Hi. Bi dude here. The LGBTQIA+ community is really not all that accepting of bisexuals, but does tend to be a bit more accepting of bisexual women. Bisexuals often get treated like we're fence sitting, like we havent accepted that we're actually gay or actually straight. And so we're clear, that's not a universal statement, but it is an experience that a lot of bisexuals experience within the LGBTQIA+ community
Doesn't help that a lot of this gets internalized, I think. Like, fuck, there are plenty of terms that seem reasonably descriptive of me (bi, demi, enby, etc.) but... I'm super straight passing, and not super driven by sex or romantic relationships, so it's like... I never really have to deal with these labels in my day-to-day? I stick he/they in stuff when people ask for pronouns, style myself somewhat androgynously, am well aware 90s David Boreanaz is objectively eye-candy, and I haven't gone on a date in... years, because I just don't really care. But claiming those labels feels improper, somehow. Both from a "born and raised christian, que toxic masculinity and internalized homophobia" perspective and a "I am in a position of extreme privilege where I haven't had to face many of the struggles common to the LGBTQIA+ community, claiming a place there seems insulting" perspective. /shurg
I've found a lot of women don't believe men can be "as" bi as women can be, and there's this suspicion that if a guy has ever been (or just wanted to be) with another guy, they must be more into guys than women, and wen don't want to have to wonder/worry about that. I think this is just a reflection of societal implications around male and female gayness being different though, that women are accepted to exist on more of a spectrum (perhaps because attraction to women feels natural to straight men, so it is less "surprising" or foreign to see even other women feel it), while men are considered more binary.
This is purely anecdotal, but I think that's more in line with other unaccepting straight men's reaction than straight women's (especially since a lot of straight women are into/fine with anal too). I think with women it in many ways comes down to the fact that everyone has been conditioned to think that guys are either 100% gay or 100% straight, while it can be sexy or desirable for a women to go both ways.
Our obsession with gender and gender roles infects/affects everything, and makes as little sense as obsessing about whether someone is left-handed, right-handed, or ambidextrous. Seriously, why should anyone care about how others dress, how they identify, or who they choose to sleep with?
IME there is substantial correlation between religiosity and an obsession with gender. On my more cynical days I might suggest there is a causal relationship.
If you have to keep muttering to yourself that, “I’m a manly man”, hang fake testicles from your truck, or wear a t-shirt proclaiming yourself an, “alpha male” I’m going to see you as a scared little boy trying to convince yourself more than you are trying to convince others.
The article focuses on sexual abuse, but being a police officer offers many paths to abuse and lawbreaking, and a group of people who will back your bullshit until it starts to affect their privilege. It's not hard to figure why police act with disregard for the law: It's rarely applied to them, and not to the extent it's applied to non-police people.
Seriously though, I hope this post gets taken down. This is a small community, downvotes don’t bury anything. It’s typical Petersonian propaganda that tries to argue against what is stated in the sidebar by flaunting abstract wordings, accusatory misogyny and straw men. If this stays up I’m so out.
Altho I myself am an egalitarian and therefore antifeminist, many of the points I made above are not inherently antifeminist. Before Patriarchy theory’s ascendency in the Fourth Wave, it was contested amongst feminist theorists. It was feminists themselves who first pointed out how incoherent, self-contradictory, and wholly unsuited to its purpose Patriarchy theory is.
The article feels likes it’s missing the mark a bit.
Stoicism is not about repressing emotions or performative masculinity, but rather about examination and self improvement. Steven R Covey is a good example of modern stoicism. You can still feel deeply and act accordingly, but that doesn’t mean that one is reactive and emotionally impulsive.
I agree with your comment that the history, and how that history has affected marginalized groups, specifically, is important to learn and recognize–and I think this is true of most of western culture.
Like !DrBob said, this article doesn’t feel like that. It cherry picks its sources and the author seems to fundamentally misunderstand Stoicism. In fact, it seems to me that the author is misattributing the failings and misunderstandings of some of Stoicism’s bad actors to the philosophy itself.
I have personally found Practical Stocism to be a useful tool in my own mental health journey, especially where it relates to recognizing and controlling my responses to things other people do or say in my relationships, why my responses are what they are and what I can do about those responses. It has never been taught to me as a tool of suppression, but of experience,acceptance, and, ultimately, control. If I am able to recognize what I am feeling and why, I am better able to decide for myself whether or not it would be valid to respond out of that emotion, or if doing so would perpetuate a cycle it would healthier to break. It’s not about not feeling, it’s about giving me the tools I need to decide how best to respond to what I’m feeling.
That being said, I fully recognize that language evolves and changes and that the word stoicism without the illumination now has negative connotations for mental health, and is mostly associated with unhealthy coping mechanisms and behaviors. Perhaps it would be more useful to ask where the disconnect between Stoicism and stoicism truly lies, and how we, as men (or as humans, since a lot of this ties into basic concepts of emotional maturity) can display different and better behaviors to change the association (if, indeed, we’re even interesting in doing so?).
author seems to fundamentally misunderstand Stoicism
Or rather, is using the word “Stoicism” in a different way than you are. Like when research obviously shows a link between Christianity and intolerance and people come out in droves to say that true Christianity is about love instead of hate.
Yeah, sure, you learned a neater version of stoic values. What the author is referring to is a bit more generalized, a caricature but very real form of stoicism that some people preach, sometimes even without even calling it stoicism themselves.
The conflation of Stoicism, an established and codified philosophy, with the more general idea of bog standard stoicism is precisely my criticism. The author is not using the term differently from me, they are using it incorrectly by conflating it with a more general, and more modern, term–a term without established codification, and vastly different connotations.
Which leads directly to the point I actually made–which you entirely ignored with your reply–that anyone who uses the terms interchangeably, conflates the two, or teaches one as the other fundamentally misunderstands the terms they’re using. Thus my statement that the author is laying the connotations of one term at the feet of another, different and distinct, term.
Stoicism (capitalized) and stoicism (the more general, more modern term) are not the same thing, which is why this article, in my opinion, misses the mark.
It is not so much that they are conflating two unrelated stoicisms as you seen to imply but rather that you seem to be specifically trying to distance yourself from historical stoicism. There’s good reason for this, stoic philosophy was originally just as tied up in metaphysics as any ancient philosophy. This sense of metaphysics, while easy to discount from a modern perspective, was used primarily to justify existing power structures. Key among them patriarchy and slavery. Ultimately, this has little to do with the particulars of the philosophy. Knowing that, it would seem an easy task to separate the two as you would like to and yet it is still remarkably difficult to find any modern stoic groups that do not recommend Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, etc.
What you call the more general stoicism (lower case) is better understood as the whole of stoic cultural influence as it relates to the modern world. Even the etymology of stoics comes from the school of philosophy. It is not reasonable to try to claim stoic philosophy is best understood as only it’s most modern incarnations even as popular stoicism relies on ancient men to be it’s primary mediums.
I’d be very interested to explore this idea further with more historical discourse / critiques, if you have any sources, as it’s my understanding that modern Stoicism is based primary on Seneca’s work, and treats Seneca’s ideas of the Stoic Sage as a both a blueprint for modern Stoicism and the evolution of the ideas of prior Stoics.
I appreciate your perspective, and it’s clear we’ve been educated on these topics quite differently. I’d love to learn more!
This part stuck out to me. When I was younger I often got myself into bad situations that presented opportunities form connections through shared experiences. As I get older I’m fucking up less and when I do it’s just me trusting myself and going through it alone.
To truly like a person, you need trust, and that requires emotional investment – an increasingly rare commodity as you age – so as old friends fade away, they cannot simply be replaced. The space to build trust with newcomers is just not there.
I think the unsaid part is just time spent together- when you’re a kid it’s easy to have dozens of hours a week to hang out and bond. As you age, there’s other time commitments - kids, spouse, family, maintaining a house, etc. In order to have that emotional investment you need to get past the awkward first stages of friendship.
I think a lot of people lose/drop their hobbies, or the things that let them bond and meet other people. It’s hard to say “I dropped football and now I lost 50% of male conversation” without more info. If all your friends are only bonding over football, yeah. So find other things to do! There’s a million of them, and people are always passionate about their own interests. Find people with similar interests.
The author also mentions “it feels like they’re always just someone’s partner” and that’s very telling. Are the only men you’re engaging with those who are partners of your own spouse? Well no shit you’re not feeling like you have friends. I like my wife’s friends partners, but they’re firmly in the acquaintance category.
I had a good friend move to the same small town I’m in. Between work and family, we don’t get together for months on end, even though he’s a 5 min drive down the road. We want to get together, but we’re both too exhausted and burnt out.
It’s also the societal loss of “3rd places”. There’s home, work, and then… where else do you actually meet people? And if you do, where do you connect with them? Especially low-cost and not health-damaging like a bar…
A person that is honest with themselves and their partners in relationships they occupy.
Someone that is there for others to lift them up not bring them down.
It’s someone that should strive to be a rock for others in both judgement and practicality.
Being a effeminate male this is a question I ask myself often. I often hear about other relationships where the male counter part just doesn’t do chores. I ask why does he want his partner to succeed? The other one I hear often is about the inability to admit they did something wrong, usually in regards to child rearing. I guess I’m just mentioning things men in general need to work on to be domestically more successful.
You don’t have to be a man to be this way. Everybody should be this way.
I think just being yourself and being true to yourself and your convictions and not be a jerk is what really matters. No matter if you’re a man or a woman.
i think it's really simple.. we don't gather in order to accomplish things together.. not in the real world, solving real problems.. men become friends when they solve problems and build things together.. think barn building among the Amish.. and we basically can only drop the competitive thing if we're trying to work together, but then we get right to work.. and that's our normal socialization.. when we see one another, we immediately like to reminisce about something we fixed or conquered together.. back in my grandfather's day, they spent free time at the men's social club, to brag about exactly that and drink and play cards all evening.. we haven't figured out how to replace that stuff.. so we're all just adversaries all the time, learning how to get better at combat and shit..
right, games are the current substitute.. many men aren't interested in games, because there's nothing real about them, and i don't think it really suffices as a substitute in general..
Eh. Not the best article but I appreciate the sentiment.
I certainly agree with it. I think that there’s a level of friendship that I never allow others to crack unless they were bridged in as members when we were young.
All the people I meet now are “acquaintances”. They’re nice, I’m okay to reach out if I need anything, but more often then not they’re the partner of someone else. I smile at them. I tolerate them. I might even have a drink with them. But there’s a distance there that you can’t crack.
It’s like that great 80s movie, “Stand by me”: “I never had any friends later on like the ones when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?” youtu.be/l7r-R61W1DQ
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