Comments on: Penis-Talk Redux

By: yami

yami — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 16:03:00 +0000

Indeed, the problem of men not bonding with their penises is far more important than the problem of women being relentlessly objectified. I’m glad we’ve all got our priorities straight!

By: shyena

shyena — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 14:38:00 +0000

The fact that women are objectified in this culture and many others is not new it’s not shocking it’s not hairraising. In fact so many women have made millions off of this condition and that is the American way. I am, however, conserned with dissassociation that many men have with their member. What’s that all about?

By: yami

yami — Sun, 08 May 2005 16:06:00 +0000

Start with your male pets - neutering saves lives!

By: kyah

kyah — Sun, 08 May 2005 15:42:00 +0000

men and all males derserve their penisis chopped off

By: PZ Myers

PZ Myers — Fri, 06 May 2005 00:42:00 +0000

I don’t know. I’d have to experience a change in status to find out.

By: yami

yami — Thu, 05 May 2005 23:17:00 +0000

Sure, I’m not trying to claim sole victimhood. Despite coming from different angles to a subject I haven’t defined all that well, we seem to basically agree.
But has it been your experience that male loserhood/winnerhood has altered how you think about your body?

By: PZ Myers

PZ Myers — Thu, 05 May 2005 22:27:00 +0000

I agree that there is no masculinity/autonomy conflict: that was my point, that women seem to face much more complicated choices, with conflicts and compromises all over the place. But just because being male doesn’t make it difficult to be treated respectfully doesn’t mean that a lot of men aren’t, well, losers. At the same that the culture is telling all men that they are the top dogs, individual men are low-ranking nobodies. That creates a different kind of conflict, I suspect.

By: yami

yami — Thu, 05 May 2005 19:59:00 +0000

Crikey, PZ, you’re going to make me write a whole new post here! Scattered points, though, for now:
I think your first (numbered) point may have put it better than I did in the post. It’s not that society doesn’t have expectations of men and male bodies, of course it does. It’s that those expectations are less invasive, so less scary-compelling. “Mow the lawn” isn’t the same sort of thing as “bear a child” or “be 5kg underweight” - “play football” is kind of in the same class, given that one needs to be mesomorphic to do so.
As for the second point, there’s no war between masculinity and autonomy! I’d chuck this one right into the “privilege” bin. But perhaps the mechanism for moving from the existence of male privilege to me chatting about my nipples needs rethinking. Hm.
And I’m totally confused by the bit about consolation prizes. Who is going ga-ga over what here?

By: PZ Myers

PZ Myers — Thu, 05 May 2005 18:16:00 +0000

Hmmm. I don’t know. We guys get expectations derived from our maleness pounded into our heads all the time: Play with trucks. Mow the lawn. Turn out for team sports. Drink beer. Society has some stiff expectations of what young men should do. I experienced quite a bit of that, since I was a book-readin’ spectacled geek born to a football-playin’ man’s man. In high school, I’d have to go to gym everyday where I would dork out, and on the way, I’d pass the school’s trophy display case…and there was my dad, and the whole 1957 Washington State Champion Football Team looking out at me.
I think there are two differences:
1. The biology is all different. I never had to worry about some parasite taking root in me, after all, nor did I have to worry that if I were infested, there would be some authority figure insisting that I had to nourish the little maggot for 20 years. That’s a far more traumatically invasive societal expectation than the idea that I was supposed to go out on a field on Friday nights and bash my head against somebody twice my size.
2. That female meat inspires much more complex concerns. Yeah, it makes women a target and motivates people to try to control it, but it’s also a source of pride and power. Women have these warring ideals of femininity and autonomy that make their bodies more of a focus — I’ve seen that in women who simultaneously work hard to make themselves pretty while deservedly resenting every bit of condescension from men.
But I don’t think it’s true that men lack those frequent reminders about the existence and expectations of their bodies. Maybe it’s that when our bodies fail to meet those social expectations, there is no one to turn to who will go ga-ga over us — no consolation prizes at all.

By: Feministe » Thursday Reads

Feministe » Thursday Reads — Thu, 05 May 2005 04:02:00 +0000

[…] an anti-feminist movement to erode their own rights as wives and mothers. Green Gabbro: Penis Talk A discussion on the differences in how men’s bodies are (not) regarded on a […]