Newsgroups: alt.sex.bondage
Subject: Nurse Jones on Masculinity (?!)
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Date: 8 Nov 91 18:24:18 GMT
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From Nurse Jones,
For God's sake don't read this unless your attitudes are even
more naive and half-baked than mine. I just read over it and I
discovered I AM a breathlesss Pollyanna after all. So consider it
e-graffiti. Consider the "N" key.
Still here? I got a "Dear E-Abby" note from a very nice person
who had a question about something I had blathered about earlier:
masculinity. As though I were an authority. I forget exactly what I
said, but it had something to do with the fact that I found some of
the gays in San Fran to be more masculine than the He-Men back home in
Indiana. And I mentioned that they weren't part of the leather set,
just normal, regular fellas that happened to be gay. Oh, yeah: I said
that my criterion for masculinity was that they didn't feel obliged to
demonstrate that they were male all the time, that they were secure
enough to not need that crutch.
Sheesh. I'm going to have to keep a record of what I say if I'm
going to run a "Dear Nurse Jones" advice column. Which I'm not. I have
no advice to offer, just bias and prejudice thinly disguised as
opinion.
BUT this was a serious question from someone who had legitimate
personal reasons for asking, trust me. I know the ASB group is
sensitive enough to give help if they can.
So to this person I give my two cents:
Keep in mind that you're dealing with a relatively inexperienced
28 year old that has some pretty warped perspectives on sexuality to
begin with. I mean, I'm actively engaged in turning my Extremely
Significant Other into a woman via hypnosis, and getting such cold
feet that now we're talking about HIM hypnotizing ME to help me deal
with it. Clearly, I should be under medication, probably thorazine,
and here I am giving advice. Plus you're asking a woman about
masculinity. A buzzer should sound here, disqualifying me.
My initial gut response to men, in fact people in general, is
based on something I can only poorly define as "the way they carry
themselves." I'm attracted to certain qualities that seem to show
through superficial appearances. That doesn't mean that superficial
appearances are unimportant, to me or in general; it's just that they
aren't really what this post is about.
Actually, posture is often a good clue to what's inside. How's
that for superficial? People that are comfortable with themselves,
feel confident, etc., usually have a way of standing that says, "I'm
not cringing, I'm ready to meet the world on honest terms." And they
have a straightforward way of looking you in the eyes that says, "I'm
listening to you and paying attention."
But this person asked about my perception of masculinity. When I
distill it down, it is this:
When a person in a male body has the qualities I admire, I think
of them as masculine. I think this is true of women, too. They become
attractively female ("feminine" has some negative connotations
involving tupperware, frilly clothing, and colors like lilac and
peach) if they have the same admirable qualities housed in the body of
a woman. These qualities make everybody more attractive if they have
them, and to me, more masculine or feminine as well. I'm muddling
attractiveness and masculinity, I know. In my mind, they are muddled.
Inseparable, in fact. For some reason, the body language, the posture,
seems to be the most overt outward manifestation of these qualities,
maybe because it says something about the was a person confronts the
world.
Oh, I suppose there are masculine men with no admirable
qualities. I guess the point is that if a man doesn't have any of
those qualities, the question of masculinity doesn't even arise with
me, and if he does, he seems, to me, to be masculine.
Since I'm rather stubbornly heterosexual, (despite a willingness to
try) the Ideal Male for me happens to be heterosexual, too, but that's
really irrelevant here. Masculinity is the question on the floor, not
the Ideal Male for Nurse Jones.
Those qualities I was talking about have nothing to do with gender.
They are the same qualities we ALL admire, I guess. Here they come:
Usually, these people are quiet. They weigh what they say, using
something like the old formula of the Shaker religion (is my midwest
showing?). That formula, applied before opening the mouth, is:
Is it kind, is it true, is it necessary.
If the answer is yes, yes, yes, then they speak. I guess you
could say that's one good thing about the midwest: the philosophy of
the Shakers. I guess they came from New York originally, so there you
go. Their religion is something else; celibacy is one of the more
extreme sexual perversions, when you think about it. Anyway, I'm not a
Shaker, and my mouth gets me in trouble a lot, so I'm not a good
example in the area of being kind and true about what I say. And I'm
not sure I've EVER said anything that was necessary.
Courage, not demonstrated by taking chances or playing football or
being aggressive, but by showing strength of character. Speaking up
for what's right even when your friends or boss won't like it. (Here
comes Pollyanna.) If I had that kind of courage, I would have told The
Blob off long ago. Many men, especially the scratch-n-burp types from
back home, think that strength is demonstrated when you show you are
stronger than someone.
Dead wrong.
You don't even have a _chance_ of showing what you've got until
you are up against something that is bigger, tougher, meaner, and more
powerful than you are. Like a disease. When a kid stands up to a
bully, which one is showing weakness and which strength? The bully is
showing he has a need to assert himself; we already know he's
stronger. Most of the gays I met out there (San Fran) had at least one
friend with full blown AIDS. Quite a few of the people I met were HIV
positive. They were up against something bigger and stronger.
Of course, Real Men don't get AIDS, because Real Men are all
heterosexual. So they tell me back in Indiana.
Now and then, I was hit between the eyes by the fact that these
were perfectly normal people that knew they were going to die,
probably soon, in the worst way, with tubes, diapers, plastic under
the sheets, pain, disorientation, sometimes regression to childlike
imbecility from extremely powerful drugs, and no way out. Can't even
hold a spoon anymore. Has to be fed now. Changed.
Of course, a Real Man wouldn't eat with a spoon. He'd thump his
chest and announce that he'd die first. That's what a Real Man would
do.
Do you know what it's like to go way, way beyond the point where
it gets hard to find a vein? I don't, believe me. Nurses just go along
for the ride. We can go home after. Talk about Walking the Walk.
I'd be a gibbering idiot, knowing what was coming, and they were
helping each other and handling it with a dignity that made me feel
ashamed and guilty that I was healthy. It's like stepping into 12th
century Europe and watching the Black Death, but you're safe. It's a
plague. There's no difference at all, except that AIDS is worse.
That's a cold, professional, clinical assessment, BTW: AIDS is a worse
way to die than the Bubonic Plague. I haven't ever seen a case of
plague, but I asked one of the doctors who at least knows the
symptoms. Apparently it turns up regularly in the southwest. You see
AIDS victims on the street now and then, out for a walk in the
evening, some with canes. Like ghosts.
I have friends in S.F. that I can't talk about here, but they
introduced me to their "circle" while I was there. The gay community
is in a state of siege, almost. It's like a war. I guess it IS a war.
AIDS is like a shadow in the background of everything. Brochures on
kitchen tables, rumors on the latest drugs, what the FDA is (isn't)
doing, how so-and-so is doing, someone else tested positive, I have to
go check on such-and-such, do his shopping.
One man I met "up close" weighed maybe 95 pounds at 5'8" tall. He
had been a part-time transvestite, before, when there was a point to
it. He still wore a silk scarf when he remembered, but he had to stop
wearing his rings because he got infections under them. He was barely
walking, had lost most of his hair, and didn't know where he was half
of the time. But his friends took care of him, made sure he had his
baseball cap, hugged him.
Of course, Real Men don't hug.
His friends visited him, took him out, got his medication in him,
kept him going, and kidded him about his memory loss. Jokes about how
lucky he was to be meeting so many new people all the time. It was the
same joke every day, like a ritual, but it was like they had never
heard it before and they would howl and point at each other and laugh
until the tears ran.
But the guys back home, they never cried, and they were Real Men.
I think he was so far gone that he didn't even understand the
joke. I think he was just laughing because everyone else was. He would
smile and look confused and laugh along.
It wasn't easy for him to stand up, but he would suddenly lever
himself out of his chair for no reason and stand there swaying, arms
at his sides. It seemed so urgent to him, getting up, that I had the
feeling he was going somewhere, but then he would just stand there,
and everyone went on talking, ignoring him, and finally he would just
sit down again as though he had changed his mind about something. He
did this several times over the two days I was there. I wonder what
was going on in his mind.
He stood up straight, though. That was almost the only thing left
of him, the way he stood. His whole body said, "Come and get me,
motherfucker."
That's masculinity.
I don't know if his standing up meant anything. But in real life
he was standing up to something, and it showed in everything he did.
He was standing up to something bigger than he was. He wasn't showing
he was stronger than it, that he could beat it, he was showing that it
just didn't matter that he was weaker. When the Blob tries to pull off
my wings, I run and hide in the john, so I'm not a good role model in
this regard. I'm not the right person to ask. I haven't walked the
walk. But that's masculinity, and he was a transvestite. I say "was".
It probably is "was" by now.
Well, you asked for an example. I guess Real Men wouldn't
consider a transvestite to be a good example of masculinity.
-*-
The people I admire laugh at themselves more than others, and make
their "status" apparent by showing they can afford to be generous with
what they have rather than by showing they have more than the next
fellow. These people drive junk cars instead of BMW's and then the
ground falls away under your feet when you discover they spent their
Thanksgiving holiday helping out at a homeless shelter, or they took
in a dirty, oily, hungry, smelly stray mutt with three legs that was
about to fall through the cracks of an uncaring city.
Those are the kinds of things that cause you to take a second
look at a person, not the cost of his beamer. I sound pious, like I'm
claiming moral high ground here, but think about it, it's true; it's
just human psychology, nothing more. When you're surprised like that,
you look again. You don't look twice at the beamer.
One last thing, but this is personal, maybe not a widespread
preference. I like people that don't need much. Someone once said that
real happyness is found not in the extent of one's posessions, but in
the fewness of one's wants. People that have more than they need are a
dime a dozen. People that have more than they want are rare, and
there's strength in that, somehow. And I've been egging Jay to buy
some damn furniture for this barn of a house. Missed again.
These are pretty nonsexual characteristics, I'm afraid. They make men
that have them masculine. They make women that have them attractively
female. I don't have any of them, except I try to be kind now and
then. I wasn't very nice to Richard Jernigan, though. As I look back,
I'm ashamed of my first flame even if he deserved it.
Well, I count 5 things that go into my definition of masculinity. By
my own criteria, it looks like I'm "Oh for Five," sports fans, so I
guess I don't walk the walk. I'm not a good person to ask. As I said,
consider this graffiti. I do have good posture, though, but that's
just because I'm trying to be tall.
Nurse Jones,
5 feet, 2.5 inches, on a gloomy Friday afternoon,
wondering if there's any difference between philosophy
and graffiti other than the word "fuck."
PS. This e-mail I got was from someone that really cared about the
answer, and it might help them out if we discussed what masculinity is
on an open forum. Femininity, too for that matter. So let's have some
discussion. You've got my two cents.
PPS. It should go without saying that a person that treats life as an
opportunity to exhibit these qualities whenever possible has got it
all wrong. They have to come naturally. It shows, believe me, if it's
not.
PPPS. There has been some discussion on beauty, inner and outer, from
people who seem to have enough of the inner kind that they take the
trouble to see both kinds in each other. I can offer you a bit of hard
data from someone that is outwardly attractive. The only problems I
have with my appearance are minor: having inverted nipples and my
frizzy hair. I have been very lucky.
Here's the data, this is hard fact: If you have a physically
attractive SO, no matter how attractive the person is, there comes a
time in a relationship when you wake up one morning and it just
doesn't matter any more. Something else might, but the looks just
don't. This is one lesson I have learned for true.
That doesn't mean that the converse is true. If you've got someone
you're not physically attracted to, it might always matter to you that
that is so, I don't know. But know this: if they are attractive
initially, that doesn't carry any weight at all after a very short
time. Other things do, but not that.
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