What it means to be a man

ownerof1000oddsocks

The following is a short talk by Tony Porter: A call to men.

http://www.ted.com/talks/tony_porter_a_call_to_men.html

Yishai

I love TED talks. This one is so true too.

I can remember growing up. When I would get hurt, I'd start crying and go to my father or mother. When I went to my father, he'd say "What's wrong? Walk it off. It's nothing. Just walk it off. You're a big boy, so just toughen up."

Heh. I'm still a softie though and I've found out that he is too. Despite living in the man-box, at least it doesn't change some of us deep down to the core.

genkaku

Funny, I think of being a man as being quite a lot like Buddhism: Pay attention and take responsibility. Same for women, too.

Still_Waters

The following is a short talk by Tony Porter: A call to men.

Excellent stuff! There is an article in the current issue of Newsweek magazine that bears out some of his points. The article, "The John Next Door," concerns a study that was done contrasting the attitudes of men who regularly buy sex versus the attitudes of those that don't. This study concluded the following:

"Overall, the attitudes and habits of sex buyers reveal them as men who dehumanize and commodify women, view them with anger and contempt, lack empathy for their suffering and relish their own ability to inflict pain and degradation.

"In their interviews, the sex buyers often voiced aggression toward women, and were nearly eight times as likely as nonbuyers to say they would rape a woman if they could get away with it. Asked why he bought sex, one man said he liked 'to beat women up.' Sex buyers in the study committed more crimes of every kind than nonbuyers, and all the crimes associated with violence against women were committed by the johns."

What I found really sad was that the authors of the study had serious difficulties finding "nonusers": "We finally had to settle on a definition of non-sex-buyers as men who have not been to a strip club more than two times in the past year, have not purchased a lap dance, have not used pornography more than one time in the last month, and have not purchased phone sex or the services of a sex worker, escort, erotic masseuse, or prostitute."

Tony Porter reveals the cultural underpinnings of these attitudes and how they form at an early age.

Alan

ownerof1000oddsocks

@Yishai

The mum does seem to be the safety net of the two parents. One experience does comes to mind, not particularly traumatic, but I did get kicked by a horse. The impact threw me about 8 meters and I literally came out of my shoes. I guess my mum thought this incident didn't so much call for a sit down and cuddle but more of a let the boy crawl to the couch to sleep it off.

@genkaku

Thinking of female and male monks, without the hair and wearing robes, seems to bring the sexes closer together, right?

ownerof1000oddsocks

What I found really sad was that the authors of the study had serious difficulties finding "nonusers"

I think I get what you're saying- there's a lot more guys do than don't. I had to take that third paragraph a bit lightly though. Not saying sexual violence doesn't exist, it just doesn't represent guys or men in general as much as the fourth paragraph does. The definition of the 'sex buyer' was too ambiguous, although it can be a factor in the formation of male attitudes.

genkaku

Thinking of female and male monks, without the hair and wearing robes, seems to bring the sexes closer together, right?
_________________________________________

@owner -- I was thinking of human beings, not professions.

Still_Waters

I think I get what you're saying- there's a lot more guys do than don't. I had to take that third paragraph a bit lightly though. Not saying sexual violence doesn't exist, it just doesn't represent guys or men in general as much as the fourth paragraph does.

I believe that violence against women in one form or another is very prevalent in our society. Virtually every woman I've personally known has had horror stories to share. My current fiance once told me about one of her ex-boyfriends pointing a gun at her head. A Google search for "violence against women" reveals exactly how prevalent this problem really is.

The definition of the 'sex buyer' was too ambiguous, although it can be a factor in the formation of male attitudes.

Ambiguous? The authors of the study were very specific with their definition of 'sex buyer' for the purposes of their study. What did you find ambiguous?

I would also say that the habitual purchase of sex and violence toward women is an end result of certain male attitudes. Those attitudes are actually formed starting very early in life, exactly as Mr. Porter describes.

Alan

AMH

Wow, well I am going to appreciate my boyfriend and other men I know a lot more. none of them are 'sex buyers' and I may argue the finer points of feminism I have good men around me who do not every treat women with violence. There are lots of attitude and what I find from older men sometimes they seem to be putting women in a limited position but they also equally expect to take care of those women. That is drastically different then the violence.

Jeffrey

For me I could talk to my dad more actually sometimes. I got in a fight and got beaten up and I told my dad, but I didn't want him to tell my mom because I didn't want her to know that I had been fighting. I wasn't in the slightest concerned that I had lost the fight it was just that I didn't want her to know I had been violent. I wasn't that ashamed to go to school with a yellow eye my friends didn't give me that hard a time they just laughed a little and it was no big deal. Maybe because I was on the soccer team and had enough status credentials?

So you could say that for me I was in a 'good boy' box and the real me actually got into a fight.

Dakini

I question how common the "type" is that is discussed in the film. And how common it is to "buy sex", as was discussed in the article someone mentioned. I think there are a lot of guys who are shy and reticent around women, and there are a lot of other guys who are arrogant and potentially condescending, possibly potentially emotionally abusive, if not physically. But these discussions and articles somehow miss the "nice guys".

Some months ago on this forum there was a somewhat similar discussion, and someone observed that Jewish guys didn't fit the mold. So I asked, yeah, they're nice guys, it's obviously culturally-based, so what is it about Jewish culture that tends to produce more nice guys? If they can do it, why can't WASP families raise boys like that? I'm sure some are, but the end up under the radar whenever a study is done or an article written.

What do you all think?

Jeffrey

I agree with the (reply to video) poster who pointed that domination isn't a behaviour inherent to men vs women. Domination occurs all over the place sometimes the woman is the dominator and it occurs at workplace etc..

I do agree that there are values where the woman is devalued and therefore fair game to treat poorly. In most guys this just means to degrade verbal and just play the woman. But women do that behaviour to men also.

You can be made to do things you are not comfortable or accepting of in order to avoid rejection from the dominant social order.

Dakini

Who cares about the dominant social order? What ever happened to independent thinking? What are we, lemmings?

Yes, women can dominate. A former professor (male) of mine is a battered spouse. Very sad.

I think male domination is still the common paradigm in our society currently. Now that women have been able to get into supervisory positions in the workplace, maybe some weird stuff is happening there, but maybe there's a perception on the part of some guys (I've seen this in an office where I used to work) that the woman who is supervising them is overly dominant, when in fact, she may just be doing her job. Some guys react poorly to women supervisors. This is not to say that pushy women supervisors, directors, whatever don't exist. I'm just saying that some of the reported cases of that may be mainly in the minds of guys who don't like to feel like they're answering to their mother in the workplace. It's a projection.

tmottes

There are some women who feel they must be tough enough to deal with the cut throat men, especially in IT. A brilliant co-worker and close friend, is like that and she isn't mean, just highly intimidating to most. And only in a work setting.

Jeffrey

I didn't mean domination necessarily in an extreme form more a spectrum and a normal thing as normal as breathing. Many well adjusted couples have an aspect of domination in their relationships. Likewise almost all work environments are packed full of examples of domination. Its a spectrum and doesn't have to be flagrant. My point was that this behaviour is not so native to the 'man box' as is presented. If there are three teenage girls going out to a movie there is some aspect of domination amongst the relationships.

Therefore I think the main issue is fear. People are afraid at how they are seen. That guy should have said 'fuck man you crazy' and told his parents what happened when he was asked to go in the room with the woman. But he was afraid.

And then the guy he was with who did that had a low value of woman. He thought he could treat them crappy and that he was the greatest. The woman of the neighborhood all said he was 'fine' which reinforced in his mind that he was doing a good job.

I've seen the party culture and there is a desensitization to seedy behaviour. I'm sure it was much worse in many environments than I experienced.

compassionate_warrior

Therefore I think the main issue is fear. People are afraid at how they are seen. That guy should have said 'fuck man you crazy' and told his parents what happened when he was asked to go in the room with the woman. But he was afraid.

And he was only 12, so it wouldn't have been that easy to blow off an older, cooler guy. I wish he'd at least talked to the girl. It sounded like he was too petrified to do anything. But I don't think this is a typical scenario for middle-class boys.

ownerof1000oddsocks

@Dakini you wrote:

'these discussions and articles somehow miss the "nice guys".'

Articles such as these go looking for trouble. In other words, if you're digging for dirt don't expect to find any gold. But anyway, that's a little besides the point. Not going too much into specifics but the main thrust of Tonys speech was that as men, we have to be tough and show little emotion. For some guys this might mean putting on a front. Speaking for myself (and possibly @Yishai), I am a big softie who tries to fit into the socially accepted image of 'maleness'. I think this is a weakness for me- to be afraid of being seen as weak. Perhaps this is more so with the working class mindset, and definitely moreso with the British and United States macho 'he-man' mindset.

But onto the actual topic of sex/violence, which was just a part of the whole talk, no it isn't too common but then that probably has something to do with the environment we live in and what we're accustomed to seeing everyday. To me the family is the backbone of society, but not everybody fulfills that ideal.

I guess people like Tony Porter are walking the walk and helping to inform, but for others the mindset is one of acceptable casualties, that is to say the broken people are collateral damage in a world that can't easily be fixed. But that doesn't mean we have to be resigned to that fact. Of course it's much easier to find fault as opposed to seeing poor people as being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that's when it gets dangerous for those that may be seen as less deserving.

Who would really choose to be ignorant or unlucky?