The male experience is often like walking a tight rope, from which the whole world wants you to fall. If you don’t express your emotions, you’re toxic. If you do, you’re fragile. If you share your ideas, thoughts and concerns about the ‘male experience’, we welcome it, but only if it fits within a wider script of FeministApproved™ talking points, or frameworks. Because, “Men can talk… just not about that.” And yet, the other side also gatekeeps what masculinity should be. What music and films you’re allowed to like, or should dislike; what to wear, eat, or drink; ways to walk, talk, and behave; how to act, or not to act, or make fun of, is seemingly decided for you too. These are antiquated rules bound within an exhausting, unwritten, and rigid manual of manhood; that I have never understood, and routinely enjoy breaking. My favourite cocktail is a pina colada. I love floral patterns and flowers. As a child I would routinely visit the local shop wearing a dress. I have my own ‘man purse’. I even enjoyed large segments of the Barbie Movie. I don’t know if this excommunicates me from the brotherhood. I don’t know if this makes me a beta male, an ‘incel’, or ‘gay’. I don’t know if this increases, or decreases my desirability, or where it places me on the teetering pyramid of sexual value. I don’t know, or care, as I genuinely love these things, and have embraced each of them as part of who I am. I encourage you to try them too, or reject them entirely if you like, as long as you’re making that choice for your own reasons. Because there’s nothing more manly, than being yourself. There’s nothing more admirable than ignoring the will, or dogmatic beliefs of others, and choosing to walk to the beat of your own tune. So who are you? And what do you think men shouldn’t be judged for doing? #guytalk #mensmentalhealth #masculinity

2023-10-13