thread: 2006-04-10 : I roleplay like a little sexually-irrelevent nerd
On 2006-04-11, Joel Shempert wrote:
Ditto what Ninja Monkey said. There IS a meaning, a positive meaning, to being a MAN. This whole thing resonated with me because I've had a long, hard time coming to terms with that, and now, at 31, I feel like I've barely come to terms with that. It took a decade of spinning wheels and one short, fucked-up, failed marriage, but I'm finally starting to get a handle on that portion of my identity.
Thing is, there are so many negative aspects to what "manliness" means in our society that one hesitates (or at least I do) to identify oneself with that, and for most of my life I shied away from the whole idea of masculinity, resented it, even, because it seemed to have no place for, and even a harsh condemnation of, a sensitive, artsy-fartsy guy like me. So yeah, there's issues there.
And now that I've come to consciously acknowledge that yeah, I'm a MAN and that is good, there's a whole other danger in steering clear of the whole set of sexist attitudes that permeate our culture, as Matt said. So it's tricky, and I still have more questions than answers.
