Manhood

I was recently invited to a friend's son's 16th birthday party. Each guest was supposed to bring 2 or 3 stories that have shaped their own idea of what it means to be a man. This was all I could come up with. [I know it's a bit off-topic for this blog, but if you really want I could probably manufacture some kind of connection to a text I've been reading... The uneasy masculinity of Robin Hood, perhaps?]

My central idea is this: If one never sets one's definition of masculinity down in concrete/precise terms, it allows one to keep loose, vague ideas (without any actual reference) all gathered under the heading "masculinity": sports ability, being alluring to the opposite sex, strength, drinking, knowing a few sexist jokes--but not telling them too often, toughness (high pain tolerance), knowledge of machines (or at least an interest in them and a feigned knowledge of them)...Basically all the cliches that are associated with masculinity. And of course they work because they're cliches.

So what does it really mean to be a man? Who knows, but the loose aggregation of these (and other) qualities allows me to always define myself safely within the masculine (and cast questioning glances at those that don't seem "manly" enough--I'm looking at you, Bieber).

For example, I may think being bald reflects negatively on masculinity...unless my hair starts to thin, and then I recast my definition of manliness so as not to exclude myself. Or maybe it's sexual prowess...until the first time I don't get an erection when I want to, and so I redefine myself within the boundaries again.

So all the exercises in defining masculinity... in my opinion it's kind of b.s. (maybe that's too harsh...a fool's errand, perhaps?) I am relatively newly married, so staying committed to my wife/family is pretty high up on my current scale of manhood, but who's to say that won't get redefined in 20 years if my marriage tanks? And the sick thing is that I can even use the future (and obviously hypothetical) circumstances of my divorce to reassert my masculinity within that event ("No b**** treats me like that!")

People are awfully good at shifting things around so that they manage to keep themselves in the center. And I am sure if I had to define masculinity it would be no different. But it occurs to me that our own (tiring) work at defining and re-defining ourselves is a problem that we have not always had.

Walter J. Ong in Orality and Literacy mentions that a 36-year-old illiterate peasant (who came from an orally-based culture) was asked what sort of a person he was.

[He] responded with touching and humane directness: "What can I say about my own heart? How can I talk about my own character? Ask others; they can tell you about me. I myself can't say anything."

Ong concludes, "Judgement [in a primary oral culture] bears in on the individual from outside, not from within."