There seems to still be a lingering concept that things guys do need to be "manly" or "not girly"

[Ryan Hughes]

I dunno, man. I don't know how I want to weigh in on this thread, exactly, as I consider ertheKings thread kinda important, as I myself am going through some issues with gender identity and roles.

But a black belt who can beat everyone up can wear or do whatever he wants? Of course, it's not going to bother him if some people laugh, and he's certainly confident in his manhood- because he regularly breaks stone with his hands, got shot in a gang of toughs, and engages in hand to hand combat with people. Simply put, he already has engaged in many, many masculine, almost hyper-masculine endeavours. Great that he feels like he can wear something a bit feminine in design on occasion. But we all can't be ex-gangster ninja champions. He has that confidence to fall back on, and feel free to express himself.

I certainly don't mean to disparage the message, I think you are right- we should all be so confident, and do as we please, gender roles be damned. But this guy's life is not an everyman's tale, exactly.

I think you misunderstand. I often end up teaching women's self-defense nowadays, many of the students being victims of sexual or physical assault in the past. In the end, the only thing I can do for them is to help teach them not to think like victims. Because one hard truth is that if you think like a victim, you will become a victim, inevitably. If you think that you will never be confident, then you will never be confident. It is not about who's ass you can kick, it is about having the discipline to forgive and ignore those that mock you, and even those that attack you. I don't mean to belittle what you are going through, and you certainly have my sympathy, but if you want my advice, then you should do just what you said: do as you please and gender roles be damned. The only thing keeping anyone from doing that is merely the belief that they do not have enough confidence, not any physical training.

Well, this thread got completely derailed, I am afraid. . . My sympathies to the OP, but I am afraid there is little anyone can do to keep this from sinking into the great ocean of lunacy that is the Men's Rights philosophies.

 

[Pr0]

I'm not sure if this is relevant to the subject or not. But I think it is.

Five years ago I fell in love with my fiancee and she moved in with me. She had just completed law school. Regardless she failed her first BAR exam and was devastated. She spent the six months between tests completely unemployed and I, as a small business owner, paid all our bills and made sure she had every single thing she needed whether it was food, make up, clothes or even video games (cause yes she is a gamer). Price was no object, I never complained, I never said a word, just if something was needed, or even just wanted, I made sure we had it.

Six months later she passed her first BAR exam, she was extremely proud of herself and so was I, I was happy for her and helped her out as much as I could, we only had my car because she'd had no income and was unable to get her own, so I gave her my car so she could find jobs...but she never went out looking for jobs. She put out resumes...and no one ever called her back.

This went on for three straight years, where she would sit around the house, wallowing in unemployed misery, complaining about how the bottom had fallen out of the legal profession and there were too many lawyers and not enough jobs. She never once made any effort but to get a job anywhere else but in a legal office. She refused to take internships. She refused to do charity legal work, she simply sat around the apartment for three years while my savings slowly but surely drained themselves.

Whats more, shes incapable of cooking anything more complex than something she can put in the microwave, and even trying to encourage her to do something as little as do the laundry every week or so was like pulling teeth. She'd just sit in the office, playing whatever new game I'd bought her that was stopping her from being a complete depression wreck...as I did literally everything.

Last year, my business started to slow down, other services on the internet were cutting into my local profits and I was starting to slide pretty hard into the red, I was having to spend about two hundred dollars more a month than I was making so my savings started taking a huge hit....and it was at that point she finally picked up a paid internship with the local Public Defenders office. Over the year she worked there, she got brought on full time and started making around $45,000 a year. And in that period of time my net profit over expenses for business ramped down from around $52,000 a year to less than $16,000 a year.

And what happened when I told her I might need her to carry the load for a bit while I sort out how to recover from spending my lifes savings keeping her alive while she spent three years putting almost no effort our relationship other than "loving me"?, (which apparently is a lot of effort or something) she spent several weeks complaining about how poor we are, and how she needs to save money to get a car so I can have my car back so I get a job....at McDonalds..or anywhere. And the bad thing there is...I've spent the last ten years working for myself and not a lot of what I do can translate into the local job market at any lucrative level. So chances of me finding any employment above some kind of soul crushing minimum wage job are pretty low.

And not only that, I am also apparently responsible for still finding a way for us to get into a higher tax bracket, cause I'm still putting 10 - 12 hours a day into my business trying to pull the nose up on it, I'm also responsible for getting her a fucking 10 grand rock and finally marrying her (seriously the pictures of rings shes showing me almost make me pass out), and I still have to do all the fucking laundry, cook every fucking meal, do the fucking dishes, make her fucking lunch to take to work because there aren't any places close to the court house where she can go eat, clean up the fucking stack of trash of empty tea bottles and used napkins she can't seem to walk from her fucking desk in the office to the fucking trash can in the kitchen...and pay more than 70% of our total bills with the very small amount of money I have left. Oh and did I mention I have to do all this shit while dealing with her wild ass mood swings as well?

Oh and tonight while preparing her lunches for the week I was told that she would prefer I prepare a fresh sandwich every day, rather than me making five sandwiches and storing them in individual sandwich bins....so they're not squishy by Friday...apparently. When I pointed out that it was more convenient for me to do them in a batch rather than have yet another chore added to my list of things to do she got huffy and disappointed with me as if I was being an asshole for not making her lunch to her exact specifications. When I don't have to do it at all I just do it cause I don't want her not eating all day....cause I love her.

This is being a man apparently. Man having a fucking penis is AWESOME. I'm no MRA, but seriously, this shit sucks.

 

[Phasmal]

This is being a man apparently. Man having a fucking penis is AWESOME. I'm no MRA, but seriously, this shit sucks.

Woah, dude, that's a lot less to do with being a man.
A lot more to do with your relationship.

Sorry you're having a bad time of it, I recently supported my boyfriend through a year of unemployment, and I know that it sucks.
Lucky for me he just got a 6-month contract so we'll see where we end up in six months.

 

[EbonBehelit]

Honesty? You should deal with depression on your own otherwise it's not enough that you can't handle your own emotions you don't even have enough pride to keep that to yourself and you have to burden others with it.

This way of thinking is extremely dangerous. That it's a part of the 'masculine ideal' is what makes men far more likely to commit suicide than women.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

This is being a man apparently. Man having a fucking penis is AWESOME. I'm no MRA, but seriously, this shit sucks.

Right. And what concrete action can we take as a society to help with that? None. There is a serious problem with much of what has been said here, as it stems from either isolated personal experience or condescending generalization. Look, I am sorry about all that, but there is no law that I can help pass to clear up your relationship. However, there is a clear need for greater wage equality legislation, for stricter punishments for social institutions that cover up rape and sexual assault, greater law-enforcement presence in responding to online harassment, etc. All of which benefit men almost as much as women, as institutions like Penn State covered up the systematic assault of boys, etc.

BTW, women's desire for expensive diamond rings is a social invention. Invented by men. Harry Oppenheimer and Gerold M. Lauck to be precise, so if anyone, blame them. After WWII most women found diamonds to be unnecessary at best, and gaudy and self-indulgent at worst. Oppenheimer and Ayer changed that intentionally: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/304575/

 

[Phasmal]

I'm not going to blame anyone. I'm not looking for anyone to blame. Thats the difference between men and woman I guess. I'm not going to go to Congress and demand a better fucking fiancee...which in all fairness I think I deserve to after all the fucking effort I've put into her.

What I am saying is that what is apparently required of me is EVERYTHING...and what is required of her is NOTHING.

Hey, I'm sorry your relationship is bad, but that really has nothing to do with the way men and women are. That has to do with your relationship.

And thats what being a man is. DO ALL THE THINGS...get almost nothing in return. Women are self centered, arrogant, and seem to think that relationships are about them and they're doing men a favor by even being with them.

What the actual fuck dude. Do you mind not making horribly sexist statements? Is that cool?

But thats okay because of rapists and a "wage gap". I've never been a rapist and I've never denied a woman more pay than a man. But hey deal with your life of misery or live alone cause RAPISTS AND WAGE GAPS ARE REAL.

Having every hope of a relatively modest and comfortable retirement sucked out of my life is real too. But no one has to care about how men feel.

Deal with it. Thats what men are supposed to do. Deal with it. No feelings allowed.

You are most certainly allowed to have feelings, but going off on one about `women` in general isn't going to help your relationship.
Once again, I'm really sorry you have a bad relationship.

 

[Pr0]

I'm not going to blame anyone. I'm not looking for anyone to blame. Thats the difference between men and woman I guess. I'm not going to go to Congress and demand a better fucking fiancee...which in all fairness I think I deserve to after all the fucking effort I've put into her.

What I am saying is that what is apparently required of me is EVERYTHING...and what is required of her is NOTHING.

Hey, I'm sorry your relationship is bad, but that really has nothing to do with the way men and women are. That has to do with your relationship.

And thats what being a man is. DO ALL THE THINGS...get almost nothing in return. Women are self centered, arrogant, and seem to think that relationships are about them and they're doing men a favor by even being with them.

What the actual fuck dude. Do you mind not making horribly sexist statements? Is that cool?

But thats okay because of rapists and a "wage gap". I've never been a rapist and I've never denied a woman more pay than a man. But hey deal with your life of misery or live alone cause RAPISTS AND WAGE GAPS ARE REAL.

Having every hope of a relatively modest and comfortable retirement sucked out of my life is real too. But no one has to care about how men feel.

Deal with it. Thats what men are supposed to do. Deal with it. No feelings allowed.

You are most certainly allowed to have feelings, but going off on one about `women` in general isn't going to help your relationship.
Once again, I'm really sorry you have a bad relationship.

My fiancee isn't the only woman I've tried to settle down with in life. Shes just the last one....and she will absolutely be the last one. If this doesn't work out...I'm done, with women entirely, I'll just die alone with my cats...it'll be a lot easier.

Simple facts are is a lot of the women I invested time and effort into previous to my fiancee were just as bad as her if not worse...and even worse, they took me for whatever I could give them and then went for the "boyfriend upgrade" and left me for another guy who could get them another step up the ladder of living the life of the rich and famous.

Simple facts are is I've been used repeatedly by every woman I've ever been involved with. One of them even had me put in jail for grabbing her wrists because she was hitting me during an argument and I swallowed that shit too and soldiered on after coming home from my only night ever in a county facility, to find my front door wide open, and all my valuables gone because in her rush to leave for the next great boyfriend adventure she decided to leave the door unlocked and wide open.

Now granted I haven't dated every fucking woman on the planet...so anything I say is going to be a generalization based on my experience but its not a broad, sweeping, sexist generalization...its a direct life experience observance. Every time I've lowered my guard and cared about a woman I've been used for it.

I'm probably currently being used for it and my current fiancee just hasn't replaced me with another man because she feels like shes too old to go back into that game and what not.

Don't call me sexist because I'm angry with how women have treated me over my life, I'm not sexist because I've yet to have had a relationship with one that wasn't only concerned about herself. I'm apparently simply deprived of ever having met a sane woman.

Such is life....and I will deal with it, but don't expect me to sit here and spout platitudes and saccharine sweet idealizations of how perfect women are. Cause thats all bullshit...its all a lie. Everything to my 43 years of experience in life tells me its a lie. I have perhaps around ten major relationships since age 18 or so, I don't count high school sweethearts as part of that of which I only had one..but regardless, ten times I've invested myself, my personal finances and capabilities into trying to have a better life with a woman and so far, in all ten cases, the women spent their time using my resources to have a better life for themselves.

And I know I'm not the only man thats dealt with this and the poor bastards that I know that got roped into marriages and horrible divorces have it 100 times worse than me....at least I've been smart enough not to get any of these women pregnant or rush into marriage.

Not single, never divorced, yet still fucking miserable.....I'm sure we can find a way to blame that on me though because thats generally how that kind of thing goes.

 

[Bat Vader]

This is being a man apparently. Man having a fucking penis is AWESOME. I'm no MRA, but seriously, this shit sucks.

Right. And what concrete action can we take as a society to help with that? None. There is a serious problem with much of what has been said here, as it stems from either isolated personal experience or condescending generalization. Look, I am sorry about all that, but there is not law that I can help pass to clear up your relationship. However, there is a clear need for greater wage equality legislation, for stricter punishments for social institutions that cover up rape and sexual assault, greater law-enforcement presence in responding to online harassment, etc. All of which benefit men almost as much as women, as institutions like Penn State covered up the systematic assault of boys, etc.

BTW, women's desire for expensive diamond rings is a social invention. Invented by men. Mr. Harry Oppenheimer and N.W. Ayer to be precise, so if anyone, blame them. After WWII most women found diamonds to be unnecessary at best, and gaudy and self-indulgent at worst. Oppenheimer and Ayer changed that intentionally: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/304575/

I'm not going to blame anyone. I'm not looking for anyone to blame. Thats the difference between men and woman I guess. I'm not going to go to Congress and demand a better fucking fiancee...which in all fairness I think I deserve to after all the fucking effort I've put into her.

What I am saying is that what is apparently required of me is EVERYTHING...and what is required of her is NOTHING.

And thats what being a man is. DO ALL THE THINGS...get almost nothing in return. Women are self centered, arrogant, and seem to think that relationships are about them and they're doing men a favor by even being with them.

But thats okay because of rapists and a "wage gap". I've never been a rapist and I've never denied a woman more pay than a man. But hey deal with your life of misery or live alone cause RAPISTS AND WAGE GAPS ARE REAL.

Having every hope of a relatively modest and comfortable retirement sucked out of my life is real too. But no one has to care about how men feel.

Deal with it. Thats what men are supposed to do. Deal with it. No feelings allowed.

Generalizing an entire gender isn't right though. I'm sure some women are like that just as I am sure that some men are like that too.

 

[Lufia Erim]

Oh i thought you were talking about real men, not young adults. You see, young adults males (18-25) aren't "men". They still fall prey to peer pressure, and act in accordance to what society expects ( or doesn't expect depending on how rebellious they are.

Real men, or adults rather( 30-???) , do what they want because they want to). They don't fret over youtube comments, and what other people, especially online, say. I'd really have trouble seeing my father getting annoyed at what a bunch of kids say on the internet about men that does x,y and z.

You're gonna look back at this in 5-10 years and think " boy was that silly. It really doesn't matter .

 

[Phasmal]

My fiancee isn't the only woman I've tried to settle down with in life. Shes just the last one....and she will absolutely be the last one. If this doesn't work out...I'm done, with women entirely, I'll just die alone with my cats...it'll be a lot easier.

Simple facts are is a lot of the women I invested time and effort into previous to my fiancee were just as bad as her if not worse...and even worse, they took me for whatever I could give them and then went for the "boyfriend upgrade" and left me for another guy who could get them another step up the ladder of living the life of the rich and famous.

Simple facts are is I've been used repeatedly by every woman I've ever been involved with. One of them even had me put in jail for grabbing her wrists because she was hitting me during an argument and I swallowed that shit too and soldiered on after coming home from my only night ever in a county facility, to find my front door wide open, and all my valuables gone because in her rush to leave for the next great boyfriend adventure she decided to leave the door unlocked and wide open.

I'm sorry you've had bad experiences with women. I still don't believe in judging an entire gender on bad experiences.
When I have a bad experience with a person, it's because that person was bad. I can't pin that on their gender/skin colour/sexuality/preferred brand of cereal.

Now granted I haven't dated every fucking woman on the planet...so anything I say is going to be a generalization based on my experience but its not a broad, sweeping, sexist generalization...its a direct life experience observance. Every time I've lowered my guard and cared about a woman I've been used for it.

Calling women self centred, arrogant and saying that they feel they're doing men a favour by dating them is a broad sweeping sexist generalisation. It's terrible if that has been your experience, but saying that's what women are is exactly a broad sweeping sexist generalisation.

I'm probably currently being used for it and my current fiancee just hasn't replaced me with another man because she feels like shes too old to go back into that game and what not.

Don't call me sexist because I'm angry with how women have treated me over my life, I'm not sexist because I've yet to have had a relationship with one that wasn't only concerned about herself. I'm apparently simply deprived of ever having met a sane woman.

I didn't call you a sexist. I said you made a sexist statement.

Such is life....and I will deal with it, but don't expect me to sit here and spout platitudes and saccharine sweet idealizations of how perfect women are. Cause thats all bullshit...its all a lie. Everything to my 43 years of experience in life tells me its a lie. I have perhaps around ten major relationships since age 18 or so, I don't count high school sweethearts as part of that of which I only had one..but regardless, ten times I've invested myself, my personal finances and capabilities into trying to have a better life with a woman and so far, in all ten cases, the women spent their time using my resources to have a better life for themselves.

And I know I'm not the only man thats dealt with this and the poor bastards that I know that got roped into marriages and horrible divorces have it 100 times worse than me....at least I've been smart enough not to get any of these women pregnant or rush into marriage.

Not single, never divorced, yet still fucking miserable.....I'm sure we can find a way to blame that on me though because thats generally how that kind of thing goes.

Once again, I am genuinely sorry that you are miserable.
I'm not trying to convince you that women are perfect. Just that they're people, and are all different.

 

[Pr0]

Once again, I am genuinely sorry that you are miserable.
I'm not trying to convince you that women are perfect. Just that they're people, and are all different.

Would you tell a female rape victim the same thing? #notallmen...arerapists? Would she believe you?

I believe my life experience with women has been something like reverse rape. Just instead of having my life threatened and my body used against my will, I have my entire livelyhood threatened and all my financial and personal resources used under duress.

Duress being, if I go...hey, fix your own fucking sandwich...hey, clean up your own fucking garbage, hey, do your own fucking laundry, she'll just go get the dreaded "I'm leaving" suitcase out of the closet, call her parents, beg them for a plane ticket (because apparently a fucking lawyer can't afford their own air fare these days) and she'll leave and I'm likely to have wasted every thing I put into this girl, which was every dollar I've saved in the last ten years...simply to try to have a happy life with her.

And yeah its a bad relationship and I get that not all relationships are bad but all of mine have been horrible and this ones literally emasculated me down to being a housewife and I never once even required that of my fiancee once it was apparent she had no fundamental skills associated with it in the first place.

I expected us to be intellectual equals, working together as a partnership, but what she expects is me to do whatever it takes to ensure she can treat her professional salary like its a fucking allowance. Up to and including whoring myself at McDonalds..simply to ensure that I, as the man, am taking care of all the financial responsibilities.

Its reverse rape. We had sex con-sensually and from there on out, shes gotten to use everything about me that can make her life better.....with no regard for the mental, emotional and financial costs to me.

And don't even get me started about trying to have an "honest" conversation with her about how shes making me feel. I've been there.....its not pretty. The one time we had that discussion...the suitcase came out...and I was told what an asshole I was for bringing up the fact that she'd drained my entire savings...and if we were to break it off, a "real man" would simply tell her goodbye and that we'd had a nice life together.

Apparently that only happens with real men that still have 90 grand in the bank and won't end up living at the fucking YMCA because they cared enough about a woman to give her absolutely everything they had.

 

[apollogon]

How did it end up here?

Pr0 you need to become an stronger authority in your own life. Stop complaining about it and do something. Be more selective with women? Either way you should seek a more appropriate forum to vent on.

 

[Pr0]

How did it end up here?

I'm sorry did I derail a topic about big social issues that no single individual here is ever going to be able to change with a real life account of why I feel because of "manly" expectations my entire life has been taken advantage of and has lead me to nothing but misery? I thought that was the thread subject.

I realize its currently not in fashion to blame women for anything...but seriously.

Also as far as being selective with women. I think you'll find, once you're over 40, your selection of women is as follows

- No women
- The ones that are left that didn't have kids
- Professional girlfriends (the polite term for higher class whores).

Thats pretty much the long and short of the list for non-D List and above celebrities and/or < $250,000 bank accounts.

So my advice, ignore capital, attempt to become at least a D List celebrity.

 

[Lupine]

Snip

I was talking about the way that men themselves act. What you're talking about is pretty much going off an a completely unrelated tangent. I was talking about people within the male gender trying to keep up this "men have to be big tough and strong and not like girly shit" crap, and you go off about how men have to accept their lot in life and how people mock any push back against "men's rights". That isn't even vaguely related to what I was talking about. There's a discussion to be had in what you're talking about, but please make your own thread if you want to do that and don't derail mine.

Cultural holdover man. Cultural holdover. Once upon a time men (i.e. most men) were needed and thus expected to participate in warfare. Warfare itself was of course far different and soldiers needed to be trained from birth and much more rigorously seeing as all of their lives would revolve around nothing but warfare or at the very least so much of it as to the rest meaning less culturally. So to that end, certain social values that made it easier to mold soldiers were thus attached to masculinity in effect marrying what it means to be a man to what it is to be as soldier and fit for a battlefield of the times.

Of course there are what might be biological components in there (i.e. testosterone feeds aggression and vice versa, men being on average larger and stronger) the point however was that it was a cultural prerogative born of the times that allowed our ancestors to survive, thrive, and murder each other for profit. It became a part of the cultural fabric because it was so successful and what we experience now is hold over from those cultures, modified with age and belief systems into what we have today.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I realize its currently not in fashion to blame women for anything

It's also not in fashion to condemn the entire gender, which might just be the problem here.

 

[apollogon]

I realize its currently not in fashion to blame women for anything

It's also not in fashion to condemn the entire gender, which might just be the problem here.

It's also pretty easy to mentally replace "all women" with "all women in his life" without making a big huff about nothing. Best not further drag out this off-topic kerfuffle...

 

[Ryan Hughes]

Once again, I am genuinely sorry that you are miserable.
I'm not trying to convince you that women are perfect. Just that they're people, and are all different.

Would you tell a female rape victim the same thing? #notallmen...arerapists? Would she believe you?

I believe my life experience with women has been something like reverse rape. Just instead of having my life threatened and my body used against my will, I have my entire livelyhood threatened and all my financial and personal resources used under duress.

To answer your question: yes, I would. And in fact, I have, because it is a fact that not all men are rapists. Any woman, regardless of what has happened to her, will destroy herself if she continues to live in fear of half of the people on the planet. Same with any man, if they live thinking that half of everyone is out to use them, they will be twisted and warped beyond all recognition eventually.

Slow your roll. I feel for you, I really do, as I have been used before as well. I dislocated my knee and was in awful pain, unable to really walk for almost a month. We had been dating for roughly a year, and I was even beginning to consider asking her to marry me on our second anniversary. But, as soon as I truly needed to lean on her for the first time in our relationship, she broke up with me. I later found out she had been cheating for a short while before that, and she was not the first of my girlfriends to do so. However, if I let her actions skew me against all women, or if I let her twist me into something that I know I should not be, only then will she have been truly victorious over me. That is the only point at which I will truly lose.

My -admittedly unsolicited- advice: Tell her that you are not buying her a diamond, and show her that Atlantic article I linked above. Say that you still love her, but refuse to become a patron of de Beers' cartel, or buy a so-called 'blood diamond.' If she refuses and does not understand your moral conviction, then break up with her, because if she is not even trying to understand how you feel for loss of some shiny rock, then she is not worthy of you anyway.

In the meanwhile, the condescending generalizations against women are the literal definition of sexism: when you make decisions, assumptions, or judgements about a person based on their sex, that is always sexism. Literally.

 

[nightmare_gorilla]

I've been thinking about this same thing alot myself for a long time. This idea that all men are being raised to be axe body spray commercials is always weird to me. I'm a bit of an odd duck, I actively dislike sports, I don't drink, not for any philosophical reasons i'm not a reformed alchoholic I just don't enjoy the taste of beer or liquor. I read dragon lance, I play d&d and video games, I read comics. I havn't been in a fight since highschool. I also know how to frame a wall, hang sheet rock, I can replace a toilet from start to finish, I refinished an entire basement from laying tile to building shelves and painting the walls. I'm handy as fuck.

I've felt some pressure to be "manly" but I've never felt the need to prove my masculinity to anyone. I get lots of crap for not being a drinker but mostly people just look at me like i'm a fucking martian men and women. but socially? i've never felt the need to "man up" Yeah there's the dumb commercials but have you ever seen the reactions to the commercials that try to shame men into being more "mannish"? they get laughed out of the room. at least the people i know laugh em off. Even my dad who's pretty old fashioned doesn't let stupid shit like that get to him. I think the idea of the knuckle dragging neanderthal is as outdated as the family dynamic from "leave it to beaver".

Honestly I think most people are mad at advertising not so much real people. the made up stereotype budweiser is advertising to is who feminists and the like hate. Maybe we ALL need to realize that person doesn't exist.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Masculinity, like femininity, is a concept that's torn between what's expected of either gender and what's natural for each individual.

Biologically, I'm a guy. Assuming I felt the need to transition, no amount of hormone therapy or surgery could change the way my DNA is organized. By Mother Nature's decree, I am a boy. It's an inescapable fact. That's sex, though. Not gender.

The notion of gender, however, is undergoing a bit of a mutation - as are the notions associated with each gender. Jump online and you'll quickly see how self-determinism is something of a hot new panacea in some counterculture groups. Manliness or proper ladylike behavior are falling by the wayside in favor of increasingly complex labels that really fail to recognize the fact that people *constantly* change. I'm convinced that a lot of the self-proclaimed asexuals and aromantics out there haven't found the one special someone, biological sex be dammned, that would do it for them.

If people change, then what's manly or girly should also be expected to change. The mainstream sets a certain standard, but today's stringent attempts at tolerance make it hard for a lot of the fearful and bigoted types to manifest their disapproval of things that are, all things considered, fairly harmless. As yes, for all of the articles about this or that backwater State's dismissal of LGBT rights and all the hubbub about racial issues that have cropped up, 2015 is a much more tolerant year to live in than, say, 1785. Large swaths of the population stand behind people who have a different conception of their gender roles from the norm, and these people aren't being demonized outright.

Long story short, OP - I doubt you'll ever stop hearing third-wave feminists clamor that men have no rights to protest for that they haven't already claimed, or especially stop hearing casual slurs tossed at the one guy in the corner who wasn't blessed with the arbitrarily masculine lantern jaw. All you really need to know is that these are ripples in a pond that's altogether far too big to be disturbed by them.

Men have rights, the same as women, and some of these rights can, have and will be abused. The aesthetic masculinity of someone's physical form doesn't impact his or her testosterone production; but there's always going to be an ad agency around the corner, just itching to design the next cologne ad for chiselled abs and perfectly parted hair.

You're better off ignoring the mainstream, honestly, while keeping it somewhere in your general consciousness. Doing what you want and pursuing your interests is fair game, but don't fall off the deep end the way some fandoms have - assuming that a product catered for prepubescent girls is actually being tailored for Pop Culture-savvy thirtysomethings.

 

[DementedSheep]

No. You should be feeling empathy towards these people. You shouldn't be talking about how they're weak and have no pride.

You made a reference to their "fuck ups and failings" in regards to them being depressed, so really you make it sound like they just need to stop fucking up to stop being depressed. An oversimplification of depression if there ever was one, and which frankly isn't that far away from saying "Just stop being depressed.

That was more in regards to how the accusation of victim blaming keeps begin used but yeah, being depressed is a failing on your part in and of itself. That it's not easy to stop doesn't change that.

See, there's a term for that. Fair weather friends. Friends who are only around when things are convenient for them. Fair weather friends are not real friends.

Why should people stay? because they'll maybe be there later? friendship is based on mutual benefit and enjoying each others company. How long are you expect to someone to stick around when that isn't true anyone? 1 year? 2? 3? 4? Friends forever no mater what is a nice sentiment in the movies but that's all. Eventually it's not friendship, it's obligation.

It's all in their head? Half of the things we experience is "just in your head". That lunch you ate and thought it was delicious? It's because signals got sent to your brain telling you that it was good. The feeling of happiness when we have a good day is our brain telling the body to produce more hormones because it decided we were in a good mood. So when you say depression is "all in your head" that means NOTHING because half of our life is "just in your head." It's a drain? So? It's a drain? School is a drain. Work is a drain. I don't throw my hands up because of that. Yes, your mom would worry. She's your mother. It's her JOB to worry about you. She's worried about your school, your job, your health, your grades, your living conditions and your eating habits. I don't know your mother, but I doubt she's incapable of also worrying about how you feel. And there's a difference between being depressed and being sad. Telling your friends about your depression might make them sad or worried, but it wouldn't make them depressed, which is a freaking medical condition and not just a state of mind.

No, it wouldn't give them depression. Instead you give them regular old stress and worry but hey, if they are already worried about some other things it totally ok to give them more things to worry about because unless it full on depression it doesn't matter.

Pretty it up however you want, you want depressed people to sacrifice their long term mental health just because you don't want to put in the effort to help them. Oh, I guess the should've just left and let the depressed person kill themselves. And if the depressed person had just been quiet about it...they would've committed suicide anyway. So I'm not sure how your proposal would solve that problem. And there's a difference between being depressed and threatening suicide to keep someone in a relationship
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Oh, I don't doubt you had issues with depression. I just don't feel like you learned a thing from it. Something you have yet to convince me wrong on.

and this is precisely the problem. You have a thousand other things to do but if you don't hang around, if you don't help them "enough" now it's your fault they committed suicide or your fault they're not getting better. It's roping people in with guilt.