This was a sort of personal research project sparked by reading this forum. I got quite a bit out of it. When I started I honestly thought the two conceptions could be reconciled. It’s something I’ve believed since I learned of the two different conceptions of masculinity. Now, I’m not so sure…probably not.
Anyway, this is my contribution to the lemmy version of his contribution.
I read it, but it’s difficult for me to understand what point you are trying to make, besides observations on traditional and “alternative” masculinity.
For those of us that won’t ever have kids, pets can allow us to exercise and nurture our instincts to take care of a dependent, living creature. I feel like that’s pretty psychically and emotionally important, especially in a new world where more people are choosing not to raise children.
My job had been very cruel to me and it put me in a steep depression. My partner, and I love her so much for this, was cool with me taking some time off to get my head straight. A few months in and I’m sort of drifting and lost. So she buys me a Morkie dog, so now I have something to FORCE a routine onto me and it was great. That was about 6 years ago and little Doug is about 10 years old now and while he’s a total assbutt, he is irreplaceable.
Yeah we have a crisis of masculinity because the patriarchy has decided that manhood is important, but then also anyone with any logical ability notices that gender is a social construct. So men who feel like they benefit from patriarchy and want it to continue must wage a war. Against women and feminists. Against anyone queer. Against any man who doesn’t tow the line that a penis and a sports pendant on the wall of the man cave are like the most important things to ever happen.
I’m saying it’s not a gender specific issue, but I guess you’d rather play a victim. If you want experience from a men’s perspective, I have zero issue with emotional support when I’m talking to girls I can trust.
I’m saying the complete opposite of “be a man” that support is out there for men. Are you even attempting to read comments in good faith, or are you reading some completely different text that isn’t there?
So you disagree with the premise that men who reach out are told by society to be a man instead, and want to bring up women's problems instead of acknowledging the problem because you have 'girls you can trust'. To top it off you respond to someone pointing out your whataboutism by accusing someone of 'playing the victim'.
That is what I am responding to, you dismissing the issue while claiming that are aren't and doing the exact thing being discussed in your responses.
Alright I think this convo is done since you are clearly taking this in bad faith after I clarified multiple times that is nothing close to what I said. Find a strawman somewhere else to argue against.
I think that you are both wrong and right. Societal treatment of mental health issues is indeed quite poor regardless of gender. However, it is important to realize that there ARE differences that relate directly to one’s presenting gender.
Just as women are not taken seriously by health professionals, men are frequently treated as less-than by western culture at-large, if we show anything but chauvinistic bravado. This lack of care has had a profound impact on both young and old men who have any mental illness, leading to isolation, and becoming vulnerable to radicalization by those actively preying on them and using them as tools of violence or suicide.
It’s a real, gender-specific problem that is well-encapsulated in the proverb “A child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.”
I think you’re being a little disingenuous. The two conversations are not only both important, but they’re both closely related to each other. It’s impossible to talk about the mental well being of half the population without the other half coming up, since a lot of the problems and their solutions are the same.
It is very possible to focus on half the population being told to 'man up' and the gender specific meaning that phrase has since it does not apply to the other half. Just like we can focus on women being told to smile more without needing to drag men's vaguely related experiences into it.
This is great context. Particularly as it highlights the differences in gendered experiences. For women it’s in some ways a demand for attractiveness while for men it’s more of a literal command that is more likely to be used in self policing (that is men policing masculine expectations of other men). Also notable that both sentiments seem to be more likely to come from men.
As someone who presents masculine, I have gotten the "be a man" treatment from women several times. Ultimately it does come from a patriarchal standard of society, but its something that is perpetuated by everyone, consciously or otherwise. Not discounting what you are saying, but I think it's important to highlight that toxic masculinity can come from anywhere.
I don’t know how to be anything else but myself and I’m not even really good at that. But to be fair, my gender never meant much to me, so the question why be a man, never crossed my mind.
They identify as a man because gender is defined externally to the individual. They were born, the doctor saw a penis, said, "it's a boy" and those around them reinforced male norms onto them: parents tend to cuddle boys less than girls; enforce stoic principles (men don't cry); encourage rougher, more violent play; and encourage more independence. There's plenty of references for these points so I didn't feel the need to provide any.
Most people don't challenge their identity if they don't need to and changing parts of your identity can be traumatic (ask queer person what coming out was like for them). The crisis of masculinity, as with any cultural crisis, is just a conservative, reaction to something that challenges them.
Gender is cultural and temporal so changes all the time; high heeled shoes used to be worn by rich Persian men, pink was the color that boys wore because pink was thought to be a watered down red, the color of the British army that they would, of course, eventually join. The Male Breadwinner model is an interesting way to frame the idea that the man is provider for the family. Prior to the Industrial Revolution the whole family provided.
Aspiring to be some vague archetypal construct of what a man is seems silly to me. I think people should aspire to have certain values and scruples. Most valuable men I’ve met were defined by their behavior and actions, rather than image and projection.
See, this is what I thought initially: “I’m a man” is an indirect expression of values. And in more thoughtful men, traditional or otherwise, they may be able to articulate their values. So, I think this is probably the best answer.
But then there’s the obvious question of why those values embody being a man only. Why can’t women value the same thing and have the same type of expression? This part of the traditional manliness-as-values makes absolutely no sense to me. It seems unnecessarily restrictive.
Traditional gender roles are useful until they’re no longer useful, as a society changes. I think western culture is going through a number of identity crises as a result of changes to various status quo, and the idea of “manliness” has become confusing for many. And unfortunately, the western world isn’t great at suggesting or encouraging healthy alternatives or the means to individually arrive at them.
This is all clearly just my opinion from my armchair, and I respect and welcome contrasting points of view.
I’m not really a member of this community, hopefully that’s fine, I am a man.
I don’t think most people are going to know what you want when you ask why they’re a man, they just are men, like a tree is a tree or water is wet. That doesn’t have to discount trans people, because theyre just trans and that’s that.
When you ask what the purpose of being a man is I don’t know what you’re asking. It’s a bit like asking the meaning of life, it’s unanswerable. There are certainly male archetypes, historically the provider, the hunter, the builder, and those are still around but they’re not my goals. I do feel a pressure to make sure my family is provided for and fill that role. I also feel pressure to look good which means exercising and looking traditionally male.
I don’t aspire to be some stereotypical 1800’s moustached bare-knuckle brawler character of masculinity for masculinity’s sake, but when I look at history there are men I aspire to be like (for their achievements and attributes).
If you no longer need an audience, then why hang out with them?
Oof, I hope you don’t really believe that. Aside from “attention” that you get with friends, you should also get compassion, empathy, and love. And sometimes it’s just nice to have companionship.
I agree, I thank to all real exhibitionist sharing their normal intime moments with us. Professional porn, even more one pretending to be “amateur” is just awful.
There is. And I've found a lot of couples that are great. But it's hard to find that amid the millions of "found stepsister asleep" quasi-rape fantasies. And of the ones that do seem loving, it often seems to trend towards the common tropes when they try to make a living at it. So I mostly avoid filmed porn.
Please, stop purposely misunderstanding us and keep perpetrating us this pro-porn propaganda. The NoFap community is a MASTURBATION ADDICTION RECOVERY COMMUNITY, not a place where we tell people that masturbating is inherently bad!
Humans have been masturbating since they’re on this planet basically, but it has never been a problem until porn on the internet. With all the things you see on mainstream social media of course 13year olds are going to be masturbation addicted, everywhere they go on the internet is either full of borderline soft porn or people claiming that masturbating 10 times a day over some random mysogynistic adult content is fine. Masturbation is healthy, but with limitations and without overstimulating yourself with all this content. You don’t even need to access porn sites to find sexually arousing content and most of the times it’s one of the kind of contents which companies and mainstream social media profits on because it makes us slaves to the screens
I don’t understand why would you even purposely misunderstand the statement that destroying your life with porn and insane masturbation rythms is bad for your psychophysical health. The “90 days” are not a ritual, but the days most of the nofap users needed to actually get rid of the addiction and all its related effects and actually start a recovery journey. Also, we consider having actual sex a GOOD thing. NoFap is not about sexual abstinence, it’s about ADDICTION RECOVERY
NoFap saved my life, I would probably still me as miserable as I was in my early teens if I’ve never discovered that community. You don’t understand it because you either haven’t tried it or just never been addicted.
You don’t know the brain fog, the inability to even speak properly o to even make noarmal logical connections. You don’t know the pain of always feeling the urge and feeling sleepy 24/7 and the heart fatigue related to it. NoFap increased my self esteem, my willpower and even fixed my sleeping schedule. Same for other people I know who have found themselves in the same situation
Always remember that a lot of these articles but be financed by porn companies, that’s the only explanation. You don’t need to be a genius to understand it
EDIT: Y’all are making a big deal over the term “addiction” and not over the issues that it brings
Yet just removing that fixed everything. If I do it again, the symptoms come back. It’s porn, period. Just at least try to listen to our stories and not only to these nonsense articles
Science doesn’t say much because all the studies that have been made were like “we take 3 healthy individuals, we make the fap once and then see what happens next”. It’s that we do not have enough studies in this regard, maybe if science would try to make different cases involved in their studies we would know more
Well whatever you may have personally gained from it, that doesn’t change the fact that it has an awful lot of members who are both far-right and pushing embarrassingly bad pesudo-science.
I love Townsends. I love the channel even more after seeing this video. Pioneer times are synonymous with the “rugged individual”, but here is someone who studies the time period and even simulates it who says it’s more about the strength of human bonds we make with our community rather than any individual effort Then he brings it back to modern times and reminds us that it’s the same strength of human bonds that will get us through the difficult environments we face today. That’s an important lesson!
Men's Liberation
Active