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.

It's so obvious that homophobia is built into masculinity, etc. etc.

From a WSJ article:

Mr. Iwanyk, 32 years old, first suspected that his TiVo thought he was gay, since it inexplicably kept recording programs with gay themes. A film studio executive in Los Angeles and the self-described "straightest guy on earth," he tried to tame TiVo's gay fixation by recording war movies and other "guy stuff."

"The problem was, I overcompensated," he says. "It started giving me documentaries on Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Eichmann. It stopped thinking I was gay and decided I was a crazy guy reminiscing about the Third Reich."

Notice how the logical progression created by the TiVo leads from "gay stuff" to "manly stuff" to fascism?

TiVo must have an advanced degrees in gender studies.

Or perhaps Mr. Iwanyk is thinking like a well-socialized man. Rationality leads to irrational outcomes, or something.

Being Tough

Because everyone knows that men who ask for help are really just pansies:

LEXINGTON, Ky. - A soldier facing his second tour of duty in Iraq said in a jailhouse interview he was at a hospital seeking mental help when he was arrested in the middle of the night for allegedly being absent without leave.

Spc. Justin Faulkner insists his superior officers at Fort Campbell knew about his mental problems but refused to provide adequate treatment.

On Thursday, Faulkner checked into a Lexington VA hospital, where doctors told him they wanted to keep him until Monday for observation. Police showed up at the hospital shortly after 2 a.m. Saturday to take him to jail.

"It's humiliating, degrading," Faulkner, 22, of Stanton, said in an interview Monday with The Associated Press minutes before his release from the Fayette County Detention Center. "It's made me lose respect for the military. To come and arrest me at the VA, it wasn't like I was trying to hide, trying to run. I was getting help. I am being punished for getting help."

Do you get it yet, America? There is no nobility in this. None.

Via Dohiyi Mir.

Shame is Not a Good Thing, People

I was about to go get some lunch when I ran across this BB post. It led here:

BANGKOK, Thailand - Thai police officers who break rules will be forced to wear hot pink armbands featuring "Hello Kitty," the Japanese icon of cute, as a mark of shame, a senior officer said Monday.

...

"Simple warnings no longer work. This new twist is expected to make them feel guilt and shame and prevent them from repeating the offense, no matter how minor," said Pongpat, acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok.

"(Hello) Kitty is a cute icon for young girls. It's not something macho police officers want covering their biceps," Pongpat said.

Fantastic. There are so many things wrong with this I'm not even going to try and unpack it. Instead, I'm going to have a sandwhich.