The Dilemma of The Modern Man

Every preceding generation thinks of themselves as inherently better than the ones that came before. Perhaps its a youthful bravado of sorts, we just feel invincible and infallible solely because we were born later. We think we're too smart to fall for the same temptations, vices, and mistakes. We just know better. Yet time and time again, we fall under the illusion of finite power, that someone growing theirs is the same as losing ours. Currently I think young men specifically are facing an existential crisis. Many of us no longer know our place in the world, likely because we've yet to have a reevaluation of what it means to be a man in a changing world, and its because of that we face a reckoning.

What does it mean to be masculine, a man? To be honest, I don't believe anyone knows. From my point of view, it seems the definition changes depending on what someone wants out of you, or what they want to sell you. Because there are so many definitions, and I couldn't possibly keep you here all day, I've drummed up the most commonly occuring ones I hear when the topic of masculinity makes it's way to the table.

1. Being the sole/main breadwinner of a family

   - Women can do this. Many women, such as my own mother, already have and have done so for many years.

2. The ability to take charge in times of struggle

   - This bears more to do with one's skill, knowledge, and expertise in relation to the situation at hand. Would you really want to be forced into a leadership role, regardless of your qualifications, but regarding what's between your legs? To be forced into a position of control, based on something that's out of your control? Everytime? To me, it sounds exhausting.

3. The 'innate' behavior to protect and act as a shield

   - Here, I also disagree. Mothers are protective, many would lay down their lives in an instant for their children, in addition to their husbands and all those they care deeply for. Perhaps being protective is not a trait belonging to the masculine person, but to the caring person. However, doesn't caring sound so much more feminine?

Despite all the above, none can shake the biological truth of the male being both bigger and stronger than the female. After reading this some minds will immediately jump to subjugation, and to have made such a connection implies a belief I hold issue with. It asserts that the purpose of men, in addition to the definition and showcasing of masculinity, is the desire to put down others and force them to your will. Really though, is this masculine or oppressive? Continuing with the former, the act of rape is then a masculine one. The man who rapes a woman is simply being a man, she must have seduced him in some manner. The man who is raped by another man cannot be a man or is a lesser one, to have been subjugated meant his masculinity was lacking. The man raped by a woman couldn't have been raped, because women can't be masculine.

Rape is an extreme example, but because many make the mistake of viewing it through the lens of sex (biological), the act itself is then distorted into an either-or situation. You're either a woman or a man, you can either be raped or you can't be raped. What applies to one sex doesn't apply to the other, if it did, what entails masculinity and femininity wouldn't ecompass specific roles, behaviors, and stereotypes.

That final scenario is an integral pillar in this way of thought. It's a paradox, but a necessary one for its legitimization. If the opposite were true, it would be subjugation by one who isn't a subjugator. It would either mean the woman can be masculine, or that masculinity, and femininity by extension, don't exist. To remedy this, the man has been made out to be a sex starved beast, under a state of perpetual horniness, unable to control his lust and seeking every opportunity to have it satiated. This caricature isn't rare in Hollywood. You could likely name a score of male characters that fall into the horny and desperate archetype, or what about the movies based around high school boys trying to lose their virginity before they graduate? Too conveniently, this stereotype has been almost exclusively assigned to the teenage boy and college-aged man, the age range in which males are most likely to become victims of sexual assault.

The man who is raped by another man cannot be a man or is a lesser one

What does this mean within the context of the second scenario, when the majority of the perpetrators of sexual violence against men are white men? Question the sexuality of these men if you want, it's whatever floats your boat. It doesn't change the fact that the overwhelming majority of these men claimed heterosexuality. The truth is, sexual assault is not about sexuality, of the perpetrator or the victim, but about the power and control it establishes over the victim. It's only a tactic. All that's required is to be physically overpowered or coerced in some manner. However, because masculinity is associated with power (subjgator), the opposite can only be the feminine submissive (subjugated). It's this that prevents us from seeing the man as a victim of sexual assault or the many abuses one could fall victim to as a consequence of simply being a human. Revisiting the final scenario, where the women is the perpetrator, it can only mean that the man wanted it, and should likely even consider himself lucky.

Turning away from the darker implications of this belief, perhaps it only means the man's superior strength is a necessary support for the woman, in a way bringing us back to protection with the addition of physically intensive labour. Only, here as well, we find another potential definition of masculinity spoiled. The superior strength of a man finds its use waning in a world that continues to mechanize itself. We have machines that can dig, transport, and kill at efficiencies no man could ever hope to match. So, if masculinity is not within a social role or a man's strength, the only attribute left would be the production of sperm, something produced under an entirely unconscious bodily function. Is the modern man's only purpose to reproduce? If so, we are little more than objects, and objects are property, things to be owned. That's familiar rhetoric, isn't it? Such a belief would also explain the recent obsession over preserving one's unimportant bloodlines (are there any important ones?), and the hypothetical gay sons destroying them.

So, I must ask again, what is masculinity? Everyday, I find myself closer to the answer that it doesn't exist at all. But if masculinity doesn't exist, then what does it mean to "be a man?" The issue men face today, though it may seem different, is one women have also dealt with. It's a self reflection they simply began much sooner. They've learned that they can be more than what they have been told that they are. They must be, in a world where soldiers and tanks are being swapped out for hackers and algorithms. Strength of the mind is taking prominence. The modern man, though, has entered a world where everything that they have been told that they are, that only they can provide is increasingly becoming supplied by someone or something else. left is a feeling of uselessness, of being lied to, as if something has been stolen from us. The woman has increased her utility, the man has found his stagnant, he cannot help but point his finger at her. This is a state of affairs I don't blame modern men for, rather I blame all the men and women who came before that instilled the uncompromising "how" in what it is to be a man. Now we search for a "how" in a world that can't even suffice a "why" as to the reason we must be a certain way.

There are many bad faith actors who've taken note of this questioning of purpose, or perhaps suffer from it themselves, who've chosen to exploit it, either for monetary or political gain. Where there is confusion on what it means to be a man, the first aims to sell you a solution. It's an easy fix, something one must only be taught, the answer is just behind a payment. To sell the illusion, they'll share pictures of themselves at the gym or surrounded by lavish items and scantily clad women. The second does much the same, but they provide an enemy. Often times, this comes in the form of women and the LGBTQ+ community, but variations of this revenge list exists. These ones single out other groups as the source of men's problems, then claim themselves to be the solution. They need only be elected, and they will punish these "others" under the mandate given to them by the electorate.

In the case of both, for the ease of their swindling, they've premeditatively reframed the issue as a physical one in the eyes of the swindled. To the reader who's found themselves subscribed to such messaginng, has your problem actually been solved, have you found purpose, or is it, yet again, something you've been told to want, to believe, and to be? Are you trying to meet another uncompromising how?

We must leave behind the masculine and the feminine. Just like a dog doesn't have to be taught to be a dog, a man doesn't have to learn how to be a man. It is simply what we are, and it is all in the physical. Masculinity and feminity are, likewise, conjured and inconsitent physicals that change with time and culture, only now, they've been rendered obsolete. Physical things, losing their practical uses. They bear little difference from the wisdom teeth, only we have enough sense to remove these now that they only serve to cause pain. Yet still we let masculinity plague the mental. We teach boys a trade that is no longer being called upon, putting the men to be in a box that will never be opened. It. Is. Suffocating.