masculinity

... male company, sheer complicit male company: the complicity of males which is like, indeed is, a kind of complicity in crime, in chauvinism, in getting away with things, in just gluttonously enjoying the present even if hell is all around.

Of course, thousands of years of traditional masculinity weren't going away without a fight. They lingered in the vestigial memories of men, occasionally challenging a decision to read the directions or wear argyle, hoping for a day when a hurtling piece of space rock will send the world back to a time before the advent of styling gels.

Is there a support group for people who didn__ like __rokeback Mountain_? We must, if the rave reviews and the newspaper reports are to be believed, be a very tiny _ not to mention vulnerable _ minority. Am I dead inside because I didn__ experience the torrent of emotions I__e been reading about? Am I as emotionally crippled as Ennis because I didn__ blub and hug after sitting through this __isceral_ movie, but instead wanted to go and __elp with the roundup_?

One way, he thought, the whole thing of ring fighting was hurting somebody else, deliberately, and particularly when it was not necessary. Two men who have nothing against each other get in a ring and try to hurt each other, to provide vicarious fear for people with less guts than themselves. And to cover it up they called it sports and gambled on it. He had never looked at that way before, and if there was any single thing he could not endure it was to be a dupe.

There is a time in a boy__ life when the sweetness is pounded out of him; and tenderness, and the ability to show what he feels, is gone.

I never trust a man who tucks in his shirt by choice or neglects coffee in favor of tea.

DESTINY (Determined Effort So Tanacious It Negates Yuck)

God have pity on the smell of gasolinewhich finds its way like an armthrough a car window,more human than kerosene,more unctuous, more manly.

We need to begin to see hyper-masculinity as the disorder it is, and not as a strength.

Great men have great discipline.

The old 'qualities' of masculinity - a narrow focus on life, domestic incompetence signalling a mind on higher things, emotional reserve and acts of endurance - have become absurdities, signs more of incompetence, insensitivity, lack of intelligence than of strength.

The male orientation of classical Athens was inseparable from its genius. Athens became great not despite but because of its misogyny.

The bonding of women that is woman-loving, or Gyn/affection, is very different from male bonding. Male bonding has been the glue of male dominance. It has been based upon recognition of the difference men see between themselves and women, and is a form of the behaviour, masculinity, that creates and maintains male power_ Male comradeship/bonding depends upon energy drained from women.

This is why militarism is a feminist issue, why rape is an environmental issue, why environmental destruction is a peace issue. We will never dismantle misogyny as long as domination is eroticized. We will also never stop racism. Nor will we mount an effective resistance to fascism, which is the eroticization of domination and subordination__ascism is in essence a cult of masculinity. Those are all huge spin-outs from the same beginning. The result is torture, rape, genocide, and biocide.

For my relationships with men to change, I needed to change my relationship to myself as a woman.

Those four effects described above__haping a male-dominant view of sexuality, initiating victims, contributing to difficulty in separating sexual fantasy and reality, and providing a training manual for abusers__re at work just as much with men who have not engaged in activities that meet the legal definition of rape. Here we have to let go of a comforting illusion__hat there is some clear line between men who rape and men who don't, between the bad guys and the good guys.

I quickly found the dating/hookup app to be a dangerous addition to my iPhone. A friend recommended it after shit hit the fan with my boyfriend. With enough breakups under my belt, I knew that the healthiest remedy was a solid rebound fuck or two. Tinder made it easy- too easy. Suddenly, I could sit in traffic, on the toilet, or in line at the DMV and carelessly swipe, swipe, swipe my way to dick-on-delivery. Tinder selections are based on proximity via smart phones, so there are tons of tourists, travelers, and young professionals on business trips swiping through new hunting grounds. Its loose, easy-come-easy-go method made hookups as convenient as picking up lunch. Tinder__ nonchalance went both ways. We had nothing to lose.

Our goal should be not to redefine masculinity, but to abolish it.