Also, get a grip. This definition is not unique or extreme. No need to lash out.

"It's like you argue just to argue! Who the hell equates manliness with the capacity and will to inflict violence? Seriously who?"

...Sparta? Rome? Pretty much any overly-militaristic/imperial nation of antiquity (and several since then.)

Ok my first instinct is to give up an argument when obiobi agrees with putin, but I'll give this one more shot before I do. Rome, Sparta ... 2000 years ago. I agree that in the past the equating of masculinity more aligned with fighting and warfare. But who today thinks that way (in western culture, at least - I know the Islamic nuts have their own interpretation of masculinity, but they are all so fucking insecure in their masculinity that females aren't allowed to drive or read)?

Even though zaza's definition had an obvious biblical slant to it, and I'm not one to agree with the bible, a man in modern western culture provides for and protects rose he loves/cares about/is responsible for. I'm willing to resort to violence to accomplish this, but its only a sidenote, not an integral pet of the definition.

I obviously lost my train of though there. I meant to say that even though zaza's ... I think its the most accurate definition for society's interpretation of masculinity today.

The whole point was to create a definition that was not contingent on time or place. Your definition is too vague. Women do the same thing. But the feminine notion of protection is more generally held to be nurturing than the masculine notion, so there has to be something else to it.

But your definition of it being about violence IS contingent on time and place. So you've failed. And you're fucking crazy for reasons beyond this thread

Putin's right though. Just watch any American sporting event. I'll grant that for some events it's a bit of a stretch... maybe baseball, for example. But displays of strength -- which are often done in competitive environments against other competitors -- are definitely tied to manliness in American society.

What's with the unprovoked insults? Just make an argument without flipping out, just once. Thanks.

It is not contingent on time & place. You refused to address the earlier point about who are the prototypes for masculinity in today's society: soldiers; sportsmen, father-figures and what they all have in common. Soldiers are considered manly because they withstand pain, risk death, and inflict pain & death. The most "manly" sportsmen are those who suffer through pain/play through injury and/or inflict the most damage on their opponent. Even in mostly non-contract sports - masculinity is tied to playing through pain or risking physical injury to make a play (like diving into/over a wall) and/or standing up for your teammates by beaning your opponent with the ball. Or rushing the field to help your teammates fight.

I mean my god, who can sit here and listen/watch this nonsense with Richie Incognito and not think that being 'masculine' in today's society is tied to violence/pain. Martin is being called all manner of unmany because he didn't fight Incognito physically in order to stop the harassment, or for complaining about the suffering in the first place.

Sadly I just watched "The Last Samurai". Boy does that movie suck.

Told y'all this would make a fine conversation topic!

This thread gave birth to paragraphs like these:

"Which figures are considered role models of masculinity? The soldier, the sportsman, the father figure/protector. What do they have in common? What are their "virtues"? Their willingness to suffer. Their willingness to fight."

How is this not an exquisite thread?

Putin - there are many female soldiers in the British army, I think they would be offended if you were to suggest they are more manly than you and I.

Times change, secretaries, soldiers, teachers used to be considered male professions and nurses, childminders and homemakers used to be the reserve of women. Now I don't bat an eye at a male nurse or a female soldier.

If anyone were to make a list of what they consider male and female attributes, I'm sure that others could point to members of the opposite sex that display those characteristics without losing their masculinity or femininity.

Gender roles intersect with many of the other roles individuals adopt within any given society. What pisses me off is when people make excuses for other people based on their gender. I mean REALLY? What difference does it make if they have tits or a cock? If they fuck up at work they fuck up it doesn't matter the gender they are still incompetent.

Gender roles seem to be determined via a combination of historic cultural factors and genetics that tend to make women generally more suited to some roles and men generally more suited to others. The biggest problem we have had historically is when people have taken those generalisations and used them to forbid all members of a certain gender doing a certain role. The biggest problem we have now is when people insist that equality between genders can only be achieved with equal numbers in every role, and pressure people into roles they do not want.

"But who today thinks that way (in western culture, at least - I know the Islamic nuts have their own interpretation of masculinity, but they are all so fucking insecure in their masculinity that females aren't allowed to drive or read"

LOL...I'm tempted to feign outrage over that "the Islamic nuts" comment...

But since I think we can all agree A. We know which nutty Muslims he's talking about B. That those folks--I'm looking at you, 9/11 hijackers, and if I hear one "BUSH DID 9/11 OMGZ!" rant, I shall classify that as nuttiness for a whole other thread and disregard it 'cause WE'VE BEEN THERE AND ARGUED THAT ALREADY--are indeed, erm, "nutty," and C. I'm going to assume you don't mean all Muslims are nuts...

Then we can proceed. (And only I would take so long to do so...but then, if verbosity was a truly manly trait, I have to say, when it comes to total post and word count, compared to a lot of you folks...mine's bigger.) :p

But anyway...

I still feel the Hemingway Ideal of Manhood's a rather standard or at least common view of what it means to be masculine (at least in America...while he's read over there, I'm not sure how popular Hemingway is in Britain, but I'm sure there's some corollary...Kipling's romanticizing manhood and empire both come to mind, but that's a long while ago, further back than Hemingway, so maybe that doesn't count...I know I read Pat Barker's "Regeneration" for a Contemporary Brit Lit class under the pretense that it was a book which was greatly focused on psychology, communication and masculinity...and that was written 1991 or so, so that's definitely more recent, and it won a Booker Award, so it's not completely obscure...? I liked Parker's novel, on an off note, I thought it was pretty decent, not the most original or mind-blowing thing I'd ever read, but still good for what it was and what it was going for, and that's fine...and on a completely unrelated note, I have to say that in writing these articles for a British online pharmacy, it kept driving me crazy today changing z's to s's in words like "specialization," for whatever reason I'm more used to the "extra"--or proper--u in words like odor/odour, but seeing writing s's instead of z's just kept driving me nuts...that is all.) :)

http://i40.tinypic.com/j8mxyh.jpg

A very clear chart of manliness. No more debate is necessary.

Is it obvious to anyone else that it is the distinctly *unmanly* men around here, such as Putin and Obi, who are the ones that reject manliness/masculinity? Listen guys, if you don't want to be masculine, don't be, who cares. Call yourself unmanly and be proud of it, but you don't have to try to tear down everyone else in the process.

Putin, if you want to shave your legs and ass, go for it...you don't need our permission or the redefinition of manliness to shave your ass and feel pretty.

As for the rest of the men around here, we'll stick to what we know, what comes natural to us, and leave you alone.

And for the women who like to put forth displays of strength in sports and the like boxsing, basketball, rugby, soccer, field hockey, fast-pitch softball, etc etc etc) they can be as feminine as they choose to be when they are not displaying their skills. Strength has nothing to do with manliness/masculinity, for men or women. In fact, the most masculine/manli thing a man can do at times is *not* display his strength

But anyone...for you less-than-manly chaps out there, accept what you are, and stop trying to pervert social norms to fit your abnormalities.

Krellin, I think that's the most mature I've seen you. I'm quite proud.

If you look feminine you look more trustworthy, which I think is the best advantage appearance has...

That exact argument goes both ways, krellin.

There's only one solution... ANARCHY :D

(Bye.)

"Putin - there are many female soldiers in the British army, I think they would be offended if you were to suggest they are more manly than you and I."

You're missing the point.

The only point we are missing is the tiny, thin pointy object that is almost dangling between your legs....but no, we aren't really missing that, either.

"Putin, if you want to shave your legs and ass, go for it...you don't need our permission or the redefinition of manliness to shave your ass and feel pretty."

By focusing on these outlying abberations, you dodged the far more serious issue - is shaving your balls manly? No War on Christmas, Terror or Drugs shapes our age - it's the War on Manliness that is upon us. And in our finest hour, we don't have to worry about our legs and asses, as the sacrosanctity of those body parts has not been questioned yet. It is your balls that is at stake now, gentlemen. And so I ask you, krellin: are you willing to fight for your balls? Are you willing to sacrifice everything you ever loved for your ginormous, juicy balls of tempered steel? Are you prepared to stand your ground as a shavetard or an asshair, krellin? Or are you just a detached, androgynous, compromising... trimfuck?

ulytau - Are you showing your balls to a lot of people on a regular basis such that their shaved/unshaved status becomes an issue? Because then, I suspect, whether or not you are manly is not going to be much of a concern,other than to Bruno, who will meet you in the shower after chow time...

So thus...your question of my ball hair and whether I will fight for ball hair is irrelevant, just as Putin's shaved ass has nothing to do with manliness, but is something he should do to make himself feel pretty, and leave the rest of us alone.

OK - Serious answer....you want a serious answer as to what is "Manly"...what is "Masculine". It is obvious, and people know it when they see it. In Putin's desire to water down manliness to some androgenuous bullshit, he describes what is manly, because it is everything he fights against, is it not? People *know* manliness when they see it, just as you know porn when you see it, whether or not you can strictly define it.

Putin and the androgynous crowd know what manliness is...they just don't feel manly, don't act manly, and therefore fight against these social norm in an attempt to pervert society to fit their perverted minority view. They want to be manly, but instead of being manly, they attempt to destroy manliness....which is impossible, because masculine men will always be so, regardless of the attempts of mental perversions like Putin to redefine them.

So, you want to know what manliness and masculinity really is ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8YKAp7o53E&feature=youtube_gdata_player

@Maniac "there are many female soldiers in the British army, I think they would be offended if you were to suggest they are more manly than you and I.

Times change, secretaries, soldiers, teachers used to be considered male professions and nurses, childminders and homemakers used to be the reserve of women. Now I don't bat an eye at a male nurse or a female soldier.

If anyone were to make a list of what they consider male and female attributes, I'm sure that others could point to members of the opposite sex that display those characteristics without losing their masculinity or femininity."

I would argue that this is due to a lack of manly men in Britain, and in the United States who is said to be demographically 10 years behind Europe. History tells us that men fight and women stay home and raise the kids. Feminism is a side effect of industrialization that I'm pretty sure we're going to regret later. I'm too romantic to accept any sort of feminism, but go ahead and argue away. I don't think there are any precedents of a military that utilize females successfully other than as nurses. It's just biologically stupid to use the weaker members of society that are much better at giving birth than going to battle.

People can have both masculine and feminine traits regardless of biological sex. I'm simply defining what masculinity has generally entailed. I said before that I think defining such a nebulous, constantly shifting concept is difficult. But if we were to define it in a way that is relatively untouched by time and place, I think the violence/pain definition is the only one that works.

There are women who play organized sports. Other women typically look upon them as "butch" or "tomboyish"- a word essentially meaning a female-bodied person who has a masculine personality or engages in masculine pursuits. I'm sure a similar phenomenon pertains to women in combat roles in the military. It doesn't mean that the women engaged in these occupations do not also retain femininity. It's not an either/or question. Similarly, there are stay-at-home fathers who nurture and raise children. That doesn't mean they do not have masculine traits also.

People are hung up on making masculinity or femininity a virtue or a vice, and I think that colors the discussion too much.

"There are women who play organized sports. Other women typically look upon them as "butch" or "tomboyish"-"

UTTERLY RIDICULOUS. Have you ever noticed, Putin, that almost everything you say in your *constant* criticism of social norms is an overt exaggeration?

Data is data.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/unfeminine-school-sports-leave-girls-on-the-sidelines-7704402.html