Fuck Your Ideas Of Masculinity
***Warning This Post Does Contain Profanity****
Over the past week, this topic has been brought up the idea of masculinity frankly their old and outdated. Listen before you bible toting, sinning yourself go to the church where your pastor cheating on his wife, getting drunk on Saturday come to church on Sunday with liquor on his breath people before start bumping your keyboard gums read this article at least twice. I will break down the four stages of life where traditional ideas of masculinity are taught. There’s no simple answer.. simply put.
Birth
Before you are even born there are ideas about who your gonna become. You have the entire argument of pink/verse blue. The idea is pink is for girl and blue is for boys. Why is that, is a question I always ask myself. It was foisted upon us long before we had a chance to choose. Back in the 1800’s we all wore white dresses whether you’re a boy or girl. Fashion and more economic growth became the catalyst to why we started wearing other clothes besides white dresses.
“The rising industrial economies began to create a middle class that emulated her lifestyle and fashion sense. Ready-made factory clothing allowed children all over Europe and the United States to look like the children of the affluent class. This created a social class contest with the affluent class continually upping the ante with more lace and fancy fabrics to distinguish their children from those of the middle class.” (1)
Boys wore a dress until they started school if they weren’t already homeschooled. “Breeched” meaning dressed in pants was a time where many mothers felt like there losing her “baby.” Much like the experience of today. However for girls “child experts” then became concerned that dressing girls in pants would somehow destroy their femininity!” (1)
Childhood
See one of the things that I had while growing up was the beauty to be myself. Growing up in a household with no father figure has had a perk or two. One of those perks was not having a “man’s perspective” on the world. I got a chance to see the world through no ones rose colored glasses or no one’s altered vision based on their reality. Seeing the world this way is so freeing. Religion plays a major role in how people’s idea’s of masculinity is created. The first hierarchy of many traditional ideas starts at home. Your parents start this idea that continues to your adulthood if not shaken up. Your mother, if she had a job, would come home from work thaw out food and cook dinner while your father if he was around just got to sit on the couch drink a beer and watch TV. Granted I’m aware every household wasn’t/is/not like this. This is where it all began.
Adolescence
In your adolescence years, it’s a very trying time for you as a young adult. You are coming into your own as a man. Around this time you are starting to witness your body growing hair, your PH is starting to change and your arms are starting to smell (green) (BTW men do have a PH and it needs to be balanced as well.) Your manhood is growing and your hormones are raging and everything around gets ingrained into the fabric of who you will become at this time period. One of my very vivid memories growing up was wearing a pair of purple Jordans in the 11th Grade. I was teased till thy Kingdom come. I was called names I wouldn’t even utter to the devil or my worst enemy. After school, I went home took off my purple Jordan’s scrubbed them till they were whiter than the store handed it to me and place it in a box. You see that box symbolized a lot for me it was closing the box on my shoes as well my ideas of the man I could be.
Adulthood
Aww, the beauty of being a grown up. For most of us, we are on our own living to the beat of our own drum so to speak. We’re making our own rules and living life to the best of our abilities. This is were the re-writing process begins and for some, it can take a lifetime to undo the lessons of what 18 or so years have taught you. Understand that some of the lessons learned at home were from your parent’s own rose colored glasses (take them off.) See now you are held accountable for your own actions. Now it’s time for you to stop using excuses like “that’s what I was taught” or my favorite one “I wasn’t raised that way.” Stop using your experiences to imprison someone’s else masculinity. No one died and made you the “Masculinity police” stop policing men masculinity. Allow us the same freedom you have to be you.
James Bond Wore A Romper
You can’t believe it, can you? James Bond, the man who epitomized male glamor and style, was here for the RompHim? Indeed he was, and he looked damn good doing it, too.
In one critical scene in the 1964 film Goldfinger, Bond, as played by Sean Connery, dressed in a baby-blue terrycloth RompHim, with a belt to define his waist and shorts even shorter than the ones on the RompHim. (2)
I’ll leave you all with this quote from Kevin Tate.
To me, the definition of true masculinity – and femininity too is being able to lay in your own skin comfortably.
Source (1) Herald Bulletin (2) Mic
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