Toxic masculinity
Toxic masculinity has robbed so many men and one thing it has robbed them of is the bonding experience of being naked with other men. When I am naked with my good buddies, I feel a healthy masculinity. I feel what it is to be a man. A real man has warmth, kindness, empathy, gentleness, and so many qualities that endear others to him. He builds people up, not tear them down. I didnt have the best male role models growing up but I surround myself with gentle, easy going guys that show me by example what real masculinity is and help me to grow as a man and love myself and others. I love being a man. I love having a penis. I just love being me. Toxic masculinity made me hate myself but naked time with some special guys in my life was I needed.
Toxic masculinity has robbed so many men and one thing it has robbed them of is the bonding experience of being naked with other men. When I am naked with my good buddies, I feel a healthy masculinity. I feel what it is to be a man. A real man has warmth, kindness, empathy, gentleness, and so many qualities that endear others to him. He builds people up, not tear them down. I didnt have the best male role models growing up but I surround myself with gentle, easy going guys that show me by example what real masculinity is and help me to grow as a man and love myself and others. I love being a man. I love having a penis. I just love being me. Toxic masculinity made me hate myself but naked time with some special guys in my life was I needed.
True power and strength are in gentle and kind words and actions. It is most often the ability to make peace and build bridges between others. It is in not exercising aggression or violence but accepting that it is not necessary to make the lives of those around you and yourself better and in fact will only result in less for all. It's just a rarity that any of us had good male role models unfortunately and I know that makes the absence no less significant but what I have realized is that we must all model for each other what we can as we can and without apology for what we don't know and what we do. Male intimacy is almost an unacceptable in most of our cultural experiences and deliberately so as a driver of toxic socialization. I mean purely bonding and healing connections in touch and comfort and mutual care that should be normal yet are so feared and denigrated because the core experience of the myth of monolithic masculinity is crisis and terror. We also inhabit a mediasphere in which the optimal masculinity is inherently unachievable and by design because the more imperfect they have made you in the standardized mythologies of male perfection the more products they have to sell you to fix it. Billions of dollars for the chance to cosmetically become more of a man until you have to buy it all again. I said well, I am going to get off that merry go round and I hope that everyone else will too. Real masculinities. Plural. No one right way just many right moving and growing men. I say that first and foremost so you get to be included in what you seek because you are. I think it's important to include everyone who is moving away from the toxic and into a lighter and more gentle masculinity in all the range of what is really of value cause we're all works in progress and we are never finished.
Male intimacy is almost an unacceptable in most of our cultural experiences and deliberately so as a driver of toxic socialization...Real masculinities. Plural. No one right way just many right moving and growing men. I say that first and foremost so you get to be included in what you seek because you are. I think it's important to include everyone who is moving away from the toxic and into a lighter and more gentle masculinity in all the range of what is really of value cause we're all works in progress and we are never finished.
Toxic masculinity is a sexist term, primarily because there is no culturally acceptable female equivalent. It's a loaded term like "bitch" implying that a set of behaviors inappropriate for one gender is inappropriate for the other. Just ask any divorced man, and I am sure that he will be happy to educate you about toxic femininity. Therefore I recommend avoiding all sexist terms. Choose to build up rather than tear down.
Contemporary men in the Western world are put in the quandy whereby they are criticized for being homosocial due to homophobia, while also criticized for expressing emotions such as anger arising out of their sense of alienation and isolation. It's correct that their only suitable response is to open their wallet and "improve themselves" as the marketers wish. I agree 100% that healthy masculinity need to include bonding and intimacy with both men and women as there are many expressions of this which are both platonic and sexual. In addition, I believe that this needs to happen in healthy one -on-one and group social situations, which offer people both an opportunity to belong in commonalities and individual expression.
Healthy masculinity should aslo include anger, which is often left out of the equation. I grew up evangelical for example, and the idea of a "come to Jesus moment" never meant the equivalent of the biblical story of marching to the bank and turning over the money changers' tables. I personally deal with my anger in the gym, nature walks and talks with friends. Whereas I recognize it as a bit wonkish and difficult for people to comprehend, I've found solace in my individual masculinity and humanity through better understanding and living in my persona as defined in Jungian terms. This includes understanding my MBTI personality and archetypes which are ever-present all around us from biblical stories to Hollywood blockbusters, and it's all good.
That was my whole point. It's not the masculinity itself that's toxic. It's toxic when it becomes a standard men are expected to meet and they are made to feel that failing to live up to the standard makes them less of a man. No man should ever feel that way. I did though and so did a lot of other men and many still do. Whether you call it "toxic masculinity" or something else, it's still a problem.
Its time for us as men to man up and stop tolerating sexist nastiness driven by a self-serving, cynical agenda of misandristic hate and the disgusting pursuit of unfair advantage in society and the workplace. The cure for inequality is not inequality!
This is such a nasty pile of stinking bullshit. Men are not being asked to give unfair advantage to women, we are only being asked to stop giving unfair advantage to ourselves. If you can't see that, you are part of the problem.
Absolutely,
Never loved by my father, not a hug or a I love you
I love being masculine and love men and the time only men know how to share with each other
Naked men give me a sense of ease
No competition just ourselves especially older men
I would engage, happily, with this discussion if it wouldn't bring out the male feminazis to attack the very idea that I, a man, might actually have an opinion of where the term "toxic masculinity" came from, it wasn't men. It's not men I hear calling men faggots, little dicks, dusty, etc. to deprive men of their public dignity and community respect. But that's okay. It's just fine to have men ripped apart by the feminist doctrine so long as we can pat ourselves on the back and say, "well, at least I'm not a toxic man".
Enjoy and let the inevitable flame wars begin whenever there's one man who actually thinks like a man, independently.
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