Beyond Masculinity

Michael Faris has an essay in a new anthology, and there was at least one little bit that I could relate to:

It wasn't that I wasn't attracted to women. I was and still am. To this day, I can't figure out why I didn't want to talk about women the way I heard other men talking about women... I wonder sometimes if it was because I saw women as so much more human than men. Women expressed themselves, they talked more, they had feelings, and they demeaned other people less — in general, at least. Men, on the other hand, treat each other like crap. Worse yet, I saw them treat themselves like crap. They never expressed themselves and kept their emotions all inside, except maybe for anger.

That has become more true of me over time, I think. Certainly my relationship with masculinity has become a lot more complex than it used to be.