Hyper-Masculine Men

GreatHornedOwl

Without commenting on any of the questions involved, I think that this is a very interesting read, and for many (men and women), may be a very helpful read. The author is a female therapist who specializes in couples therapy and works with a lot of male clients.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/therapist-working-with-men_n_642c8084e4b02a8d51915117

KarmicKuddles20

You mean, woman therapist 😁😉 (I'm just teasing you a bit)

GreatHornedOwl

Are you sure she isn't a girl?

KarmicKuddles20

I'm positive as girl refers to an adolescent and based her her very lovely picture, she is in fact an adult. Nice try hahaha 😆 🤭

SunsetSnuggles

Just gotta say I'm a female who doesn't mind the word, and I have always preferred to be called a "girl", not a "woman". le shrug Just wanted to throw out there that we exist, too. 🙂

~ Sunset Snuggles

This is actually quite helpful, thank you @GreatHornedOwl 😊

My husband is former law enforcement and I truly believe he has a lot of unprocessed trauma that he just pushes down because “emotions” and “feelings” just slow you down. He’s a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” kinda guy and this has led to a lot of contention between us.

Interesting read and I’ve forwarded it to my husband to see what he thinks.

GreatHornedOwl

@KarmicKuddles20 - It seems that @SunsetSnuggles makes the opposite choice. Is it any wonder that I (as well as other men) get confused about how to refer to people whose gender is female?

Btw, while this discussion is quite interesting, has anybody read the article I referred to?

SunsetSnuggles

@GreatHornedOwl It is not a wonder. 🤗

~ Sunset Snuggles

Immersedwarmth

@CuddlelessinLB Finally someone who is actually engaging with the article. I wish you and your husband well. I'm still processing the article, so I'll keep my mouth shut for now. "It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."

GreatHornedOwl

@CuddlelessinLB - When I read it, I was quite certain that a lot of couples would benefit from just her article, even without being able to receive her therapy.

achetocuddle

@TeddyBearCA That's a saying I can always get behind. Wish more people thought like that.

GreatHornedOwl

@CuddlelessinLB - I should have added that as a wounded (though fortunately not disabled) Vietnam Veteran, I think that I see a little of myself there. Please, come back and tell us what your husband thinks about it. I regret that my wife's Alzheimer's Disease will prevent her from understanding it at all.

JohnR1972

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cuddlefaery

Re: female vs woman vs girl - this is actually relevant to the original topic, if a bit tangential, in that both the cult hypermasculinity and the infantilizing/dehumanizing of women through language are two sides of the same coin. Both are symptoms of the same larger societal cultural systems that have been problems for thousands of years, only we're now finally starting to address them properly.

And this is why normalizing asking how people prefer to be referred to, even when they are not present, is important...

Language is highly subjective, culturally tied, and no group of people are homogeneous. And sometimes intent is important, and sometimes impact is more important.

That being said - I do thing there is something to be said for questioning and unpacking why certain language conventions are how they are, and if they no longer serve individually or the group as a majority, it's time to let them go.

---

@GreatHornedOwl thank you for sharing the article and starting the discussion. I've watched the change in this dynamic across generations with some interest for over a decade now, both from personal experiences and from an educator standpoint. For me it's also been quite an journey in patience and healing to watch as some men in my life have worked on this - to see which areas they hold on to the tightest for the longest, and which ones they let go of more easily tends to speak volumes of their own childhoods and traumas. And it's not just in romantic relationships that these dynamics come up.

The familial trauma cycle is insidious and often something people aren't aware of until it reaches a boiling point with their own kids because they've numbed themselves and blocked memories as ill-formed coping strategies when they didn't have anything else to help them. I only finally got diagnosed ADHD a year ago even though my family suspected I and one of my sisters were since young childhood...and now my dad who is almost 70 is finally recognizing all the traits in himself and his brother as well (ADHD is heritable). It's both making him more sympathetic to the struggles and arguments we've had and causing more conflicts as he tries to come to terms with the ways his own suppressed traumas are now resurfacing. Needless to say family functions have been fun the past year, but at least now I'm medicated and can keep track of the arguments and hold my filter a bit longer 😅

CuddleWho

Suicide among men is nearly 4x more likely than among women and over 70% of those who die by suicide are male.

This is a bizarre statement because the two clauses are clearly in tension - if suicide is 4x as common among men than women, wouldn't that mean that 80% of those who die by suicide are male, not 70%?

It seems to come from these two bullet points in the article's link :

• In 2020, men died by suicide 3.88x more than women.

• White males accounted for 69.68% of suicide deaths in 2020.

I guess glossing over the word "white" in the second bullet point lead to the strange "4x and 70%" statement.

Kempist

I'm puzzled too. We keep hearing that white males are privileged yet they are by far the majority of suicides according to this thread. I know some of the geniuses here with their War and Peace length posts will have an answer to that but for a simpleton like me this doesn't square up.

cuddlefaery

CW: multiple mentions of self-harm, suicide

@CuddleWho you're also assuming there's only two genders and sexes to divide the 100%, and the article glossed over the fact that suicide stats in the trans community (which includes non-binary people, those who neither identify as men nor women) is absolutely abysmal and further worse than the that of in men. Intersex people also exist, but rarely show up in reporting statistics even if they are in studies.

What I believe the article author may have also meant was to note the ratios of attempting suicide is 4x higher and dying by suicide is 70%, as this matches other statistics that are relatively well known - men are generally more efficient at commiting suicide, as dark as that sounds. This may possibly be in part again because they are encouraged not to reach out for support, where as women have been documented to be more likely to reach out to someone upon the attempt in a last-ditch cry for help.

(Edited for clarity and to add more context to my reply)

@snugbuddy I know crazy.

cuddlefaery

@JohnR1972 thank you for being so vulnerable and sharing a bit of your story. A lot of it resonated and sounded oh-so familiar even if coming from different places. Would send you a virtual hug if you're feeling huggable 🤗

achetocuddle

@snugbuddy Lol. That's my kind of humor. I can't comment from my experience, but I suppose one factor is perceived big responsibility often comes with privilege. And privileged people tend to be taught less coping skills.

GreatHornedOwl

@CuddleWho - I think that @cuddlefaery has the explanation exactly right, except that I think that a significant number of non-fatal suicide attempts were not actually suicide attempts at all.

The fact that this section of the article was very badly worded, has contributed to the confusion.

GreatHornedOwl

@cuddlefaery - I'll have you know that I'll be risking the wrath of Sideon by saying this to you. He has **ordered ** me not to **engage ** with you. However, we have (mostly) been on friendly terms for long enough, that I don't think that you will believe that what I will say amounts to going into combat.

I had to laugh a little at your suggestion that I simply ask a (for lack of a better word), person whose gender is female, what she preferred to be called. Actually, in the last few days, have presented that very question to three different such people. All three gave essentially the same answer. They all said they really didn't care. One of them even suggested that I was being silly for asking such an insignificant question. Was I asking the wrong people

Even if I were to ask every such person that I know, I would have trouble remembering who gave me which answer. My memory isn't getting any younger you know. Besides, I sometimes refer to such people that I don't know, and could not possibly have asked, and might not even be aware of their age.

Until somebody helps the English language catch up, we may be stuck with using "male" and "female" when we want to refer to somebody in a non age specific way.

I really am trying, but the harder I try, the more confused I become.

SunsetSnuggles

@GreatHornedOwl You're sweet, in this regard.

~ Sunset Snuggles

cuddlefaery

@GreatHornedOwl I'd completely forgotten we'd gotten wrist slapped. Out of sight, out of mind, ugh. My bad 😅 if mods come after you I take full responsibility here.

That said, groups of people are not homogeneous monoliths. Sure, a lot of people are not going to care - they might not feel particularly strongly about the topic and that is their perogative. But to the people to whom it does matter? It matters greatly.

I cannot claim to fully understand the struggles of the trans community for instance, as my journey has been different, but I've had a small taste of it - when you spend your entire life being told that what you experience as reality and "you" is wrong or invalid, and you struggle for years and years with all the weight of that wrongness only to one day find out "hey, you're not wrong, you're just different, and here's all these other different people just like you"....it's pretty damned hard to not feel like that aspect of you is A Big Deal ™️.

People are always going to care more or less about different things. So did you ask the "wrong" people? No. You just asked people who had their own answers. The next people you ask may have different ones, or they may be the same. The point is in the asking, rather than assuming - it's validating autonomy and the right of self identification of the person in question, rather than telling them and the world "I know them better than they know themselves".

I truly do appreciate that change is hard and appreciate this thread 😊

I can also tell you as a teacher than growth mindset is like a muscle - you have to stretch and train it repeatedly, nourish it and keep practicing. It's not something that you one and done or that you can try once in awhile and expect it to magically get easier. It's skills you have to learn and practice, just like everything else we learn in this world. And just because we get older doesn't mean we stop learning - we just grow more resistant to learning and forget how to adapt the way we once had to when we were the thing that was rapidly changing.

GreatHornedOwl

@cuddlefaery - You probably didn't remember because you just got your wrist slapped. I got a two week timeout

I agree with most of what you just said. I quickly learned that when I retired from an engineering career, that I had to invent ways to stretch and exercise my mind, in order to keep it from deteriorating.

I also believe that we must all be more careful and more caring when speaking either to or of people whose gender we may not completely understand. I also believe that they need to understand that so long as we are using a language that has barely begun to catch up to their existence, we will make mistakes. as long as we are trying they could be a little more tolerant.

Did you read the post where I spoke of trying to hire a draftsman? Do you believe that you are a member of the human race? Perhaps, some day, people will be hiring draftspersons, and you will be a member to the huperson race. However, until the English language manages to catch up, we all need to understand that words like draftsman and human are nit gender specific, or even gender related words.

We are using an imperfect language, and there is no perfect way to make up for that.

JohnR1972

@cuddlefaery - Thank you, I am always up for a virtual hug 😊

Halfnuggie

I have many thoughts to share. I just think the article isn't realistic. In this day and age if a man is found out to be going to therapy, you will not be the talk of the town, nor does it have to be some big secret. My generation would literally not care that you are in therapy or think like me, thats sexy, emotionally connected human being didnt give up on themself. Thats amazing!
I think it points to upbringing in a heavy way but forgets to relay the other factors like proximity. Men and young men hang with each other and like women may not act the same as they would under their parents roof. They create their world view in those few years. They don't tell their friend I cried last night about this and for some reason theres an invisible force stopping him from this expression. Instead he talks about the lady he demolished after his cry. Talking with friends about many things grows the relationship and probably creates a healthier conversation but its not therapy. Right. But it would change your group of friends mindsets and so on, likely even lose a friend or two. 'Means its working.'
Also saying they dont have the tools in this article is just so red flagy to me but I'll stop here. Haha. My thoughts are imperfect, sure. [:

MountainT

This is a good article. Thanks for the share.

ManOutdoors

Overall, it seems like a good article and has some really good points about the differences between actual expectations and peoples perceived expectations. The article author says she treats hyper-masculine men, so it made me wonder.

What is a hyper-masculine man?
Is there a hypo-masculine man?
Is there a hyper-feminine woman?
Is there a hypo-feminine woman?
Do they all need to be "treated?"

theo_

I think she treats men who happen to be hyper masculine, it doesn’t mean she treats men to cure them from their hyper-masculinity

GreatHornedOwl

@ManOutdoors - There certainly are hyper-feminine women. There are even a few who are active in the forum, but I would never say who they are. You'll have to figure that out for yourself.