So, back when I was “still cis tho”, there were a lot of aspects of male gender norms that bothered me deeply and of course I totally understand why now. Even though these days I obviously have a clear reason for feeling that way, I’m still curious if cishet men also have issues with how norms or expectations around gender and sexuality impact them in a negative way.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on how those norms impact you, whether good or bad.
Also, I should mention that since this is a bit of a sensitive subject we’re talking about here, please be thoughtful and sensitive when discussing with others in this thread. Thanks! <3
EDIT: Much thanks for all the great responses here! I know it’s a difficult topic of course, so I appreciate you sharing your thoughts/feelings like this.
Speaking of which… I just looked at /c/menby and some of the posts on the front page there are over 2 years old. I see a lot of the discussion here centered around not being able to share feelings and/or not having the spaces or support to do that in. /c/menby seems like the perfect place for that, just sayin’.
I read books, sometimes cried under stress, was not big or very good at sports, and stuck up for a friend in a ridiculous hypothetical (would you still be friends with someone if they had AIDS) and so obviously I was gay. This was 30 years ago when being gay was more synonymous with bad, to both kids and teachers, authority figures alike.
When I was young, this affected me by getting bullied and me spending a lot of time ashamed, alone and angry, though I still had friends in the other weirdos. As I grew up, I developed better social masking skills around manly men and the idiotic women who also internalized and weaponized those kind of gender norms. I now exclude a lot of people from my actual life and generally get along with women better than men.
I still carry baggage around. Recently one of my close female relatives was cheated on by her manly man husband. While I am mostly sad and frustrated for her and their kids, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t also mad for my own reasons. He’s openly friendly, but inside he’s the kind of misogynist asshole that told me I wasn’t a man when I was younger. He was a cop too. Never trust a fucking cop.
This friend speaks my mind.
Oh Jesus. Seriously fuck that guy. He sounds horrible.
Yeah it blows. I’d love to just say he’s dead to me and never think about him again, but I love their kids and their mom, and since he’ll be part of their lives for better or for worse even after divorce, by extension he will be part of mine. He’s such a shit.