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askchapo @hexbear.net
Carcharodonna [she/her] @hexbear.net

Cishet dudes of Hexbear: Do feel that certain gender or sexuality norms are harmful to you personally? If so, what are they and how would you say they affect you?

So, back when I was "still cis tho", there were a lot of aspects of male gender norms that bothered me deeply and of course I totally understand why now. Even though these days I obviously have a clear reason for feeling that way, I'm still curious if cishet men also have issues with how norms or expectations around gender and sexuality impact them in a negative way.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on how those norms impact you, whether good or bad.

Also, I should mention that since this is a bit of a sensitive subject we're talking about here, please be thoughtful and sensitive when discussing with others in this thread. Thanks! <3

EDIT: Much thanks for all the great responses here! I know it's a difficult topic of course, so I appreciate you sharing your thoughts/feelings like this.

Speaking of which... I just looked at /c/menby and some of the posts on the front page there are over 2 years old. I see a lot of the discussion here centered around not being able to share feelings and/or not having the spaces or support to do that in. /c/menby seems like the perfect place for that, just sayin'.

111 comments

  • The absolute fucking rancid vibes everybody emitted when I took my kids out alone in public. I even had the cops called on me once, when one of them was throwing a tantrum at the grocery store. I am so grateful that I was paranoid about that exact scenario happening, and carried copies of the kids' birth certificates at all times. No officer, I'm not a stabber. Just a very tired dad. Kindly stop detaining me, thanks.

    It's well over a decade since any of them have been that small, but the experience is still haunting.

    edit: I just realized I still have the laminated birth certificate copies in my bag. I should probably get rid of them. Carrying around another grown-ass-man's birth certificate is weird for entirely different reasons.

    • I volunteer with kids on international camps, which means I get given legal guardianship of them for the duration of camp, and a bunch of paperwork to go with it. When travelling, I always keep that paperwork as the closest thing to hand, because I'm a young adult travelling with 4 kids that are obviously not my own so everyone and their aunt wants to make sure I'm not a kidnapper.
      Anyway, I brought it up during training one year and found out none of the women have ever had to deal with that. The closest they'd got was one particularly short woman who had trouble convincing airport staff that she was actually the responsible over 21 adult, and not another child.
      Now in my particular case I don't think regarding me with suspicion is unwarranted, but it even more clearly demarks how society treats men and women around children - Men aren't trusted even with their own children, while women are trusted with absolutely any children, both of which are seriously problematic.

    • A flipside of this is that when you aren't around a bunch of breathless nitwits who think a father solo parenting is actually a child trafficker, there are also women who look at you like

      just for existing positively with children. Expectations are both too damn high and too damn low. It's so stupid.

      • there are also women who look at you like

        just for existing positively with children.

        I wouldn't know. My children were all born girls. Most of them weren't girls, as it turns out, but that's another story. And it probably colored my experience a bit differently.

  • Having mental illness and being a man seem like they're not compatible under the patriarchy. I've had my dad tell me straight up to my face I'm just faking it and looking for sympathy with my anxiety, depression, OCD, because according to him my life is good. So there's that.

    • Thanks for sharing and I'm sorry you gotta deal with that

      I've never been good at sharing my feelings for many other reasons on top of it, but not having any kind of emotional support also always hit me pretty hard as well. One of the many great things that's happened to me since realizing I'm trans is both being able to get rid of that shame/mental block around expressing my real self as well as having positive spaces to do it in (thanks tracha!). Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me like even in relatively positive male spaces there's still a lot of discomfort for men around expressing certain feelings openly in the same way. Not sure what it takes to break that, but it at least seems like a good thing to bring up that stuff more often like you're doing right now.

      • Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me like even in relatively positive male spaces there's still a lot of discomfort for men around expressing certain feelings openly in the same way.

        Yeah there's still a lot of shame involved with being open as a man. Though I have seen a recent change in people's perceptions of what you can say/do in regards to feeling while being masc so that's a positive. We just need to de-brainworm more people.

    • I've had that happen by randoms as a woman

    • An assumption built on another assumption, that seeking sympathy from other people is somehow weak and not like

      What every social species does

      The fundamental axioms that generation takes for granted about people and the world are so heart wrenchingly sad. And then they go and try to inflict it on their kids

      Actually I just caught my own assumption, that weak=not serious or worth respecting. I don't consciously think that, but I did use the word as a stand-in for that. This shit is insidious and multilayered, like an onion with a ghost in it.

  • Well for instance where I come from, men are not allowed to cry and boy did I cry a lot as a kid. Got called a "crying pussy bitch" as a kid a TON. Even by my dad.

    Now I have anxiety, keep to myself a lot and I'm afraid of standing up for myself because I'm scared of being physically overpowered. So yeah, "good" stuff.

  • In a moment of vulnerability, I expressed my feelings of weakness, frustration, and just general helplessness in regard to mental issues, financial issues, and a few other things that I can't quite remember because the response was so strange. I was talking to a partner, and I don't really remember what spurred it, but I kinda broke down a little bit and just expressed how things weren't really going well for me.

    She was quiet for a few seconds and just looked at me, with what looked like a feeling of disgust, and said something along the lines of, "Men aren't supposed to act like this." So, since then, I've kept a lot of my emotions in check and withdrawn a lot. I don't do it intentionally, but that wasn't the response I expected, especially since I had consoled them many times without complaint or judgement because that's what you're supposed to do.

    Another example is with an ex that accused me of being gay because I didn't want to have sex 24/7. Sometimes I think I'm maybe aromantic or asexual, or maybe just haven't found someone I'm really compatible with sexually.

    I engage with a lot of "traditional" masculine hobbies like boxing, weightlifting, etc, and even though I still feel comfortable adhering to certain traits or roles considered masculine, I guess this is why I sometimes don't feel comfortable with the label of cis. Like, I used to have people say "you're the gayest straight man I've ever met." Which is weird cause I'm a big bald dude with tattoos and a beard but having interests outside of the traditional gender norms is weird for some folks I guess.

  • I was having a panic attack and my mother laughed at me.

    • I used to have frequent panic attacks when I was younger, and laughing at someone going through one is absolutely horrible. I'm sorry that happened to you.

  • I read books, sometimes cried under stress, was not big or very good at sports, and stuck up for a friend in a ridiculous hypothetical (would you still be friends with someone if they had AIDS) and so obviously I was gay. This was 30 years ago when being gay was more synonymous with bad, to both kids and teachers, authority figures alike.

    When I was young, this affected me by getting bullied and me spending a lot of time ashamed, alone and angry, though I still had friends in the other weirdos. As I grew up, I developed better social masking skills around manly men and the idiotic women who also internalized and weaponized those kind of gender norms. I now exclude a lot of people from my actual life and generally get along with women better than men.

    I still carry baggage around. Recently one of my close female relatives was cheated on by her manly man husband. While I am mostly sad and frustrated for her and their kids, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't also mad for my own reasons. He's openly friendly, but inside he's the kind of misogynist asshole that told me I wasn't a man when I was younger. He was a cop too. Never trust a fucking cop.

  • There is a very narrow range of acceptable expression as a cis dude.

    I grew up in the norwegian equivalent of the bible belt. Think, small town, less than 10k inhabitants surrounded by endless farmland.

    There were only two socially acceptable ways to be a guy. You could be a Car Guy, or you could be a Sports Guy.

    Anything else, and you'd automatically be labelled as a [homophobic slur] and become an outcast.

    Being a book loving, neurodivergent weeaboo was beyond the pale, so I spent my entire youth as an outcast.

    Though life didn't seem better for the other guys trying to squeeze into the only two available moulds you could fit into.

    I remember one guy was so neurotically competitive that he absolutely HAD to be the first or number 1 in everything, or else he'd have a mental breakdown.

    Even during warmup in PE, he had to be FIRST, when running from one end of the field to the other, and he'd be so exhausted that spittle would fly from his mouth just from having to be the first in everything sports related, no matter how insignificant.

    It's no wonder Norwegians are so socially broken. There are so many ways to be a dude, but the only acceptable ways to be one are so restricted and narrow that it's easier to just drop out of society and cling to the same 2-3 people you've known since kindergarten, instead of socialising and interacting with new people.

    We men are so insanely varied, naturally curious and seeking. It's almost comical how hard so many men cling to strict patriarchal ideas when most men don't really benefit from it or even live up to the patriarchal ideas.

    I don't know where I'm going with this. I'm drunk and exhausted from nonstop working. I'll hit the pipe and go watch a movie or something.

  • Circumcision. Give me my whole dick back.

  • I'm a Han Chinese who grew up partially in China and in Australia. While I avoided a bunch of expectations for certain forms of classic Western masculinity because I am an inscrutable removed, other aspects were unavoidable. It wasn't a faux pas to not play footy or whatever, and it was probably expected that I was more academically inclined over playing contact sports.

    Half my family are CPC revolutionaries and cadres. The other half are the peasantry that we fought for, regardless of how money hungry and reactionary.

    A lot of conflicting ideas of what I should be, from 老百姓 from the country, Western liberalism and hardline Communists have been... Bestowed upon me. I have to be a breadwinner, I have to service the people, I have to be stoic (or at the very least not beheld by emotion), I have to find a high paying profession, I have to be a protector, I have to produce an offspring, I have to consider the greater good, I have to be assertive, I have to change or suppress myself to get women. As the only male heir from the one child policy, it's a lot.

    A (white) girlfriend once asked me how I was feeling after a particularly gruelling double shift where smarter workers than I walked off the job. I didn't answer immediately. Should I be reserved because it was nothing compared to someone that walked the Long March? Or someone who immigrated to a different continent to seek a better life? Or the Platonic ideal of a masculine man? I replied "I will be fine", which was an honest response. A bad day doesn't mean I won't overcome it. My grandfather became the man of the house at the age of 13 because his father was killed by Japanese, his mother couldn't work because her feet were bound because it was the style. We were living on land stolen after a genocide. My Sous chef worked 19 hours to my 16 and a bit. Our bills were paid. There was food on the table. There was a roof over our heads. There were no bombs or snipers aiming for us. I genuinely meant what I said. I will be fine. I was 22. Now that I've learned to communicate better, after learning that your gender, racial and class identity aren't as separate as you'd think, I probably would have answered differently. I could have communicated better.

    My hardships didn't stem from being a cisgender male. Nor would being trans or gay make it better. The world isn't kind to the proletariat. It's why I'm a communist. Your identity plays a role, it's why I didn't fall into stupidpol.

    Who knows, I may have been able to speak about my emotions properly before I was 30.

  • You've gotta be so weird about women to fit in with other dudes. Trying to understand women as people and not as some mysterious alien species makes you an immediate outcast.

    Fairly benign example: men will frequently complain about how women will "complain about something and then get mad when you tell them how to fix it". Trying to explain the concept of venting (they're doing it right now! They're venting right now about women!) has usually gotten me reactions that range from weird looks and disbelief to arguments that women actually just love not solving problems.

    Obvs this isn't as big of a problem as having to put up with men refusing to understand you but it still sucks being expected to participate in it

    • I made a whole post a while back about how there just aren't cishet men's spaces where you can talk about women and be normal. Like I think i was comparing, wlw spaces where people are just like "omg women i cannot function aaaaaaa

      " and how there are no equivalent cishet men spaces.

    • You know what i do wonder if this is why i always struggled to form a romantic relationship because of other men telling me "this is how you should treat/speak to women", then making some fucked statement.

    • You’ve gotta be so weird about women to fit in with other dudes.

      A friend from school was getting married. I hadn't seen him for years for one reason or another. I met up with him and his future wife and a few others. She was sat between him and me.

      Thought it would be a nice to speak to her as if she was a person. He starts calling me homophobic names as if that would be the only reason why I would talk to a woman as an equal. So his wife just sat there for the whole meal in silence as he spoke with the person to his right and kind of forbade her from talking to me.

      What a dick head. I left before dessert and never saw him or her again. I can't stand that kind of man.

    • You've gotta be so weird about women to fit in with other dudes.

      Women?? Oh, you mean feeeeemales?

      Fuck, it makes me cringe so hard when dudes say that. Just the other day I got the "men / females" red flag, but it was my literal first day of work at a new place so I couldn't really say anything. Hate that fucking shit.

      Had a friend the other day tell me about how "females" in a relationship are different than "men", but since he's my best friend I could break down for him why literally all his points were wrong and he got it but, damn, it's so constant. Dudes just expect you to literally dehumanize and hate women all the damn time, and if you don't then you're a sensitive white knight snowflake.

      It's worse being a woman on the other side of that, of course, but it's still so annoying to be thought of as being cool with that in-group.

    • I agree, but I wanna go the other way too. I think women are weird about dudes too. My female friends will complain that guys are "bad about talking about their feelings!" (which they are at times) but really they're just bad at talking about their feelings the way women talk about their feelings.

      I am very lucky to have very good guy friends and we are good at sharing emotions and our life and so on, it's nice. We often end up joking about it, sometimes there's tears but it's rare. But it's there. We don't talk about it the way women talk about it though, and for some reason we're wrong for that. In my experience feelings are treated less... seriously, like another thing to worry about rather than a separate entity, which - in my experience - is how I see it treated when a group of all women speak of feelings. Neither is wrong or right, as long as both result in better mental health.

      I also agree about the "you're venting right now!" but I also here want to point out it goes both ways. When I vent to my friends and they suggest a solution, I'm happy. When they ask for clarification, I'm happy. It helps me process my emotions. Sometimes I'll tell them "I just need to vent" though and then they do that. I tell them that though, which is not something I've ever experienced from a girlfriend.

      I don't want to sound like an incel, I agree with your observations and frustrations, I just... I feel like this is a safe space and I wanted to share some too.
      Guys are incredibly weird about women. I don't talk to my dad anymore. When I was 12 I remember him looking at some 20-year old walking boy and him saying "boy I wish I had painted the pants on her" (she was wearing tight fitting pants). My mom was present. At my graduation he kept commenting about the looks of my female classmates. He's a pig and I hate him and I am glad mom left him.

  • I agree with a lot of what others have to say but what makes me upset is how no one gives a shit about it. People will pay lip service to the idea of loosening these norms but the vast majority of people still expect it. Even among more progressive people, they won't make you a pariah but they'll still treat you differently. It's just like everyone agrees that women should be allowed to have both a career and children. But in practice the woman is expected to take on the burden of childcare. People can say that men should allowed to be emotional but if they catch you crying then you're forever something different in their eyes.

    I've talked with a lot of my friends and I genuinely believe a lot of men are aware of how toxic these behaviors are. But the second they get in front of their partners they're back to that cold, confident mask. Most young men understand it's bullshit but they see it as a requirement for relationships and societal respect. While there are always exceptions, I wouldn't say they're wrong.

  • Several of them have been in the past.

    I've always preferred to wear my hair a little long, when I was in elementary school the other kids called me transphobic slurs several times. To be clear, I am cis, but it still hurt seven year old TheLepidopterists's feelings.

    The idea that expressing feelings other than anger is inappropriate for boys was also not great for me growing up, but the folks in the bell hooks book club thread have elaborated on that way more eloquently than I could.

    EDIT: just realized this said cis-het which is only half true, but in spite of being attracted to men as, I've only ever dated women (I wasn't even consciously aware of being attracted to men as well until I was years and one kid into a relationship with my wife, who rules and is the only person I'm interested in a relationship with). I do present fairly straight though, I think and socially I'm I think effectively cis-het.

  • I'll keep it light. I'm for all intents and purposes, a dude's dude. I work out, BBQ, drink beer, and in general, am loud and obnoxious. But...

    I hate sports and in particular American Football. And to a plurality if not majority of supposed free society I might as well turn in my bro card.

    • I hate sports and in particular American Football.

      Same! And good for you for hating American football in particular. It's a terrible sport run mostly by racist chuds that causes long term injuries (including brain damage) for the people who play it, which also includes kids in many cases. I do admit that I like watching Kaiju Big Battel sometimes (which is really more entertainment than actual wrestling) and robot wars type stuff, but that's mostly it these days for watching sports.

    • When youre in a public place and people come up to you and just start talking about some football game that happened because you're a male and they have no other idea how make small talk that doesn't involve sports.

      • they have no other idea how make small talk that doesn't involve sports.

        Hey, they might know how to make small talk about cars, which I also don't give a fuck about.

    • Same but in Portugal and with football, here everyone is from one of the 3 big teams (green, blue red) and you're expected to pick 1 of them and tease/get teased the day after 2 teams play each other. And you ought to have at least 1 item branded with your team

  • I think I'm emotionally underdeveloped because of male gender norms. Specificly the norm that men are not emotional. It feels like my non-male friends run laps around me when it comes to navigating their/others emotions.

    The harm of this deficiency it no doubt obvious to most. But it took me a long time to even recognize that it was a problem. The harm I've experienced from this is the damage I've done to my relationships throughout my life.

    Caveat - I'm not sure how much responsibility societal pressures bear alone since my parents were not great emotional models.

    Other then that, I think I've only benefited from gender norms.

  • It's completely incomprehensible how society could convince itself that skirts are for women. I'd happily bet that a majority of men would generally be a in a much better mood if they just wore a skirt when the sun comes out.

  • The norm that "men shouldn't feel any emotion except for anger" was drilled into my head by every male role model in my family for my entire childhood, and I still struggle to actually express my feelings IRL.

    • I felt the same way for most of my youth. There is a lot of shame attached to being a man and not having any success in that field.

  • Not hetero, but I had a borderline eating disorder as a teen. At the time it was regarded as "men don't have that problem." Thankfully I traded in my purging habits and preference towards food and medicines with appetite-suppressing side effects for... obscene levels of distance running. I worked that stuff out myself.

    As of last week I put back two pink clothing items on the store rack cause I just didn't want the drama.

  • I experience normative masculinity as almost entirely violent and oppressive. There's nothing good about it. Even the things that advantage me are advantages because people are afraid of me. I've chewed on this for years and there's nothing in my life I can identify as distinctly masculine that is positive.

  • It's probably the 'tism but I never understood gender norms in general. They just seem like arbitrary rulesets with no real point behind what norm gets put into which bucket. Your question is sort of the type of thought that got me to make my post here yesterday about questioning gender.

    With that said, I think a major aspect of cishet normativity that I would get dinged for is that I'm extremely emotional. I wear my emotions on my sleeve so to speak. I cry all the time and for random things that often don't even make much sense. I think if I had gone the traditional route for an autism diagnosis, there is a real chance I would have been diagnosed with "highly sensitive person syndrome" or whatever it's called.

    That coupled with the fact that I don't really understand "man culture" is probably why I never really had many male friends growing up. And mostly all my firends all suffer from some mental disability anyway so they don't even fit that cishet normative role. But I never really could get into sports or cars or hunting or any of the stuff that men are supposed to do. I guess I did enjoy fishing for what it's worth.

    My dad ingraining misogyny in me at a very young age and not realizing it was there until my 20s was a rough awakening and even now, I still catch some remnants of that coming out that I have to check. So that is probably the other big one. I'm still embarrassed about it. I'm not embarrassed about my emotions though. That's something I've accepted and grown to love about myself in a weird way. I have to mask it when I'm around others a lot though.

  • Disclaimer: I know it's a sensitive subject, if anyone thinks there is any kind of misogynistic feeling please call me out so I can correct myself

    I might be biased since I'm bisexual (heteroromantic tho) and grew up experiencing some form of gender nonconformity because I was often called a girl when I was a kid (I had long hair because I was rebellious). However I can say I mostly live the life of a cishet dude. Oh and I'm autistic so that might play a role.

    So yeah I think het relationships are poisoned by heteronormativity, heterononogammy, male-female power dynamics and misogyny. Being in a serious relationship for me always meant having to provide a number of things that no one can actually provide. I feel like all hetero traditional relationships are doomed to devolve into boredom at best, abuse at worst, because people will consider that falling inlove means moving in together and have kids at some point.

    I just wish we could fall inlove and treat this as an experience that doesn't imply building a life together. I can't be the center of somebody else's existence, and I think no one should put somebody else at the center of their own existence. But fucking Disney princess "happily everafter" bullshit made everyone collectively obsessed with treating love as some kind of feudal economic-political business

    Of course I must reaffirm that the biggest victims of this system are queer people and women. I'm "playing on easy mode" but the game is still shit. Liberation of an oppressed group often means liberating the dominant group from their oppressor position, can't be true enough for queer and women's liberation imo

    • Your view on long-term relationships seems really black and white and extremely traditional. I'm not exactly the best person to talk on relationships since I'm recently divorced, but it was for reasons unrelated to what you're talking about. I meshed really well with my ex for the decade+ that we were married. We never devolved into boredom or any of that. You should consider the middle-ground when it comes to relationships, because that's where most of them fall. And trust me when I say that a healthy relationship doesn't have the couple putting each other at the center of their existence. We all need our own lives to live. I can't be around a SO 24/7 doing stuff with them 24/7. I have things I would like to do by myself.

      • Thank you for your perspective. If you have experienced divorce I guess you might be older than me so it is reassuring to think that I might simply lack experience

  • not sure if it's technically correct to call it a gender norm per se, but the way in which cishet men are conditioned to approach personal relationships with other cishet men in general can be very frustrating. i think it's sort of a compounding effect of various societal norms regarding what is considered "masculine and respectable" that causes a lot of friendships amongst men, and amongst cishet men especially, to be very shallow and impersonal. relationships like this are often more socially draining than anything else, and it just creates this depressing culture of emotionally illiterate men who only talk to other emotionally illiterate men.

    on a personal level, it's straightforward enough now for me to recognize shallow friendships and to build deeper ones, but i fear that because i grew up within that culture prior to gaining awareness of the patriarchy or the privilege i have in society, i have internalized enough of it that i still haven't learned to open up enough and be as good of a friend as i want to be.

    • i think it's sort of a compounding effect of various societal norms regarding what is considered "masculine and respectable" that causes a lot of friendships amongst men, and amongst cishet men especially, to be very shallow and impersonal.

      Based on what I've read, this seems like it's very much a modern thing and that deep male friendship was the norm throughout most of human history.

      Relevant poem: 

       
          
They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
I wept as I remembered how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.

      ~ Callimachus, Elegy for Heracleitus

    • That whole sense of "hugs must only last for a maximum of two seconds and must include slapping the other's back as a gesture of dominance/patronage, otherwise you're gay"... where did that come from? The culture celebrates being mentally (including emotionally) stunted, and has a thousand ways of mentally stunting people, more emphasis than almost anything else.

  • I don't know how to ask for support, so I just give it freely in the hopes that someone else will offer it to me

    Idinno if cishet is still what I am, I just feel such a sense of "I don't gives a shit" about my own gender

  • Yes, even being totally aware of how masculinity is enforced and knowing it’s bad, the tulpas still show up. My fiancé offered to help w getting my car repaired, and my gut reaction was ‘no I’m supposed to be self-sufficient, in fact I should be making more/paying for her not the other way around’

    Direct toxic masculinity in my subconscious

  • Havent read rest of the thread yet so maybe this has been brought up already, but biggest thing for me especially when younger is the stigma towards men having female friends. I've always been the sort of guy that finds it easier to connect and form friendships with women than men, and as such most of my closest friends throughout my life have been women.

    It was always exhausting to explain to extended family or whoever that just because I'm close friends with a women doesnt mean that there is a romantic or sexual aspect to our relationship. It can be frustrating to be out in public with a female friend have it be assumed that you are in a romantic relationship of some sort by restaurant staff or similar. I would say it has also impacted my ability to actually have a relationship like that with someone as well because people assume that I'm not straight because of my close relations with various women, and it is frustrating to be asked if you are gay just because you are out at the club with your female friends. The stereotype of the "gay best friend" I really do not like because I don't think sexuality and attraction is cut and dry like that and I feel uncomfortable trying to explain this to people, especially in the context of being at a club or party. I've also had a tough time in the past with women I'm trying to see in romantic capacity being upset that I have female friends that I want to spend time with as well, despite the fact that we've been friends for over a decade and our relationship has never been anything other than platonic.

    Basically I've always struggled with the fact that many social forces make it seem like it is not acceptable for a guy to be close with a woman if they aren't trying to fuck them. Really bothers me and has definitely made me doubt myself in the past, and sadly also caused me to drift away from some previously close friends.

  • I was thinking about my next move in socks, then remembered my last move in socks and then this post.

    One of the things holding me back from being a shorts guy was that I never had socks I was happy to show the world when I wore them. I went to the store to address that and found these low-cut ballerina-slipperesque socks in the mens' section. I checked the package to confirm that it had the "M" of approval, bought them and took them home. Only after trying to wear them did I realize that they failed the most basic test of a sock, separating my foot skin from my shoes.

    Another time, I was looking for a scarf but felt compelled to seek out an employee to confirm that the scarves were unisex and I wasn't going to commit a faux pas by buying from the wrong pile. Now that I search, though "women's scarves" does appear to be a real category.

    And then there was my first winter somewhere really cold. I went to a bougie store and got a winter hat ahead of when I would actually need it. When I did put it on, it was really roomy. I have a big head so I had never experienced that before. The only explanation that I could think of was that the hat was designed to allow a big elaborate hairstyle underneath to maintain its shape underneath. "Had I bought a women's hat?" I asked not one, but two friends and we didn't come to any definitive conclusions but since I had been wearing the hat around for a week, decided to keep doing so.

    I wish I hadn't been programmed to care so much about the appropriateness of clothes to my gender.

    Back to socks, though; the ballerina socks were among the few I've thrown out before wearing holes into them. All of my other socks have fallen into the "fine" or the "bad but I'll still wear them" categories. Some have to be thrown out and I want to be a little more deliberate in my shopping this time because I'm traveling for a while and can't take the whole drawer with me. Does anyone have socks they really like? They will be subject to much walking in warm but not scorching temperatures. Brand, fabric or style recommendations would be great.

  • I suspect I’m autistic and have adhd and have usually felt a sort of “but why” instinct to all gendered expectations put upon me. This is how I feel with all sorts of social pressures so I’m not sure if it’s a function of dysphoria specifically. I identify with my body and pronouns but that’s about where it stops.

    Middle school was probably the only time I didn’t feel confident enough to just handwave the malign pressure boys can put on other boys. That middle school thing of being left alone, having friends and not being bullied being (or seeming) incumbent on walking a fine line and not looking uncool.

    High school was great, I was as weird as I wanted to be. My sibling and dad also exhibit traits of autism and weren’t at all interested in putting gendered expectations on me; again I don’t know if the possible autism is the reason it just feels like analytical thinking is paramount in my family. Way later in adulthood I have a boss who does schrodingers jokes saying shit like “men don’t read manuals”, but I’m completely comfortable calling him a boomer and rallying my colleagues against his bad boomer opinions. I have no aspirations to his cliched vision of masculinity.

    I saw demigender or Demi-boy as a possible name for someone who feels kind of male. Maybe that’s me? Or is society just building a huge house of cards on top of the concept of masculinity that doesn’t serve but a very small subset of men at best? Apologies for the ramble.

  • Through an incredible mixture of lack of education (or understanding on my part) and very likely "toxic male" disgust at regular human functions when performed by their feminine counterparts, I was unaware of menstrual cycles until I had a girlfriend for the first time. Very early 20s. I never revealed this information to her either, but I was internally fascinated at this entire "secret" held by ~50% of the population that I had no idea about.

    I know people will probably think I'm exaggerating, so all I can say is "I'm not." I didn't know how tampons worked. I had no idea really how often women have their periods. All I knew was vaguely like "Women bleed sometimes and it causes them to be..." well, fill in the blank there. Stuff I had picked up from popular media, basically.

    I have to credit her (my ex) with dealing with what was surely a nearly comical amount of ignorance. Probably something women who date men are used to. She had to teach my dumb ass all about getting pregnant (the times women can/can't mostly). And things like "It's messy. There will be blood. Possibly everywhere."

    Thinking back now, it really is fucking hilarious that I had no idea. I promise you with 100% certainty that there are a ton of teenage to young 20 year old men right now, possibly even reading this, who also don't know or have the vaguest possible conception of menstrual cycles. I don't know what more kind of education would be required. Maybe this is something guys, especially ones without sisters or young cousins around, just don't encounter until they have a steady girlfriend and reality becomes unavoidable. I kinda get the impression though that there are tons of 40, 50+ year old men who have whole-ass wives and maybe daughters who still refuse to learn about periods and what's going on. They just put up a mental block and go "nope! Don't talk to me about it! Just let me know when it's over!"

    To really tie this all to the main question though, that's the type of "harm" I can say I had. Just this general avoidance of bodily functions being discussed by men allows us to be, well, full grown men and still totally ignorant of things we absolutely need to have a decent understanding of. When I hang out with or am sort of just existing near my girlfriend and her friends, or she tells me what they discuss, there's a lot of openness and frankness when it comes to "gross" functions. Men will make crude jokes, but the dynamic is different it feels like. I don't know how to really word it, but basically women are forced to "grow up" and don't get a choice about it. Teenage girls are thrown to the wolves. While men get to be boys forever. It's just acceptable to not take things seriously and not know elementary things. In fact knowing things and showing some level of empathy is seen as "being woke" (or "gay" in the bad sense of the word) or whatever. You're pretty actively discouraged from caring about women's issues.

    This shit affects men, too. Like abortion being illegal in places in the US 100% harms men. Not to make this all about men, but for the purposes of this discussion. Men have to deal with the consequences of a pregnancy as well. Especially if he and the mother don't want a child... yet she can't do anything about it. Or if you do want a child, both parents let's just say, but the pregnancy has complications, needs to be terminated, but no doctors will touch her due to ambiguous laws. And she dies. I'd say that affects men a great deal.

    This culture of acceptable willful ignorance by men prevents many men from ever being "men" in a way that I'd define it anyway. Basically someone who isn't afraid to stand up for and defend the marginalized and "weak" in society. It's created entire generations of emotionally stunted, ignorant, and frankly, just being real, pathetic boys in man-sized bodies. You can listen to any right winger now days, and it's literally the mind of a 14 year old boy inside of a 35 year old man-body. Ex: Andrew Tate or Ben Shapiro (I'd posit neither of these man-boys know how "pussies work" still to this day, which I think probably proves enough of my long winded comment. They don't need to. If they ever expressed the knowledge that they do, they'd get mocked by their right wing peers for caring)

  • I've been doing so much thinking about this ever since that book club started. I have this rule of thumb about not declaring something a gender issue if it's something that both shitty men and shitty women do. So, for example, the major through lines of my thoughts about how I feel disposable I believe are capable of being transposed onto a woman's POV. I think most people have had feelings like those around them don't believe they are worth being listened to. Therefore ones sense of self is developed in spite of those people is a tale as old as time. For example, there's the power fantasy (that sometimes comes to fruition in my line of work) that you could have listened to me earlier for a reasonable price and now you have to pay a fuck-you price now that you're imperiled. That doesn't have a gender attached to it as far as I'm concerned.

    I actually have a few friends I have spoken to in depth about emotional topics, so I don't have the typical talking point. I think my emotional maturity was delayed by inherited beliefs about gender norms and currents of sexism, but I always got to talk through it. I have issues with authority because I didn't really get that relief from my parents or authority figures in my youth. It's weird though - whenever I see a woman being super standoffish or I get a match on a dating app from someone who touts themselves as super talkative who only gives one word answers I don't feel harmed. I feel pity. Like some kind of gender norm or conditioning has clouded you so profoundly that you can't even see me when I'm right in front of you. Like I'm not the victim, you are. You have to do some quick calculation about my visage and you get some number that I'm too big a risk to engage with so it's better to cringe out. It's so funny because if your friend introduced us and we were in the exact same position you'd open up and we'd have a perfectly good conversation. I could even point to a moment where a woman was roasting my tinder profile with her friends only for them to recognize me and invite me over to play Mario Party. It's all so deeply unserious for me - as Itachi said "appearances and preconceptions aren't going to tell you anything[1]."

    I feel like the beneficiary of patriarchy because I'm able bodied, strong, and unburdened. The car mechanic is fair to me. I don't have an implicit fear of violence that gets reinforced as I walk around. I was joking around with a guy I only kind of know at a party recently. He wanted me to lose in Smash, I won, I flipped him off, and he grabbed my finger. He says something to the effect of "do you know what I could do to this finger?" I go "idk," keep giggling, and move on. The remark did not register with me, plain and simple, until I reflected on how it was a threat of violence (of dubious seriousness). I fight and study fighting enough to know that the answer is actually "not much, you'd much rather have the wrist."

    If I've learned anything, it's that I'll be humble and thankful for being who I am. I'll use it to advocate for communism and advocate for reading One Piece. And, of course, make sure that the people who come into my life to share my values, time, and space are appreciated with all the strength I can muster

  • I have always been fairly emotionally intelligent and it’s something that my family and authority figures always tried to beat out of me. As a kid I didn’t hesitate to express my feelings or even cry when sad which apparently meant I was a sissy, the ‘emotional child’, wuss etc etc. I learned to suppress it to avoid the critiques, but as a teenager and young adult rekindled my ability to fully and freely express myself. And my god why is it normalized to try to force men to have no emotion. We’re human beings it’s ok to feel

  • ::: spoiler CW: Mentions of abuse and violence

    I cannot make mistakes, which means whatever I do I did on purpose however the recipient perceived it.
    Not wanting to have sex with a woman makes me gay. If I am with a woman and I am unable to reach an orgasm, then that means there is either something wrong with her or me. Being good friends with another man means that I am gay. Being good friends with a woman means that I want to fuck her. If I don't show feeling then I am stunted. When I show feelings I am mocked. If I participate in a discussion with a woman then I am talking over her. If I don't participate, then I am timid and not a real man. If I am afraid or scared then that's a funny thing. I cannot be molested. I wasn't molested when someone got me super drunk, took off my clothes, drew on me, grabbed my junk, filmed it and shared it with others in our school. I cannot be molested. I have to "man up".

    I have to be "a real man". Nevermind what that is and also that thing is toxic (it is, but the people who recognize this still tell me to be a real man in other words). I am constantly expected to be the adult, calm, rational, patient, protective, all-encompassing, all-capable paternal platonic protector. Whenever I step out of this role I am mocked. I am mocked for being lonely, I am mocked for being with friends.

    On another level: While I acknowledge women have it hard, it can be very difficult to hear women talk about men in public. The "mocking" I talked of is not the mocking I will talk of now. I know the "imagine if you said x instead of y" is a bullshit thing, but I really do wish women would do this with how they talk of men at times, because sometimes it seems like they think they're incapable of reinforcing patriarchy. That goes for here as well. In leftist groups I'll see women, frankly, shit on men in very harmful ways and it's tough. I exist now in a weird superposition where I am both benefitting of patriarchy, with all the expectations that brings, while also no longer being in a patriarchal position (such as it was ages ago), but if I try to have that recognized then my beneficial position is brought up to dismiss my other positions.

    I got beat by two of my ex-girlfriends "for fun". Never anything that left bruises, punches I could take. Not punches I wanted to take. Once I lightly shoulder-tapped my ex after she had hit me five times, I did this after telling her that I did not want to be hit, please stop, please realise this is unpleasant, please stop, if you do it again I will shoulder tap you. This was entirely unreasonable of me and I've been told so by more than just her. The verbal abuse I have taken is something else too, and it feels like it's just expected. Women need someone to unload on, sometimes their partners are just so annoying, it's almost a quirky little trait that they can be kinda toxic and unreasonable! Imagine if you had a friend and she told her her boyfriend "lightly hit her" from time to time when he was annoyed with her or just bored or whatever. "It's just for fun!" Imagine if she told you he would be entirely unreasonable from time to time and just expect her to understand that he was in a bad mood or whatever.
    When we are told a man acts in this way, then we are rightly horrified. If a man complains about his girlfriend treating him like that however... More than likely he'll be called a boomer complaining about his "bit*h wife" or something like that. I know it sounds silly, but it really does get to me that women can complain about men in public (which they should) and get celebrated for it, but it doesn't really go the other way. And pointing this out I feel the need to underline that I know and understand women face immense hardships, systemic issues and all that, but it's just... It feel like it furthers the point I am trying to make. I dunno. Please just at least trust that I am coming with good intentions.

    Fatherhood terrifies me. My cousin and his girlfriend left each other because she has an addiction issue. She tried to kidnap their child at one point. She has done drugs around the child. She almost won custody despite this (my cousin doesn't even drink and by all accounts he's a good guy. He does all he can for his daughter, he works extra hours so she can afford to ride horses and stuff.)
    My uncle never lost custody of his kids, but his ex-wife moved to another country with their two children. Nothing the courts were willing to do, tough shit.

  • I've a hard time to put it into words, but yeah the not being able (or wanting) to behave as a supposed male made a big dent in my social life, I suppose that's not the only reason but it is a big one, I just never felt at place and a lot of cishet male behavior just grosses me out tbh. I think modern society

    doesn't help, masculinity just doesn't make any fucking sense anymore, it's just a mishmash of contradiction

    Also my mom thought I was gay for not having a gf at one point but it was fairly harmless lmao

    Again I suck at expressing myself on this subject rn

  • Part of me still thinks this is a fishing post to get us all banned but I'll bite.

    I know I'm a generally above average handsome dude, always benefited from that in different ways so I can't complain about looks much. But I still have it in my brain that I'm not because I'm not the tallest, buffest dude by any means. When I was a kid I was skinny as a twig but then started going to the gym and got fuller but only like a toned-fit build, not a yolked monster like most dudes want to be, including myself. It's just not possible for my genetics or build, I think. Kinda weighs on me that I'm not as strong as others, even though I do surprise men and women with my strength for my size. But I don't look it, which is my problem internally. I can honestly whoop some ass if needed, and have, but I get anxious about size differentials and potential conflict that will go badly, especially if I'm with a partner. I grew up watching Arnold and Stalone tear it up and that's what I think a man looks like. I have that an eternally youthful, attractive, very friendly guy look. I also hate it because everyone thinks I'm significantly much younger than I am so men OF MY AGE OR YOUNGER dismiss me, discount me, or generally ignore me until they find out. And I only know my looks are good because I somehow am able to attract and keep women that (I think) are beautiful and way out of my league. If it wasn't for those experiences over the years making the realization finally dawn upon me, I wouldn't even have the self-esteem to have begun this by saying I'm handsome because I wouldn't believe it. I just started dating someone who, I think, is absolutely gorgeous and looks like a model to me or something and I'm still completely stupefied every day that passes that she wants to be with me, much less be my serious girlfriend. And it's not just her looks, she's just such a sweet person and so fucking funny and wants the same things as me and I just think she's perfect. I'm still waiting for her to tell me she changed her mind and found another more attractive, better-off guy to be with instead. I die of butterflies everytime she's sweet or affectionate to me. She laughs at the face I make every time. I still don't really believe in myself in that way deep down. I just fake it, I guess, or I objectively think it's true because people tell me and because of my experiences but I don't subjectively believe it because I don't look like what I think an attractive, gritty grown man looks like.

    And I'm very well educated but I've never really had a highly valued social status job or career. I make decent money now and I'm actually in a "good" field but not wealthy or "middle class" by any means. That weighs on me because I know I'm fairly intelligent and knowledgeable, I don't doubt myself there although I'm humble enough to know that I don't know quite a lot and need to learn from others, but everyone thinks you're a meaningless idiot if you're not a doctor or an attorney or some big executive. Basically, if you're not the boss then you're just a grunt. They really treat you like shit, which—apart from my politics—is why I always try to be extra nice and courteous to workers. If you didn't leverage yourself into a status career with money, at whatever cost, then you fucked up and there are better men who did. I honestly could have but just dedicated myself to struggle and organizing in my young adulthood because I rejected and hated capitalism, but no one cares that you care. You're just an irresponsible failure who didn't sieze the moment you had to get yours so you could "provide" for your future family. That does make me feel like I fucked up sometimes, especially as I age and the comrades I had move away or drift apart and I end up feeling like that revolutionary fervor dies down for nothing in the end. The only comrades I regularly engage with are all of you on Hexbear and that's it. I know it's still worth it in the end, we're not Communists for our personal gain and I know I've made a difference in the lives of individuals and maybe in history in a small way, but part of me does feel like I messed up when I'm struggling with money or realize I can't do certain things with my life or be respected as a human being because I didn't pursue a status symbol career which would've probably inevitably resulted in some murder-suicide.

    I'm also not White so I'm sure race plays a part in all of this too but I won't get into it because it's hard to know how and where to tweeze those apart, but I know it exacerbates everything I said.

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