- vs my parents, that's always seemed to me to be the major factor in many many changes to the role of father/husband/suitor as main/sole breadwinner around that time, but seeing as ireland in particular was aheave with massive changes in wealth, church state involvement and credibility and imo the real beginning of the end of the civil war heroes influence over our day to day governance (ofc still in process and has been ever since)

agree generally that very certain, very wide statements about "men" are usually as useless as they are about any other set of humans, for all that ofc we extrapolate first and foremost from our own lived and closest observed truths, which im sure ive also done in this post

what was the question again? do men have souls? insofar as anyone (including dogs) do, then yes. do men touch other living beings in love and affection enough? some do and some don't i'd imagine. would it save us if we all did? I'd focus on other things first tbh but it's no harm to give it a shot.

in the us I think there are regional hugging norms that probably correlate to both religion and culture of origin. the midwest is generally not a big hugging place for men in my experience, but in the 70s california where I grew up, we were all big huggers by the time we were teens. so I think this is certainly a cultural-norms-of-masculinity thing but that norms vary along a lot of lines.

https://www.amazon.com/Disney-Pixars-Story-Hugger-T-Shirt/dp/B08K4H2NXZ

hugger t and the omg's

lol, at the end of the day i'm not actually a man and never really was, yeah there's some stuff about being a man i don't get haha

Lots of good posts, upthread

https://loloverruled.substack.com/p/you-cant-fuck-the-sad-away

This is so tied into things I've been thinking thru and talking about in counselling, one of those little cosmic interventions where something you need to read turns up right on time

christ tho but i feel its worth a shot too yknow

As have I D, as have i

I loved that line quoted from The White Lotus episode. And in that episode it turned out that forsaking the sex orgies and cocaine and returning back to base was.. the wrong move!

xp ive never learnt well from the mistakes of others, the only thing i learn less from are the successes of others

Oh yeah I firmly believe advice is pointless because we learn nothing except from our own fuckups

chance, again, would be a fine thing

Good article. Not my experience, but I recognise the concept of using others as mirrors. The quote from Ali Wong is painfully otm.

I bailed on White Lotus because it was full of (entitled) chumps like this, but this is making me wonder if I should go back. As I was reading, I thought, 'the punchline HAS to be Buddhism,' and yep, there it is. Just because the mirror is 'emptiness is form' doesn't necessarily make it any less of a mirror to prance in front of (speaking of my own anxieties, here).

it's a powerful article and i'm in no way trying to discount its value for anyone else by saying this but one of the frustrating things about addiction discourse for me is that there tends to be a lot of punishing self-flagellating talk in it. which ultimately i think is part of the frame of addictive behavior itself.

i wish i had something more to offer on the topic, as someone who enjoys the pleasures of addictive behavior but has had to totally cut off a particularly demanding one (alcohol). i have been thinking a lot about balance and what balance is for me, given the sum total of my choices, my circumstances, and just who i am as a person. i've realized that balance for me does not look the same as balance for someone else, and that it's really ok to relentlessly pull back judgment about anything i do that feels particularly unhinged, or out of balance, and that for any behavior i have, curiosity is always a better avenue than judgment. and also that contradiction, or "mixed emotions", is a state that doesn't have to be resolved, that is just a reality that we all have to experience and that can be more comfortably experienced if we want to.

and i don't mean to overlook your point by saying this, chinaski, (i think i understand what you mean) but personally i enjoy prancing in mirrors :)

To me the next addiction part didn't feel especially relevant and I agree with what you say about addiction talk in general.

The article covers a lot of ground and is incoherent maybe but the specifics of the way it hit me are about the pursuit of some nebulous healing and how we can pursue that at the expense of others. On that level i don't think it's even a piece that's specifically about gender, but I can only recognise my mistakes and cruelties thru that lens

"next addiction" = "sex addiction", struggling with autocorrect as ever

I think there's a big train of thought to be pursued about addiction discourse and how it often creates a new tier of self-dramatization/self-mystification, maybe that's another thread, maybe I'm too tipsy and idle to follow it right now

reading that article sounds like it was a revealing experience for you. my hope is that you never be cruel to yourself.

❤️

I think I'm at least chewing on my feelings now rather than burying them

thank u, next

I firmly believe advice is pointless

Unsolicitated advice? Yes, I agree.

because we learn nothing except from our own fuckups

I disagree, if that "we" is universal. When I have purposely sought out advice or information about how to proceed in life with fewer fuckups, I have learned useful lessons from both positive and negative examples. The great advantage of a lesson from a personal fuckup is that it tends to be more deeply seared into my brain. That is also its greatest disadvantage, when the lesson is too simple, too limited, or too outdated.

The best advice I ever got was “Don’t eat the shrimp set out at a party”. My buddy did not take that advice and got sick.

I use the analogy of people queueing up in front of a clearly locked door and the way that something in our nature insists we try the handle no matter how long the queue

Obviously like all generalisations I'm talking nonsense but

I'm not discounting any possible addictions on my part, but I definitely have a number of compulsive behaviors, some masculine-coded, that I default to in a very unhealthy way. And I think I'm working on it!

the conversation about straight male and platonic male touch from a few days ago is interesting -- i'm not sure i know how to parse it exactly because idk if i see any real correlation. someone mentioned sports... some of my first times stepping a toe out of the closet were by hoping to transition 'safe' homoerotic straight male touching into something gayer i.e. it was considered ironic for teenage boys to smack each other on the ass while playing sports, so as a closeted gay boy that felt like a way for me to explore my own desire to touch my friends and see if there was anyone who further wanted to blur those lines with me. but in the end the homoeroticism it still merely a way to underline one's straightness -- i'm so straight and comfortable w/ my sexuality that i can smack your ass and it means nothing to me. the touch isn't breaking down any patriarchal barriers, instead it's doing the opposite. i also think about hip hop as a place that is deeply homophobic but also, owning to straight male black culture, includes way more hand and body touching (dapping up) than exists in other spaces. the standard in white spaces is a simple handshake whereas in black spaces there is more often prolonged hand touching, full body embracing etc but i can't detect any connection between those differences and the ways women, gay, queer people etc are treated in those spaces, which is largely the same. there was a period where young thug was publicly telling all his close rapper friends that he loves them, sometimes fawning over them in a way that definitely transgressed the norms of hip hop, yet he was also always quick to assert his straightness. it's hard for me to picture a world where straight men have moved past the stage where touching, verbal affirmations of love etc are just ways to use irony to make one seem transgressive/funny/weird/cool but ultimately and most importantly Straight

Also on that note, I rewatched Investigations Of A Citizen Above Suspicion recently and one interesting thing is how Volonte's character abd other cops express their supremacy through touching their subordinates - lots of pinching of cheeks.

some of the creepiest male touching i remember experiencing was as a young man in the mormon church. you would routinely have this experience, whenever you had a new 'calling' in whatever age-defined, male-only church "grade" you were in, or whenever you had some kind of official 'blessing', of having a bunch of 30 something and older men rest their warm clammy hands on your head while one of them got weird and said a bunch of stuff that didn't make any sense out loud. the hands were literally very heavy and the touch was too.

when i was still in the church, i had a few brushes with older men who liked to give me a pat on the shoulder or the like. it always felt coercive somehow and the opposite of caring. i think these specific experiences and the ones described above speak to the fact that male touch can very much be instrumentalized by patriarchy. so much depends on the people doing the touching, the context, the dynamic, etc. 'safe' touching among men is rarer than you would think if you were just looking at the amount of touching men do with each other.

100%. I used to know someone who always wanted to re-enact mob boss scenes and pinch my cheek and it felt patronizing and dominating every time, as it was intended to in the original scenes. So gross.

the conversation about straight male and platonic male touch from a few days ago is interesting -- i'm not sure i know how to parse it exactly because idk if i see any real correlation. someone mentioned sports... some of my first times stepping a toe out of the closet were by hoping to transition 'safe' homoerotic straight male touching into something gayer i.e. it was considered ironic for teenage boys to smack each other on the ass while playing sports, so as a closeted gay boy that felt like a way for me to explore my own desire to touch my friends and see if there was anyone who further wanted to blur those lines with me. but in the end the homoeroticism it still merely a way to underline one's straightness -- i'm so straight and comfortable w/ my sexuality that i can smack your ass and it means nothing to me. the touch isn't breaking down any patriarchal barriers, instead it's doing the opposite. i also think about hip hop as a place that is deeply homophobic but also, owning to straight male black culture, includes way more hand and body touching (dapping up) than exists in other spaces. the standard in white spaces is a simple handshake whereas in black spaces there is more often prolonged hand touching, full body embracing etc but i can't detect any connection between those differences and the ways women, gay, queer people etc are treated in those spaces, which is largely the same. there was a period where young thug was publicly telling all his close rapper friends that he loves them, sometimes fawning over them in a way that definitely transgressed the norms of hip hop, yet he was also always quick to assert his straightness. it's hard for me to picture a world where straight men have moved past the stage where touching, verbal affirmations of love etc are just ways to use irony to make one seem transgressive/funny/weird/cool but ultimately and most importantly Straight

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), 21 April 2025 18:27 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

its an interesting perspective, and I think it's a good contribution to the topic, but ..... i dont see why the touching has to be coded as either gay or straight or as a reaction one against the other, and i dont see any other possible aspect of it in any of what you're saying here, which is really striking to me!

ive three brothers, and three or four very close friends since early teen years, and by and large amongst ourselves there has never been any kind of stigma against arms over shoulders, side to side pressing in seats or couches, lying over each other while destroyed hungover, hugs, pick a platonic style of touch short of actual hand holding (which doesnt code platonic in western culture as a rule anyway?) and i dont think i could say that id pass any remarks on it while watching football or movies or lounging with these guys.

its not at all an ironic performance ime, nor a carefully considered distancing from anything that hints as homosexual. i think there's a danger in overpresuming that anything that straight guys do in this zone must be coded or projected upon or a reaction to anything else, but i think that's probably a mistake, at least as far as i observe and experience any of this.

no we dont go around slapping each other's arses (much). but is that what is meant by saying men are "touch starved"? i highly doubt it. if we presume that women or children aren't "touch starved" do we mean they are slapping each other's arses? i dont think we do!

and sorry, that comes across as too sharp and genuinely i did find it a very interesting perspective

https://loloverruled.substack.com/p/you-cant-fuck-the-sad-away

This is so tied into things I've been thinking thru and talking about in counselling, one of those little cosmic interventions where something you need to read turns up right on time

― i got bao-yu babe (Noodle Vague)

hmmm

Rockwell’s character, Frank, isn’t that guy exactly. But he is orbiting the same planet. His honesty is a kind of performance, too. He lays it all out, matter-of-factly. His tastes expanded. He liked to dress up like a woman. He liked it when men who looked like him fucked him. He liked to have a girl watch, not necessarily because he wanted her, but because he wanted to be her.

oh hey

look, uh...

if there's any guys here who feel like that, i know you probably weren't told this, i know lolo frames it as "oh he's gay", but yeah, that's basically a giant flashing "I'M A TRANS WOMAN" sign

this by the way is one of the hardest things about being into guys as a trans woman. kathoeys aren't the same as trans women, btw, but i feel like there's maybe a similar thing. i have seen it so many times, a guy will get with a trans woman and it turns out they figure being with a trans woman is part of them starting to figure themselves out. and i'm super happy for them, ok? i'm really, really fucking happy for them. it's just, like, when i go on a date with a guy, i want to go on a date with a _guy_. and a pretty large percentage of "cis guys" who date trans women aren't cis guys.

AND I HATE SAYING THAT because i know how that is, there's already this huge fear that getting with a trans woman will make a guy "gay" somehow, but in fact it's the reverse, there's such a stigma against getting with trans women that the people who will get with trans women skew towards people who are already queer. chasers in particular... i've never met a male chaser who i didn't feel was in denial about something. either they were in denial about being a gay man or in denial about being a trans women. there are women chasers as well, i haven't run into enough of them to make generalizations.

I loved that line quoted from The White Lotus episode. And in that episode it turned out that forsaking the sex orgies and cocaine and returning back to base was.. the wrong move!

― vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino)

i can't speak to the cocaine but yeah fellas don't give up on the sex orgies

sex orgies probably won't give your life meaning but they're fun. i mean i think they're fun and i don't even like sex.

well, i'm still not sure if i'm actually asexual or if i'm just traumatized. it's complicated like that. i know that, like, the only thing i felt like i was allowed to want was sex. i just wanted to be loved and valued and _desirable_. and i internalized the idea that was weak and effeminate, that Real Men _had_ desires, they weren't the _object_ of desire.

yeah there's some really complicated sex/gender stuff there. like in ancient rome the stigma wasn't about being _gay_, it was about _bottoming_. i still have a lot of dysphoria about, honestly, wanting people to find me physically desirable. i complain that "people only want me for my mind" and people think it's a joke, but i'm serious. i know, i have a beautiful mind, and my body is, well, i'd say i'm average looking. i'm not the sort of woman that anyone pays any attention to either way. and i don't want strangers to look at my body as if they own it, it'd just be nice to be appreciated for my body sometimes. which i didn't feel like was acceptable for me to want, as a "straight man".

anyway, what caused the most problems for me... the fact that i didn't love and value myself and pushed other people away put me in a situation where the only people left were people who wouldn't respect my consent. yeah. i did have a huge problem with identity, with finding meaning, because i didn't love myself, i hated being a man, but i felt like i didn't have a choice in the matter. i tried to be a "good man" and i flopped hard at it. and a lot of the stuff "men" are told they have to do in order to be a real man and not be, i don't know, gay or something... it's stupid and fucked up.

it reminds me a lot, honestly, of when i was younger, you had to be all these things to be a Real Transsexual, and this list of things you had to be was impossible and incoherent so the only way you could get accepted for who you were was to lie your ass off. and i didn't realize that was a possibility, lying my ass off. now it's a lot easier to be a Real Transsexual, maybe easier than it is to be a Real Man.

. it was considered ironic for teenage boys to smack each other on the ass while playing sports, so as a closeted gay boy that felt like a way for me to explore my own desire to touch my friends and see if there was anyone who further wanted to blur those lines with me. but in the end the homoeroticism it still merely a way to underline one's straightness -- i'm so straight and comfortable w/ my sexuality that i can smack your ass and it means nothing to me.

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.)

this is interesting because it's something i experience a lot about being a sapphic woman. there's this whole trope of "gals being pals"... women can do a lot of very gay things with each other but it doesn't necessarily get treated as gay. the thing i find most hilarious/sad is that sometimes when two girls kiss they get accused of just doing it to get guys' attention. girls, is it straight to kiss another girl?

the other thing that reminds me of is something my friend ian (a gay man i kind of had a crush on) once said to me... he said he was more confident in my masculinity than he was of anyone else's, because i didn't feel the need to perform masculinity.