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Crisis of masculinity

I have been to your part of the country and I have lived in cities of that size. All I can tell you is "it's all relative." I am sure you have been to many places less gender progressive than Charleston in the US, but you don't live in the same world I do by any stretch, and women don't have the same view of themselves by any stretch, and places that size are the perfect size for all the worst things in dating (Minneapolis is the same in that particular regard). Your "progressive" is my "1950's," and I would sooner commit myself to being a cat lady than try to date anyone in Charleston. I just wouldn't get along. Dressing like a hipster is easy, but thinking totally outside your culture is a completely different thing. So we just need to accept that we have different standards of what counts as enlightened gender dynamics, when discussing this.

And what's hard about this is that you're using "choice" to describe women who you said are literally being grabbed and simply failing to put up a fight. I'll tell you something: all of us, no matter how progressive, have that experience. 'K? It's not because we were ok with what was happening. It was because we were kind of intimidated and decided it was easier to go with it. Every woman has that experience.

Here's the difference between where you're coming from, and where I'm coming from: Where I come from, women find their voices as they age in order to stop situations like that -- usually by their early 20's. Where you're coming from, they don't. Ever.

I never said someone with Ryan's view may not pull regularly, especially in the kind of environment you're in. What I said is that in order to do that, they have to understand how their personality can get in their way so that they can put on a good enough front when they're trying to get laid. The reason I don't believe Ryan or Grimm is because neither display the self-awareness to accomplish that.

If they want to go after the women with less money and lower ranking jobs, then why don't they do that very often? I mean, they're around. I'll tell you why they don't, and it's yet another thing you don't understand about the culture I'm talking about: they want a woman who likes her career as much as they do. It's something they consider important in terms of having things to talk about and sharing common ground. They don't see what they'd have in common with a woman who doesn't care about the thing she spends 40 hours a week doing, or wants to just stay home all day eventually. To them, that's not someone they could have fulfilling conversation with.

And finally, I wouldn't use the word "tactics" to describe the demographic I'm talking about. Some people in this milieu of society do use tactics, but I really don't think that's it. I would use the word "hang-up."

I really think they just don't know how to express that they like someone -- either men or women. In a way, sex is an easier way to get intimacy needs met: they can just wind up falling into it without a conversation or having to ask for what they want. I've been on the listening and observing end of plenty of guys who hooked up with someone they wanted to date, but just never managed to make the words come out of their mouth. And women too -- this one goes both ways.

I mean, keep in mind, even in this very cosmopolitan world, 90-odd percent of men say on surveys that their goal is to find a nice woman and/or have a kid or two. My experiences generally support that. And yet, at the same time, some of them are well into their 30's and still haven't managed it.

You're right that a lot of women are confused about what they want. I think a lot of men are too. Why? Well, man, what a cluster...

Our concept of what it means to be partnered has something to do with it. It struggles from a pretty bad image problem, largely inspired by your part of society.

Our concept of what counts as intimacy (emotions do, sex doesn't) has something to do with it.

The on-going push-pull between the old strong-and-silent stereotype and the new more open man has something to do with it -- often they just open up in some areas more than others.

The affliction of the creative mind probably has something to do with it too, I think. All the world's a stage, and every new character is greener grass... in theory.

So, again... come on now, you might enjoy this.

Fair enough, I suppose. While I, admittedly, remain somewhat skeptical that the environment you're speaking of here really breaks established norms to the extent you claim, and I also think you're making some assertions here that would be rather hard to verify in any real sense, I will also freely admit that it's not something with which I have any great amount of personal experience.

In any eventuality, what, exactly, are you looking to discuss?
 
Not only porn and videogames make such effect, young men must also do exercises to look like men.
 
cpwill said:
We have a generation of men who are uninterested in being fathers to their children. I'd call that pretty much a crisis of masculinity. We haven't raised men. Just... older adolescents, wishing to enjoy the benefits of adulthood while avoiding responsibility.

While I agree with this, I think there's another side to it, which is that it seems less and less like there's a place for young people in our society. Part of the crisis is that people don't interact as much in a face-to-face manner as before (this is, incidentally, also happening with young women. That just hasn't yet become part of the social narrative). When we can offer little of meaning to a person, why in the world would they join with us?

Part of the issue is what we've come to define as meaningful. Most people these days are materialists at heart--even those who claim to believe in God and a soul. Most artistic portrayals of death depict it as like entering a big void in which the dying person ceases to exist. The only thing that matters, because it's the only thing that can matter in such a situation, is the accumulation of material stuff. Both conservatives and liberals play into this narrative. Liberals do so with the complex of rhetoric surrounding the idea that religion is some mean artifact of long-past inaccurate concepts of the cosmos. Conservatives do so with the complex of rhetoric surrounding the idea that the rich are virtuous and to be admired rather than denigrated.

So with that goal in mind, and an honest appreciation of how difficult it is to accumulate anything more than what is usually considered a baseline of material possession, people have what should be a predictable reaction: they unplug.
 
Not only porn and videogames make such effect, young men must also do exercises to look like men.
Exercising is just an another word for narcissism. Men don't need to look like men, they need to be men. It requires real social interaction and hard work which means spending time outdoors.
 
Grow some hair
 
OP, I think it's just that the definition of masculinity is expanding, and there isn't a crisis.

People who think masculinity should be so narrow as it was 50 years ago are the ones perceiving a crisis.

There are so many different kinds of men out there and they all deserve to be treated with decency, instead of being expected to fit into a box.
 
But what the PC crowd won't tell you is that social constructs matter a great deal in life whether you want them to or not. I'd rather deck out my socially constructed masculinity so that I have the 20 year old blonde blue eyes girl underneath me rather than refuse to play the masculinity game and settle with porn or a fat girl instead. No thanks to that. I'd rather do whatever it takes. (be that pretend to be religious, pretend to like country music, pretend to like rap, whatever, who gives a ****?) You just have to be comfortable with who you are then the means to the end matter a lot less because you understand that yes, masculinity is simply something you have to project if you want a ****able girl.

Things you'll learn over the coming years:
1. Women are more than just sexual objects to be conquered.
2. There are things that are far more important than looks.
3. Sex isn't as big a deal as you thought it was.
4. Pretending to be something you aren't is a recipe for a failed relationship and/or unhappy marriage.
5. Women like real men, not stereotypes of masculinity.
 
There is no crisis of masculinity. There is only a lack of societal acceptance for people who view masculinity as the ability and willingness to punch people who are smaller than you. This evolution of society is centuries in the making and has nothing to do with video games.

This is the best response I've seen to the complaining about masculinity I've seen so far.

First of all there are attacks on masculity.

1. Pollution and toxins in Food, the atmosphere and plastics are actually harming testosterone Levels for babies and children, leading to problems such as more instances of testicle cancer and so on ... if the right wing cares so much about masculity, they would push for regulations and Public accountability for these Food Companies and pollutors ... nope, they don't want to do that because it's an offence to their own Triune God (Markets, Profit and Property).

2. Mass layoffs which leave many men unable to provide for their Family, layoffs in profitable Companies that are done simply to maximize short term profit ...

These are Things that ACTUALY hurt men, and they are caused by the sacred cow of the right wing that is capitalism.

But here's the problem, the right wing has adopted this twisted (completely unchristian) view of Masculinity which reduces masculinity to nothing more than, as Paschendale put it, punching People who are smaller than you, getting Rich and ****ting on People below you in the buisiness ladder, and having a lot of guns, because aparently having the ability to kill People without any physical ability is manly and tough.

The Perfect representative of this is Ted Nuget, a guy who goes around With Guns pretending to be all manly, but in reality, when he was gonna og to Vietnam, he literally **** himself to get out of it.

Talking about having guns and killing People With them isn't manly, being cruel to those With less advantage than you isn't manly, it's being a little bitch.

Eugene Debs opposed the first world war, openly, and he went to prison for it, that's a manly response to violence, not celebrating it.

Jesus Christ refused to retaliate to those who abused him, he Allied himself With the weakest of society and showed them respect and reverence.
 
When we start with the fact that the definition of "masculinity" has changed so much over the centuries and millennium, there really can't be a crisis, at least not in terms of it disappearing. I do fear of society becoming less social. I find myself thinking of the movie Wall-E, where there were people ridding the transports and talking on a vid screen, with someone right next to them!

I agree, yet, yet you support total Capitalism .... Strange.
 
Do you believe that our society is facing masculinity crisis due to overload of porn and video game content? Instead of communicating with people and learning how to live a real life many young people isolate themselves in their rooms. Playing games while chatting with your friends may seem like a nice substitute to the real life communication, but it's a completely different thing. Maybe that's why there are so many feminists out where because they can't find men capable to raise their potential children?
Feminists shouldn't be permitted to have children. Hand that rocks the cradle... you seem to have things backwards. Feminists CAUSED the problem and porn is the treatment. Not the other way round
There is a research conducted by a leading Stanford psychologist who shares that point of view.
Porn and video game addiction leading to 'masculinity crisis', says Stanford psychologist - Science - News - The Independent
Is there any possible way to reverse the trend? I don't want to live in an effeminate society where gender roles are completely wrecked.

It won't be effeminate, it's getting more emasculate.
 
I agree, yet, yet you support total Capitalism .... Strange.

Your conclusion is erroneous and baseless. Please cite your evidence for my support of total capitalism.
 
Your conclusion is erroneous and baseless. Please cite your evidence for my support of total capitalism.

Libertarian Lean .... Libertarian, at least in the United States generally means a support for total Capitalism.
 
Libertarian Lean .... Libertarian, at least in the United States generally means a support for total Capitalism.

First lean means lean, not follows absolutely.
Second, you noted generally, which means that there are those who do not.
Third, most libertarians do not support "total capitalism". While we prefer smaller, and more importantly, more local government, we also recognize the need for some regulation within the market.

Simply because a certain label of the the available choices is used as the best fit does not mean that it is a perfect fit or that the individual follow all of the stereotypical aspects of that label.
 
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