I am glad that you read this email.
I found your website days ago as a matter of coincidence. I was searching on some information about masculinity when I finally entered your site. I read the materials with interest and I have to say what you addressed is truly revolutionary and amazing. To be honest, I have been frustrated with all those male affinity for several years since I have entered puberty. Well, it’s like I have no interest in women but only men and I just labeled myself with the western saying ‘gay’. Until one day I tried to figure out my problems and it occurred to me that lack of masculinity may have caused the gay thing. I was finding ways to improve my masculinity but your site was absolutely turning the other way round saying that male affinity is kind of a masculine act. I get confused. The point is I was hoping to eliminate my affinity to men by improving masculinity. I also read about the third gender as you were saying in the article. However it does not fit my circumstances which includes loving a masculine man and tends to bond with him. I also started doing some physical exercise to enhance my muscle strength and appearance and I felt good being a male. But what made me bewildered is there was a time when I was about 10-13 that I was told by my peers that I was not masculine enough. Should I define myself as ‘third’ gender or a ‘masculine man’?
If I was a masculine man, then why do I have totally no interest in woman? Is there anything I can do to build up that male-female bond? What should I do?
I just sincerely hope that you can answer my questions because there is only your site in the net promoting such idea. All these can be a turning point in my life. By the way, I think your site is great and I hope I can keep contact with your community. I am not a member of your group yet but I think I will be soon. Look forward to your reply.
Yours faithfully,
A sincere visitor looking for help
Masculinity in men is not equal to sexual interest in women
Dear friend,
Thank you for writing to us.
It's amazing... even after having studied the oppression of men so much, the more experiences we read/ hear, the more information we gather about the exact degree and nature of men's oppression. What you're going through is a classic example of how deeply the society has persecuted men.
I'm assuming that you're from the West (although, your name sounds like East Asian) because the kind of social hostility you've mentioned around man's sexual bonding with men is only found in Western heterosexual societies. In oriental countries, although, at the outset men do not admit to liking men, within peer groups men know that its a universal experience. What we seek to do is to bring this experience out to the world to see, with the help of men who have the courage to talk about what so long have been restricted only to men's spaces.
I am really glad that this site has been helpful to you. The site is still under construction and we are continuously adding more and more information, case studies, news, articles, etc. on men and their manhood, that will surely help you resolve many of the questions that bother you.
Let me try to explain it as simply as I can:
1. In the beginning of human civilisation, as in nature amongst mammals:
a) Men and women led separate lives.
b) While men had any sexual liasions only with other men, and women with women, in every reproduction season, a few of the men would meet women for short sex enough for reproduction, and then go back to their male groups to their male lovers.
2. A sexual need for men is a universal male phenomenon, even in the West, its only that most men fight those instincts, kill it, suppress it and divert it towards women and finally hide whatever is left. The society has several complex and often invisible mechanisms to force and condition men to do this.
3. This breaking of man from man started basically because societies wanted to force all men into reproduction, in order to increase human population much beyond what is naturally possible, especially because in those times the infant mortality rates were extremely high.
4. There are numerous evidences of the above, from the history and biology and the suppressed sexual need of 'straight' men for men can still be observed easily, although their suppressed forms differs in different societies. In the west it is more camouflaged than it is in traditional oriental societies, where they're very open in men's spaces. Sometimes so open that 99% of men openly prefer sexual relations with other men (as in Kandahar, Afghanistan).
5. However, people who really suffer are those who don't have any sexual need for women, because they have nothing to fall back on when they suppress their sexual need for men, which in any case is too huge to suppress. Also, vulnerable are all those men, who, in their childhood had somekind of positive sexual interaction with another man, and they progressed to develop their sexual need for men inspite of the social hostility, because they experienced its positivity.
6. Therefore, one thing is clear, that your sexual need for men is not a sign of lack of manhood at all. If anything, this is the only sign of manhood, which 'straight' men in heterosexualised societies unfortunately suppress.
7. A sexual need for women is not at all a sign of manhood. Most of the heterosexuality that we see in western societies is the result of social conditioning. Real heterosexuality is actually Queer -- as Queer as the 'gays' (i.e., the third sex).
8. IMP: The society has been playing dirty politics around manhood, by manipulating its social definition for a long time. Furthermore, its the modern Western society, which for the first time defined lack of manhood in terms of sexual need for men and a lack of sexual interest in women (earlier, only an exclusive desire to be anally penetrated was deemed unmanly). These definitions are imposed upon successive generations of men through the extremely powerful mechanism of Peer-Pressure.
9. All men have some femininity in them, even the most toughest looking man. This femininity is moreso in the naturally heterosexual males (most straight men are 'made' heterosexual, not natural). But in the Western society, a strong hostility is created against male femininity, and it is claimed that it doesn't exist at all. While those males who manage are able to create a comfortable 'heterosexual' identity have the social and moral support to suppress this femininity, those who are painfully aware of a strong sexual need for men often start believing this minor streak of femininity in them to be the cause of their sexual attraction for men.
10. You're third gender only when you have a strong inner sense of being a woman, which could not have been the case with you, since you've been fighting the situation where the society told you you were not masculine enough and your inner self wanted to be recognised as masculine (because that's your inner reality!).
11. When your peers said you were not masculine enough during your adolescence, they were probably only exerting peer-pressure on you. They could also be judging you by the socially prevalent definitions of manhood in your society, rather than your true masculinity. What happens is, when you find yourself lacking in one of the basic criteria propagated by the society as the essence of manhood, one develops a lack of confidence in himself and in his manhood. This is then quickly sensed by boys in an intensively competitive environment of "Race for Manhood" (see site), who then tear the vulnerable boy apart easily. Again, this is the age, when the masculinity of boys is not fully developed. If a boy is not given the opportunity to develop his masculinity at this age by relating healthily as a "proper" man with other boys, then his masculinity may remain underdeveloped for long. Because, the membership of a group of masculine gendered boys is very important for developing an adolescent's masculinity. But there are other ways for those who have missed it as adolescents. One is to be in close touch with a man who has learned to be a man, inspite of his socially debilitating (not naturally) sexual need for men.
All of this may be too much information at one time, but do keep writing to us as much as possible, its our pleasure to share information, and things will sort out.
For starters just remember one thing -- All men have a sexual need for other men, so this doesn't make you different in any way from other straight men.
Did you visit this new webpage:
http://videos-on-universal-male-male-desire.blogspot.com/
Wishing you all the luck
In male solidarity
Purusharth
No comments:
Post a Comment