It’s complicated, isn’t it? To have to define masculinity in a feminine form? For if we were to truly define masculinity, we would attempt to do so—more so, to even provide that article linked to its description. Yet we are here, forced into these corners of a feminine outlook upon masculinity, to attempt to define what should not be defined—or, as a man may put it, “get on with it.”
Yes, it may be true that masculinity is without strict parameters. It may also be true that there are core tenets to the framework of masculinity that could be left to the critical theorists and the adjunct debate. However, if we are to step away from the platform of academia and simply observe, as it were, in real time—and thus provide ample reasoning to specific models which will come about whether we like it or not, or whether we profess such or not—that is purely up to us. That might be my attempt at this description.
Masculinity may be defined by long hair which, although it is greatly a feminine feature—if done well, where it does not appear to be lost in the feminine form or in the carefully curated image of perfect hair, then it is, in fact, entering into masculine territory. Men are then those who have some sort of long and drapery hair but unkempt—for “kept” hair is, by definition, the side for girls. It may not be definitive enough.
One of the core tenets which we will borrow is that it must adhere to its differentiation from what a girl is. More so, it is the man in the school classroom who should not enact girlishness but attempt to perform what is contrary to what his girl is, rather than what is boyish. Thus we arrive at an impasse: it must be those things that entertain some sort of girly presence, because if not, then the man is but a lonesome wolf out in the jungle. But to do so in such an unkempt manner, we must adhere to the reason that he chooses not to shower, give a clean shave, or smell of perfect odors.
This is the man then: he who does the girly thing not for itself, but because he has painstakingly asserted that he is present in the jungle amongst the women of peers but can’t stand each moment within it—always wanting to leave but recognizing his ill fate in being surrounded by his fellow girls. He is not in any way concerned with how the girls look at him or how the boys do for that matter—unless it is to define him as anything other than a boy. And there we have our modern man.
Any indication of a performance of some sort of artistry to the endeavor—where he may appear that showering is a necessity, or he may claim that tying his shoelaces is the first order of business in the morning, not the days-ago requirement after the boss gives him ten reprimands and after three coffee breaks. The man doesn’t say, “I don’t care.” He simply doesn’t care—but he cares enough to know that he should care. Yet he doesn’t want to care, but he’s forced to care, and rather sits in that balance for eternity.
He will do the thing that women wouldn’t do—he’ll strap sneakers to the back of his knapsack not because he is particularly destined for the gym that day, but simply because having two pairs of shoes at present may seem more adaptable—but, most importantly, because that would be something that a woman, in her major hallucinations, would never attempt to do. It is as though he could wear those sneakers on his backpack because a woman would never do so—yet we find utility, for he could get a quick jog after a horrendous meeting in which his coworkers have used most of the meeting to engineer some emotional response from him: not because he couldn’t care less, but because he cares enough that they’re in wonderment at the way he simply balances that process.
A man is then someone who finds it comical that a million people may watch him without noticing, and he still finds the need to scratch that itch—because that itch needs scratching.
To summarize this very eloquent proposal: never can a man be both a performance and consider himself a modern man. And yet a man may seem contrary to any supposition—that he is, in fact, the greatest performance artist of mankind. Yet he doesn’t know this, but somehow he is aware that it is a possibility, that it may be a part of it. But he doesn’t know, and so he is so humble that he can’t be bothered, but so arrogant that he doesn’t notice how humble he appears to be.
Most importantly, he waits for the stark comment or the weird look he gets from the pretty girl in the office—because finally he gets the vitality of being a man who bothers the girls all the same. Somehow it never changed: since boyhood, teasing the girls has found new avenues and, most importantly, has become a concern when he gets dressed in the morning: “How much can I tease the girl with her still being interested, but nonetheless taken aback at the blasphemy of his existence to the public world?”
Then the modern man is he who awaits the rolling of eyes, whether in elevator, on the street or in the local food Mart and without at least three rolling eyes in a days affairs he has found himself emasculated with no return.
He might be called lonely; he might be called depressed. But sincerely, he is happy to be called those things—if only to have the women interested in his lonesome state, from which he never plans on leaving. He might have mistakenly left for a generation or two but is happy to sit and have ten women joke about him, another ten worry about him, and ten more who feel that they should concern themselves with his ambivalent state—which he finds almost comical as he watches himself all the same.
Critical Sexual Theory
Gender, Desire, Sexual Identity, and the Philosophy of Sexuality
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