I was just reading a discussion on another community where the OP was complaining about a lack of NSFW content being readily available. It was really demoralizing to see him bemoaning the fact that the female/femme members of the fediverse don’t seem to be lining up to disrobe for his amusement. It’s just frustrating to see the same old boys’/men’s club atmosphere be nearly as prevalent here as it was on reddit. I had been hoping for improvement in that regard when I moved over here last month.
Ugh, that doesn’t sound like a productive conversation for anyone. I’m sorry you had that experience.
To be (un?)fair, there are masculine insecurities that are delusional or unrelated to actual heterosexual relationships, but still difficult to deal with. Like, we might know that women don’t want certain things, but still feel that we ought to be/have those things. A lot of body image issues are irrational on multiple levels, and, in my experience, the irrational ideas are more difficult to deal with than the ones that connect to the real world. Or we might be looking for male partners, who often share and project these irrational expectations. There are queer men who do, in fact, prefer the Thor type to the Loki type. (And, of course, are not women, lol, so that in no way invalidates women’s perspectives, but it contributes to men holding onto that idea).
But saying women’s opinions on male body image problems are somehow incorrect because they don’t reinforce our insecurities, rational or otherwise? No. Just… no. Not when so many guys genuinely do worry about what women want, and welcome feedback from women. I am embarrassed on behalf of the men doing that, and disappointed that it happened.
Not un/fair at all, I did completely miss that out of my comment because I just didn’t have the energy to talk about the impact of the Patriarchy and masculine beauty standards on men.
The image in question (now removed) pitted women’s very valid concerns about sexualisation/objectification of women in the media vs. hyper-masculine portrayals of men (mostly superheros) in the media as if they were parallel issues.
Many comments were woman pointing out that hyper-masculine bodies are glorified in these movies, usually not for women to objectify, but to provide a power fantasy for other men. Plus lots of talk trying to explain male gaze vs. female gaze.
Not for a moment denying the negative effects this has on men’s self-image. It hurts men, and that hurt is more often than not being inflicted by other men. Absolutely LOVE that men are starting to have the conversation, but it shouldn’t be framed as the fault of women.
Ah got it. There was no need for you to mention the masculine perspective in your post, lol, I hesitated to even add it to a conversation that was about men doing the wrong thing. Just because someone is in pain doesn’t mean it’s okay for them to behave badly. But I decided the topic of “men sucking due to emotional trauma” might be relevant to a discussion of men sucking in general, so I brought it up. And yeah, obviously it’s not women’s fault, that’s yet another example of guys doing exactly the wrong thing about their feelings. [/sigh] Toxic masculinity is all about sabotaging your own opportunities for emotional connection and growth.
About the image, agreed, I don’t think there’s much room for direct parallels there. It’s reductive in both directions to say that problematic images of men and women are fundamentally the same, or even that they’re problematic in the same way. The power fantasy angle is a good take. I suppose there is a lot of wish fulfillment in superhero movies, especially for guys who grew up identifying with those superheroes. I find I usually see my flaws in male Marvel characters rather than anything I would like to be, but I suppose that’s part of the same picture. Male gaze vs female gaze might just be too difficult a concept for guys who are just starting to be able to analyze subtext. They might never have seen an example of a movie or TV show featuring the female gaze, which I think is important for understanding what it means.
All of which makes me even more disappointed, since it sounds like this was a situation in which women were coming in with useful and interesting contributions, and getting yelled at for, essentially, being right.