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Off-Topic "Feminized Men" in S&S

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Andy Kirkpatrick | Risky Play
Not everyone may agree with this viewpoint

I agree with it. As a kid, I wandered off into some backwoods with my bike, alone, with no cell phone, and came back for dinner like it was nothing. So have billions of children in the past.

I've recently become caretaker of two boys, 5 and 7 years old. They are nuts. Their mom (my mother-in-law) is 100% disabled and diagnosed with severe anxiety. They must be monitored at all times. It's insanity. We had neighbors that moved in next door, with a 4 year old boy and 6 year old girl. Perfect! Potential playmates! Of course my mother-in-law forbids the boys talking to them since we "Don't know them". That made me angry. I asked "How can we know them if we don't ever meet them?" Granted, she has a psychological block to hurdle with anxiety, but those boys desperately want friends as much as I want them out of my house wrecking my things. They love their ipads, but deep down, they want to be rough & tumble boys.

I completely agree with the author of the article. I remember as a boy swinging as high as I can and letting go. Or riding my bike up to speed and jumping off. Without sounding crazy, I liked the way it hurt and I wanted to see how far I could go without hurting too much. It makes sense in a childhood development sense. Children don't know what hurts and what doesn't. This is why they have contradictory logic in behavior, like being terrified of getting down from a barstool to casually running in front of a freight train; they have no references in experience. Once they fall down or run into enough things, they can deduce what won't be a big deal to what could be fatal.
 
I may have my son have to lift a stone in order to be rewarded with things like the privilege to drive, etc. Not to avoid being soft, but to appreciate the value of the male design and what it can provide to society.

IMO, this statement would just as easily be written with the words "daugher" and "female" or "child" and "human" substituted for "son" and "male."

I'm not sure I really see the big problem that a lot of other folks here seem to see.

Professionally, I more often see women either get steamrolled because their communication style is less direct and aggressive, or adopt a more stereotypically male style. When people refer to the glass ceiling, they are not referring to difficulties males have reaching the top. BTW, my brother is a tuba player, and he refers to the "brass ceiling," meaning that if you play the tuba, there is a limit to how high you can go in the music industry.

In my son's elementary school, there is definitely an emphasis on non-violent conflict resolution. I'm not sure this is entirely a bad thing, and I'm not sure it's "feminine" as much as a combination of fear of lawsuits and bad publicity if violent episodes occur (or occur and aren't addressed by adults) and just teaching civil behavior.

There is also a woeful lack of emphasis on physical activity in my son's school, but I think this negatively affects the girls just as much as the boys, both physically AND academically.

I definitely see a cultural trend toward a greater sense of protectiveness among parents these days than when I was a kid, when kids were allowed to roam the neighborhood by ourselves, play tackle football without equipment, and the jungle gyms were built over concrete. Again, I'm not sure this represents "feminization."

I'm not sure whether this is perception or reality, but I also have the feeling that the world actually is more dangerous in a lot of ways. When I was younger, if you got in an argument on the basketball court, you might get in a fist fight over it and that would be the end of it, or even lead to a bond or grudging mutual respect between the combatants. Nowadays, you have to be wary that guys will run to their cars to get their guns.

One thing I've discovered as an adult is that a big difference between kids and adults is that kids think nothing will go wrong and adults think of the worst that could happen.

So times have changed and attitudes have evolved. We can debate the effects of these changes and whether we like them. But "feminization?" I'm not sure I buy it as the powerful and pervasive influence a lot posters seem to think it is.
 
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@ali @Mark Kidd The moisturizer thing is such low hanging fruit. There is nothing feminine about using it.

And this is why there can never be a serious discussion about anything.
Dude I have to use the stuff religiously in the winter. It barely makes a difference. His wording, him talking about a manly kind...made me laugh. I have zero issues with men taking care of their skin since it is our biggest organ.
 
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I do wonder if some people didn't understand what I meant by estrogen dominance in men. Google it. It has nothing to do with behaviour or sexuality. It has everything to do with men waking around with breasts. It has everything to do with them looking like a female from behind. In otherwords, their hormones are out of whack. Maybe we need a new thread for the serious issues that have been raised @Steve Freides, and this one locked as it was totally meant to be light hearted like I took Pavel's comments.
 
Oh but it does

8 Surprising High Estrogen Symptoms in Men

Redistribution of fat on chest, and hips is very common.

Gynecomastia - Wikipedia

Those links do not refer to the term "estrogen dominance."

It may be a matter of semantics, but you are taking others to task for misunderstanding you so I think semantics are relevant.

Personally, in my daily life I don't see this condition as being very obvious and prevalent. Certainly a lot of out of shape and/or overweight people, but not necessarily men who look like women -- other than those who are obviously trying...
 
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When I started playing competitive football using deodorant would have been viewed as metrosexual. When I was finished playing,it was commonplace to see rivers of fake tan flow in the team showers...times have a changed that's for sure...
 
Those links do not refer to the term "estrogen dominance."

It may be a matter of semantics, but you are taking others to task for misunderstanding you so semantics I think semantics are relevant.

Personally, in my daily life I don't see this condition as being very obvious and prevalent. Certainly a lot of out of shape and/or overweight people, but not necessarily men who look like women -- other than those who are obviously trying...
Okie Dookie.
 
Culturally I feel like there is a lot of pendulum swinging going on. I will be 33 in a few months so perhaps I am a bit younger here. But when I grew up in the 1990s, life was far more dangerous. I can name three students who I went to school with who killed people, one of them I personally knew, sat next to every day, and he killed a friend of his a few years post high school. Another one was a few years older than me and murdered two people by the time he was an adult and he has been rotting in San Quintin since the late 1990s and will probably spend several more decades there. And the other one was a girl who went with her friends to go murder someone as a birthday ritual. I didn't grow up in some ghetto area either, I grew up in Riverside California which is a reasonably nice place. Gangs were a fairly serious issue though and they aren't so much today. I went to high school with multiple guys who engaged in incredibly reckless behavior and have since died as young men from their recklessness.

We don't want to encourage violence or glorify it but we don't want the pendulum to swing so far the other way where we encourage fragility and weakness. We want 12 year old kids to play outside, we don't want 14 year old kids committing armed robbery and drunk driving. We don't want men being hypochondriacs but we also don't want them falling to cancer when they are 40 because they feel scans are for wimps.

I think kids today are by and large a better lot than the kids I grew up with. The anti-fragility is a lot easier to teach a kid than it is to try to rehab some sociopath kid not to abuse people. The diet and physical activity can be changed at a very early age. I have a bit of a theory that there is something toxic in the physical culture that a skinny and scrawny boy will become an obese man with very little time in the middle. Like what produced him to be so skinny and scrawny and obese is the same thing. PE is largely a failure of the educational system as the emphasis is sports over S&C.
 
I do wonder if some people didn't understand what I meant by estrogen dominance in men. Google it. It has nothing to do with behaviour or sexuality. It has everything to do with men waking around with breasts. It has everything to do with them looking like a female from behind. In otherwords, their hormones are out of whack. Maybe we need a new thread for the serious issues that have been raised @Steve Freides, and this one locked as it was totally meant to be light hearted like I took Pavel's comments.
@Mark Kidd, I don't think anyone who responded took it like you meant it - if I moved the parts that were what you were talking about, I'd end up moving everything except your initial post.

-S-
 
Culturally I feel like there is a lot of pendulum swinging going on
That pendulum swings in a lot of areas, e.g., in the history of various arts, including my specialty, music, you can see the movement towards greater and greater freedom with regards to the musical norms of the time then, boom, someone decides we need more rules and the pendulum swings the other way. Great art has been made at both extremes of the pendulum and everywhere in between - I think that's the important point to remember, and I think it applies in the broader sense to the swings in cultural, in philosophy, and in most other areas of life.

Of course, if the swinging was with a kettlebell and not a pendulum, we'd all be better off. :)

JMO, YMMV.

-S-
 
PE is largely a failure of the educational system as the emphasis is sports over S&C.

I agree with this. When PE even still exists to any meaningful degree, it's focused on competitive sports. How much better would it be if everyone did calisthenics, or kettlebells, or bodyweight training -- where everyone was only competing with themselves, and everyone's attention was mostly on themselves (thus making it less difficult for those who struggle)?

And schools have forgotten that kids need to move. How many behavior problems could be solved by a quick sprint down a field and back? The kid would settle right down...

Kids need to explore their world and take risks. A lot of the kids who are incredible reckless in the older teenage years were too sheltered in early childhood. I think there is a connection. But also, the teenage brain is wired for risk taking.... Sometimes parents can only do their best to keep the car from veering off the cliff as it careens wildly down the road, breathing a sigh of relief when they reach an age of greater sensibility.

I don't have much opinion on feminized men. To me, men have many qualities that can be attributed to their gender and that makes them attractive, no matter where they are on that spectrum from "manly men" to metrosexual. Strength is one quality. But the same can be said of women.

I like Pavel's vision... The Long View: A Solid Foundation Built to Last
"I envision a society of strong and proud people. Where every woman can do a pullup and every man can deadlift at least two times his bodyweight without a belt. Where strength is built not in pursuit of vanity but duty... Where it is incredibly uncool to be weak."
 
I mentioned this in another thread this week. My son teaches elementary school. At recess he goes out to the playground with the kids and does pull-ups, lateral flags, pistols, and such. I think the kids dig it. I think most of the other teachers are just perplexed.
 
I agree with this. When PE even still exists to any meaningful degree, it's focused on competitive sports. How much better would it be if everyone did calisthenics, or kettlebells, or bodyweight training -- where everyone was only competing with themselves, and everyone's attention was mostly on themselves (thus making it less difficult for those who struggle)?

And schools have forgotten that kids need to move. How many behavior problems could be solved by a quick sprint down a field and back? The kid would settle right down...

Kids need to explore their world and take risks. A lot of the kids who are incredible reckless in the older teenage years were too sheltered in early childhood. I think there is a connection. But also, the teenage brain is wired for risk taking.... Sometimes parents can only do their best to keep the car from veering off the cliff as it careens wildly down the road, breathing a sigh of relief when they reach an age of greater sensibility.

I don't have much opinion on feminized men. To me, men have many qualities that can be attributed to their gender and that makes them attractive, no matter where they are on that spectrum from "manly men" to metrosexual. Strength is one quality. But the same can be said of women.

I like Pavel's vision... The Long View: A Solid Foundation Built to Last
"I envision a society of strong and proud people. Where every woman can do a pullup and every man can deadlift at least two times his bodyweight without a belt. Where strength is built not in pursuit of vanity but duty... Where it is incredibly uncool to be weak."


Hi Anna. I teach primary school kids and I have taught second level PE as well. In my 15 years teaching, the general fitness levels/skill levels of most primary school kids has been on a downward curve. I'm not sure what it's like in the states but in Ireland there are lots of factors contributing to it. Some of the most prevalent:
  • Lack of PE specialists in school.
  • Risk averse culture, schools are scared to even approach gymnastics etc due to claim culture and litigation against the school.
  • Huge increase in digital consumption by kids.
  • Lack of positive role models, particularly male figures.
  • Increase in pupil input which gives them an opt out card to play when they don't want to participate.
There's a tipping point which is coming and over here the government will use the school as the battleground. As an example, we have a sponsored walk every year. It used to be 3 miles out, have a break and then 3 miles back. It has been shortened each year so that it now stands at 1 mile out and 1 mile back. The reason: most of the kids were too unfit to walk the 3 miles as a very conservative pace.
"Times are a changin"
 
Interesting, and sad, that many kids are so unfit they can't walk a mile and back. I'm sure it's the same here. And the contributing factors make sense.

So we know the answer is to "train", not just exercise. For adults, if our lifestyle does not require activity, we do smart physical training to get our bodies strong, healthy, and conditioned. Seems this would work for kids also. Is this the cultural movement that needs to happen?
 
You're right Anna, it will need a cultural shift, investment in people more so than resources and some innovation. A lot of the time govermant bodies just money at the problem which ends up being spent of equupment that gathers dust. We have made big changes in our school but sometimes it's like swimming against the tide. Interestingly the girls are much more receptive to ttying new skills/experiences and tend to learn quicker. The boys find it difficult to fail ato something and then practise it to improve. Must the male ego.:)
I talking to the kids one day about role models and I was saying that in my day Bruce Lee or Stallone/Rocky was what most boys in particular aspired to be. I then asked them to write about who they aspired to be.. most of the responses were citing people I'd never heard of; when I enquired as to who they were, they turned out to be YouTubers who either were minecrsft experts or guys who did crazy stunts....I was gobsmacked...
Does Pavel do school visits???:))
 
The big irony is that American schools invest incredible amounts of money into competitive sports. In my community within the last 5-6 years they have built at least two large aquatics centers, one at a community college and the other at a high school (this high school I went to 15+ years ago that had an existing pool). These facilities are taxpayer funded but are for competitive use only and the community has no access to them unless they qualify for for a competitive team. Figure that a high school with 3000 students will have fewer than 100 who are on the competitive team this is a terrible bang for the buck investment. There is a lot of investment into the competitive element of sports but very little into physical culture.

For the kids who walking a mile was too much for, it has shocked me to discover how many of my friends would have difficulty walking a mile. I am thinking.. so this is it? We are just going to become handicapped adults in our 30s...
 
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