Hi! I (23M) am recovering from complex childhood developmental trauma. I’ve considered myself an outside observer to human society because I was unable to bond with or relate much to other people until this year.
I grew up in an environment with abusive parents where any kind of softness or vulnerability in men was considered “gay”. Subsequently, I encountered a lot of male peers in school who had the same attitude. It seemed like the entire world had the same message: wanting to be vulnerable as a man represents a sexual perversion because it is a “feminine” trait. I was bullied for the bits of vulnerability that I showed, echoing my abusive parents punishing my vulnerability. This sent me into a suicidal spiral that I thankfully made it out of.
I had this inexplicable desire to be vulnerable that I couldn’t suppress. It made me believe that I was somehow “gay” despite only being attracted to women, and that women who like men could never find me attractive because they were only attracted to “straight” masculinity – invulnerable, competitive, and dominating – consigning me to a permanent ontological friendzone. Ultimately, I decided to take the Faustian bargain of trading my sexual potential for the freedom to be soft, releasing me from the internal pressure to conform to patriarchy.
(To clarify, I was confused in a specific way where I thought “straight” = patriarchy and “gay” = anything that challenges patriarchy. I concluded that the latter was morally superior and adopted softness and progressive beliefs on purpose even though I falsely believed at the time that this would lead to my celibacy based on the right-wing echo chamber I grew up in.)
Through healing from my trauma and talking to friends years later, I’m starting to think that this belief was kinda bullshit? How can you avoid being vulnerable when merely existing in the presence of your partner opens you up to their potential judgement? How can you avoid being vulnerable when you ask someone out, knowing they can reject you? It’s almost like I actually didn’t want to be vulnerable despite thinking otherwise, and refusing to even appear in front of people actually made me the most invulnerable and therefore manliest man who ever manned, or something. Also, accepting my fate of being in the perma-friendzone led to me making a female friend who emphatically told me that I actually could find a girlfriend because I have this adorable charm and clumsiness that seems to make her instinctively want to baby me, which I always thought was the exact opposite of desirable. I’m slowly coming around to believing her after 6 years.
Most importantly, love requires both partners to be emotionally vulnerable, right? So then under gender roles, men can’t love women, only objectify them? Wouldn’t this make society one giant trauma factory where men are traumatized into detached sociopathy and women are traumatized into servitude? So what the hell are conservatives doing in relationships? Are they all loveless relationships, or did all of the men cheat their gender role to develop romantic feelings? If men didn’t cheat a little in the past decades where gender roles were the strongest, shouldn’t we see a kind of generational trauma so severe that violent crime is rampant and secure attachment is very scarce?
Most importantly, love requires both partners to be emotionally vulnerable, right? So then under gender roles, men can’t love women, only objectify them? Wouldn’t this make society one giant trauma factory where men are traumatized into detached sociopathy and women are traumatized into servitude?
Yup, basically
So what the hell are conservatives doing in relationships? Are they all loveless relationships
I think that whilst there are some conservative men who “cheat” and allow themselves moments of escaping from their gender roles, there are a lot of miserable people. Like, have you ever noticed how conservative media is just constant ragebait, and makes people just get angry at how shit the world is, then it will make them feel scared and powerless, but then because they don’t have the emotional capacity to explore those emotions, they channel it more into rage. I think that you’re right on the money when you describe claiming power under the patriarchy as being a “Faustian bargain”.
Although you probably feel like you’re socially delayed because you’re not just now working through all this stuff, speaking as someone who’s 29, I have known plenty of people who didn’t reach this realisation until they were a fair bit older than you, so from my perspective, you’re probably ahead of your peers. Some people may seem like they don’t need to work on this stuff, but often it’s just that it’s less easy to detect until it really becomes an issue later in life. What you discuss is why I vehemently consider it to be an aspect of my duty as a feminist to work to understand how the patriarchy harms men, and restricts masculinity in general.
If you want to explore this more, a book that I would hugely recommend is “The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity and Love” by bell hooks. It’s an incredible book, and I think we’d live in a far healthier world if every man read this book. It’s old enough that you can find it for free on Archive.org
I often see posts from the LGBT community that make me feel… Envious? Almost like I’m missing out on something. The social stigma of being “gay” for having feelings must’ve really gotten to me growing up. I feel there’s a blockage in my brain and emotions that tells me I can’t be a silly, goofy, caring guy, so I default to being quiet and closed off. Almost like my true potential as a person is being surpressed by the thoughts of myself and the beliefs of those around me.
I’ve thought about it, and I know I’m not gay, but as you describe in your post, there is some kind of societal disapproval around men having deeper emotions that I see in almost everyone around me, especially in myself. My dad and brother never vent, complain, cry, etc. They just wake up, go to work, and distract themselves the rest of the day. I can’t remember the last time I had a deep conversation with somebody other than my wife (we fortunately don’t have a “traditional” relationship in the sense of this post and can be vulnerable with each other). The last 2 times I’ve tried to communicate real issues with my dad, I’ve written real, detailed letters, which went completely ignored, twice.
I completely see what you’re getting at. Traditional gender roles DO seem to make love impossible, and the hyper-masculine(?) somehow make an exception to reproduce. At least that would explain why I was born, but my family has shown little care for the mental health or wellbeing of myself or others. It’s almost like the societal pressure to get married and have children override the actual feelings of love for others.
I often see posts from the LGBT community that make me feel… Envious? Almost like I’m missing out on something. The social stigma of being “gay” for having feelings must’ve really gotten to me growing up. I feel there’s a blockage in my brain and emotions that tells me I can’t be a silly, goofy, caring guy, so I default to being quiet and closed off. Almost like my true potential as a person is being surpressed by the thoughts of myself and the beliefs of those around me.
I felt the exact same way, but perhaps to a more toxic and reactionary degree. Being called “gay” so much caused me to believe that I was indistinguishable from a gay man, to the point where I was better off being homosexual since I would face the same amount of discrimination anyway (not true). In other words, I thought that as a guy, it’s worse to be straight and feminine than gay and feminine, because bigots think you’re gay in both cases, but in the former case, you also repel the gender you’re attracted to (based on the assumption that women universally find feminine men unattractive).
At least that would explain why I was born, but my family has shown little care for the mental health or wellbeing of myself or others. It’s almost like the societal pressure to get married and have children override the actual feelings of love for others.
I believe I was born for similar reasons. I think my parents had children because it was gratifying for their self-image and made them feel successful. They didn’t know how to create a safe or nurturing environment. Now they are disappointed that their kids didn’t turn out how they hoped, when it’s because they put no actual emotional labor into raising them and created two traumatized adults.
Historian here: People “back then” had the same brains we have, were as smart as we are and also were capable of feeling the same emotions as we are. And they totally were able to love. History is full of really awesome love stories. Letters of Note is a great resource to start exploring those emotions. They also have a book simply collecting love letters and you really might want to get this. The onslaught of love from historical people writing to each others will answer your question if men could have loved women back then. Just take a look at this letter of Richard Feynman writing to his dead wife and all the love and caring oozing out of it:
https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/i-love-my-wife-my-wife-is-dead
Those “traditional gender roles” the conservatives are pushing are not real. They were not real back then and are a power fantasy of bad people. There were gay people back then. And trans people. And men and women loved each others. Others were in loveless or abusive relationships. Go and read a few of those letters. They are awesome.
Thanks for sharing the letters of note. What a lovely, if sad, read this morning.
Vulnerability is not a weakness. It’s the opposite. It shows you have the courage to open up to people.
Being vulnerable is braveness. You’re brave enough to look inside you and try to accept everything you find there and learn to cope with it.
Strong alphas are cowards. They don’t want to or aren’t able to do so and always will blame others for not being able to do so. They are sad because of this and therefore angry.
Im a 39 y old male and i cant stand them anymore. Dont trust men who are never sad. They don’t now how to became happy in life because they don’t know themselves and therefore didn’t get the point of a good life.
I’m not afraid to cry. I tell my friends that I love them. I have two teenage sons that I kiss goodnight, every single day. I am a disability support worker. I do regular mental health checks on family and friends because I know what it is to be depressed, and how one person caring can be the difference between living and dying. I hug… A lot. I am 49 years old and I am male…
… Therefore, I must be gay. Please don’t tell my wife.
Love is just a set of needs that another person meets for you. Sometimes those needs are deep and meaningful and let you be vulnerable and feel like someone really knows you and… sometimes it’s just chemicals, comfort and staving off loneliness. Both can be love, both are pretty great, it’s cheeseburgers vs fancy steak.
Love does not require vulnerability in any shared sense. It can absolutely exist without it. I would argue that a relationship isn’t very healthy without some concept of shared vulnerability but love isn’t a relationship and a relationship isn’t love.
Many relationships are purely based on a concept of “I know what my partner is thinking/feeling” when nothing is shared. There are many connections that just work, for various reasons.
I’m nearing 50 and didn’t even know what vulnerability actually was (I had a concept but not an experience. I didn’t know what I didn’t know) until my early 40’s. And I’m still shit at vulnerability and have roughly as much experience with using a Bat’leth in combat as I do being vulnerable. But believe me, I’ve been in love many times.
There’s a lemmy resident who made a video about this. He talked about the role men’s emotional deadness is shaped to play in relationships and how under this system we’re supposed to seek out women to experience our emotions through vicariously. Like, they experience beauty and sadness and joy and we just experience… them.
It’s fucked up. It explained so much about why people in my life hated my emotions and what me showing them implied. Men and women deserve better than to be made to exist like that.
Do you have a link?
Sure, he’s posted other videos to lemmy so I hope he’s okay with this one
https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=aS9hpbZ_PcU
The thing I’m referring to is kind of buried because he opens by explaining it through the lens of the Madonna-whore complex. That’s immediately going to bother some people so skip to like 3:20 if you don’t like Freud
I reject the premise of your question
The idea of “traditional gender roles” is bullshit, and the thought that men are not “allowed” to be vulnerable is absurd
He knows that and is asking how people operate who do believe in strict gender roles.
They don’t function as healthy people
They’re fundamentally fucked-up and should be disregarded as any sort of example other than a warning
Now explain to OP how society has survived for millennia.
What you think of “traditional gender roles” isn’t real
It’s very much a modern construct, and a stupid one at that
It’s a great way for men to subjugate women though, so if you’re into that shit, I can see why you like the idea
I’m going to assume you’re not talking to me specifically when you say “you”.
I don’t think this has been the state of society for millenia.
Tolkien had Frodo break down in front of Sam in Lord of the Rings. Sam literally carried him after. This was written not even a century ago, and wasn’t seen as all that remarkable or groundbreaking. Hell, it wasn’t unusual that they held hands, it was just a thing bros did.
The current level of toxic masculinity is a new phenomenon, it’s not a feature of a stable society
Well observed. It’s far from the only example. You can go back as far as the earliest written literature and find examples of male vulnerability. From Gilgamesh and Enkidu to Odysseus to so very many others. Jesus cries openly in front of his disciples. Judas kisses him as a greeting.
The biggest shift happens in the 20th Century, as men grow increasingly afraid of being perceived as queer.
With that being said, we should not fall into the trap of lionizing the past here either. Ancient Greece was spectacularly queer and spectacularly sexist. They also had their forms of strict gender roles, even between men who were openly fucking each other.
Ultimately, strictly defined gender roles have always been a problem. Especially for women, who often get overlooked in these discussions when they’re framed in this particular way. It’s true that how those roles have been defined has changed over the decades and centuries, but it doesn’t erase our underlying tendency to constrain ourselves with definitions.
I mean, even the orthodox Christians don’t practice what they preach. Republican senators turn out gay. Priests fuck little boys. All through the ages, speakers of societal virtue have written all kinds of exceptions for themselves behind closed doors.
Many households get to write their own history, present it in a kind manner; and so you get Sherlock Holmes’ terrible prediction that the idea of a peaceful countryside is an illusion; that there’s far more crime out there that goes unnoticed, even if their family record was that of a willing and happy Lord and Lady.
We’re getting better about things. But the betrayals of humanity, and of the supposed “traditional roles” became a lot more visible.
Society has been good enough to survive.
Just because something has survived doesn’t mean it’s good or healthy.
The best we have doesn’t mean the absolute best.
It’s quite simple.
“Society” hasn’t survived in this state for millennia, it reeks of white supremacy to suggest there’s some monolithic thing the world over called “society”. The phenomenon OP is talking about has been a part of western european and especially American culture for a century or two, but other societies exist now and in the past
Agreed.
I am a 38 year old man, sometimes we need to be vulnerable and emotional to get a release of pent up frustrations and other emotions.
I tend to say that I am man enough to cry when I need to.
The only pain point to me is that we think of this as a man being willing to break down in tears; to say that things have hurt him.
In my case, a lot of my repressed emotion is anger. I’m more than adamant that anger be directed solely to the horrible things in the world that deserve to receive it, and not the people close to you, but I perfectly understand that people (esp women) have reason to be scared around someone that can express so much anger, even if the claim is it will never be towards them.
I think it’s perhaps easy, or even in some ways enjoyable, to be the shoulder someone else cries on, that they feel safe around. It’s probably harder to be the person in the room when someone is seething furious about a worldly injustice; even if that injustice isn’t targeted at the man in question, and the anger is directed at an unseen entity.
Every day I’m more grateful that I live somewhere civilised rather than the backwards shit-fight that is 'Murica
Swede here, oh, absolutely, at this point I don’t even want to visit the US, which is sad, there are plenty of cool museums and other stuff there
I go there a few times a year, because I have to
There’s so much to do, so many wonders of nature, but I wouldn’t be going there if I didn’t have to
It’s an awful place
Many good people, but too many absolutely dreadful people too
So then under gender roles, men can’t love women, only objectify them? Wouldn’t this make society one giant trauma factory where men are traumatized into detached sociopathy and women are traumatized into servitude?
Yes
Are they all loveless relationships, or did all of the men cheat their gender role to develop romantic feelings?
It’s not either/or, some people do one, the other, or both. Not everyone gets into a relationship, either.
You’re only 23, though, you don’t need to have all your shit figured out already, and you definitely don’t need to understand everything about love and patriarchy all at once either.
Yeah, it’s a very flawed premise for healthy relationships. The best case scenario is you find a partner that can be your everything including essentially your confidant and therapist.
In reality it leads to decades of repressed emotions and lashing out to loved ones because you can’t create or exist in a space where you can regularly and productively express yourself.
One of the craziest true statements is the legalaziation of divorce led to a decrease in murdered husbands. The time of yore are full of gore as they say
My experience as a young woman was, that young men learned to be a different person, when not in front of their peers.
This was pretty universal where I grew up. I was surprised how men from (some, not all) other cultures were so comfortable showing each other that they cared about each other. That didn’t necessarily make them better allies to women, but sometimes it did.
None of this is good.
I’m a big fan of showing vulnerability, but it really is a journey to do this not just in relationships or with friends but go beyond that.
Good job on noticing that things can be better. Let’s make them so.
In any culture where some part of human nature or experience isn’t accepted, it does not of course go away. A thing will not be expressed directly, however it will sometimes be expressed indirectly or have to be read more subtly. People may pretend that this is not going on and that the unaccepted thing is not there, but it is still there.
My wife and I sometimes talk how Im more of a yin male and she is a yang female. One thing that kinda cracks me up withe current trans stuff is misgenedering. I have been misgendered most of my life both intentionally and unintentionally (I have long hair). I am lucky though in that my parents were not pushing some male way of being (overmuch. im sure I have heard be a man more than once and sometimes from brothers or my dad) and I don’t feel the institutions did either (outside of the occasional PE teacher who often like to intentionally misgender much like doctor cox in scrubs). I mean I was already part of the outcast group. The group made of people who did not fit in with other groups. Mainly nerds, geeks, etc. That group did not have many purity tests.
I think the reason a lot of men who are stuck in this mindset stay stuck in it is because the only time they actually do think they can be vulnerable is when expressing love to their partner. So it’s something they crave and don’t realize they can be vulnerable in other contexts. I think it’s part of what leads to red pill mentality.
It’s hard for men to understand how patriarchy also hurts them. It expects men to be stoic protectors. Emotional vulnerability is a sign of weakness under that worldview.
