Reclaiming masculinity from "manhood"

[Scott Gardener]

I'm cross-posting this from my LiveJournal commentary. Here is the link:

http://scottgardener.livejournal.com/2229.html

Or, if you don't want to leave this page, here is the essay in its entirity.

Commentary: reclaiming masculinity from "manhood" (addressing the machismo-homosexuality complex)

Popular culture in the United States, and perhaps to some degree in most developed countries, and absolutely more so in less developed nations, place an enormous amount of social pressure on male members to "be men." From early childhood, I was put through an emotion-suppressing regimen that would have made Spock impressed. Today, television continues to bombard me with images of men refusing to eat vegitables and loving their giant pickup trucks. Shows of emotion and feeling is paired with the implication that a man exhibiting such must be gay. This connection is an irrational one, but it is very pervasive throughout popular culture, and from my experiences, most men buy heavily into it.

Even as women have risen up and begun to free themselves from the pressure of the receeding dress size and the perponderance of twenty-year-olds on television, hardly anyone of male gender has addressed our equivalent. Women have through the past fifty years been pressured to appear younger and skinnier, being made to feel old at thirty and overweight at 150 pounds; the former is perhaps 1/3 of the way into a life-expectancy, causing a woman to spend the majority of her life being branded as "old," while the latter is for most heights and body types a normal and healthy weight, if not a little underweight. But, women are now calling to task how nearly all food ads aimed at them involve counting calories and how little biological sustainance their new favorite meal will provide. But, conversely, most men blithely play along when we're subjected to advertisements that make fun of vegitarianism and insist that we clog our arteries with as much USDA-branded beef as can be stuffed, by the pound, into our meals. We are subjected to beer commercials that crush "weaker" men who favor comforts or emotion. And movies frequently show any affectionate contact between heterosexual men as an accident that happens while sleeping, that upon awakening is presented with the task of destroying any evidence that could be misconstrued that one is gay.

The implication that one is gay if one does not conform is the driving force of this cultural brainwashing. Social conditioning instills within men what I now refer as the machismo-homosexuality complex. This is a belief architecture that operates as follows: one must not be homosexual, and one must not appear to be homosexual at any and all costs. To do otherwise risks an unspecified great peril, the least of which involves ostracism, but also invites contact with actual homosexuals, who represent some great terror of cosmic proportions. Therefore, to avoid gays, one must follow certain rules of behavior, namely to suppress affectionate behavior, to eat a diet heavy with meat, to act tough and surround one's self with tough paraphenalia and to avoid effeminate paraphenalia, and to follow traditional male instincts, such as hunting and fighting rivals.

The "threat" represented by homosexuals is a fictional one. I have encountered in my travels actual homosexual and bisexual men, and they do not appear to be any more aggressive or dangerous than their heterosexual counterparts. The past twenty years have called to task the long-standing assumption that anything could be inherantly wrong with homosexuality. Arguments that it is "unnatural," for instance, whether or not that in and of itself is meaningful in a society that lives in air-conditioned buildings and eats hamburgers and French fries, falls flat when research finds it in every mammalian species in which we have looked for it. But, debunking the presumed threat of gays getting married and raising children is above and beyond the scope of this essay; it is the perception of a threat that drives the psychiatric complex, regardless of its accuracy.

As a result of others operating inside the confines of this complex, I have been mistaken for gay by a number of people. But, I have myself broken out of that complex, so it is not an insult to me to be misidentified, just a categorical error. (As a side note, the machimo-homosexuality complex includes a misidentification between sexual preference and gender identity, and thus men under its influence are also deeply offended when they are mistaken for women. To me, now liberated from the set of notions, I should find that sense of offense itself offensive, as it implies that there must be something wrong with being a woman. An insult to women is an attack on my beloved wife, my dear mother, my sister, and fully half the human population.) As I am no longer bothered by this mis-association, I am free to enjoy not only a more comfortable daily life, but a more secure and emotionally rewarding one, as I am able to touch or hug more freely.

Without this complex to define masculinity for me, one wonders how I identify with my gender? It is still a work in progress, as the machismo-homosexuality complex is merely part of a larger problem that dates back hundreds of years, in which men have subjugated both themselves and women inside rigorous social confines. And, I must confess that as a transhumanist, my sense of core identity does not rely heavily on having a sense of gender, though being male is pretty heavily "grandfathered in" by my past experiences, and I do have the same strong aggressive tendencies and sexual drive as others of my gender. So, there must be something to being male beyond the "manhood" of the machismo-homosexiality complex. The challenge I face in rediscovering true manhood is learning more about the underlying motivations of the hunting instincts, the aggressiveness, and my infatuation with technology and mathematically driven venues, and finding ways of working with these tendencies towards instead of against my own personal evolution.

One overriding theme of manhood is freedom. We men are compelled to seek independence and self-sufficiency. It is part of the reproductive instinct, to seperate from our parents as a prelude towards founding our own families, appearing in adulescence to drive us to the brink of madness while we wait for graduation. The theme often appears to come up again, typically in the mid-forties during the "mid-life crisis." Men under the influence of the machismo-homosexuality complex still believe that they are pursuing this masculine objective. But, I challenge those men instead to stand up for themselves and break free of the notion that they have to drive a big truck, eat meat, wear jeans, and talk about football games instead of personal feelings. A real man is not afraid to be something other than a fake man. A real man is free from having to be a "real man." And thus, in enjoying metrosexual comforts like spa days and hugging friends even if they are other men, I am more a man than those who brand me less of one.

[MattSullivan]

I hear ya buddy. In latino cluture it's ESPECIALLY important to be MUY MACHO! That attitude drives me crazy sometimes. Lotta posturing and preening and thumping of chests.

Just bear this in mind. SMART people rule the planet.

[Renorei]

There's something you mentioned in there that I definitely agree with, and it really bothers me when men in our culture act this way--the whole notion that being compared to a woman is somehow insulting. What's wrong with women? Nothing. You hear guys use women or the female anatomy all the time in their insults: "You hit like a girl", "Man, don't be such a pussy", etc. You never hear women do that to each other. Women don't say "Hey, your english/verbal skills are like a man's" or "Don't be such a dick". So I don't get why guys do it. There's nothing insulting about being compared to a woman.

[Xiroteus]

"Eat a level ten hot pepper or you are weak."

No, not eating a level ten hot pepper makes me smart.

[Okami]

There's something you mentioned in there that I definitely agree with, and it really bothers me when men in our culture act this way--the whole notion that being compared to a woman is somehow insulting. What's wrong with women? Nothing. You hear guys use women or the female anatomy all the time in their insults: "You hit like a girl", "Man, don't be such a pussy", etc. You never hear women do that to each other. Women don't say "Hey, your english/verbal skills are like a man's" or "Don't be such a dick". So I don't get why guys do it. There's nothing insulting about being compared to a woman.

i know plenty of women that compare each other to men as insults

[Terastas]

Can I offer my two cents? It isn't so much brainwashing as it is deliberate prodding at men and their insecurities. Though we are not specifically conditioned to "be men," we are conditioned to be straight, and as a result, to think of being gay in the absolute negative.

Gay bashing is, in the sense, the most common display of male insecurity. However, in order to gay bash, you first need to find someone gay, and since most people are not gay and those that are will not willingly subject themselves to such ridicule, most insecure men have to direct their homophobia at a straight man.

I went through something similar. I was the designated target of my brother and his friends, but they were racist as opposed to homophobic, so for some reason that I believe I'll be trying to figure out all the way to the grave, they accused me of being black. It's true, it's too stupid to make up. To this day my own brother (from the same mother and father) still refers to me by the "N" word from time to time.

This is when men start feeling pressured to "be manly." It's because every circle of gay bashers needs a gay man and nobody wants to be it, henceforth people do things to be manly to remove any doubt of them being the target. Marketing companies know this; that America is filled with insecure men desperate to prove their manliness, and so they market their otherwise piss poor products as being manly. It's no different from claiming that a product is "Popular" or "American" -- it's a direct ploy to see the product based on the insecure beliefs of a bunch of stupid consumers.

Me personally, my definition of a real man is someone that can wear a pink shirt and not feel any less a man because of it. To the contrary, I generally see hunting, pickups, and other such "manly" accessories, not as manly, but as overcompensating for a lack thereof. In my own personal experiences, whenever someone wants to tell you and/or demonstrate to you something about themselves, be it how rich they are, how smart they are, or how manly they are, without you asking, it's usually because such is far from the case. A real man is someone that knows he's a man and doesn't need anyone else to confirm it.

[Kelpten]

I've come to accept that I'm not as "manly" as my friends. I mostly hang out with girls, don't mind desplayig my affection, love romance stories, I can't stand shoot 'em up games ext. For a while it bothered me that people thought I was gay because I acted the way I did, but finally I just ignored it. I knew that I liked girls, even if I was a little more feminine than most. And that was all that really mattered.

My friends affectionatly call me Princess due to a long story that I won't go into now, but one made a comic about it where I'm the protagonist.

http://www.drunkduck.com/ZooManga/index.php?p=137198

[Okami]

I'll admit in my group of friends im as you put it most feminine and alot of people get a laugh out of the fact my girlfriend calls me her "girly side" I like stuff like love poems and romance novels but that doesnt make me gay and when i get mad at people for calling me gay people say thats how i would react if i was gay and its driving me crazy. sorry for all the lower case i's my shift just stopped working

[Silverclaw]

There's something you mentioned in there that I definitely agree with, and it really bothers me when men in our culture act this way--the whole notion that being compared to a woman is somehow insulting. What's wrong with women? Nothing. You hear guys use women or the female anatomy all the time in their insults: "You hit like a girl", "Man, don't be such a pussy", etc. You never hear women do that to each other. Women don't say "Hey, your english/verbal skills are like a man's" or "Don't be such a dick". So I don't get why guys do it. There's nothing insulting about being compared to a woman.

Sorry, I'm female and guilty of calling people those(all but "Hey, your english/verbal skills are like a man's" Heh. ) Either if I'm angry or just joking around.


I agree with you all; lots of societies expectations of a 'real man' is obnoxious and largely untrue Especially commercials...hate most of em.

[PariahPoet]

I think everybody should just say "screw social conventions!" and be themselves!

Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, OY!!!!
Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, OY!!!!





(on a side note, my mate is much more honest with his emotions than I am, and he's one of the most (truly, not stereotypically)masculine men I know!)

[Okami]

its not always that easy

[PariahPoet]

Sure it is if you honestly don't give a crap about what people might think or say about you.
But as long as you are willing to alter yourself to suit others, yes, it will be difficult.

[Okami]

Sure it is if you honestly don't give a crap about what people might think or say about you.
But as long as you are willing to alter yourself to suit others, yes, it will be difficult.

i havent changed my self at all i just get sick of people calling me gay.

[PariahPoet]

Screw them.
(ok, maybe not literally. I don't think that would help.) X3

[Okami]

they are my best friends its not like i would just never talk to them again of something

[Midnight]

I think everybody should just say "screw social conventions!" and be themselves!

Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, OY!!!!
Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, OY!!!!

joins in the chant

[MattSullivan]

Here's what really makes you a man. Are you ready?

A penis and two testicles.

There. You're in the club.

[PariahPoet]

*feels left out*

Ah well, no rule that says I have to associate with my own gender. In general, most females are boring. (not so much of a problem here because we share an interest, but the average girl you would see on the street terrifies me)

[Okami]

*feels left out*

Ah well, no rule that says I have to associate with my own gender. In general, most females are boring. (not so much of a problem here because we share an interest, but the average girl you would see on the street terrifies me)

maybe to you but i happen to find women very interesting

[Lukas]

heh it doesn't matter, i really don't give 2 much rats a** about what the public thinks about, im polite and well mannered and thats all im really required of, i need to do more then i will, if not then don't expect it unless your a close friend or family member, the only thing I'm not willing to tell anyone except my dad is my therianism, but thats because i live in Florida(know for not being to bright of a state and cant tell difference between a lot of things), and even though i care little for the public, i don't wish to alienate my friends with something i doubt they would really understand, other then that though i usually act my usually self on the borderline of crazy and well mannered

[Avareis]

I hate that weird complex. It's stupid, so very stupid.
Here are a few stereotypes that you just have to love....

Because one is less than 5'10" one is less of a man.

Because of an ethnicity, it means one's male part are small and that is thought to be less of a man.

Because you don't act macho around your peers, you're less macho.

Because you have a certain build and are not good at team sports, it means you are not a man.

Because you cry, you are definitely not a man.

Shesh! Looking at all of this, I'm considered to be a chasti, not gay!

These are the labels that I remember from that "age". I still hear them now when some idiot makes a snide remark. I'm normal to everyone else, yet because of a generalization I am considered micro. I'll leave it at that, but will continue to say that it happens to all men. With women it happens to them to if they don't act a certain way or don't dress accordingly to their peers. And heaven forbid you're a little overweight for your age. It's a fact that a certain age of teenagers are the worst type of human being next to rapists and murderers. It's the truth and it doesn't end there. Not everyone grows up. Not everyone is taught the difference between right and wrong and not everyone knows what it means to be a true man.

Being a human being, man or woman, means to live up to one's own expectations and living with what they have been given. More importantly, they work and they acknowledge that everyone is different and there is nothing wrong with being unique. Taking responsibility, understanding boundaries and working to one's best abilities is more important than how much you weigh or how tall you are or how you act. Being genuine.

[MattSullivan]

Not all tall people are successful, or necessarily happy.

Guys, luckily, can function while overweight. They dont really care what people think. Women, on the other hand, are unfairly judged. Also, there's no male equivalent of the word, "slut"


In any case, you really have NO CHOICE but to accept who you are and DEAL with it.

[Okami]

Not all tall people are successful, or necessarily happy.

Guys, luckily, can function while overweight. They dont really care what people think. Women, on the other hand, are unfairly judged. Also, there's no male equivalent of the word, "slut"


In any case, you really have NO CHOICE but to accept who you are and DEAL with it.

thats because most people see men (and im not saying some arent) as creatures that dont care who they "mate" with as long as they get a chance to "mate"

[MattSullivan]

Don't be too judgmental about men for that reason. Men are GENETICALLY predisposed to find, and mate with AS MANY FEMALES AS THEY CAN. It's nature. It's NOT NICE. Women don't like that fact and think men are just "using" them. But it's a plain, and simple fact.

It's NATURE. Not men trying to be a-holes. If you were a man, you'd understand, But you aren't. We men are not women, so we don't know what it's like to be you. I think if both genders understood that there'd be less fighting when it came to the issue of casual sex, but as I said before, we seem to be genetically destined to think in opposite ways.

[Okami]

Don't be too judgmental about men for that reason. Men are GENETICALLY predisposed to find, and mate with AS MANY FEMALES AS THEY CAN. It's nature. It's NOT NICE. Women don't like that fact and think men are just "using" them. But it's a plain, and simple fact.

It's NATURE. Not men trying to be a-holes. If you were a man, you'd understand, But you aren't. We men are not women, so we don't know what it's like to be you. I think if both genders understood that there'd be less fighting when it came to the issue of casual sex, but as I said before, we seem to be genetically destined to think in opposite ways.

for your information I'm a GUY!!!