I just read Kim du Toit's post on manhood, and I have to admit to being a tad annoyed.
While du Toit makes some good points, the overall tone strikes me as one of bullying and attempted argument by intimidation, and I don't like being bullied.
You know the definition of homosexual men we used in Chicago? "Men with small dogs who own very tidy apartments."
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I want our literature to become more male, less female. Men shouldn't buy "self-help" books unless the subject matter is car maintenance, golf swing improvement or how to disassemble a fucking Browning BAR. We don't improve ourselves, we improve our stuff, and how we play with it.
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And finally, I want men everywhere to going back to being Real Men. To open doors for women, to drive fast cars, to smoke cigars after a meal, to get drunk occasionally
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You don't have to become a fucking cartoon male, either: I'm not going back to stoning women for adultery like those Muslim assholes do..."
Gee, thanks for telling me I don't have to be a cartoon!
I don't like having homos defined for me or being told what to think or what to buy or read or what to drink -- or how to "be a man." I reject all forms of control, whether by women, leftists, rightists, the gay movement, self-styled "real men" -- or Kim du Toit. I am sick of being told that "homos" are not men and all the rest of it. Sick of listening to drivel about how I should conduct my life. I take care of my own business and I don't appreciate gratuitous advice on "manhood." Women have not pussified anybody (especially the "us" to which I don't belong and don't want to belong), and if some men have pussified themselves it's their own individual fucking business.
There's too much use of the word "we" in this post, and it makes me very suspicious when people try to tell me what "we" have done wrong. I use the word occasionally and I shouldn't. But this is just plain heavyhanded. Reminds me of the gay, self-appointed Stalinist "leaders" who greeted me with boos, jeers and catcalls for owning guns. Of leftists who called me a "traitor" when I was on the Berkeley Police Review Commission for not going along with their version of "we."
If du Toit does not consider me a man, what the hell am I supposed to do about that? Wallow in fear? Try to conform myself to his values?
Sorry, but when I feel insulted and bullied I must protest.
Nobody "makes a man" out of me! That stuff is for mindless sheep and wannabe nerds.
You wanna know who I think is a real man? My blogfather, that's who. He's more of a man than all these people who run around blaming homos and women for their insecurities.
This "real man" bullshit comes on top of an insulting test which tells me I am not enough of a Metrosexual!
You're an average Joe. Almost wallpaper. You shop at the mall, furnish your home at the department store and spend your weekends watching sports. If you were any more plain, you'd be Al Gore.
Our advice: Get a life, get a personality and get some style.
Or get a love interest who can do it for you.
I quite agree, Eric. Gays are supposed to be flamboyant and fashion-sensitive; straight men must not like physical contact and must be "strong and silent". It hurts straights by depriving us of our human need to show emotion and affection; it hurts gays by pigeonholing them in similar ways. I can be flamboyant, I'm an unabashed lover of chick flicks, and I'm perfectly straight. It hurts that many, especially my fellow evangelicals, don't seem to understand that. I'm a flamin' calvinist, if I can get this why can't the "tolerant" liberals?
Well I live in London so it might be a tad different. But I smoke churchill maduro cigars, drink champagne, don't have that tidy a flat and don't but self-help books. I exfoliate, use hair care products, wear waistcoasts and cravaets. I open doors for ladies, drink to excess at times and like to drive fast.
Wow, thanks for the comments. Tim, glad to hear from my favorite Calvinist!
Dean, while I am not sure that gay gun nuts will ever have the numbers to take over, they are a very dangerous phenomenon because, having been rejected by both side of what passes for the political spectrum, they cannot be controlled and are not easily intimidated. Socially and politically outside the sweep of society's radar, beyond conventional social controls, yet still at liberty to advocate freedom on the Internet, gay gun nuts represent a gritty form of home-grown independence not seen in this country since pioneer days.
No, we *definitely* don't want to have independent-thinking citizens. Next thing you know, they'll get together and solve social problems themselves. Then how will the Elect Ones in Washington DC be able to justify taking our money? If we're not careful, democracy just might break out.
Hah.. what the world needs is more gay gun nuts.. preferably ones who have stereotypical good taste in hip-hugging leather holsters and stuff like that :-)
Seriously though, while I enjoyed Kims post for the rant-effect, I had some issues with his description of what real men should be like. (see response-rant here). I also don't see how being gay necessarily precludes you from being a man. There's much more to being a man than the desire to pork the chickadees (heh)
I'm proud to say that I flunked both that stupid fop test and Mr. du Toit's he-man test. I'm proud to say that I was a sissy when I was a boy. I'm a short, skinny little ectomorph. I know next to nothing about sports, though I like to watch women's sports occasionally. I played with girls, loved stories (such as L. Frank Baum's Oz books) in which girls were the central characters, and even once made a doll for myself out of a pencil and a foam-rubber ball. I have a vast collection of brightly colored key-rings, pens, party favors, toys, etc., etc., filling bins and scattered all over my condo, plus lots of good books on color and design. I am at least 90% gynosexual. I used to fantasize sex with the woman on top a lot, but all my fantasies for the past several months at least have been entirely about Lesbians.
On the other hand, a very masculine man one told me, just matter-of-factly, that I was masculine. That was in the 1980's when I called myself a feminist and didn't like the terms "masculine" or "feminine". Now I see the value in both, though they have much subtler and more interesting meanings than the traditional, esp. Christian, view allows. My views today on the whole man-woman thing (which means everything!) are far more complicated. Neither the feminist nor the masculinist/patriarchalist paradigms are adequate for me. Suffice it for now to say that I hate both misogyny and misandry, both stem from the same (self-hating, sex-hating) mentality. I love Man and Woman, the linear and the encircling, the eternal Divine polarity, God and Goddess, Gods and Goddesses.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
I quite agree, Eric. Gays are supposed to be flamboyant and fashion-sensitive; straight men must not like physical contact and must be "strong and silent". It hurts straights by depriving us of our human need to show emotion and affection; it hurts gays by pigeonholing them in similar ways. I can be flamboyant, I'm an unabashed lover of chick flicks, and I'm perfectly straight. It hurts that many, especially my fellow evangelicals, don't seem to understand that. I'm a flamin' calvinist, if I can get this why can't the "tolerant" liberals?