fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3200 ]

[ SECRET POST #3200 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3200 ⌋

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Tangent and honest question: Is there a type of masculinity or an expression of masculinity that is not toxic?

I would tend to say yes.

go on.

well, it's a complicated question, because it implicitly involves talking about what counts as an expression of masculinity and what doesn't, and that's really hard. i'm not even sure there is such a thing as an essence of masculinity to start with. but with that said, i think it's probably useful to try to break it down into smaller questions.

first of all: is there any form of existence for males that is non-toxic? i think the answer to this question has to be yes, at least insofar as there's any non-toxic existence for human beings. unless you think that all men are literally evil, there just has to be. men are beings with reason and empathy, capable of kindness, etc. they're just as able to live in a non-toxic way as anyone. if you disagree with that, i'm not even sure what to say to you tbh.

so then the further question becomes this: is there any way of existing that is characteristically 'masculine' that is non-toxic? and that's a difficult question especially because as above the question of what counts as masculine is deeply unsettled. but i think if you consider a list of attributes commonly associated with masculinity, there are certainly things on that list that are virtues, and so i suspect that if there is maleness there is a version of it that is non-toxic. that you can construct out of those positive attributes.

but again, i'm not very certain about this. it's a difficult topic with a lot of thorny little subdivisions.

New anon

Masculinity: noun form of masculine: pertaining to or characteristic of a man or men (dictionary.com)

So any traits traditionally applied to men work here. This includes things like protection, self-reliance, leadership, manners before a lady, strength of both character and arms, and bravery. It also includes things like brutishness, misogyny, overbearing behaviour, and crudeness. Can we agree that's the starting point?

Over the last few hundred years, depending on your country of origin, women have begun claiming the virtues on the list as gender neutral. Women can be brave, protectors, leaders, and strong. That leaves only the bad traits. We usually recognize women *can* be those things too, but we still tend to overwhelmingly apply them to men.

What does this leave us with? Only negative traits considered truly masculine. Which isn't fair, as then the assumption swings towards 'all men are terrible' from 'some men are terrible', because the entire other half of the equation has been removed.

To answer your question, we first have to know what makes someone masculine? If the virtues are gender neutral, then no. There won't be non-toxic masculinity, because the word masculinity will have come to mean only toxic things. If the virtues are still considered traditional male traits (*that women can still have!* I am not implying only men have them!), then yes. Because at that point, I (who am female) exhibited non-toxic masculinity earlier when I helped a senior citizen walk down a flight of stairs. I did the same when I moved to a new city where I knew no one. Women who stand up for themselves or others have done so. Anyone who has ever held open a door for the next person has done so.

By the same token, a male who compassionately took in an injured animal showed non-toxic femininity and the male who was catty behind someone's back showed toxic femininity.

Or, we can agree that *all* traits are human traits and switch to using pride and vanity in place of words like macho, removing all the genders and focussing on calling anyone who is a shitty person a shitty person, regardless of gender. This would give us the benefit of not ostracizing non-shitty people by grouping them with shitty people.

It's more complicated in practice, because there's no way to remove millennia of history from society, but that's my take on it.

tl;dr there should be non-toxic masculinity if there is masculinity in general, but society is in an awkward growing stage where it's difficult to say that without sounding like a terrible person.

Another new anon likes your style.

Thank you!

Can we agree that's the starting point?

No. I've been gnawing this around all night, and for most of my entire life before that. I'm playing a bit of devil's advocate here since I don't quite have a clue as to where I stand in all this.

But the biggest myth of a gender binary is that there IS a gender binary. From my perspective at least. Stick a pin in Key West and stick another pin in Chicago and then declare that Key West and Chicago are binary. The Bear and rapist #1 may share a socially constructed class, but I don't think they occupy the same space. I lost my heart to a very gay man, tall, bearded, of all the right smells including bay rum and pipe tobacco. Rapist #1 was a whippet of a cross country runner, I heard he went into the Air Force. Two men but two cultures, two language codes, two radically different worldviews in the same town that pretended to be bigger than it was.

Which is the real masculinity? Both and neither in my opinion. Saying that all traits are human traits, well that's true but people are creatures of cultural construction. Chicago and Charleston are different. Hell, you cross the street in my neighborhood and the culture shifts in ways you can't take for granted. We gave up on the notion that religious worldviews fell onto a binary or polarity from atheism through polytheism to monotheism and back to atheism, instead, talking about emic ethnographies over a generation ago. Why can't we do the same for gender if we recognize it as culturally constructed to different degrees?

But gender plurality is a utopia I can't wait for. This week: therapy to deal with the echos of Rapist #1 (a man), Rapist #2 (a woman), and the perception that I'll end up like poor Larry King if I become visible again. (Actually that's next week. Today that process was derailed by having to deal with a dying bird, an emotional and religious thing that most regard as just plain wrong for my gender, such as it is. But thankfully, the usual filters of self-censorship I use to pass didn't kick in today.)

Next year, and the next: Finding or creating space to evolve on my own terms, without stuttering around the words or having panic attacks. Whether sie becomes more like The Bear or an androgynous hippy Unitarian churchlady I don't know. But it's my job to figure that out.

But I can say that I'm getting a bit sick of having these things defined for me and around me. I think it's also worth noting that there's a full century of bad blood, in the literal sense, behind people gerrymandering and playing the hokey pokey with masculinity around people like me. It's one thing for me to stick my own arm in and shake it all about as fairy. When other people try dictating to me the terms of my own gender, I start looking for the physical and rhetorical fist.

Re: Toxic Masculinity

(Anonymous) - 2015-10-09 05:17 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Toxic Masculinity

cbrachyrhynchos - 2015-10-09 07:25 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Toxic Masculinity

(Anonymous) - 2015-10-09 14:21 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Toxic Masculinity

cbrachyrhynchos - 2015-10-09 18:41 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Toxic Masculinity

(Anonymous) - 2015-10-10 06:01 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Toxic Masculinity

(Anonymous) - 2015-10-09 21:04 (UTC) - Expand

i think of the Bacha bazi boys. they undergo horrendous abuse at the hands of men, but they do it often willingly so that their mothers and sisters go unharmed. masculinity used to protect is about as untoxic as you can get.

Dont go on.

This would be right if not for the fact that the women are also raped. raped in much higher numbers than boys. These boys grow up and become the next generation of rapists of women.

So...we should just let them get raped? Because WOMEN are being raped even more. And those boys will just grow up to be rapists!

Or, we can recognize the cycle of abuse and break it.

Wow. You missed the point baaadly.

Male rape numbers are virtually unknown because it's so unlikely to be reported.

At any rate, there are a staggering number of male rape victims.

And guess what, women are rapists too.

I don't think there's a non-toxic form of "traditional masculinity" in American culture, though Gravity Falls seems to be trying to claim one. Broaden it, and definitions of "masculinity" vary so much between cultures that the question is almost meaningless.

I don't think there's a non-toxic form of "traditional masculinity" in American culture, though Gravity Falls seems to be trying to claim one.

I feel like there's something disproportionate about this sentence but I can't really put my finger on it.

Gravity Falls was the first thing that came to mind, and honestly, it's still the only recent thing that comes to mind. Most Americans who want to "reclaim masculinity" nowadays want to make it more powerful and dominant, because apparently American masculinity wasn't power-hungry enough already.

Edited 2015-10-08 23:56 (UTC)

Da

How is gravity falls doing such a thing? That's where my confusion lies. That is such a curve ball in your post.

Re: Toxic Masculinity

feotakahari - 2015-10-09 08:47 (UTC) - Expand

Toxicity is systemic.

If the system was not toxic, the individual-level wouldn't be either.

Um, yes? The one that's being claimed/constructed by butch women, and by many trans men. I mean, doesn't mean those groups can't display toxic masculinity, but if you want performative masculinity that consciously tries to address the toxicity, go investigate those cultures, because that's where positive masculinity is evolving.

so then you would say that cis het men are incapable of non-toxicity?

NA but yes I would.

would you mind elaborating on that?

What is "expression" of either femininity or masculinity? Since that's a bullshit concept, I'll say absolutely. Protecting others, fighting against injustice, modeling kindness and fairness, etc.

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