Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Hopalong on April 13, 2008, 10:00:47 PM
-
Thinking of you, James, and Darren...and all your brothers here, lurkers and posters alike:
http://www.menweb.org/raiscain.htm (http://www.menweb.org/raiscain.htm)
http://www.menstuff.org/books/byissue/feelings-general.html (http://www.menstuff.org/books/byissue/feelings-general.html)
I really value the questions you're asking about masculinity and emotion.
Thank you for sharing them here.
love
Hops
-
Hops....I wonder why the ratio of men to women on this board appears unequal. I know the effects of narcissism hurts both sexes but is it just the pressure of society, ingrained over a lifetime, for men to appear silent and strong that produces this effect? thoughts are welcome...........James
-
Hmm I agree I was supposed to not have my own feelings and stiff upper lip don't-make-trouble (trouble being defined as anything to inconvenience the N), but outside of the N-zone there was always plenty of feelings talk, in general, as a girl. There's all kinds of displays of emotion that we think nothing of, girl to girl. We are very accustomed to them. You can always disclose some kind of emotion, even if it it minor or trivial, not the crucial stuff, to somebody about something when you are a woman.
It's really otherwise in our culture for guys. And I think in general the culture is very blind to it as an issue. In past centuries and other cultures there have been times and places where men expressed emotion freely and without having to feel risky or vulnerable about it.
My H and I talk about these things a lot. We think our culture is really weird and crazy about the messages it sends to boys and men.
-
I think girls are discouraged from believing in their feelings from a very young age.
"You don't really hate that dress"
"What a lovely picture you painted"
Instead of validation and questions....... "I understand you don't prefer that dress.... what would you prefer?"
"That's an interesting picture.... how do you feel about it?" etc....
And maybe it's worse for boys but it's not easy for girls. It's certainly not been easy, IME.
Good thread Hops.
Lighter
-
Amber,
sounds like we are very similiar...........family tensions and I also had a big mouth,
axa
-
In my travels, I have seen more men on the Narcissist Boards than here on the Voiceless Board!
-
Wow really thoughtful points and certainly I identify with having emotional displays jeered at in my family. However, I kind of think we should take that discussion to another thread and think about how the emotional acknowledgement of boys and men is discouraged and inhibited on this topic.
-
Hi James,
My feeling/sense/observation is that this culture is just as dehumanizing to men as to women, but usually in different ways (and often setting the sexes against each other in the process).
football (suck it up! there's no crying in baseball! play through the pain!)
big boys don't cry
don't hug your friend
don't ask for help
...and
WAR (kill people and/or be cannon fodder to show what a man you are)
Hope the books help.
love
Hops
-
James,
I have always liked and found men a little more attractive to have and show feelings. It shows they are real and feel. I would not worry so much about how someone will except you (for feeling) I would say if that is what it is based on and they run off THEN LET THEM GO, it's not what you want. That is how we wind up with N's.
James I personally vote for the guys who (FEEL) and are not afraid of showing it. I want to know about them too.
I think showing emotions from a man is a whole lot more attractive then they may or may not be in looks. It does not make you less of a man it makes you more of one IMO.
Love
Deb
-
Well, we big, dumb, silent, non-crying types come in kinda handy occasionally when there's a predator hanging around the neighborhood or some aggressive creep has decided to let his emotions hang all over the place and is stalking some unfortunate young woman or some ranting crybaby dictator feels like invading his neighbor.
There's nothing wrong with men dealing with abuse by working through the emotions it raises but outside of that I'll take the strong silent type to a general wave of simpering, Oprah-watching men any day of the week.
mud
-
I have not traveled abroad very much but friends who do tell me in many countries they do not see the same degree of reserved feeling many men in the US carry around. Women have been an important part of my healing. I have two sisters, no brothers, and currently a female T. In the last year i have done a lot of crying even sobbing at times with my T and several female friends but no male friends. This i know is directly related to my dad terrorizing me and early sexual abuse. I want to overcome this but i just dont feel comfortable reaching out with the level of traumatic emotions i carry around. Now that i am consciously aware of what happened somehow it's even more important to resolve this issue so that my friendships can be comfortable and honest. I have thought abt joining a mens group in order to deal with the sexual abuse and dad's terrorizing. it's the only way i can think of to share openly these feelings inside without feeling intimitated or ashamed of what happened. As i open up i am actually starting to see that i feel like i'm going to be attacked sometimes like my dad used to do. This once unconscious fear has kept me wary of other men. Can this be done in the real world without being in a group?....James
-
I think a men's group is a superb idea, James.
There's one at my church (UU) that friends tell me has become really important to them.
It started as a course led by the minister, led into a regular group.
Or maybe you could find one led by a good psychologist.
Men need emotionally intimate relationships with each other, and many feel denied that.
(Mud, a quietly confident or very strong man may have less to boil over about, and that's fine too. I'm glad men like you are around. Some men feel they have to fit into a fairly narrow definition of masculinity in order to be "acceptable" to the point that it really cramps their growth in many ways. I'm not sure where the whingeing stereotype of an oversensitive new-age male came from, but that's not what I'm talking about.)
Anyway, I'm not an honorary man today, so I'll butt out for a bit.
xo
Hops
-
Thinking of you, James, and Darren...and all your brothers here, lurkers and posters alike:
http://www.menweb.org/raiscain.htm (http://www.menweb.org/raiscain.htm)
http://www.menstuff.org/books/byissue/feelings-general.html (http://www.menstuff.org/books/byissue/feelings-general.html)
I really value the questions you're asking about masculinity and emotion.
Thank you for sharing them here.
love
Hops
Thanks for thinking of me! =D There are other forums I hang out at that make feel quite outnumbered by the women. I don't feel that way here, so much. It seems we are all going through the same types of situations.
-
I'm not sure where the whingeing stereotype of an oversensitive new-age male came from, but that's not what I'm talking about.
Alan Alda. :D
mud
-
We think our culture is really weird and crazy about the messages it sends to boys and men.
I completely agree. I think we are stuck with a socialization process which evolved about a hundred years ago to produce good soldiers, farmers, and factory workers. From the time a boy is big enough to hold a ball, he is taught to be in an eternal competition with every other male. First there is the symbolic competition for wins in ball games, but it proceeds to the more serious matters of competing for jobs and "resources" which includes women. Expressions of feelings and vulnerability are not good moves in the overall "Darwinian struggle" men are trained to endure.
50 years ago, there was at least a work team or company to identify with, but even that is disintegrating today. Men end up being perpetual "lone wolfs" who have nothing but casual connections at work, and don't have enough intimate connections with family or friends to compensate.
-
I think my fear of very emotional men comes from two places: my NF, who was only "emotional" to manipulate and serve his own needs (leaning heavily to rage, not vulnerability or real emotion) and 2) my mother, who responded by leaning on me so heavily for support that I run like hell when I think I'm going to have to take on another burden. It's not that I want the classic strong, silent type. I enjoy most being around men who are simply honest. If they're sad, they're sad, they can talk about it and work through it. But if they are always sad, always need something, I begin to feel drained. So I guess it's like anything: yes to emotion in men, absolutely. Otherwise you never really feel like you know a person. But if you end up as a crutch, you end up driven into the ground. For what it's worth I imagine the same thing is true in reverse.
-
Gjazz......i can relate to what you said. I always kept my emotions under the radar but unfortunately i felt depressed much of the time from doing this. As i child it was necessary in order to not bring the wrath of my parents down on me and it also kept me from being sucked into the vortex of their needs. Not a lot just a little. I find honesty in both men and women very appealing because i know where i stand with these types (unlike FOO where i was left guessing) and know whats appropriate for me to share keeping in line with their boundaries. The people that i enjoy best are those who have a very broad range of emotions and have the confidence to understand the significance of this and are not afraid of showing them. For me, the relationship that i have with myself and with others is what makes life worth living, in essence they are the interpretation of my experience here on earth. I believe real intimacy involves letting others in and being let in with mutual respect for each other in a healthy way...........James
-
Silverlining........I think under all this madness of competition across the world are masses of injured people struggling symbolically for acceptance and to be valued for who they really are. I know few if any people who were not damaged by their parents or the pressures of society. This emotional blindness appears to keep much of the world in sort of a trance that they can't escape. This is one time that i don't think the majority is right. It's downright dangerous to the world and its inhabitants. I think man in his/her true state is a loving gentle creature and the perversions of the masses and this reflection in it's intitutions keep many from knowing this. I used to compete in a lot of areas but the more i find myself, this is of little importance now. Most of it i consider a waste of time and energy. I do have to work at not being dragged back into others madness or the effects of........james
-
James: We may have grown up in similar families. Certainly, in mine, keeping ALL emotions under wraps was extremely important. happiness would be shot down. Sadness would be attacked. frustration would be mocked. Fury would be turned against me or my siblings. So for me, dealing with other people's emotions can be exhausting, having only learned to deal with my own as an adult. And I'm always a little afraid I'll do or say the wrong thing, because I didn't grow up with that sort of honesty, it's new terrain.
-
Gjazz.....our families do sound similar. I bet a lot of people here may be thinking the same thing. I was always trying to avoid the next attack of some sort and this left me worrying about saying the right or wrong thing. It just comes with growing up in families like this IMO.....James
-
Yes, exactly, that's probably why they call it voicelessness! In my case it was weird because there was never any yelling, never any "overt" attacks, just constant, quiet put-downs and being demeaned.
-
Gjazz..."just constant, quiet putdowns, and being demeaned"...I consider those attacks but not as noisy as the other but equally damaging if not more so. It's hard to fight back against that quietness. When this occured in my family i sometimes felt hurt but couldn't undertand why. I might get angry and if i did my parents would usually say something to the effect that i had no reason to be that way. They shamed me for my anger and did not admit their actions and i was left confused. Your parents sound passive aggressive to me? Thats tough and you have my deepest sympathy.....James
-
They are both passive aggressive, but (luckily) only my F is narcissistic. And sociopathic. They both came from very wealthy backgrounds and I think that insulation--nobody would ever question them or doubt them, even as young people, because of their social position--helped them maintain control over us as well. In general, we were raised in an "anything, rather than a scene" environment. My NF loathed children (still does) and laughing at us (never with us) was his entertainment. Everything was mocked. It was just done wittily and under the aegis of sophistication, which served to make us complicit in our own undoing, because we wanted to be witty and sophisticated, too.
-
I am reading a book, "Flesh and Bone", Jefferson Bass and I find that the co-writers in this, Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson, have some very interesting things to say, from a man's point of view in a 'budding 'romance. It makes the protagonist very male and very human, regarding his emotions.
I am reading very much real life into a murder novel as Bill Bass is a forensic anthropologist who has the "Body Farm" in Tennessee. There is a lot of interesting information outside of the romance, and I finally, after all these years, have learned about how the court reporter's machine works. Jefferson is a journalist.
I look at their picture together, at the back of the book, and they have very kind faces. Bass looks elderly and cuddly (70s?) and one would not think he could be a part of a romance. Jefferson appears a little younger and just reminds me of an actor I saw in a TV show my daughter liked. His TV name was REM.
I like to have my own ideas about what I discern from what I am reading and, In a way, I felt the 'grief' part was somewhat over done for the protagonist -- but I have never, in my life, felt 'grief'.
This is a Critique that I found online and I borrowed this from the Library because I watch CSI........
At the start of the entertaining second Body Farm novel from the pseudonymous Bass (the writing team of forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Bass and journalist Jon Jefferson), Dr. Bill Brockton ties a dead man dressed in drag to a tree at the Body Farm (a facility he heads outside Knoxville, Tenn., devoted to researching postmortem decay), in an effort to replicate a recent murder. Dr. Bill's just beginning a romantic relationship with another participant in this experiment, Chattanooga medical examiner Dr. Jess Carter. The story veers wildly from fascinating forensics with a high yuck factor to sophomoric and corny romantic byplay, often in the same scene. Fans of the bestselling first book in the series, Carved in Bone, and readers with a penchant for the gross and grisly will take to Dr. Bill, a hero with a big heart who isn't afraid to tackle complicated issues while solving mildly engrossing mysteries. Dr. Bass and Jefferson are the coauthors of Death's Acre, about the actual Body Farm
This man cries. He tells about his feelings, when looking at her, when having dinner with her, his fantasies, while all the while trying to solve a murder in which both have an interest, then her death, his grief, being charged with her murder, and this man is NOT Mister "I HAVE IT ALL TOGETHER". This man is human.
I wonder what I would do if I met a :"human" man?