MOD NOTE: Please note the following part of the forum rules:
The initial OP posted below covers it well enough: the premise of this thread is that men's issues exist. Don't bother posting if you don't believe there is such a thing.
Here's hoping this isn't considered too redundant. I've noticed that our existing threads about sexism tend to get bogged down in Oppression Olympics or else wildly derailed, so I thought I'd make a thread specifically to talk about discrimination issues that disproportionately affect men.
No Oppression Olympics here, okay? No saying "But that's not important because women suffer X which is worse!" And no discussing these issues purely in terms of how much better women have it. Okay? If the discussion cannot meaningfully proceed without making a comparison to male and female treatment, that's fine, but on the whole I want this thread to be about how men are harmed by society and how we can fix it. Issues like:
- The male-only draft (in countries that have one)
- Circumcision
- Cavalier attitudes toward men's pain and sickness, AKA "Walk it off!"
- The Success Myth, which defines a man's desirability by his material success. Also The Myth of Men Not Being Hot, which denies that men can be sexually attractive as male beings.
- Sexual abuse of men.
- Family law.
- General attitudes that men are dangerous or untrustworthy.
I could go on making the list, but I think you get the idea.
Despite what you might have heard about feminists not caring about men, it's not true. I care about men. Patriarchy sucks for them as much as it sucks for women, in a lot of ways. So I'm putting my keyboard where my mouth is and making a thread for us to all care about men.
Also? If you're male and think of something as a men's issue, by golly that makes it a men's issue fit for inclusion in this thread. I might disagree with you as to the solution, but as a woman I'm not going to tell you you have no right to be concerned about it. No "womansplaining" here.
Edited by nombretomado on Dec 15th 2019 at 5:19:34 AM
Queen of Good Things, Honest
Depending on who you ask, bisexuals are either omnisexuals, nymphomaniacs, nonexistent, or any combination of the three.
My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
The law in the night
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I heard a few times bisexuals being referred as unicorns by both gays and straight people. From gays as bisexuals being closet gays who can play straight to avoid discrimination and from straight people as being that ideal partner who they could get into threesomes but can't find one.
This is wrong on so many levels.
Inter arma enim silent leges
A nice butterfly
I see...your eyes are open.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
It is very draining to be told you just haven't made up your mind yet, you haven't met the right person, or that you are just selfish.
Why is it people can believe that transsexual people exist in a variety of expressions as most homosexual people and their straight allies do, but the idea one person can be sexually attracted to all genders just makes everyone's brain hurt?
It is silly.
You can believe that is a man trapped in a woman's body but you cannot believe someone's sexual organs are inconsequential to my ability to have sexual attraction towards them...bah...
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur
The Mistress
"Depending on who you ask, bisexuals are either omnisexuals, nymphomaniacs, nonexistent, or any combination of the three."
Hell, I am a bi guy. And yet I still subconsciously believe in the first two to a certain extent.
Granted, mostly the second.
edited 31st Jul '15 1:11:43 PM by SaintDeltora
"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!
Bisexuality =/= Nymphomaniac.
Nymphomania is a disorder. Bisexuality is far from it.
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur
The Mistress
Yeah, I know.
Hence why I said "subconsciously". It's there, out of sight and mind and I hate it whenever I notice it appearing. But it's there.
edited 31st Jul '15 3:20:25 PM by SaintDeltora
"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!
Been waiting for somewhere to drop this.
Anyway, I'm sure this had been said before but part of the stereotype for bi guys (of which I am one) is that they're just gay but don't want to admit it. The thing is, this is actually true in some cases; gay dudes will come out as bi to sort of ease their families/friends into the whole gay thing, then later just go for the whole homo. Of course, those instances shouldn't be used to dismiss actual bisexual men yadda yadda. note
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
Campeador
So, we're all like The Sims? Whippna Choba Dog!
Anyway, I think the problem with the acceptance of bisexuality is that most people aren't. I'm a genius, I know. But what I mean is that we, non-bisexual folks, think that sexuality and gender identity are an "either/or" thing. So we're all like "You're either homosexual or heterosexual", "You're either a man or a woman", "You're either transgender or cisgender".
And we look at the surface (when we actually bother to look outside of our own gender, sexual orientation, whatever) to find something to serve as evidence to support our beliefs. But we only look at the simplest things.
Since bisexuality (an gender fluidness) are not simple and not something you can easily see, we have a hard time accepting those things as, well, something real.
For example, if a man has sex with another man, then we think he's gay. If he has sex with a woman, then he's straight and he was either curious or drunk or whatever. If he then goes and marries a man, he was gay all along and was using the previous woman as a beard. Etc.
I think that's why it's important to have better education. If we could get to teach young people that bisexual people are real, then we could dispel many of the misconceptions regarding that particular brand in the ever-growing community of LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM people.
No, the other one.
, That's kind of what I said before, with "people like structure, categories, and clear borders". It's easy to categories someone who likes men or someone who likes women, since that's a fixed group. If you like both sexes, it could be anyone, which quickly turns into everyone (all the time). But it's still about a lack of boundaries, even if the boundaries just are different and don't include what sex someone is. People generally have a hard time accepting that someone might not have the same limit they have, but it's even harder to see someone as having a limit that's different from yours.
That's still "born with it", but the "it" is a little different. Still born with the sexuality, but also with a certain fluidity.
Nameless Hero
I get the impression people are saying bi folks are misunderstood cos they don't fit into a category like gay, straight, lesbian or even transgendered people do. I can understand that. But bisexual folks (including me and my two bi buddies) have lots of categories or "ratios". I, for example, am 9:1, meaning that for every one dude I'm sexually attracted to, there's 9 women I'm attracted to. That ratio even has the name of "straight bi" since I prefer the opposite sex but also cos I'm straight, to all appearances (deep manly voice, 6 foot +, broad shoulders).
On bi erasure: I used to think (way back in high school) that bi people were just gay or straight people who were confused :P. I feel bad saying that nowadays. Here's a bi myth that confused the hell out of me when I started "coming out to myself" or whatever it's called: the "50:50 Myth". The idea that bisexuals like both sexes equally. Accepting that myth when I was coming out, since I'm not 50:50, meant therefore I must just be confused. If there was only one reason to dispel that myth it would be so bi people coming out won't fall for it and get angsty about being "curious".
I've also had my parents erase my bisexuality (though they accept it now). Whenever I mentioned liking a guy off hand like it was no big deal (cos it isn't) they'd say "What? So you're gay then?" and I tell them no, I'm bi, I told you that before. This went on for ages till one day I just asked why they don't believe me. It's cos I've never had a boyfriend and only had the one proper girlfriend, though I've had dates. So yeah. Ugh. Some people need extreme measures to accept you're bi. My parents only accepted after I told them about the fair number of men and women I've slept with. Any bi people here go to such lengths to get the message thru?
edited 1st Aug '15 5:27:33 AM by OdinsLeftEye
The name's Axel. Wanna check out Aim 4 The Head, my Zombie Apocalypse spoof comic?: http://www.smackjeeves.com/comicprofile.php?id=138048
No, the other one.
Yes. Well, not personally, but I've been there when a couple of friends had to explain it to a few other friends at length. I'm not sure it stuck even then, although it didn't come up later on. Ultimately, it just wasn't that important (to the other friends).
Check out my fanfiction!
Ahr river
We also as a society do poorly to define bi and pansexuality. We kind of assume such things are of a different beast. Hence why people who do exhibit such things will often say "they don't like labels"
I think if there was more of an emphasis on monosexual vs. polysexual (literally whether you are attracted to one gender or multiple genders) than people's brains might parse it better.
Read my stories!
At the same time, you get those folks who insist that no one is really heterosexual OR homosexual, that all people are inherently bi-sexual and just socially conditioned to be one or the other. Or, as with Kinsey's sliding scale, that MOST people are inherently bi, with relative minorities as either entirely hetero or entirely homosexual.
My thought is, a person is what they say they are. If someone tells you that they are straight, gay, bi, or what-have you, then what is the profit in arguing with them?
No, the other one.
People like to place others in neat boxes. They shouldn't force labels onto others they've rejected themselves, but they do. They want their world view to make sense to them, without being forced to rethink it.
On that topic, I think assumptions are okay, as long as they're not set. Assuming nothing can get just as awkward and annoying as assuming what's most common, but assuming the most common would at least be correct most of the time. Again, as long as said assumptions is subject to change.
Personally I don't care what others think I am. Female, male, straight, gay, bi, trans, fluid, whatever. They're probably wrong anyway.
Check out my fanfiction!
The Mistress
You're a ves Olsexual Avian from the Another universe.
"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!
A problem with determine bisexuality and asexuality is the idea of ratio, after all a 9:1 for many is bi in name only, a fact many writer have abuse this in order to have bisexual chararters with hetero couple, so in order to be bisexual you have to be a omnisexual who like everything or se adict forma...reasons, must of the time it just goes with bi by the way.
Asexual usually have this issue but worst, with the strong tie between sex and sharing, they are look as incapable of loving at best and full robots who think everything near touching is gross at worst, even I have problems understanding things like greysexual and other things
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
Bisexuality probably also suffers, at least in fiction, from the fact that some authors struggle to find a middle ground between making the bi-ness an Informed Attribute, and making the character sex-crazed. Barring longer series, it's very typical for a character to have only one relationship over the course of a story (or start in a bad one, then transition into a good one). If the character is hetero that's not a problem, and if they're gay, that's not a problem, but if the character is bi, we run into problems. If the character is only depicted in one relationship with one gender, somebody will scream Informed Attribute, or queer-baiting, or some such. If the character is in a relationship with one gender at the start, and changes to a relationship with another later on, people will misinterpret it as a coming out story or even worse—if they start out in a same sex relationship and switch to an opposite sex one later one—as somebody being "cured".
Absolutely no relation to NLK
That's a very good point.
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.
A procrastination in of itself
Yeah most characters will have a main love interest and maybe one false lead, that's not enough to establish on screen bisexuality. If mentioning exes of both genders is then counted as baiting then it's super hard.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
The Mod with the Migraine
Out of curiosity, could one not work around the problem by writing polyamory or a bigendered harem? Not that those wouldn't come with their own share of problems, of course.
A procrastination in of itself
Those options run into the problem of making the character appear sex crazed.
edited 3rd Aug '15 11:25:30 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Shop Owner
Polyamory? Haahahahahahahahahahahaha...That would either be a wish fulfillment fantasy or too risque. For it is easy to envision an ideal polyamory harem, but that would be poor research. And if you do make an actually realistic take on polyamory, well. I would love to see that on tv.
How about living in harmony?
Come now, Duck.
Open your eyes.
edited 31st Jul '15 12:13:01 PM by Aszur
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes