29 Comments
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amira al amin's avatar

Point blank period

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Ben Shudov-Gonne's avatar

Painting your man-hand nails hasn't been "soft" since Bowie/Lou Reed/Iggy Pop. Entire subgenres of heavy metal have painted nails. Even that word "nail" is so effing hard. Interesting piece all the same!

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allie ailis's avatar

Oh I totally agree with you!! It’s the hyper masc incels that have the issue with it lol

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Ben Shudov-Gonne's avatar

I want to find these hyper masc incels and teach them a lesson! I wish they gathered at punk shoes like I did back when I was a hyper masc incel in the 1990's so we could settle our differences with our ritual displays of pit moves and modes of self-adornment. How can men convey that they are 1) hard to the core and 2) nice to look at IN THE CLOUD?

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Chad Clopper's avatar

Painting nails is not even inherently feminine, it's 100% a social construct. There's some debate around certain aspects of behavior whether it's nature vs nurture for girls vs boys. Not for fashion and style, these are definitely cultural.

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allie ailis's avatar

Socialization is everything fr

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Chad Clopper's avatar

I don't agree w that - like tendancies of disposition cannot be assumed to be socialized.

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allie ailis's avatar

Nature & nurture

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Leonard de Gauche's avatar

I can't help but feel like men who fear the "feminization of men" simply don't feel like men themselves. The way they obsess over the behaviours of other men feels like it indicates a constant self assessment of their own masculinity; they feel that they aren't men and they are responding to this by evaluating the masculinity of men who are more comfortable with themselves. Sports, to your point, has long held a sort of talismanic property to masculinity. It's what men do, it's where they are allowed to feel companionship with other men; it's where they are allowed to be affectionate with other men in a way they don't feel authorized to in other areas of their life. To men who have a lacking conception of their own masculinity, sports are not just a place they can look for examples of masculinity, but more importantly their fandom of, and participation in, in sports automatically confers masculine status to them and wards off accusations of femininity. Therefore, when they see men in sports displaying femininity, the usefulness of sports as talisman to ward off accusations of femininity is diminished in their eyes and they feel like the one small grasp they held on masculinity has been taken from them. It's pathetic, really.

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allie ailis's avatar

Exactly! It really only shows their own insecurities.

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Soph's avatar

Not that it should matter, but men used to paint their nails thousands of years ago.

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allie ailis's avatar

Yeah, the nails is more of an example. My main point is really about whiny alpha males being upset that their sports idols don't live up to their masculine ideals.

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Soph's avatar

lmaooo as if those ideals weren't super unstable 😭😭😭

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Tim Strong's avatar

hell yeah. just seeing this now, but absolutely, hell yeah.

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Shayne Rich's avatar

that title! those words! you killed it, so good

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allie ailis's avatar

Wowie thank you so much 🥺

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Fool’s Errand's avatar

I get the ‘idea’ that feminized men must be more in touch with their emotional health, cause they’re acting more like women now.

But I never see that happen in the actual data. Every year that masculinity gets harder to find male suicide just ticks up and up

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allie ailis's avatar

Correlation does not equal causation my friend. The male suicide rate has many contributing factors and actually fell in 2020 from 2019.

https://archive.hshsl.umaryland.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/b71e4063-3282-4312-b0f5-3cb3182f85d2/content

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9437900/pdf/nihms-1832384.pdf

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Fool’s Errand's avatar

Well to be frank I’d like some correlation at all over 20 years besides just the one year Covid was also screwing with everything.

Maybe an individual based study would reveal it, but I’m saying you have this fundamental mental connection between feminization and improved emotional wellbeing, that I’ve never actually seen in data or personal observation

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allie ailis's avatar

No worries friend, here is the data for you since googling is very very hard:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886921005845

Ill even give you a quote: "Importantly, traditional masculinity ideology moderated these effects, such that men who were higher (vs. lower) on traditional masculinity ideology were less (vs. more) likely to report positive health-related behaviors, whereas men higher (vs. lower) on traditional masculinity ideology were more likely to report negative mental health outcomes."

Based on your notes, looks like you and the wife could use some couples counseling - getting in touch with your emotions might help ya there

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Paul R. Pace's avatar

So do believe Men should play Women’s sports? As you called it “par for the course” because it seems to me that that is the exact opposite of what the feminist movement was founded on. Do you believe Men can get pregnant?

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Paul R. Pace's avatar

Thanks for being decent. I usually get dragged for this stuff.

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allie ailis's avatar

The only way we learn and grow is by listening to other people and by having understanding and honest conversations. Specifically, when social issues are spoken about, we cannot let hate and vitriol into these conversations or else no one changes or hears anyone out.

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allie ailis's avatar

Hey Paul, seems like this hit a nerve. I am not sure how painted nails and genuine emotional expression lead you to ask about men playing women's sports, but maybe you should examine how you made that connection. I would also explore your idea of "feminism" considering it currently sounds like TERF rhetoric

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Paul R. Pace's avatar

Thank you for being honest and sharing your thoughts. I don’t agree but appreciate you answering the question. I am assuming then you are of the belief that biological women are the only people who can get pregnant? In sports the science will clearly show biological men have a clear advantage over women in female sports especially in swimming, track and field, bicycling, boxing, etc. over a vast # of metrics.There are a small % people born intersex or have Gender Dsyphoria but people are exploiting this for their own benefit. This isn’t about exclusion but more about what is fair and protecting women.

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allie ailis's avatar

I am always happy to have an understanding conversation, and I apologize for my initial comment if it felt maleficent. I would say yes, generally biological women are born with the organs to create humans, but as mentioned, there are intersex individuals who could also be capable. I also do agree that the fairness in sports needs to be researched more/optimized for everyone's safety, regardless of gender (I am a proponent of all NFL players wearing guardian caps considering how damaging/debilitating CET is).

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Paul R. Pace's avatar

I am simply asking a straightforward question. I don’t care about men painting nails or self expression. That is something else entirely. Men have been doing that for years. You brought up the subject of men getting pregnant and participating in women’s sports in your post but didn’t elaborate your feelings on that. So what do you think?

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allie ailis's avatar

If you have working sexual organs that would produce a child, then you can get pregnant. Considering gender is a social construct, yes, if someone identifies as male but has the working parts, then sure, men can get pregnant. In sports, I do agree it is more complicated and recognize the undeniable biological differences in physical performances. I really am not as informed to make a blanket statement about it, but I personally think it may be fairer to separate by weight and height classes in sports.

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Paul R. Pace's avatar

thx for being decent. that speaks to your character over anything else.

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