Another Post Up At Good Men Project

GMP has published another of my NSWATM pieces, the one originally titled “A Fairy Tale Hero Is Something To Be”. Go enjoy, if you haven’t already.

Open Thread, Ozy Is Alive and Stuff Edition

This Open Thread has been brought to you by Truth.

Dandy Portraits: The Outer Limits Of Menswear

I have, of course, spoken before about the possibilities and limitations of men’s permissible formal wear. As I said then, there are places you can take the suit that few ever dare to go, or in some cases few can afford to go.

This is just my excuse to do a quickie post linking to Dandy Portraits, a blog by a woman named Rose Callahan, dedicated to visually chronicling men who dress “exquisitely”, and she makes a strong case.

I’m just enjoying scrolling through it all, myself. No clever commentary this time.

Enjoy!

The Domestication Narrative

Speaking of hegemonic heterosexuality, as I have been lately, there’s a certain narrative that’s part of it. It’s one of those pervasive cultural narratives, one of the ones that’s in the subtext of so many different things that it’s hard to argue against; it’s just one of those things everything vaguely knows.

The domestication narrative is the idea that men are intrinsically wild, anarchic, uncivilized creatures, and women are intrinsically nurturing, organized, settled beings, and the nature of heterosexual relationships is for women to “civilize” men through marriage, a process that men resist but eventually surrender to, which is a sign that they’ve “grown up”.

Hard-Hitting Piece On Male Rape At Feministe

I’m often frustrated by some of the issue coverage at Feministe, though I also envy some of the excellent writing they’ve got. This piece by Jill, however, is an unequivocal condemnation of the rape of men in the U.S. prison system, and framed in terms designed to speak to the kind of feminist who hasn’t really given a lot of thought to men’s issues.

One overlap, though, between prison rape of men and non-prison rape of women is the way American society views both as an inevitability. That plays out in different ways, but there’s a sense that incarceration must naturally lead to rape (see, e.g., “don’t drop the soap!” jokes), and that femaleness is inherently sexually tempting and therefore also leads to rape if you’re not vigilant about preventing it (see, e.g., every rape prevention tactic that focuses on what women should or should not do — don’t walk home alone, don’t wear revealing clothing, etc etc). At the same time, inevitability is tempered by the perceived ability to prevent rape if you just do things “right” — don’t commit a crime so that you end up in jail, don’t break any of the Rape Avoidance Rules For Ladies. It’s a convenient way to conceptualize assault — if you just behave yourself, you won’t be a victim.

Now, I think she could maybe take a little more time to look at rape of men in the general population, but the point she’s making is about prison rape and its function in the culture, so that’s what she focuses on. Also, as much as I’ve sometimes griped about intersectionality issues, it’s nice to see someone nail it with a heavy-hitting paragraph like this:

It’s also impossible to separate this issue out from racism, classism, ableism and homophobia. The U.S. prison population (including ICE immigration holding facilities) is disproportionately black and Latin@. Prisoners disproportionately come from low-income backgrounds. Prison populations also include many individuals with intellectual disabilities and untreated mental health issues, as well as histories of violent victimization which can lead to mental and physical health issues. And we’re imprisoning millions of people who are not actually violent and aren’t actually dangerous. Among non-incarcerated victims of sexual violence, women with disabilities are far more likely to be targeted for sexual abuse than women who are able-bodied and/or don’t have developmental disabilities. Native women have the highest sexual assault rates of any other racial or ethnic group in the United States. Stats for trans women and men are slightly more difficult to come by, since as far as I can tell they aren’t noted in the DOJ surveys, but every reputable study I’ve seen indicates that trans people experience sexual assault at significantly higher rates that cis people. Black trans folks in the prison system are assaulted at particularly astounding rates — around 30% report being assaulted while in jail or police custody.

I’ve known a couple trans folks who’ve been arrested in their time, and… yeah, it ain’t good.

Anyway, go read the whole thing. It’s worth a good long look.

Virginia School District Full of Shit

(Hat tip to Kink on Tap)

So! There is this school district in Virginia with an innovative plan to prevent gender- and sexuality-based bullying! Are they going to encourage acceptance of all genders and sexual orientations? Provide counselling and other support for bullied kids? Provide diversity and sensitivity training for people accused of bullying?

No, of course not, that would be logical, nondiscriminatory, and (gasp) possibly effective.

Instead, they’re going to ban people wearing “cross-gender clothing.”

Right… That Did Happen

From this lovely post about one of the odder trends from the Decade Aesthetics Forgot. I think this ad speaks volumes about weird images of masculinity. I mean, also it’s kind of hilarious, but bear with me.