Questions for the Men

[Efbee]

 When a man asks you what you are doing this weekend, what does that mean? And why do they do that with no intentions of asking a girl out? lol!!! It's like:

When I ask what a woman is doing this weekend it can usually mean two things: 
a) I'm interested in where she spends her free time, just for future references for conversation.
b) I'm interested to see if she's free for a date.
In the case of 'b' I have every intention to ask her out.
In the case of 'a' I'm only interested in what she likes to do.

 

[Efbee]

Agree with Rodent, there doesn't seem to be a positive way of defining masculinity any more that would be considered inclusive enough without making it meaningless.

Masculinity/manhood isn't allowed any value, and especially not if it's tied to biological sex. That would be gender essentialism...and that's Thoughtcrime. Try and argue for certain virtues as masculine virtues, as in found more in men than women, and you'll be accused of  old fashioned chauvinism or more likely labeled fascist/far right.

Did you catch Terry Crews comments on fatherhood? Notice the shitstorm, how quickly he lost his #metoo cred  after suggesting fathers have a unique role as parents. That wouldn't have registered as controversial 10 years ago. Now it's waay too offensive to single mums and gay/non binary/trans couples apparently. Again, if you tried to argue that men are better suited to certain jobs, that's not acceptable either. This doesn't really leave much in the way of specific roles for men.

Anyone trying to openly define it at this point usually has some agenda. If it's not conservatives or pick up artist idiots shaming men for not manning up, it's feminists/SJWs  blaming  everything on toxic masculine traits and cis-het white male privilege.

I don't really think about it in relation to my own life now as it's mostly irrelevant. As a father you'd have a better idea.

Why even try to define Masculinity? 
Who or what has put into the minds of men that Masculinity needed to be defined? Why can't Masculinity stand on its own merit like Femininity? I don't hear activists asking the population at large to define Femininity or love or attraction or infidelity.
Would men's lives be any better or worse if Masculinity was definitely defined?
Since when have men decided to participate in the mind games and honeysuckle tests that women like to get into? 
Ooops, yep, forgot... Conformity and Emasculation. Makes sense now.

 

[theablekingathelstan]

OK, so I'm not a man but, sometimes I would like to know what you guys think Soooo here is the thread to do it in.

Here is your first question. When a man asks you what you are doing this weekend, what does that mean? And why do they do that with no intentions of asking a girl out? lol!!! It's like:

Guy: What are you doing this weekend?
Girl: Oh nuttin.
Guy: Well, have fun.
Girl: **thinks to herself** what the hell was that? He asks me what I am doing and then doesn't ask me out**giggles**

Depends on the context. 
He may just be genuinely interested in what you're doing, and not in a potentially romantic way.

 

[theablekingathelstan]

As a man I don't get men's rights.

Yes, there are issues that effect us.

but most MRAs I see online aren't very wholesome. They're often pretty bigoted, and try to make MRA some counterpoint to feminism. This is disingenuous imho. Men still rule the world. Even in the West with legal gender equality, this is the case. men still earn more, and hold key positions of power. To say men are an oppressed class is therefore silly, since an oppressed class wouldn't have most politicians, busines sleaders, and decision-makers in a socity by definition.

MRAs would get more respect and credence if they picked apart the issues that men face, and not just say "men get as much honeysuckle as women too!!" well, yes, and no. Taking the USA alone, men still hold the power. Don't look silly and say this equates to the struggles women have faced historically and today.
Like most things it's just about communication and optics.
It's like a white-based group picking apart instances of anti-white racism and saying it equates to BLM or honeysuckle blacks, Asians, Hispanics in the USA face. No. not on the same level, and not even accounting for historical stuff like slavery, internship, or contemporary immigration issues.

 

[kaetic]

Was there a question in the somewhere?

Or are you just trolling some more?

 

[ardour]

Men also account for the majority of homelessness, completed suicides, have higher rates of alcoholism and drug addiction. The hierarchy goes something like...

minority of powerful men at the top --> average men and women --> majority-male underclass

 

[TheSkaFish]

Men also account for the majority of homelessness, completed suicides, have higher rates of alcoholism and drug addiction. The hierarchy goes something like...

minority of powerful men at the top --> average men and women --> majority-male underclass

Yep, this. I don't identify with the minority of powerful men at the top, their lives are a world away from mine. We're not the same, we have nothing meaningful in common.
I don't understand how that's hard for some people to understand.

Women who have problems get support. Men who have problems are expected to "man up" and "pull themselves up by their bootstraps", or else get written off as weak, inferior, and abandoned to all those things you listed. It's another example of why I am against "survival of the fittest", because it's an inherently cruel, violent, uncivilized system that mostly depends on luck - definitely not morality - and allows and even promotes suffering unnecessarily. It's "war against all, by all". We don't run on instinct alone. It doesn't have to be like this anymore, we have the technology and intellectual and emotional capacity to outgrow it. The fact that we've been regressing towards it is troubling.

Anyway, it's not like I am for MGTOW or anything either. Just like the extreme feminists, they also tend to cherry-pick the worst examples of things to justify their worldview, and just seem pretty negative/cynical in general. But still. "Men" aren't a monolith any more than women or anyone else are, and the "male privilege" only really applies to that minority of powerful men. None of the other men benefit from it, there's no trickle-down effect. That's why whenever someone talks about male privilege I'm like, what privilege. That hasn't been my experience. You're talking about someone else.

 

[theablekingathelstan]

Was there a question in the somewhere?

Or are you just trolling some more?

I said it's silly to assume men are second-class citizens. most MRA is nonsense. I made a point in good faith and you clearly didn't understand it.
men's rights is total bullshit, and most of the prominent ones online at least are actual Nazis.
Again, they need a re-brand, since I doubt people beyond the Web take them seriously.

there's a difference between saying "men have issues in society that are not born out well enough" and "men are oppressed, women are to blame, and women got rights so men can too!!" women 100 years ago in most nay all places were systemtically put down legally and societally. Men today are not. This is why I don't take men's rights seriously.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-class_citizen I don't see at all men in Westrn society or anywhere fit under this definition.
I'm just seeing through the MRA bullshit.
It's not my fault that MRAs lack good communication and persuasion skills, or mask their movement in bigotry.
https://www.advocate.com/women/2018/7/26/new-report-unequivocally-links-misogyny-white-supremacy

 

[theablekingathelstan]

Men also account for the majority of homelessness, completed suicides, have higher rates of alcoholism and drug addiction.  The hierarchy goes something like...

minority of powerful men at the top  --> average men and women --> majority-male underclass

Well they';re all fools if they cannot articulate their position properly.

yes, there are issues that affect men disproportionately. But why? Do they do studies to find out? Or is it all misandry and feminism? So women are to blame, evne though men still control societies and the world? Ironic, eh? I've never seen any men's rights advocate on or offline do this. 

Working class males still earn more on average than working class females.

They'd get taken more seriously if they removed the Nazi-esque bigotry, alliance with the alt-right, and actually had positions people could both logically and emotionally connect to. Or take a cue from trans people's push - they've pretty much gained way more acceptance (as an actual marginalised group who don't hold the social, economic and political power in the world)from stating why they fully deserve rights and recognition.

 

[theablekingathelstan]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men's_rights_movement#Relation_to_feminism

It's pretty obvious that the drive is underhanded and filled with bigotry.

 

[user 115627]

men's rights is total bullshit, and most of the prominent ones online at least are actual Nazis.

Can you name some of those prominent ones?

 

[theablekingathelstan]

men's rights is total bullshit, and most of the prominent ones online at least are actual Nazis.

Can you name some of those prominent ones?

The proud boys Gavin Mcinnes and other not so wholesome people

 

[ardour]

men's rights is total bullshit, and most of the prominent ones online at least are actual Nazis.

Can you name some of those prominent ones?

The proud boys Gavin Mcinnes and other not so wholesome people

Others? I wasn't familiar with Gavin Mcinnes outside of a name attached to  Proud Boys,  but it after doing some reading, he's a borderline mentally ill opportunist. Even the Southern Poverty Law Center doesn't agree with your lazy blanket assertion here. There are men's groups that focus on these specific issues.

 

[theablekingathelstan]

men's rights is total bullshit, and most of the prominent ones online at least are actual Nazis.

Can you name some of those prominent ones?

The proud boys Gavin Mcinnes and other not so wholesome people

Others? I wasn't familiar with Gavin Mcinnes outside of a name attached to  Proud Boys,  but it after doing some reading, he's  a borderline mentally ill opportunist.  Even the Southern Poverty Law Center doesn't agree with your lazy blanket assertion here. There are men's groups that focus on these specific issues.

and all dressed as some fallacious counterpoint to feminism. 
I said men have issues that aren't addressed, but pretending we're oppressed as women were isn't the trick. I'd give them more credence if they can structure arguemnts better.

and why are you limiting my opinion? Don't you say "everybody can have an opinion!!" aren't I part of that everybody, or have i violated your perception, or you say honeysuckle just for effect?

---

https://www.cordaid.org/en/news/we-are-all-victims-of-a-patriarchal-society/

https://medium.com/fearless-she-wrote/the-surprising-ways-men-are-oppressed-3036bd60d22c

I concur with the gist of these two articles.
Yes, men have issues.
But then I don't see how this equates to women's struggles.
This is my bugbear with MRAs. They are not coming from a wholesome place, imho, if they have to equate it with feminism or women's struggles. Or nitpick at what oppression means. Women not driving cars in Saudi was oppression. What women may soon face again in Afghanistan may be oppression. FGM in Asian and African countries is oppression. Again, it's up to MRAs to formulate better arguments.

 

[ardour]

Let's keep it to the West then, where feminists are apt to complain about the important issues, like not enough plus-sized models, manspreading on half-empty train carriages, pronouns for moonkin folk, or dongle jokes at an IT seminar.

 

[user 115627]

So the most prominent MRA is Gavin McInnes and the biggest """men's rights""" organization are the Proud Boys. Got it.

You are entitled to your opinion, but I don't think you know what you are talking about. You're all over the place. McInnes has always been an opportunist, Ardour is right on that. There's a reason why the Proud Boys do not even appear on the wikipedia page of the Men's rights movement which you have linked a part from earlier. In fact, It even has a ******* list of prominent MRAs, people that have done research and studies. Since your gripe is also with "online activists", do you think most self-proclaimed online feminists in the Western world do their own research and don't just read and quote other people or leading figures?

I don't get it, people say "Feminism isn't a monolith" and I grant them that, even going so far as to say that you cannot be against feminism per se, you can only argue against individual feminist positions. But for some reason the men's rights movement is not only a monolith, it also a complete caricature where every MRA claims to be oppressed on the level of 17th century peasant and totally is also a nazi. Yeah, something doesn't add up in your world view. If the sexist origins of office air-conditioning can be discussed, I think that neonatal circumcision and the male-only military draft are valid topics as well. And you don't need to be pro-FGM or think that women should be pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen for that.

The assertion that it's all just backlash already flew in your face, because the section that you linked has this quotation:

 

[theablekingathelstan]

Was there a question in the somewhere?

Or are you just trolling some more?

I just made some points which fit the topic. Why do you assume I'm trolling? for a professed wise person, you don't have good perceptions.

 

[theablekingathelstan]

Let's keep it to the West then, where feminists are apt to complain about the important issues, like not enough plus-sized models, manspreading on half-empty train carriages, pronouns for moonkin folk, or  dongle jokes at an IT seminar.

these are positions of wokeists, little else.

i still say most MRAs don't articulate their position well enough. I dont' care who disagrees - no group that still controls society is oppressed by any traditional measure.

 

[TheRealCallie]

Well then, perhaps we can get back to questions and stop hijacking the thread for some unrelated agenda.

Why do so many men send unsolicited dick pics?

 

[TheSkaFish]

Well then, perhaps we can get back to questions and stop hijacking the thread for some unrelated agenda.

^Agreed.

Why do so many men send unsolicited dick pics?

I don't know either, especially since almost everyone knows it doesn't work, and just makes the woman in question think of you as a creep/weirdo/loser.
I haven't heard of one case yet where someone was like, "well I wasn't sure about this guy at first, but I was won over on the dick pic."

Maybe they think it would be the same as if a woman were to send an unsolicited topless photo, or something?
Guy stuff doesn't work like that, though.

I think with women's sensuality it's like...this kind of "forbidden fruit" effect, that causes excitement. It's hard to get. If you're at a level where a woman would show that kind of stuff to you, you must be special or at least doing something right.
With guys it's more like bombardment, like it's being thrown at you whether you want it or not. It's like ugh...no...put that away. It's just not the same.