In Defense of Masculinity

We live in a male-loathing therapeutic culture. But the crudeness of the most common formulations is absurd (and yes, I include MoDo). Masculinity comes in many forms; and it's a sign of our culture's weakness that we tend to see it only in terms of violence, machismo, homophobia, disrespect for women, and so on. Hip-hop and the Bush-Cheney administration have more in common on this score than they'd like to think. Maybe gay men can be part of the solution, in developing a culture of masculinity that draws on classical virtue, rather than pop-cultural dreck. Here's a simple expression of the distinction between toxic masculinity and virtuous manliness. Money quote:

The basic good code of a certain brand of masculinity, as opposed to macho, is that you don't pick fights, and that you never tolerate the strong bullying the weak. Bullying, in fact, is seen as a declaration of weakness - if you were strong, you wouldn't be picking fights with weaklings, now would you? And if you were confident, you wouldn't need to prove anything, would you? Certainly you don't back down from a fight - but you don't go looking for it either.