Happy New Year to everyone - which I wish you in a manly way, because, as a man, living as a man, this is just what I do.
I decided to pay more attention to my behaviour on the first day of the year because I wanted to be fully aware of what it means to “live as a man”. After all, if I ever wanted to change my sex, or gender, or whatever mystical inner essence of being it is that infuses me, I would need to know this important thing.
I staggered out of bed, only semi-conscious after too much beer, wine and port the night before. The port wasn’t a very manly choice - but I was the only person at our New Year’s Eve party man enough to eat the blue cheese - and port does partner well with a bit of cheese fungus.
After a semi-conscious pee (standing up - another plus for masculinity) I realised I hadn’t sprayed the stuff over the toilet or floor. My masculinity was definitely not fully operative yet.
The word “caffeine” was screaming in my brain. I wasn’t able to spell it yet, but I sure knew it was what I needed. I was awake enough to operate the coffee machine and popped in an espresso roast pod. A fine manly choice. I couldn’t work out whether I had lost man points by adding double cream, or gained man points because the cream was out of date.
I sat down with the now only partially manly coffee and opened up the computer to see what delights Twitter had waiting for me. I waited for the inevitable. No, not the craziness of Twitter, but the inevitable morning biological processes that start to kick in as my body finally realises it has woken up.
A more serious trip to the bathroom now became necessary.
The various unhealthy concoctions consumed and imbibed on New Year’s Eve did their job as my morning destiny awaited. More man points were stacked up as, let me tell you, it smelled nothing like roses. Or violets.
I reached for the air freshener, only to hesitate. Should I or shouldn’t I? I’d already lost man points by actually having air freshener in the bathroom, so should I balance it out by full acceptance of the atmosphere of toxic masculinity I had created?
I began to realise that “living as a man” was really quite a complicated thing.
Time for a shower. Here was somewhere I could rack up man points galore. After all, my bathroom isn’t the size of Carnegie Hall and so there simply isn’t room for all of the various potions, lotions and unguents that are an inevitable accoutrement of womanhood. Shower gel. That’s it. Perfect.
A vigorous manly scrub with a towel that really should have been washed a week ago and I was feeling like a Patriarchal Prince.
Less than an hour after waking up and I was already fucking exhausted by trying to figure out which bits of what I was doing were ‘manly’, or otherwise. If you’re trying to “live as a man” when your biological squidgy bits are anything but manly, is this what you have to do?
Sod that for a game of soldiers.
So what does it actually mean to “live as” a man, or a woman, in the context of changing ‘gender’?
As far as I can tell, it mostly means to dress and act according to the current stereotypical notions of the conventions that are attached to the sexes. If you’re a man trying “live as” a woman, you’ll do the head tilt, perform exaggerated ‘girly’ gestures, put on some lipstick and wear a dress. You’ll attempt not to fall over in your high heels and you’ll have spare tampons in your handbag.
Basically, it means to present yourself as the opposite sex in a stereotypical way. If someone couldn’t actually tell you were trying to be the opposite sex - what would be the point?
And here’s the thing - the only way to “live as” something different is to behave and appear different.
This got me thinking. And I had a revelation.
It’s a big one - so sit down and make yourself comfortable.
Men and women are different.
It might be the discovery of the millennium. I am, of course, being a smidgeon sarcastic here - but there is, perhaps, an emphasis that has not been, well, erm, emphasised.
But, seriously, think about it. If you’re of the rad fem persuasion you’ll probably have framed history in terms of patriarchal structures, the oppression of women, and male privilege. You might ascribe all the differences between men and women to the mystical magic of social construction - wave your hand in the right way, present your gender studies degree, and people might even take you seriously.
Now, I’m not going to suggest that patriarchy, oppression and privilege have not been in operation at all throughout history - obviously they have been - but they are far from being a complete picture of the interactions between men and women through the ages.
More importantly, however, is that all of these things require a starting point. A raison d'être, so to speak. If you think about it, all of these things exist precisely because there is a difference between men and women. Without this difference there would be nothing for all of those oppressive, privileged and patriarchal urges to operate on.
If you’re going to oppress a group, you kind of have to know who is a member of that group, and who isn’t.
The fight for women’s rights existed because the biological differences between men and women lead to a significant extra degree of vulnerability for women - a vulnerability that can be, and has been, exploited by men. If being a woman did not come with this extra vulnerability, the threat of physical and sexual assault by a stronger and dominant sex, there would be no need for things like single-sex spaces, for example. And there are other vulnerabilities associated with other necessary biological differences - things like pregnancy and the care of children (prehistoric baby formula milk didn’t work too well).
This current drive to blur the boundaries between the categories of man and woman is damaging. We simply cannot ignore the biological differences. They’re not the only thing that matters, of course, but they are a very important and necessary part of the distinction. Without them being there in the first place there would have been nothing for the magic of social construction to operate on.
The current world records for weightlifting (the heaviest weight class for men is +109kg and for women it is +87kg) are held by
Lasha Talakhadze, Georgia (male)
Snatch : 225kg
Clean and Jerk : 267kg
Total : 492kg
Li Wenwen, China (female)
Snatch : 148kg
Clean and Jerk : 187kg
Total : 335kg
Just look at the difference all that social construction has made here. It amounts to about a 47% difference in the total amount lifted.
Try as they might, the forces of social construction are just too powerful for women to overcome. It might be seen as a ‘manly’ thing to do to lift weights - but even the best most manly woman is not going to be in the same league as the best manly man.
I, for one, will enter 2023 with my toxic masculinity intact as I raise a glass and give a toast
I saw an article somewhere on the intertubes the other day that described how loony men wearing dresses are simulating menstruation by stuffing meltable sachets of tomato sauce up their bums, followed by tampons.
These maniacs aren't suffering from gender dysphoria, they're degenerates who get turned turned on by pretending to be women. I believe autogynophilia is the term for this particular perversion.
This stupidity needs to be fought at every turn. Grimly. To the death. This is the battle for the future of civilisation we're talking about here. A societal Stalingrad. I don't want my daughter to live in a world where a nutjob man in a dress and a wig with pasta sauce poked up his arse can pretend to represent her experience of womanhood in any way at all.
I won't have it.
Happy new year! While I hate the phrase “toxic masculinity,” I do think both masculinity and femininity can turn ugly if not tempered by the opposing influence. Otherwise you either have a bunch of bored knights ravaging the countryside or a horde of purple haired female teachers insisting that the boys in their kindergartens be medicated because they’re bouncy and can’t focus on phonics. And there are naturally gentle, civilizing men and aggressive women impatient with emotional displays (raises hand). This no more makes me a man than my lipstick makes me a woman.