What does it mean to be a man

[Gem]

Sure, a lot of people have external genitalia for the purpose of delivering spermatozoa, and the hormones and chromosomes of the sex, but the psychic dimension, with its individualistic masculinity entwined with the social meanings and roles that form the dictates of what it is to 'be a man', with it's peculiar rites of passage that serve to indicate the differences between boyhood and manhood. My word, it's a very complicated situation, and it's very hard to do - it's like a perfect performance, or a continual rehearsal, but a theater in many ways.

"Be a man about it". "Man up, dude". "You're a grown man".

What it is it: manhood? Who gets to say what it is? Do you know what it is? How do you know?

Well, I'm not sure, but I spent by 'boyhood' becoming it, and I can only assume there was a point I was it, but being 'past my prime' now, I can also assume I'm less of it than I once was - but it has always eluded me, and I have never known what it is to be man.

I leave you with a few 'quaint sayings' and representations that supposedly 'tell us' what it means, and how it is performed -








And what would a discussion on gender be without a bit of innuendo?

[firstandlast]

Interesting topic--

I will say that manhood, or adulthood in general is a imaginary social construct; that's not to say it doesn't exist, but exists in a different way and in so has different rules--

Basically manhood is a mythological idea, but for that myth to have any bearing on manifested reality, it needs to refer to something that has took place in the manifestation of reality-- That is where we get; male rites of initiation-- In some cultures, and in many past cultures this is a well defined social event (and by social I mean established by society) where the boy must go through some trial/test/ordeal that is potent in experience; something you can never forget.. Almost like a mental scar, a surgical implanted experience--

Why? Because by holding such a ritual, it both gives them reason to feel like they have passed into manhood (that is an earned right) and also a clear distinction when this occurred (a mark in ones life)-- And this is something sort of in general our society lacks as a whole when it uses terminology to describe things and does not realize the potency of mythological imagery that does not clearly match what it means--

Now, some fathers in some ways still hold more personal traditions like this; maybe he takes his son hunting and makes his first kill, maybe he builds his first computer on his own, it really isn't limited in what it must be, as long as something major occurs that he can remember and that some male perceived authority recognizes it as a passage, clearly tells the boy he is now a man, and begins to treat him differently--


I have also read that the lack of these male passage rites causes the boy to seek it, that is he is given this word for what he is now considered, but he never experienced becoming that word-- So we get boys who join the military or gangs; whom seek radical methods of claiming their manhood, because nothing simple will no longer clearly define it.. it needs to become the essence of what he thinks makes a man a man--

That actually takes us to societal gender roles; as the male role became less and less defined, we began to mistake the common characteristics of men to mean what it is to be a man; and in such this happened with women-- This has caused an all too confusing scene of feeling like you are other than what you are-- We have lost the essence and now depend on expression to tell us the essence of things-- but anyways, I hope this helps--

Btw, when I say the role of man was less and less defined; I simply mean that being a man gave you something to be, now it does not-- Is this a bad thing? No, this seems to be the natural progression, but we have indeed forgotten the power of words and myth; and in such have caused psychic issues-- So I am not saying the old ways are better, but we do need to understand the old ways to realize the old things we have adapted still affect us, and we could either make better use of this; or we could abandon it in favor of a new mythic story--

[firstandlast]

I mean this is basically what you said, but how I see it in play--

[Gem]

Originally Posted by firstandlast

Interesting topic--

I will say that manhood, or adulthood in general is a imaginary social construct; that's not to say it doesn't exist, but exists in a different way and in so has different rules--

Basically manhood is a mythological idea, but for that myth to have any bearing on manifested reality, it needs to refer to something that has took place in the manifestation of reality-- That is where we get; male rites of initiation-- In some cultures, and in many past cultures this is a well defined social event (and by social I mean established by society) where the boy must go through some trial/test/ordeal that is potent in experience; something you can never forget.. Almost like a mental scar, a surgical implanted experience--

Why? Because by holding such a ritual, it both gives them reason to feel like they have passed into manhood (that is an earned right) and also a clear distinction when this occurred (a mark in ones life)-- And this is something sort of in general our society lacks as a whole when it uses terminology to describe things and does not realize the potency of mythological imagery that does not clearly match what it means--

Now, some fathers in some ways still hold more personal traditions like this; maybe he takes his son hunting and makes his first kill, maybe he builds his first computer on his own, it really isn't limited in what it must be, as long as something major occurs that he can remember and that some male perceived authority recognizes it as a passage, clearly tells the boy he is now a man, and begins to treat him differently--


I have also read that the lack of these male passage rites causes the boy to seek it, that is he is given this word for what he is now considered, but he never experienced becoming that word-- So we get boys who join the military or gangs; whom seek radical methods of claiming their manhood, because nothing simple will no longer clearly define it.. it needs to become the essence of what he thinks makes a man a man--

That actually takes us to societal gender roles; as the male role became less and less defined, we began to mistake the common characteristics of men to mean what it is to be a man; and in such this happened with women-- This has caused an all too confusing scene of feeling like you are other than what you are-- We have lost the essence and now depend on expression to tell us the essence of things-- but anyways, I hope this helps--

Btw, when I say the role of man was less and less defined; I simply mean that being a man gave you something to be, now it does not-- Is this a bad thing? No, this seems to be the natural progression, but we have indeed forgotten the power of words and myth; and in such have caused psychic issues-- So I am not saying the old ways are better, but we do need to understand the old ways to realize the old things we have adapted still affect us, and we could either make better use of this; or we could abandon it in favor of a new mythic story--

Thanks. That's very clearly stated and made my thinking much clearer.

[Gem]

I wonder what happened to the men?

I for one am questioning of masculinity, and what makes males masculine, and the more I think on it, the less definitive masculinity becomes. Feminity also becomes obscure as the male social emblem loses definition.

I heard a good joke though:

It's my parents: My father likes to dress up in my mothers clothes, and my mother likes to wear my fathers clothes - They're 'transparent' - And that's a real 'drag'.


Well, I found this video, which I thought was interesting, because in modern times there is a movement to disorient the masculine/feminine symbolic, and indeed, many claim that masculinity is entirely constructed from social meanings, and there is no 'natural masculine expression'. I don't entirely agree, as it's obvious that masculinities are in fact socially defined, and very narrowly - but I still maintain that the Male sex is not only a fallic and muscular collection of hormones. I view the body in itself as an expression of masculinity, and as a means of expressing it - in my view, there is no particular general rule but there is obviously a masculine expression though the male form.

Anyway, here's the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-JWqHlKpU8

[Somnia]

Hey Gem, haven't you heard? To be man you must be swift as the coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon, with all of the strength of a raging fire, and be mysterious as the dark side of the moon...

Hehe, sorry I couldn't resist posting that...


PS. I really love your avatar...Vincent Van Gogh is my favorite artist...

[Silver]

Originally Posted by Somnia

Hey Gem, haven't you heard? To be man you must be swift as the coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon, with all of the strength of a raging fire, and be mysterious as the dark side of the moon...

Hehe, sorry I couldn't resist posting that...


PS. I really love your avatar...Vincent Van Gogh is my favorite artist...

Omg, another Mulan fan!

[r6r6]

Relative to woman, a mans psyche operates at 90 degrees to that of a woman, in it most optimal state or orientation.

Geometrically this can be seen as defining the minimally fundamental polyhedrona of Universe the tetra{4}hedron.

This link{ see link } shows the parrellel bisection of the tetra{4}hedron into equal halves. In this sense man and woman are equal in some metaphysical-1 sense, yet to define this minimally 3D polyhedron of Universe, man and woman operate at optimally at 90 degrees to each other.

"men are pushers, women are attractors"...R. Bucky Fuller

My wife and I were driving past a school yard and she asks me why are the boys all piling on top of each other like that. I said because that what boys do.

I dont recall exactly what the circumstances were, but if I recall correctly, this was not a football game but it may have been a token football-like gam the boys were playing out in the front schoolyard, not an actual football field.

It may be that if males tend to be less empathetic to others feelings, then one to feel is to get physical. Or maybe it is just great levels of testosterone driving to make contact with other boys to drive out the testosterone that is driving them.

I think if look around in nature we find more males working out physically against other males, when a female(s) come into play. Psyche is a part of the physical, however, males may tend toward physical expression easier than females do.

Again the latter above may relate back to levels of testosterone. There is ample evidence that female brains are more active in both hemispheres of brain.

So women may actually have more complex set of thought pathways they travel, before expressing themselves.

Ive posted once before that there exists a 6:1 ratio of male to female idiot savants. To me, this is just more evidence that men tend toward being more focused on a narrow pathway than women.

Men see the task go all out in that direction.

Women see the task but have more bilateral thoughts on any task at hand.

I also heard a disscusson once on NPR in these regards and this lady said that, ....'she had girl first and then a boy, and one day she look down and her boy was knawing on her ankle, and she thought, my girl never did that'....

To her this one incident made her think boys are not like girls.

r6

[Gem]

In avoiding the comparative feminine to define the masculine, I wonder if there is a man who doesn't need to orient masculinity against the feminine, or in other words, need a woman to define himself by.

I claim it is a lack of masculinity that inspires this comparative identification where I am masculine in terms of 'not-feminine'. I agree this is a strong definer in Western culture, but I also claim that it is so because men are lacking in their gender identity and expression, and since that affects the male role model, men have turned to the feminine in order to orient themselves.

In the natural world (that is, apart from culture) a man has the physicality suited to faster running, further throwing, heavier lifting, harder hitting and so on. In modernity, this is reduced to sport, which is a recreation and not everyday living. It a very significant sense, masculinities are in fact sited in the body and the body's physical capability, but due to cushy modern life, this is not practiced generally, or out of necessity, in everyday lives.

What a man can do with his body needs to be done in the natural world. In the industrial world, we can have a slave do it as was the case in ancient Greece and the modern colonies, or more recently, let machines be the physical masculine function instead. Men are 'typically' interested in engines and driving big machines, after all.

In metro-sexual culture where the few sex segregation norms for males are generally scorned, where are males to be set apart from the gender mix (that is, apart from boys, girls and women)? Men can not be completely masculine within a gender mix due to having duties to care for, attend to and protect the 'clan', not as cultural custom in patriarchy, but as universal facet of their physique and its strength.

Oh now we have weak men and stronger women, and as we go further into modernity there are very few actual survival requirements for strong physiques, so this has become less definitive of the masculine, where in time bygone, this was perhaps the most prominent of masculine expressions, and of critical importance to human survival. Indeed it's more difficult to understand masculinity in the absence of that aesthetic form and its natural and cultural expressions.

This is where men are castrated and rely on the feminine to orient him. Like in Greek mythology where Uranus' severed genitals were thrown into the sea which gave rise to the love Goddess, Aphrodite. Indeed this 'having no balls' is a cause of subjugating the feminine so that man can find definition for himself, and it is this economy of masculine lack that hence manifests the 'sex object' in the feminine form.

Due to this history in Western modernity, if a man can not of himself question critically and destroy his cultural identity, he will not be living abundantly as the masculine, but reduced to the framework of lack by becoming the 'not-femine'.

[r6r6]

Masculine concept does not exist without concept of feminine, except with those who choose to deny our observed reality, for various reasons.

Concave does not exist without concave ex ( is inherently both.

2D triangle is has inside area and outside 3D.

3D polyhedron has inside 3D and outside 3D.

The list for observed reality and their complementary concepts go on and on. The key is understanding the differrence between what is opposites and what is 90 degree complementarities.

Complementarity is likened to side-effects. The side effect of a honey bee foraging for food is the spreading of pollen to plants.

The side effect of humans going to the moon was things like teflon, tang etc.....

Originally Posted by r6r6r

I also heard a disscusson once on NPR in these regards and this lady said that, ....'she had girl first and then a boy, and one day she look down and her boy was knawing on her ankle, and she thought, my girl never did that'....
To her this one incident made her think boys are not like girls.