Only the second asshole I have

This is the face of a small, furry terrorist who thinks he's won.

A little Q&A

I recently responded to a questionnaire about masculinity. If you're not already gender-sick of this blog after my recent post about masculinity, I'm reposting some of the questions and answers here.

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I will preface all of my answers with this: whenever I contrast the experience of men and women in my answers, it's worth keeping in mind that I'm speaking of my personal experience as someone living in a wealthy, industrialized society.


Do you think that it's the 'End of Men' - is traditional masculinity at an end? And is that a good thing or a bad thing?

I don't think it's at the end. Maybe as a behavior it's waning ever so slightly, but as an institutionalized way of politicking and economics, no. It's not ending anytime soon, unfortunately.


What are the biggest problems men face today?

The biggest problems men face are not much bigger than what any human, man or woman or anyone else, is facing. In fact, despite any problems troubling men, they are typically less hindering than the problems harassing women. Of course, the problem is much more complex as you get into issues of race, class, geography, etc., but in general, men really shouldn't whine too loudly. Any additional grief compounding men's problems exist because of masculinity and the way in which other people, most likely men, try to control the behavior and expectations of other men. The fact that something such as seeing a psychiatrist for depression or not knowing enough about cars can be used to assail a man's identity demonstrates how deeply masculinity's dysfunctional roots grow.


How important is your gender identity to you?

Personally, I don't think about my gender identity too much. I spent most of my 20s being mistaken for gay (I'm not) because I don't subscribe to masculinity as a basis to make important life decisions. In other words, my gender identity is what it is. I'm comfortable in my own skin. The identity people try to project onto me tells me more about them than it does about myself.

How does sex affect your experience of being a man?

Having only had a hetero sex life, I try not to have any expectations from women in regard to having sex. If she isn't a fan of oral sex - in either direction - or anything else I might be interested in, it's highly disrespectful to try to talk her into doing it. It's not as simple as disagreeing on whether to get green peppers or green olives on a pizza -- we're talking about somebody's own agency over their body. I think we'd be horrified if we truly knew how many sexual encounters were a result of coercion. So, with that, I am mindful of how I navigate into sex and never assume any woman is the same.


When do you feel most vulnerable as a man?

I've spent my whole adult life depressed. When am I not vulnerable? It sucks. Interpersonally, there's always some vulnerability that has to be given with someone you're dating or sleeping with. If not, who wants to spend time a person who is willfully constantly detached?


What, in your opinion, does 'being a man' mean in this society, and how has that changed over the past two generations?

Here.


Time for the opposite question: what does 'being a woman' mean? How do you think things have changed for women over the past two generations?

I feel women have so, so much more bullshit to contend with than men. The commodification of a woman's body that starts when she's merely days old - if not before she's even born - is unlike anything I had to deal with as a male. I simply cannot imagine how hard that must be to contend with.

Things, I should hope, have gotten better in the past two generations. Feminist scholars like Susan Bordo, Andrea Dworkin, Carol Tarvis, and Joan Jacobs Brumberg (to name but a scant few) have done a lot to get the public to reconsider what we're doing to women and their bodies with the way culture projects insidious expectations onto them. However, just when I feel confident that it's gotten better, some dickbag like Rep. Todd Akin comes along and states his belief about women's bodies and it's like, "Christ, really? Still?" People like him are like cockroaches with their misogyny: for every one that you see/hear in the open, it probably means there's a hundred just like them hiding in the walls.


Are you a feminist? What can feminism do for men, and what can men do for feminism?

I'm cautious about applying the term "feminist" to myself because I am a man. It's a tricky question, because while I do agree with feminism and endorse the philosophy devoutly, I don't want to take away the agency of feminism from women. However, if that kind of exception were universally accepted, I recognize that saying only a certain type of person can be a feminist threatens to belie some important tenants of feminism. Again, it's a slippery question. If someone wants to describe me as a feminist, I welcome it. Asked to describe myself, I may say that I caucus with feminism. If given a forced opinion question and someone asked, "Yes or no, are you a feminist?" I would unwavering check the "Yes" box.


What about women as sexual/romantic partners (if relevant) - what role does that sort of relationship play in your life?

I like being equals. One cooks, the other cleans up; one mops, one dusts; one can shower first, the other can get the coffee started. These are hypothetical examples, but really, I don't like being put on a pedestal and I don't want someone to be my idol. I don't want to be a care-taker and I don't need a fixer. I want somebody who can challenge me without needing to be less or more than me.


Have you ever been sexist? In what way? Has the way you treat women changed?

I have no doubts that I have been sexist, but I cannot recall any immediate examples. Even the thought of doing it, and likely in a mindless manner, makes me cringe. I hate this goddamn culture.


What about sexual consent? Why do you think rape and sexual violence are so endemic in our society?

Because of masculinity and how it teaches men to be insensitive marauders when it comes to women's bodies. Masculinity teaches men that they deserve things, whether it's nice jobs or buxom women, and that it's okay to be as aggressive as necessary to secure those possessions.


What's your relationship to porn? Do you think it has affected the way you behave sexually?

I like porn but, Jesus, it's difficult to watch. Why does every goddamn scene have to end with a close-up of some disembodied enormo-cock ejaculating all over a woman's body (likely the face)? Whatever one's opinions of facials, why must the scene end upon male climax? If this is the sexual pleasure metric that porn is teaching men, then it's a wonder that any women anywhere would still want to sleep with us. At all.


When do you feel most 'masculine' and why? What things that you do make you feel masculine?

I really don't ever feel masculine. If I did, I would hope I have a friend who loves me enough to kick me in the grapes.


Do you ever worry about being misunderstood or misinterpreted because of your gender? When and why?

I do, but that's to be expected to an extent.


Do men experience sexism? In what way? Can you give examples from your own life?

I don't know, probably, but I'm not sure it's actually sexism and not just some knee-jerk butthurt feeling because someone, either a man or a woman, didn't recognize their masculinity and immediately kowtow.


How does race affect your experience of gender?

Being a straight white male in America is kind of a joke. As I've said previously, I feel like there's little to legitimately complain about insofar gender identity.

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It's odd that I'm actually using my college education - the actual content I studied, wrote about, and was graded on - more in the past couple of weeks than I have probably since I graduated. Can wheels turn backward yet project a forward motion?

Anxiety

Anxiety is dreading the life to come after survival, the pangs of despised love, the haunt of living a life tainted, the cage of rats fitted over your head. Anxiety is being tortured in Room 101, punishing you to the point that you desperately scream, “Do it to Julia! Not me!” except there is no Julia and there are no rats. There's no one to sacrifice, no one to relinquish the fear-torture. You are your own Room 101 and after the torture, you can only stare a stare into something in a mirror that looks back and says without words meant to be forgiving or understanding, “I betrayed you.”

Something given, something submitted.

When I was a boy, I remember hearing “Walk Like a Man,” by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, on the regular rotation of my parents' radio. I wasn't alive when the song debuted in 1963, but it's the music my parents listened to when I was young so, by proxy, I grew up listening to the same music they enjoyed growing up. I thought it was a fun, goofy song in spite of the irony I'd come to later recognize in how the singer claims he's going to “walk like a man” although he espouses his determination in a catchy falsetto.

On Friday night, a friend of mine was mad at me and in an attempt to coax me into speaking with him, he told me to “talk to him like a man.”

49 years separate the release of that Frankie Valli song and my friend's brash challenge, yet why does this masculine demand of doing something “like a man” persist? My copy of How to ____ Like a Man seems to have been lost in the mail so if there is a positive implication that accompanies this phrase, it's lost on me. All I hear in that phrase are the rabid growls of embattled masculinity.

While I'm still unclear on how a man walks or talks it out, I do know that the connotation of such a phrase is that if you're not doing something like a man, then you are something else. Something less, an Other. Like a woman? A ladyman? A pussy? To whichever of those less-than-man assignments the phrase points, the application of being something not-man is meant as a pejorative as well as an attempt to admonish that behavior based on the biologically defined role of masculinity (spuriously assuming such a thing even exists). Simply, if I'm not acting like a man, I must be acting like a woman and that is construed as a bad thing.

Beyond what this corrosive definition of masculinity is teaching men and boys about women, one man accusing another man of not doing something “like a man” perpetuates the notion that there's only one way to be a man. If you're not behaving according to this ur-masculine philosophy, then you're doing it like a not-man/woman and if you're doing it like a not-man/woman, then you're doing it wrong.

The specter of not living up to masculine designations pervades every aspect of our culture from grade school recess to national security. That men will try to use masculinity as a way to control other men is not constructive nor is it valid to defend this notion with questionable support from a Darwinist vantage. An argument that relies on such a paradoxically primitive notion to support masculinity doesn't do much in the way of convincing anyone how humans are supposedly more evolved than orangutans and mockingbirds. However, if we're truly that unevolved, I imagine it will be acceptable in the near future for guys to start tongue-bathing their genitals in public (I do not look forward to the subreddit cataloging these occasions).

Recommending that a man do something “like a man” is anachronistic if it was ever really useful in the first place yet you don't have to look far to see it still used, and in public forums no less. Living a life beholden to what is or isn't masculine as prescribed by society begets a life of anxiety and anger. It will make you vulnerable, insecure, and easily provoked. If you allow yourself to play into this role, whether you are the accuser or the accused, there will always be someone else out there who is “more masculine” than you and the path to being genuinely comfortable in your own skin will only grow longer with each step.

The militarized image of what a man is supposed to do or say is so rigid that it obscures the primary qualities of what we should all be striving toward: being an emotionally intelligent human being. If the singer of “Walk Like a Man” wants to cry because a woman has rejected him, that's okay. Heartbreak is hard. Being human is hard. But all of us, whether you are a single grown man or a father charged with raising boys that will one day be men, are subjects to compassion and depression and pride and loneliness so don't let threats to your masculinity deter you from those sensations.

Instead of being a man, just be you. Be decent and be kind. Be surprised. Be mad sometimes and be wrong sometimes. It's all going to happen whether you like it or not. No action or reaction a man has should not be comported into some superficial expectation of what a man is supposed to do. If you're a man, whether your walking or reading or fucking or praying, you're already doing what a man does. So let us agree that it's time to not only retire but refute the regressive notion that there is only one way to be “like a man” and start moving beyond the constrictions of masculinity.