@Fredrick_Hugs says, "...the hate group that dominates whatever generation feminism has morphed into...."
Hmm. Why must a hate group dominate any generation of feminism?
Sure, hateful people will probably always exist, and probably always be very loud, but that doesn't mean they dominate. In my experience, the majority of people who like the idea of social equality don't hate anything but the pain inequity causes.
My grandma taught me to be the type of person that holds your chair for the ladies and holds the door open. For some women who were raised correctly, that is considered polite behavior.
Why is considering old-fashioned behavior polite the only correct course of action?
Consider this: opening a door for anyone to show respect is polite. Opening a door or pulling out a chair only for people who you assume have a specific body type—that's weird!
He is talking about a woman reacting negatively when he holds a door open for them though. How does that woman know if a man opens the door for just women or for everyone? I just think everyone should just graciously say thank you when someone does something nice for them instead of shouting about how misogynistic it is that a man held the door open for them.
@MaineCuddle asks, "How does that woman know if a man opens the door for just women or for everyone?"
Ngh. Well, since most men don't open the door for anybody without boobs.... (We could change that! But we haven't yet.) And I guess she could also take into consideration how he looked at her as she was approaching.
But yeah, probably it's going to come down to how often and how aggressively she's been hit on by other men who opened doors for her, and how badly she never, never wants that to happen again.
Anyway, how nice is it to step in front of somebody and snatch a door away from them when they didn't need, want, or ask for your help?
Some things don't deserve thanks.
I wrote it in the other thread, but it fits here too…
“Snakes and snails and puppy dog tales…”
Being the “coarser” sex has some inherent, cultural disadvantages.
The “Do you hold the door open for other men?” problem is one of them.
It’s a strange thing, but our society pits men against everything.
Other men. Nature. The world. Ourselves.
And there is never any true rest from it, no solace to be found anywhere… except, of course, in the arms of THE woman that’s meant for you.
And she’s out there, you simply have to get out there, find her, and then earn her.
My point is, it is incredibly hard to be healthy in a poisonous world, impossibly hard to be vulnerable in a world that is a constant battle, and painfully hard to be kind in a world that assumes the worst of you.
It’s the day to day, Sisyphus-like task of being a good human but it takes patience, humor, and no small amount of stubbornness to achieve.
What I find ironic is that one of the things that led me to the world of cuddling was that I was seeking to heal myself and other men through male-male relationships, but what I’m realizing now is that I have some healing to do when it comes to male-female relationships. The “me too movement” has been a big part of that, yet I’ve found that amplified by what women here have said about men when it comes to cuddling with them. So I feel like “healthy masculinity“ also includes having a healthy relationship with femininity; that is to say, with women.
@CharlesThePoet: Note that men aren't the only alternative to women. (Not even biologically speaking.) Holding doors for everyone whose hands are full or who can't manage the door for some other reason really does mean doing it for everyone!
I think remembering that there are more people in the world than just men and women really helps when it comes to treating others as, well... humans.
Beautifully said, @CharlesThePoet
I have a question about this:
And there is never any true rest from it, no solace to be found anywhere… except, of course, in the arms of THE woman that’s meant for you. And she’s out there, you simply have to get out there, find her, and then earn her.
Are you saying that’s the myth or the truth?
@DarrenWalker
I personally agree, and do keep it mind.
(In my head, after my First Thought, my Next Thought is to treat everyone as Human. No gender, sexuality, racial, religious, cultural, or economic status applies until I learn how they self-identify.)
However, our culture disagrees.
The culture is trying to absorb new ideas, and hopefully will eventually, but 50 odd years of semi-kinda-sorta-flickering enlightenment doesn’t exactly combat 4,500 years of indoctrination easily.
But you and have had that conversation previously.
We both agree, except perhaps on scale and timeline.
I’m still working on my personal, inherent pessimism regarding most other humans, but that’s because I experience other people through the lens of “Big, Ugly, Scary, Male” and I’m so used to being frowned at, shied from, feared, and shunned that I am well aware of how shallow, petty, and cowardly so many people are.
@nurturingman
A cultural template.
Myth might be a bit harsh a word, fable is closer.
But yeah, like nearly all of this culture’s building block fables, it’s 98% fertilizer.
From the heteronormative base roots to the idea that you have to “earn” someone, it is really only intended for growing roses, and conditioning citizens that don’t ask many questions, show up to work on time, go to church, and add to the collection plate.
As it turns out, damn near anyone can be the solace for damn near anyone, and people cannot be earned because they aren’t objects.
1) What do you think healthy masculinity looks like?
A man is one who can. Who can get the job done, and has character. Integrity in himself. After character strength, it's "can he get a job done". That's where the "chuck norris" masculinity comes in, or Steve Jobs, or Elon Musk, or a James Spader character, or MacGuyver. A man is one who can.
He needs character integrity in himself. He can't be a selfless tool. He doesn't need to be 'good' or a good man. There's a difference between being a good man in the eyes of society and being good at being a man. Criminal masterminds can have integrity in themselves.
When society tries to reward or shame certain types of masculinity or just types of personality and values in general, for its own ends, I see them as attempting to use someone. That's fine, it's gonna happen. It's natural but I'm here to call it out. I guess I'm an individualist in that sense. I'm a fan of Ayn Rand fyi. But I love community and I love society. Not that she hated it but I love it, but contracts cannot be violated, otherwise, Atlas will shrug, and if he doesn't shrug, he'll still suffer and pay ransom. Not just men but women who long to be more feminine and in traditional roles who are shamed for that are also paying that ransom for a society that is trying to use them.
When you say a good man has to be kind, you are kinda doing the same thing, describing your ideal masculinity. I tried o make it as value free as possible, on principle. Personal integrity and ability, I'll leave my values of kindness and goodness out of it. Of course, women, children, the government, other men, any third party has desires they want to receive from men (or women), so they try to condition him up, set standards and 'norms' and 'agreed upon morals' and 'moral frameworks'. This is going to happen. It's natural. Its inevitable. It's how humanity works. Spiders exist and they are necessary to the ecosystem, but that doesn't mean we can't shine a light on them or remove cobwebs and help someone be spider free.
2) How has toxic masculinity affected you?
For starters, I completely agree with the concept of toxic masculinity. It means not that masculinity is toxic (although it is used that way sometimes and it is a bad choice of words). It really means a man endures what he shouldn't in the name of being masculine. First of all he should be his own measure. That's his first mistake, but we're social animals, we're dependent creatures, dependent on belonging to a community or society. It's when said communities create double-binds and catch-22s that it is hard, that tears at a person's pscyhe- not just men but many women who want to be housewives who feel embarrassment (literally- the 'barricading' emotion).
What constitutes a "toxic" trait is highly context dependent and so I am reserved about making strict judgments. If a man doesn't go see a doctor when he's injured, in the name of not being weak, that can be toxic. If he doesn't do that just because he believes it's a waste of money and not necessary, that has nothing to do with toxic masculinity but his view of the world. Men and people are flexible. Life, nature, conditions set the requirements. Those who work 80 hours a week get ahead, beat their competition. In a war zone, you don't have time to think about your feelings. Those traits would be toxic in one context are utilitarian in another, so who is to say. The devil is in the details.
I find the idea of manipulating men (or women) to be the toxic thing, versus being noble and direct and upfront and doing honest contracting and honest value-for-value exchanges, but I realize that is not going to happen. A strong independent minded person can shun that. However, this stuff is heavy throughout media, applied strongly to children, and if nothing else, through loved ones, who often have access to your resources. Divide and conquer. So we all have skin in the game about definitions, about moral frameworks of society.
When this whole thing started, men were in a stronger position- in the 60s or whatnot, and we could give ground. What was little and what we could shrug off is now significant. We have to fight for the moral framework, for the right to be autonomous. We have that right. We just have to claim and assert it. If people want to take from us, they have to do so without pretense. We can force their hand on that. When it comes to government, we'll probably still pay taxes we won't agree to. It's kind of at gunpoint. We know we're being used. But to the extent possible, we can hold our ground. We just want to contract on honest terms. We want to connect, exchange value for value. We don't want to be manipulated by things bigger than us anymore than you do. And don't forget, a man is one who can. That's what makes him 'salty'. His skillset, the MacGuyver swiss army knife- you know all those characters from shows that are really impressive with their array of talents, from dancing to rapelling down a cliff to speaking foreign languages to martial arts to marksemanship to defusing a bomb. That and personal integrity. The true criminals are those who try to manipulate with morality and who try to plunder the honest man without offering value for value.
@kwvjixla So healthy masculinity is found on a program on network tv in syndication? Do I have to grow the McGyver mullet too?
@DarrenWalker Yeah, I guess I was moreso picturing holding a door on your way out when someone's behind you rather than letting it shut right smack in their face. 😂
Making an effort to get in front of someone to actually open the door for them is definitely weird unless the other person's arms are full and they're clearly rendered a bit helpless.
I enjoyed that gif a little more than I am comfortable with.
Clearly I have some more work to do.
Why can’t we just live & let live? I’m so tired of people judging everything & everyone!
@DarrenWalker I'm a taxi driver. I hold the door open for a lot of different people. Elderly and handicapped especially or anyone who's got their arms loaded with groceries.
I didn't say it was correct. My grandmother just taught me such. It used to be the normal way of thinking. Believe it or not, but grandparents used to do radical stuff like teach grandchildren manners.
I'd be OK if feminism was about equality instead of the hate group its become. The premise of the topic starts from the definition defined by a hate group that seeks to blame everything wrong on men. They're not labeled such because they don't wear white sheets.
@Fredrick_Hugs: What's considered polite and what isn't changes with society. If you use an outdated manners manual, don't be surprised if you offend people!
Feminism is about equality. If anyone claims otherwise, they're redefining the term.
"Toxic masculinity" is a phrase you can blame people like Shepherd Bliss for: the mythopoeic men's movement in the early 1980s came up with that term.
Yeah, exactly what @DarrenWalker said.
On a side note... what is this about feminism being a hate group? Are feminists literally lynching and beating men and spray-painting death threats on the doorways of their homes, all across our countries? If they aren't, I think that's a bit hyperbolic.
The news is in the business of manufacturing outrage. There definitely is a toxic "man hater" version of feminists, and i imagine that version gets disporportionately more coverage.
@MCcuddles2 I would agree with this!
On a related note: Sometimes (IRL) guys have told me they'd be fine with feminism if it didn't involve stuff like believing all men should die or be castrated, screaming at guys for being nothing but well-mannered and chivalrous, etc. I'm always more interested in personal experiences than generalizations, so I always ask if they've personally run into a woman with those beliefs, or experienced something like being yelled at for opening a door, etc. To date, the answer has always been no - they've never been yelled at for simply opening a door for a woman, and never know anyone else who has.
(One did get yelled at after he tried to grab a woman's ass as she walked through the door he'd opened for her, but "it was only a joke" and "she just didn't have a sense of humor", and she "looked like a lesbian anyway, why would he be interested". This was followed by "no offense", since he knew I was in a relationship with a woman at the time. LOL )
I'm always disappointed because I love a good story about a truly irrational person, but as it turns out... most people have some sort of reasoning behind their actions.
@squeakytoy I attribute that to the shared experience phenomenon. The interwebs are full of variations of extreme behavior. People tend to identify personally with the plight of those on the receiving ends, or identify with those who are being extreme . Even when you aren't personally involved or affected, you still feel as though you are because of how you identify with the scenario so its like a mutually shared experience. Similar to how someone says we won and celebrates after a football game when all they did was eat wings and watch tv
@pmvines Huh! That's interesting. I've never heard of that before, but it would make sense.
A thing I try to keep in mind: Everyone in this world, and most especially in our "Western Culture", has been abused, bullied, degraded, indoctrinated, objectified, shamed, traumatized, and villified.
It makes all of us over-react, feel alone, feel afraid, mistrust others, and mistrust ourselves.
I try to keep this is mind because it reminds me to be kind.
Everyone I meet is a recovering victim, and so am I.
I dislike the terming bc Toxic Feminity is never mentioned, so it becomes more of a slight and venue to rant against men and implying only men can be toxic.
The truth is there can be bad apples on both sides. Women tend to in general do things more subtlety and get back at people more mentally/emotionally or in not taking responsibility for actions or blaming others, so examples of Toxic Feminity is that or the stereotypical gossiping, backbiting, mean girls, paternity fraud, lying in court, emotional manipulation, threatening to harm oneself or withhold privileges to see kids if someone doesn't do what you want, etc.
Where toxic masculinity is more obvious as it involves being more aggressively directly and physically.
In society oftentimes women are propped up as angels and all the good is highlighted while men are seen as pigs and all the bad gets highlighted. Which, I'm not a fan of.
Imo It comes down to, how do men and women tend to interact more naturally, and once you determine that, then you can see more easily the extremes of both sides, and good and bad instances of it
Women tend to be indirect and not say what they mean, men tend to speak more directly and say what they mean. The differences in communication styles is part of the disconnect.
That aside. HM is strength under control, a pushing of ppl outside their comfort zones to try new things and grow, to seek challenges and overcome them, take the lead, etc
where as the nurturing and homemaking nature of women is to provide a safe space for ppl to return to and to relax.
The masculine is to rock the boat and try new and potentially dangerous things and to be assertive and to voice ones own opinion, the feminine is to stick to the tried and true and conform to societal rules.
All people have some masculine and feminine traits, but majority, men tend to display masculine traits and women tend to display feminine traits.
Both are important, and going to the extremes of one is not good. In example, it's good to assert oneself and everyone should learn to stand up for their own beliefs, BUT it becomes a bad thing if you become pigheaded and can't correct yourself if you find you're in the wrong, or if you never consider it listen to other people's opinions. This is a masculine trait, so you'll find it's more common to have men who are on this extreme.
Conforming to society in general can be good and help maintain peace, but it's not good say when the laws are incorrect, say like when slavery was legal back in the day or when Hitler was rounding up Jews to kill them at concentration camps, that is a time when you can't stay silent as it would be wrong. Though, most of the times in those times of survival and war, it's the men sacrificing themselves to uphold peace. Though this is the potential bad side of the feminine trait of Not rocking the boat, maintaining peace and the status quo
More commonly, you'll see it as women who don't rock the boat so much that they end up hurting themselves, aka her husband does something that irks her, but she won't say anything or maybe silently keep a record against him. She bottles it up until one day she explodes, but for him it comes out of nowhere because she never told him or let it show on her emotions/face that she was aggravated. So when it builds and finally does come out, it blindsides him. Or more often he can sense something is wrong, but when he asks she just lies and says "I'm fine" when she's not. Sure, he should be persistent, but ultimately there's no way he can know unless she ultimately shares it with him. It's not fair to him, bc if she had been more communicative it would have been feedback for him and it's possible he could change. But if not, then you're setting an unfair expectation on the guy to mind read or just "know" somehow what she's feeling, which is not a fair expectation. And the potential harm could be the destruction of relationships, of the family, and then the kids being heavily affected should a divorce occur.
Or other ways it shows up is not taking responsibility for ones actions, expecting life to turn out the way you want via fate but not actually taking directed action to try to get what you want. I'd say naturally that makes it less likely to get what you actually want.
But that's just my opinion so far of how things seem to work. Again, men and women can have masculine and feminine qualities, the trick is to try to just get the positive side of all these qualities, and avoid the negative.
When ppl go to extremes or prominently display a negative trait, then that becomes toxic humanity. Masculinity by it's nature is to get oneself out there and be direct, so it's more obvious when it goes awry. But we should be holding women to account as well, praising the good but also calling out the bad.
The golden rule works well, flip the shoes and roles around. If you wouldn't like something being done to you, don't do it to others. If you expect the other person to be a 10/10, you work on yourself and make sure you're also a 10/10 human being. But hey we're all works in progress. Let's keep growing to be better and understand each other more
I see that Godwin’s Law can now be invoked.
/thread
Cue the John Cleese goose step
Hi! I'm a new pro cuddler here on this site. I have read pages and pages of this discussion. I can tell everyone is trying and that's a big deal. That's commendable! I'm not sure if I should be commenting on here or not but here's my thoughts.
When thinking about healthy masculinity I believe that we have all internalized patriarchy and sexism, and I find conversations about balancing power and having awareness breakthroughs to be super interesting.
What was a moment you encountered or acted out of positive masculinity? How did it affect you? What have you done since then to further make it better for others?
I'm currently coming up blank to my own questions but I'm hoping to have some answers to share soon Thanks for the convo always
@nurturingman I really liked this "What I find ironic is that one of the things that led me to the world of cuddling was that I was seeking to heal myself and other men through male-male relationships, but what I’m realizing now is that I have some healing to do when it comes to male-female relationships. The “me too movement” has been a big part of that, yet I’ve found that amplified by what women here have said about men when it comes to cuddling with them. So I feel like “healthy masculinity“ also includes having a healthy relationship with femininity; that is to say, with women."
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/15/1016424692/listen-again-the-biology-of-sex
Listened to this recently and thought it was relevant to this discussion. Nurture and environment does influence how we act and think in addition to just what gender you are born with.