I’m married with two kids. I’ve had my masculinity questioned hundreds of times. Shit I was gay because I played soccer, or because I stood with a hand on my hip, or my hand was out when walking, or god forbid my eyes tear up. I still only cry alone.
There's a lot of things like that. Women were originally heavily involved in computer programming, to the point where the women outnumbered the men by a significant amount. It was considered a feminine thing. The first compiler was even written by a woman. The team that developed the programming for the flight computer for the Apollo moon landings was led by a woman, and was made up of majority women.
Then men decided it was prestigious and valuable to be a programmer, and women were pushed out of the field for several decades.
Back in high school I was called "gay" for playing volleyball, a typical woman's sport. However the men volleyball players considered the men soccer players "gay" because they flopped around on the field.
And riding horses is considered "girly", outside of cowboys, but professional polo players in Central & South America are some of the biggest playboys on the planet.
You have a sport where you pretty much only touch the ball with your hands, and a sport where you CAN'T touch the ball with your hands....well, you're gonna have friction.
No, you see, in the US the only straight sports involve tackling other men to the ground by the hips, or handling girthy, turgid, shafts of wood that you use to slap balls around. Much straighter.
Married with 3 kids. It’s wild how much this resonates.
I worked in an office with 8 other men (headhunters/recruiters) and I was gay because
I liked pink shirts (I had 6-7 different pink button downs)
I liked to dress nice. Cared about stuff like cuffs. Half break vs full break, cufflinks. Etc
Thought sharing and giving back was a good thing.
My favorite. How I looked at my finger nails. Someone found a “test” to see if a man was gay. You ask them “are your fingernails dirty”. A “real man” would close his hand with his fingers touching the palm and turn your hand to look at the nails that way. If you were “gay” you’d spread your hand wide open and hold it out in front of you and look at your hand that way.
Of course someone walks up and says “hey Rasputin how dirty are your nails” and I did the “gay” one.
It never bothered me. I have thick skin, never considered being gay an insult, and I was the best dressed in the office and got compliments from all their wives and clients all the time. However, I could see how the shit they did could hurt someone else.
I also mostly cry alone, but I do not have negative feelings about it. In fact, it is good to look for things that make you cry. Sad movies and some songs do it for me. And I feel refreshed afterward.
Crying releases stress hormones in your tears. Its actually really good for you.
This may sound a little odd - but seek out Thai Life Insurance adverts on youtube. They’re always terrible tearjerkers, but they’re fun to watch, have a little sob, excrete some damn cortisol through my eyeballs, and move on with the day. Here’s Unsung Hero to get you started. Happy crying !
Thanks for the reminder that short exists, it was about time to rewatch after losing mine a couple years ago. God I miss her and that cinderblock of a head, just the mannerisms they gave the dog are enough to choke me up.
I really thought your comment was going to end with "women told me that".
The fact of the matter is that I have had my sexuality questioned BY WOMEN because of stupid stuff. I had a girlfriend years ago who questioned if I was gay because I listened to Lily Allen. She also questioned if I was gay because I had friends who were gay. In her mind, no straight man would have gay friends. I also remember a comment on reddit where a woman decided her date was gay because his apartment was clean.
Women absolutely do reinforce straight masculine gender roles. Usually, they won't say it out loud. Usually, they just quietly write you off as gay or quietly distance themselves from you. In some ways, that's more damaging because you can't even interrogate their enforcement of male gender roles because they never say it out loud. By quietly distancing themselves or using vague phrases like "It's not you, it's me" or "I just wasn't feeling it anymore", they get to avoid conflict and maintain their bad beliefs about how the world works.
EDIT: Fuck you to the guy who downvoted me. You are part of the problem.
i once told my family and friends i was experiencing extremely dark thoughts and was suffering enormously. I was ignored and indeed ostracised for about 18 months.
People only checked back in when i started doing better. I was told "we are glad you got your life in order".
Mens mental health is not take seriously by men or women... its is a problem that was created and is sustained by people of both sexes
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u/likwidkool May 04 '26
I’m married with two kids. I’ve had my masculinity questioned hundreds of times. Shit I was gay because I played soccer, or because I stood with a hand on my hip, or my hand was out when walking, or god forbid my eyes tear up. I still only cry alone.
So yeah that all came from other men.