Never considered the sexual side before, but now you mention it… how come men are expected to do all of the work? If a man can’t get aroused, that’s his fault and he’s less of a man. If a woman can’t get aroused, that’s the man’s fault for being less of a man. But thinking about that, men always face the higher expectations - chivalry is just the tip of the iceberg, which includes the things mentioned in this article - but that’s just the cost of a ‘dominant’ role, which I’m told is a good thing to have been forced into.
I’ll preemptively quash the inevitable wave of “WOMEN FACE THIS STUFF TOO HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A BILLBOARD” backlash by pointing out the obvious: that
YES. Nearly everyone here knows about and talks about these problems as they apply to women. Oppression isn’t exclusive, it’s not a commodity that groups should defend and stake claim over. Saying that men face problems doesn’t nullify or exclude women’s problems.
For once, articles are popping up that discuss these issues in the context of masculinity. If you can’t get on board with that, well that’s pretty revealing.
While I’m on the subject of male beauty, I can’t skip over Flight of the Conchords.
Looking at this picture, the first interpretation is that they’re making a joke by posing two hairy and unremarkable bodies in a sexual context, in a mockery of masculinity a la Ron Burgundy.
But I disagree. Especially if you’ve seen the show, you’ll know that these two men exhibit some of the most attractive traits there are. In the context of the show, they exhibit humility and sensitivity. Out of character, they exhibit talent, humor, intelligence and in moves like this, confidence.
And then you start to realize, there’s nothing gross or unappealing about them. They’re a little bit hairy…but…it works for them. And they’re not particularly toned or muscular, but honestly, androhpiles out there, look at these two men and tell me they don’t have any sex appeal.
Confidence (which YES, can often include self-objectification, like here) when it’s supplemented with talent and humility and other virtues, is a recipe that will draw people to you magnetically, whether you fit their socialized view of beauty or not.
Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement are real men with real bodies, and they’re celebrating masculinity in a way that few people do.
So…fucking…hats off to them.
emmyc asked: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4iiyRv_NrQ
you.. might... like.... our penises
Hahahahha yess <3
I mean, the moustaches and whispering sort of suggest that to be proud of/talk about penises is something for creeps, but they balance it out by mentioning the vagina, which makes us feel equally awkward.
Being friends with women almost exclusively, I’ve actually been asked for advice several times regarding sex (vaginal and oral) because they were afraid of/uncomfortable with penises, and often their own genitals as well.
Genital fear/discomfort comes from the same thing that racial discomfort does—early education. Complicated issues make parents/teachers nervous, so they just make them taboo.
“Don’t touch that. It’s a bad place. Don’t talk about it”
Well, I brought mine out for show-and-tell once in Kindergarten (true story), and the reaction it got from classmates and administrators was enough to tell me that I was onto something.
PS: I love the song “My Neck, My Back” by Khia because it’s explicit about female genitals in a paradigm that’s usually reserved for male genitals, and it makes people really uncomfortable. And I love asking them “why? why does this make you more uncomfortable than ‘Wait Til You See My Dick’?
![“Penises are gross.”
It makes me sad every time I hear my female friends talking about how awkward men look naked, even in jest.I always call them out on it, and they always amend it with “I mean, if he’s really fit and clean then it’s okay.” But, you know, that’s even worse. By clean they mean hairless, and by fit they mean muscular, or thin and toned.Nothing is inherently beautiful or ugly.* You could socialize a child to be terrified or repulsed by a sunset and brim with joy at the sight of a turd. It all has to do with the values and assumptions that a society is built upon.
It just so happens that because our society is based on thousands of years of men ruling, the message of “the female body is beautiful” absolutely oozes out of everything, from medieval poems and sculptures and paintings to the scores of pop and rock ballads devoted to praising girls ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErPsx8zdnX4&t=36 ).
I call this gynephilic media. (‘Gynephile’ is a term used to describe people who are attracted to women.)
We ended up in Medieval times with the a heterosexual binary that brought us things like chivalry. Men put women on a pedestal, which was restrictive to both of them. Lots of women enjoyed/enjoy being on a pedestal, but it’s often equivalent to being locked in a tower. And while a lot of men enjoyed the construction of honor built around defending those women, nobody would ever rush into battle and face death to for a lock of an attractive man’s hair, m’lady.This system stayed in place for a long time (we were given the Gothic novel as a response to the evolution of this dynamic; the men are out having adventures and the women are confined to their homes, but they end up exploring the dingy manors in which they dwell and having adventures of their own), and we’ve certainly come a long way since then as far as women having the freedom to be more than simply adored for their beauty.BUT, a relic of this ages-old inequality is the revulsion that the male body inspires.There’s a classic Seinfeld scene in which Jerry’s girlfriend is permitted to walk around naked but Jerry isn’t. (The photo above is comprised of two frames from the episode.)
Elaine: “Whoa! Walking around naked? Ahh… that is not a good look for a man.”George: “Why not? It’s a good look for a woman.”Elaine: “Well, the female body is a…a work of art. The male body isutilitarian, it’s for gettin’ around, like a jeep.”Jerry: “So you don’t think it’s attractive?”Elaine: “It’s hideous. The hair, the… the lumpiness. It’s simian.”George: “Well, some women like it.”Elaine: “Eugh. Sickies.”
Now, we all know this is meant to be humor.
But we also know that humor hits home when it’s rooted in truth. Larry David (co-creator of Seinfeld, for those who don’t know) is a master of exposing the weird inconsistencies in the social structure by twisting circumstances.
This is a very real mentality, and the hundreds of campaigns to help young girls and women of all ages love their bodies and feel beautiful stand in stark contrast to the utter lack of attention paid to the gross-ification of the male form.
What I’m trying to say is, guys: spend some of your alone time naked. Get acquainted/comfortable with your nudity. Your body is as much of a miracle, as much a work of art composed by [nature/the divine] as anyone else’s.
What makes me sad is that I feel like I’m the only person that’s telling you this.
* I’m aware that assessment of mate fitness via symmetry and other phenotypical expressions of resistance to mutation exists. We’re talking about the element of human beauty that is socialized. It’s obvious to anyone who knows their way around evolutionary psychology that not only is the dynamic I’m describing an entirely socialized thing, but that it’s actually maladaptive.
If you’re really interested in what elements of beauty are intrinsic/evolved, Denis Dutton (recently deceased) wrote about the subject in detail, and delivered a fascinating TEDTalk on it.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmumbm0kX41qz5uc4o1_500.png)
“Penises are gross.”
It makes me sad every time I hear my female friends talking about how awkward men look naked, even in jest.
I always call them out on it, and they always amend it with “I mean, if he’s really fit and clean then it’s okay.” But, you know, that’s even worse. By clean they mean hairless, and by fit they mean muscular, or thin and toned.
Nothing is inherently beautiful or ugly.* You could socialize a child to be terrified or repulsed by a sunset and brim with joy at the sight of a turd. It all has to do with the values and assumptions that a society is built upon.
It just so happens that because our society is based on thousands of years of men ruling, the message of “the female body is beautiful” absolutely oozes out of everything, from medieval poems and sculptures and paintings to the scores of pop and rock ballads devoted to praising girls ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErPsx8zdnX4&t=36 ).
I call this gynephilic media. (‘Gynephile’ is a term used to describe people who are attracted to women.)
We ended up in Medieval times with the a heterosexual binary that brought us things like chivalry. Men put women on a pedestal, which was restrictive to both of them. Lots of women enjoyed/enjoy being on a pedestal, but it’s often equivalent to being locked in a tower. And while a lot of men enjoyed the construction of honor built around defending those women, nobody would ever rush into battle and face death to for a lock of an attractive man’s hair, m’lady.
This system stayed in place for a long time (we were given the Gothic novel as a response to the evolution of this dynamic; the men are out having adventures and the women are confined to their homes, but they end up exploring the dingy manors in which they dwell and having adventures of their own), and we’ve certainly come a long way since then as far as women having the freedom to be more than simply adored for their beauty.
BUT, a relic of this ages-old inequality is the revulsion that the male body inspires.
There’s a classic Seinfeld scene in which Jerry’s girlfriend is permitted to walk around naked but Jerry isn’t. (The photo above is comprised of two frames from the episode.)
Elaine: “Whoa! Walking around naked? Ahh… that is not a good look for a man.”
George: “Why not? It’s a good look for a woman.”
Elaine: “Well, the female body is a…a work of art. The male body is
utilitarian, it’s for gettin’ around, like a jeep.”
Jerry: “So you don’t think it’s attractive?”
Elaine: “It’s hideous. The hair, the… the lumpiness. It’s simian.”
George: “Well, some women like it.”
Elaine: “Eugh. Sickies.”
Now, we all know this is meant to be humor.
But we also know that humor hits home when it’s rooted in truth. Larry David (co-creator of Seinfeld, for those who don’t know) is a master of exposing the weird inconsistencies in the social structure by twisting circumstances.
This is a very real mentality, and the hundreds of campaigns to help young girls and women of all ages love their bodies and feel beautiful stand in stark contrast to the utter lack of attention paid to the gross-ification of the male form.
What I’m trying to say is, guys: spend some of your alone time naked. Get acquainted/comfortable with your nudity. Your body is as much of a miracle, as much a work of art composed by [nature/the divine] as anyone else’s.
What makes me sad is that I feel like I’m the only person that’s telling you this.
* I’m aware that assessment of mate fitness via symmetry and other phenotypical expressions of resistance to mutation exists. We’re talking about the element of human beauty that is socialized. It’s obvious to anyone who knows their way around evolutionary psychology that not only is the dynamic I’m describing an entirely socialized thing, but that it’s actually maladaptive.
If you’re really interested in what elements of beauty are intrinsic/evolved, Denis Dutton (recently deceased) wrote about the subject in detail, and delivered a fascinating TEDTalk on it.
Black people commit more crime than white people because of a societal disadvantage that places them into poorer, more segregated neighborhoods. Black people have been marginalized in this country for as long as they’ve lived here. Do not compare the difference between Black and white people to the difference between men and women.
That’s all completely true. But that doesn’t mean a parallel can’t be drawn. You made the argument that crime statistics stand for themselves, as evidence that a group of people just “commit more fucking crime.”
My argument is that it’s never that “fucking” simple, and it’s reductive and prejudiced to claim that it is.
Women have more eating disorders than men because of a culture that emphasizes extreme thinness for women. Just look at any magazine, television show, movie, or billboard.
But I do not see how our society encourages men to commit more crime and rape. Sorry, but I just don’t.
Really? Really. You don’t know of any culture that emphasizes and glorifies virility, dominance, and violence in men? A culture that tells men that the more they fuck, the more money they have, the more power they have, the more manly they are? That if they let someone get away with something, they lose, they’re a pussy, they’re a wimp?
Let that sit for a while.
(via brute-reason)
This is an interesting and thought-provoking perspective. I agree with a lot of the points you raise. However, with regards to why it’s so common for men (as opposed to women) to be incarcerated and reported on the news as having committed a crime, men are ten times more likely than women to commit murder, and they are responsible for 99% of rapes in the United States. The prevalence of men in prison and on the evening news is not because of discrimination. It’s because they commit more fucking crime.
Furthermore, I would argue that we don’t need feminism to help women and “masculism” to help men. We need humanism to help everyone. But that, I suppose, is a matter of semantics.
Whoa, whoa, and whoa.
Making the claim that men commit more crime—insinuating that men as a gender or a sex have a predisposition to do unlawful things—who do you think you are?
Homocide rates in black people are seven times higher than those for white people.
There are significantly more black people in prison that white people.
Would you say “well that’s because black people commit more fucking crime?”
Do you realize what you sound like when you say something like that?
The role that society forces a group into has an immense effect on their actions, on what they feel permitted or pressured to do.
Many more women have eating disorders than men.
“Oh it’s because they’re stupid and weak-willed and care more about what society thinks than men do.”
No. See, that argument reveals a cancerous mentality. The sort of thinking that is based on exactly the opposite of what humanism stands for.
Secondly, you put masculism in quotes, but not feminism? Do you realize how disrespectfully you’re coming across?
And saying feminism and masculism aren’t necessary because the banner of humanism exists doesn’t make sense. They’re not on the same level in the hierarchy of terminology.
Under the banner of humanism you’ll find many movements—among them, gender equality. Inside of that movement, you’ll find masculism and feminism. They also tackle male-specific and female-specific issues, respectively, so there is a necessity for the distinction between the two.
(via brute-reason)
I’m a freelance animator, illustrator, web/graphic designer, musician, and writer.
I do work for CollegeHumor and Frederator Studios.
You're going to die someday and you don't know when.
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