Human GhostwriterIt's time to retire masculinity. If it had any utility, we have outlived it. I'm gonna take my dick and my beard and do whatever I want forever.
"That's not masculine!" Who fucking cares? Leave me alone.
DJDarren@HG The older I get, the less I understand what masculinity means, or what purpose it serves.
It's such a caricature. Like, sure, Rambo hip firing two machine guns at skeleton dinosaurs while riding on a rocket-powered skateboard and sporting a comically oversized erection sounds funny for a second, but to then take that and say "this will be my entire life and the foundation for a lifelong hatred of women" is clown behavior.
Isaac Freeman@HG This is where I always barge into conversation with a wild-eyed look and bang a copy of Susan Faludi's _Stiffed_ onto the table saying “There's more than one masculinity! That's just the bullshit individualist neoliberal one! There's a better masculinity with like dignity and mentorship and solidarity and socialism! It doesn't even have to feel threatened by feminism!”
Loohoosaher@hwll It doesn't. But if someone does want to to be a manly manny man, there are plenty of good ways to do it. However you want to engage or disengage with concepts of masculinity, I don't think we should cede the definition to the stupidest possible interpretation.
I do understand the impulse to reject gender binaries, and all power to anyone who does that. But I've learned from trans friends that some people really do identify strongly with a particular gender. If someone can be so certain that it's right for them to be a man that it overrides what they're told all their lives, then I have to assume that some cis men can also identify that strongly with masculinity.
So… if being manly is your thing, I think you should aim to be a good man. A lot of what's sold to us as being manly is actually just being a bully, so don't fall for that.
@isaacfreeman @HG @DJDarren I see what you mean and I've also learned from trans folks that some people genuinely seem attached to their gender.
I don't associate masculinity with being a man, like, at all. But I guess it's just a word—we can change it to mean anything