Source: https://archive.md/diJAq
Context: A video is uploaded that concerns the topic of the “male loneliness epidemic” and as a result, that entire thread had a bunch of men getting really mad and feeling targeted.
The rightwing doesn’t “support” lonely men, it reasserts the need for dominance and power that is instrumental to their feeling of alienation in the first place.
Yeah it sucks that that damage is being psychologically engraved in them by patriarchal culture. Yeah it would be great if there were more social resources to help them offramp and deconstruct it. But as it is, for our own safety and well-being, it can’t be our responsibility to do outreach for men who won’t demonstrate some willingness to work on themselves.
I dunno. We could probably benefit from seeding communities with low-stakes social activities, fuckin commie-sponsored bowling or something. But there’s so much fucking damage to overcome.
I think the biggest faulty assumption in this sort of mentality is that adding romantic female partner to lonely man results in not lonely man. One additional person does not a social circle make. You need something more robust than that, and quite frankly it’s rare for any one person to fulfill all your social needs.
I can only talk about myself here. Having a romantic partner is ofc not gonna fix all your problems… with that said, I found that even a mediocre romantic relationship GREATLY improved my feeling of selfworth. On top of that, having been in a real romantic relationship lifts a lot of pressure and expectations, even if the romantic relationship doesn’t lead to a long term relationship.
Oh I’m not saying romantic relationships are useless. Just that they’re not always magic fixes. Like, a refrain I hear from a lot of former incels is that they realized the mindset was full of shit when they got a girlfriend, and their problems and insecurities and shortcomings didn’t all disappear.
Well, I agree that most incels have problems that a relationship won’t fix. On the other hand, I do think some people just need to find the right person and they would be living happier lives.
i’ve been real low in my earlier life like and have felt a certain… inclination towards incel-type thinking. my personal issues regarding sexuality and gender clearly run deeper than just “not getting any” and the unspoken societal expectations like “virginity”, more than just because none of my problems went away just by having real awkward sex a few times. that being said, my current partner and i feel safe to be ourselves around eachother and enjoy spending time together. so by personal and anectodal evidence i can concur that “the right person” holds some truth at least. but also i went through many years of therapy and medication, with multiple hospitalizations, for “my” problems, even though it is the society in which i grew that is crooked and sick, not me.
Yeah, but that is just one person and it’s one breakup away from you being lonely again. The biggest improvement in my life after i started transitioning and stopped living in the social structures that are acceptable for men was not that my body is finally becoming a habitable place for me, or the trans lesbian orgies and the hookups in queerfeminist dive bars, or that people treat me with more trust and kindness now. The best thing that happened to me when i started to live as a woman among other women was that i can have actual friendships now were i am truly emotionally open to my friends and bonding with them on a level that i didn’t even have with my partners before. That i do not rely on one person to do my entire emotional support, but that i have an entire group for that. Putting the entire burden of being an emotional support structure on one human will always overwhelm that human at some point. It takes time and energy and having strength of your own to support somebody, and you cannot always do that. This is why women keep telling men that we are not their therapists. Not because we do not want to help them, but because this can’t be something their romantic partner does entirely on her own.
I have a social circle were everybody has to deal with a lot. All of us are trans sapphics, all of us are neurodivergent, all of us are traumatized in some way, none of us are economically stable. We all hurt like hell. Which means we need a ton of emotional care. And our way of giving that to each other is to distribute it, to crowdsource support, to be a network were help is given by whoever has the spoons for that rn. That’s how you create a true community, that’s how you build a found family were everybody can feel at home and cared for and always has a shoulder to cry on. Men do not have that. They are actively banned from even wanting that.
For the cis dudes who cannot fix this by transitioning and joining a transbian
anarcho-communist furry BDSM cultchosen family, the only solution to actually fix lonelyness is to learn to have friendships among men as women have them among each other, to dismantle norms that deny them the benefit of being homosocial beings. And that’s something that women can’t do for them. They have to do that themselves. And we never see that when we talk about “male lonelyness”, all we see is that lonelyness is only adressed in the first place when it’s some angry incel who may turn violent from being alone and that the solution proposed for that is that a woman takes up the responsibility of being his babysitter. That does not fix the underlying problem, it perpetuates and stabilizes how patriarchy deals with the issue. It’s more of the status quo as a bandaid for a problem that is caused by that status quo.I admittedly wasnt really talking about the loneliness stuff, just that being in a relationship is a confidence booster for basically most male cishet persons. Myself included.
I can’t “really” relate to guys feeling lonely since I’ve had a very close bond with my family from the very beginning. I had a loving childhood, and my parents and siblings, who are also upper class, have been supporting me to this day. I’m aware that I’m truly blessed and thankful for it. I also have a number of IRL friends (queer,het and trans), some of whom I can totally talk openly with about emotional+gender stuff if I so desire.
Like im not the “guy” you need to be worried about. But im certainly aware that the general situation for cis-het men is kinda fucked. But then again for who isnt it fucked ? I guess for me ?
some video essayists: “everyone is lonely and here’s some reasons why”
some men: “THIS IS WHY MY FAVORITE ONLINE PERSONALITY IS A HUMAN TRAFFICKER”
They really don’t like it when feminists hit them back with the whole "But what about men?
" thingie, huh?And them going straight towards fascism just proves that they were dangerous to be around to begin with and not poor, little victims that are just a little bit lonely. Guess other people can see behind their mask before they themselves could
As the old adage goes…if it smells like dog shit everywhere you go. Check your own shoes.
And blame women for not cleaning it up for you
More like blaming them for stepping in it in the first place lol
They tend to skip over the question of “Why did I step into shit?” and “Who was shitting there in the first place?”. Too uncomfortable for them to answer that honestly. It’s far easier to skip ahead and blame feminists for not cleaning up the turd before they stepped in and women for not making their shoes clean again
Genuinely. The whole framing of “being blamed just for being men” is so disingenuous. While the actions they take that alienate women are informed by their social position as men, it’s not like they have some essential quality that they are being blamed unfairly for.
Ah yes, surely being a fascist will make you less lonely
Like seriously. I don’t get chuds complaining about male loneliness.
You’re fascists, how the ever loving fuck are you failing to socialize in the west?
“Patriarchy hurts men, too!”
“So, will you stop supporting patriarchy?”
“Woman stfu and make me a sandwich i’m hurting over here!”Like deadass they act like their own SJW strawmen.
“I was wronged, and now I make you suffer as revenge! You don’t get to complain I treat you like garbage, it’s payback!”
The same people who lectured oppressed people “darkness cannot drive out darkness” twelve years ago btw
Men create an environment that hurts men (as well as everyone else) and they blame it on women. There’s nothing women can do to fix it, so they protect themselves.
It’s not different from isntraelis who created a fascist society for themselves on stolen Palestinian land and then blame Palestinians for feeling unsafe.
Men create an environment that hurts men (as well as everyone else) and they blame it on women.
Also, patriarchy does not turn men into brutalized, self-destructive stoics just because it wants to “harm everybody”, that harm has a purpose, and that purpose is to uphold a system were men readily engage in violence on behalf of the system and extract free or undervalued labor from women. Toxic masculinity, that is: the constant, aggressive policing of male gender norms by men to ensure that other men stay in line, has a function. It is active maintainance of patriarchy’s ability to exert violence. It breeds soldiers, cops, grifters, plunderers and careerists, and it rewards them with the privilege to be abusers. Centering the suffering of men as a gotcha against feminists turns that into a moralist, idealist, individualist “well I have it rough, too!” to deflect accountability for participation in the system.
I stand by my point that men at large completely fucked up when we told them to read bell hooks and said that feminism is for everybody and that they would also benefit from fighting patriarchy. It’s not surprising that the most common response to the insight that men are hurt by patriarchy, too, is not to become feminist, but to instead use it as an excuse to be more anti-feminist. It’s the obvious outcome when you understand patriarchy as an extractive system of coercion and control.
My favourite example of this is some guy years ago at work who said the most important social issue to him was the male suicide rates while also being the one to bully me every day lmao.
It’s so important that your at the time male presenting colleague with autism needed to be ruthlessly physically and verbally harassed? Damb
None of these people want their issues of loneliness solved (or any issues, even), they just want their ego stroked for being men. Unfortunately, MRA talking points have already gone mainstream
So much for “all lives matter”.
