yrdoinitwrong

When I ask my students at the beginning of my Men and Masculinity course about “real men,” I get responses like, “real men aren’t afraid to show affection,” or “real men like to dance,” or “real men can cry in public and not care what anyone else thinks.” My students want to subvert the traditional “sturdy oak” model of masculinity. They mean well. But all they’re doing is swapping one unattainable ideal for another. Just as “real women have curves” delegitimizes countless slim women, “real men aren’t afraid to cry” shames those men who for any number of reasons are awkward about public displays of emotion. The contemporary “real man” ideal presents itself as inclusive, but it’s just another cultural straitjacket.

If your definition of ‘Sex positive’ does not include sexual dysfunction, then your definition isn’t positive enough.

What I hope that love is—whether platonic, romantic, familial, or communal—is the sincere wish that another person have what they need to be whole and develop themselves to their best capacity for joy or whatever fulfillment they’re seeking.

Feminism doesn’t mean female corporate power or a woman President; it means no corporate power and no Presidents… Challenging sexism means challenging all hierarchy — economic, political, and personal. And that means an anarcha-feminist revolution.