As a trans woman who grew up being taught boys don’t cry, it’s taken me the better part of 6 years to learn how to connect with my emotions healthily. I’m so sorry that society treats y’all like this. 💜
I had the distinct misfortune of being a loner for my formative years. As I’ve aged, I never hit my stride or found my niche. I have plenty of hobbies and things I enjoy, but no place to share them… even if I find a convention or rare place to explore them with others, they are often filled with people who already found their people and aren’t seeking any new applicants. Or, more likely, these places are far from where I am.
It then returns the burden to me. Do I keep my job and pay and current possessions… or do I sell all of it and move closer to the places I can find others? No, not even that: give up stability and security for the chance to find places to find others. Not even guaranteedz
What would I even be writing about without publicly exposing my personal life intimate details (don’t want to) or that hasn’t been said ad nauseam by better and more known writers at this point? What’s a sensible sex and dating column that doesn’t simply reduce into the usual “be empathetic, respect other’s space and boundaries, open dialog, know yourself, seek therapy, etc”?
For the starters, men need to learn to talk about sex. I never had a useful conversation about sex with other men, with women sure easy topic (just don’t be a creep).
I haven’t been in a dedicated men only group chat but I can imagine that if you get the right guys in a group it might just be „that easy“. I think it’s a great space to try and model how you want to interact with your peers.
And I’m glad to hear that the author has that support group in his life :)
I personally also find it a bit easier to share heavy topics over texting rather than talking.
If you’re interested in animated shows, Avatar: The Last Airbender’s uncle Iroh is a really solid depiction of healthy masculinity.
He’s kind and gentle, but has a tremendous amount of strength both emotionally and physically. He’s empathetic and loving, diplomatic and wise, but very humble and doesn’t take himself too seriously. He loves tea and flowers, and doesn’t get bothered or embarrassed when other male characters tease or mock him for his hobbies.
Or the best phrase ist: there is no point in generalizing literally half of human population.
And the point with confidence is more that it makes your whole life easy(not just dating) - since you are just not really afraid to fail no matter the odds, but it’s really difficult to develop as an adult.
Confidence is difficult to build all of your life, not just as an adult. It wasn’t really a problem with “girls like” but more the “just don’t be insecure” connotations
As a child it’s basically your parents supporting and believing in you (helps being good at something). As an adult it’s being really good at something and working on your childhood trauma of not supportive parents.
I don’t really get your point - since not being insecure just helps generally in life. And it’s always good to work on ones insecurities - be it just for oneselfs peace of mind.
It is true that women’s pants sit closer to the skin, and yet women’s pants tend to be made out of a much higher percentage of latex so they stretch more than men’s pants.
As a partially disabled man, unable to run and too weak to fight, I’m on guard a lot. It’s fucking exhausting. Yet it’s still a tiny fraction of what women experience. The entirety of unwanted attention and actions against women is too much to really comprehend for men.
What change can we make as men that will be a rising tide, lifting both men and women?
I’m very much a proponent of 2A rights. But carrying, by itself, is not going to eliminate fear, and may not even moderate it significantly. And someone that’s disabled may not be able to effectively use a firearm, and they certainly won’t be able to use one effectively with training.
Uh, what? I’m Canadian, but isn’t the Second Amendment a negative right? The government isn’t allowed to stop you from carrying a gun. You can agree with that and still think there are reasons an individual might not want to carry a gun.
I’ve seen a few other articles on this issue and the double standard is astounding.
If a conventional minority group struggles, they need to be helped. If it’s a man, screw them! They’re oppressive and don’t deserve help.
If men are dominant in certain fields, it’s a sign of systematic discrimination against women. If women are dominant in certain fields, then that’s just because men suck at xyz and this is just the natural outcome.
And the funny part is, I read one article about this and the editor (a middle aged woman as usual) said that this imbalanced ratio is an issue because surprise surprise young women won’t have enough men to date!
It’s almost like men’s issues only matter if it affects women, and somehow that’s the only concern.
If men are dominant in certain fields, it’s a sign of systematic discrimination against women. If women are dominant in certain fields, then that’s just because men suck at xyz and this is just the natural outcome.
I’m open to having my mind changed, but I think that might actually be true. In cases where men are dominant, we can point to specific discriminatory situations. We can see how hiring committees consist primarily or exclusively of men. We can see how popular depictions of people in [field] are all male. We can note that neurodivergent boys are far more likely to get diagnoses and support than neurodivergent girls. With the exception of certain fields like education and nursing, I can’t think of any systemic factors that discriminate against men.
I don’t think an imbalance necessarily means that we should automatically assume discrimination, for example there is a small correlation between sex and interest (men to objects, women to living things) which may account for some discrepancy in certain fields.
Hiring committees would depend but very often we see HR is majority female, and some studies show that female named job applications in certain cases may be more favoured even when the exact same application is given with a male name.
In terms of school, I can attest that boys need to stop fucking around during class time and actually pay attention, but I’ve seen another study show that for the exact same work, public school teachers sometimes mark higher for a girls work.
The last point I would make is that there are quite a few female only grants and bursaries and aid programs, but there’s very few that outright exist for males.
That’s my two cents, but I understand your perspective as well.
I think Warren Farrell especially, and a bit of Leonard Sax as well have gone into this in more detail.
Unfortunately the mainstream feminist objection is that “men should just make their own support organizations” but the problem is sometimes the government won’t give them a nickel, which I find absurd.
This guy in Calgary Canada made a men’s domestic violence shelter, (shockingly women are first statistically to initiate domestic violence, which I didn’t know). This was around 2011 or so? But the local feminists at the time online were saying that he should not feel entitled to government funding and only women’s shelters should get government funding. I think he killed himself afterwards.
So it seems like when men do band together to make a support group, it doesn’t get the same amount of government support as a women’s group will.
Which is why we also have a bunch of men who are trying to hold on to jr. high mindsets about what they were told adulthood is like, rather than allowing themselves to mature beyond the gaming communities they found support in.
Remember, Steve Bannon already abused gaming communities for political gain.
The real question, is how hard would it be to set up networks of healthier mindsets, when games are doing their best to remove private servers from the minds of others, when those private servers are needed for securing the audience and preventing poor faith individuals from taking control
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