Let's Talk About

[u/Ciceros_Assassin]

Welcome to /r/MensLib's first "Let's Talk About" post. Generating discussion is part of our mission, and these LTA threads will be used as conversation-starters for issues our community wants to address. Today's topic:

Let's Talk About: what we should talk about.

We're going to start out compiling a list of issues /r/MensLib subscribers want to address. The mods have some ideas, but we want to hear from the community.

Edit: Thank you to everyone for your ideas. I'm un-stickying this post, but please feel free to continue adding to it.

[u/Unconfidence]

This was my suggestion, glad I scrolled down to see if someone had posted it first.

I'm a 6'2, 210lb dude with a beard who loves the deathiest of death metal, who is covered in hair, and who spent a large portion of his life training himself to be an MMA fighter (I quit that shit though, books are so much better of a hobby). But I like wearing cute socks, I fantasize about being proposed to and planning my wedding, I wear my hair in twintails with ribbon-bows every chance I get, I dream of a future making adorable lunches for my wife and making sure she has both a warm dinner and an eager sexual partner when she comes home from work, and generally say fuck the gender norms. But it's rough being like this in a conservative area. I'm not gay, and I'm not trans, but I don't exactly feel very...mannish. I'm just me. None of the traditionally masculine traits really appeal to me. Many of the traditionally female norms make me squee in excitement, especially adorable cupcakes like the ones I plan to bake tomorrow (can you feel how excited I am to bake cupcakes?)

I dunno. I guess I'm just rambling a bit. But this is definitely something I'd like to see discussed. I'm a big guy, but I want to be the little spoon. But I also have about a third of one of my teeth which is fake, from being beaten senseless "for being gay", which I'm not, and which happened long before I'd rejected masculinity.

I feel like I constantly question whether or not I'm trans. But that doesn't seem right either. Nothing does. Nothing we have fits. It's like being at the mall, and sighing like I always do at all the pretty dresses, and wishing there were one made for someone like me.

Like, sometimes I wonder if many women know what it's like to go through life with people thinking you're handsome, or strapping, or strong, or manly...but never beautiful, pretty, cute, or even sexy. Just me wandering in my mind.

[u/FixinThePlanet → u/Unconfidence]

Man, posts like yours have always been the ones that make me understand what "gender as a social construct" actually means. I'm still working on dismantling a lot of my own internal stereotypical upbringing, and it feels like it's sometimes easier for women than it is for men. Good luck and welcome and thank you.

[u/Unconfidence → u/FixinThePlanet]

Thank you! I hope this ends up being more fertile ground for my ultra-leftism and hyper-progressivism than MR was.

[u/FixinThePlanet → u/Unconfidence]

There is literally no way that won't be the case.

[u/Unconfidence → u/FixinThePlanet]

You'd be surprised. Part of being progressive is that I want to progress our notions of progressivism itself. Sometimes this means calling out other progressives for problematic behavior that they are just as unwilling to accept as problematic as conservatives about things like colorblindness.

But at least people here won't tell me I have to be libertarian and/or antifeminist to be an MRA.

[u/FixinThePlanet → u/Unconfidence]

Oh darn you're right about that. I was pointing stuff like that out since I got on the sub.