Update

I'm over in Indiana visiting relatives for a but, but this fit in too well with my recent posts not to share.

Cuddle Parties and the Death of Platonic Male Touch https://melmagazine.com/cuddle-parties-and-the-death-of-platonic-male-touch-596048c79745

Charlottesville

I haven't posted much because a close friend suffered a personal tragedy last week, and I went to be there for her and her family.

Meanwhile, the world has gotten even crazier.  I have to admit the reports from Charlottesville are disturbing, and I'm worried about what it means and where we're headed. 

I saw this on Facebook today and found it very disturbing - https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1637545369612833&id=100000721566451

I hope and think that this won't get out of hand.  That many people are disgusted by these extremists.  I hesitate even to call them right wing extremists, tbh. In some ways it does remind me of the Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, you see.  Things in Iraq really started to get out of control after the bombing of the al-Askari mosque, which led to an escalating cycle of violence.  There are people in the United States who seem to WANT to ignite a race war, like Dylann Roof.  I personally think they are idiots trying to unleash hell, but there are always people who seem to think they will win any such war and will gain something if they can do so (think of the Algerian independence movement, or the underpinnings of the break up of Yugoslavia, or - yes- the violence in Iraq after that bombing)

So far, the US as a whole has resisted any such thing.  For how long, though? 

If this FB post is accurate, the extremists need to be shut down, and shut down hard.  While respecting their right to peacefully assemble, and to engage in free speech.  But home invasions?  Drive by shootings?  That's not peaceful assembly, and it needs to be shut down hard.

More on modern expectations on masculinity

Back when I was a young junior officer in the US Army, some friends and I would visit various places when we had an extra long weekend.  Tucson, Nogales, Las Vegas, Rocky Point, Phoenix...

Since we were junior officers (and not exactly rolling in resources) we'd often share a hotel room or two.  For us women, that was nothing...but it was always rather hilarious to see how the guys sorted out their rooming situation.  Inevitably someone would be uncomfortable at the idea of sharing a bed, and would sleep in a chair or on the floor or something decidedly unlikely to ensure they had a good nights sleep.  Tbh, I always felt kind of sorry for them - trapped by some stupid notion of how men should behave, worried about I don't know what (that someone would roll over in their sleep and drape an arm on them?  Or some stranger would see them and assume the worst?  Or...I dunno, it all seemed rather silly to me) and made me kind of glad I'm not a man.

I didn't have to deal with stupid, silly little BS.

I call it stupid and silly, because on one level it is...and another level it's deadly serious, and devastating.  Tragic.  I said it was hilarious to see the men sorting out sleeping arrangements, but it's also kind of sad.  Like, we want our men to be proud and stand strong.  To be independent. To challenge the status quo.

And then we trap them with social expectations, so that they can't actually be all that. Not when it comes to anything that goes against current norms of male behavior.  How can they be men, and be so utterly dependent on social approval at the same time?  So unwilling to say "screw what people might think, I'm going to sleep comfortable tonight.  Only an idiot would assume two men can't share a queen sized bed in a hotel room without something happening."

What's crazy is that so much of this is...recent.  This is not the way things have always been.  It's not even the way things have always been here in America.  I read Doris Goodwin's book, Team of Rivals, where she mentioned that Abraham Lincoln often shared a hotel room with other men when traveling the eighth circuit.  That it was fairly common at that time, and nobody considered it erotic.  Actually, I'll share a bit more of her book here:

Their intimacy is more an index to an era when close male friendships, accompanied by open expressions of affection and passion, were familiar and socially acceptable. Nor can sharing a bed be considered evidence for an erotic involvement. It was a common practice in an era when private quarters were a rare luxury... The attorneys of the Eighth circuit in Illinois where Lincoln would travel regularly shared beds. (58)

Men used to be able to share hotel rooms with no problem, to express affection, to say they loved each other.  This page has a bit more on the topic, to include pictures of men showing affection to each other.

Now?  Now there's a code for masculine behavior that seems, as an outsider looking in, stifling.  It's a caricature of manliness.  Restrictive.  And, as my previous link showed, it can also be quite deadly. 

It forces men into a prison, one that keeps them from fully being who they can be, and keeps men from forming the connections they need to feel happy, to live life fully.  To stop feeling lonely.

In a strange twist on the conventions, the men who most act in keeping with our modern caricature of manliness often seem like the ones who are the most afraid.  And, as a result, they are the most isolated of all.

Men, friendships, and society

https://medium.com/@remakingmanhood/why-do-we-murder-the-beautiful-friendships-of-boys-3ad722942755

Found this today and posting from my phone.  It fits in with something else I'll post shortly.