for real though
I’m getting a divorce on the surface because she cheated on me.
but the reality is she isn’t ok with me sharing emotions, or being vulnerable.
fuck toxic masculinity, and it’s pervasive grip that has strangled so much
The social norm of men suppressing their emotions is a trait of toxic masculinity. His wife is propagating toxic masculinity by making him suppress his emotions.
I feel like people are doing a disservice by using the phrase “toxic masculinity”
You can’t use that phrase without implying masculinity in general is a bad thing. Trying to draw a distinction between “masculinity” and “toxic masculinity” is using the same logic as the people that say “but you’re one of the good ones” when they’re talking to someone of [insert race, gender, religion, etc].
They’re toxic people that cause these problems. There’s nothing wrong with masculinity.
You can’t use the phrase “bad egg” without implying all eggs are bad, except the “good ones”
You’re making an incorrect comparison here.
Race, gender, etc. are: 1)Immutable 2)Not harmful, they just are
Toxic masculinity is behavior, it: 1)Causes measurable harm 2)Can be changed
It’s not okay to put those things into the same bin. While I appreciate and somewhat applaud your effort to stand up for masculinity that many say is in crisis, this can be approached in a plethora of ways besides promoting objectively harmful behaviors.
And yet we never hear about toxic femininity, it sure feels pretty biased, especially when in this case it’s literally a woman that’s making a guys life miserable… And yet toxic masculinity 🤷♂️
I get what you’re saying but you’re wrong. Toxic masculinity is a societal expectations thing. It’s the background noise that’s ever-present in society saying “masculinity is anger.” “Masculinity is never crying.” “Masculinity is shoving those emotions deep down in the man place, where they’ll never be seen again.”
Healthy masculinity is ideas such as taking care of your shit. Owning responsibility for the things you can effect. Shit like that. When someone says someone has issues because of toxic masculinity, they’re not saying that masculinity itself is bad. Of course it isn’t. The thing that’s bad is our, society’s, views on what masculinity is. That’s the toxic masculinity.
I had a girlfriend once (briefly) who legit got mad at me for crying. Like, “stop that fucking shit” and walked out of the room mad.
She also believed that a guy resting their head on the girl’s shoulder or lap or whatever made them look weak.
Anyway, she’s gone and, last I knew, absolutely miserable.
My wife? Amazing and completely the opposite of the above. I don’t know wtf I was thinking before.
My nephew blames others when he has emotions. I’ll prolly end up killing him.
Been single a loooong, long time. 99% of women I talk to / been on dates with find bi / pan men disgusting. It got to the point after one date, when she’d told me she’s bi, then literally recoiled in disgust when I said I’m pan, I just gave up.
Moved to a new area, been on one date, she is bi and doesn’t understand why so many women think that way. She’s awesome, we had an amazing time so I hope it grows into something special! Good luck with your relationship :)
I recently came to accept that I am bi. I was puzzled how most of my life I only ever had luck with bi/pan women as I had refused to acknowledge that side of me due to rampant homophobia where I grew up. Something about us just repels cis women in my experience. My wife even had gay friends insisting she was a smokescreen and that I was forcing myself to be with her. Part of my trauma growing up was hearing people have the stereotype that bi people are just horny sluts and that it wasn’t just how they were born.
There seems to be a stigma against bi men in general just as bad as gay men in my experience (I’ve even heard tales of gay men hating bi men). Any straight woman I dated, or tried to, always seemed to be repulsed by me. My guess is that it is in the body language, since her gay friends insisted I was too. Society as a whole is getting better at accepting people but it is still fucked.
Sorry to hear about your experiences. It does provide some small feeling of solidarity to know we’re not alone!
Well done for accepting yourself. I do have the privelege in some sense that if I wanted, I could pretend to be straight. Maybe that’s an aspect that riles some gay people up. I can confirm I don’t repulse women :) until that is, they figure out or find out that I’m not straight. Then it’s almost always the instant evaporation of attraction.
As far as I understand it, for some women, their idea of attraction to a man is still (despite the clamouring for equal rights) tied to how macho the man is. Sex with men, or trans people, destroys that machoness. Then you’ve got the insecure ones who assume because you also find another gender attractive, they can never be enough for you, or that you will cheat. I’ve never, ever cheated on a partner. Finally you have the ones who assume that not being straight, you’re highly promiscuous and therefore riddled with STIs. I can’t speak for other guys but before I realised I was pan I used to joke I’m not bi, I’m bi myself. Very much not promiscuous, and very much take the necessary precautions whenever I sleep with someone (which is rare).
Notice how just speaking about my experience caused someone to downvote my comment. We can’t even exist without offending some people.
I seemed to pass as straight to cis gendered people, but like you said they are looking for that macho man vibe and despite my trying they could always see through it. Only gay and bi people ever showed signs of or did question it. I think much of what makes people uncomfortable about LGBTQ+ is because they see things that they see in themselves they don’t like. Society forces people to conform when things are far from black and white.
For example, despite saying that I am bi I have a strong preference towards women. I only crushed hard on a guy once, but never mentioned a word of it and was just best friends with him until we went our separate ways, due to the aforementioned homophobia around us. I wonder now, at this point, how different my life would have been if society was more open. I strongly suspect he wasn’t strictly het either as his wife is pan as well among other things.
Never knew this might be a common issue, interesting.
Bi girls I dated were rather constantly questioning how can I be strictly hetero lol
It’s sadly extremely common. Women who say they are allies imo are often just accessorising, they’ll go to pride and ‘have a gay friend’ but vomit at the thought of dating someone pan / bi.
I made myself more than a little sad the other day, reading the comments under an article about this issue written by a bi man who married a woman. Just an absolute reel of angry, ‘personally attacked’ women completely confirmimg the articles points.
Been there, did that. Now we’re ten days into this Parenthood thing and will raise our boy to be as connected to his feelings as I can be.
