Most people do not understand the difference between what I suppose I would call “feminine:” behavior in men and what I call “effeminate” behavior in men. The two terms are quite similar, and doubtless that causes quite a bit of confusion. Almost 100% of the straight population, both male and female, completely conflate these two things, a response which is caused by homophobia more than anything else. The fact that people moronically equate male “feminine” behavior with male effeminate behavior is the reason for all the insane gay-baiting, gay-bashing and even anti-gay discrimination that “feminine” straight men have to deal with.
I would argue that there is a good side of men simply embodying the feminine side of their personality, which all men have. Now, you don’t have to do this of course, and in hypermasculine America, you are not supposed to anyway, and hardly any men even want to. This feminine side of men is simply the Feminine Principle, which I believe constitutes half of the world, the Masculine Principle encompassing the other half.
I have no problem with men having a feminine side, but I do not believe that heterosexual men should engage in effeminate behavior. In males, feminine behavior would simply be the soft side of men, while effeminate behavior would mean acting like a woman, which is the way a lot of gay men act. Obviously many straight men have an observable feminine side, but I would argue that few straight men are effeminate.
On a popular gay chat site called Data Lounge that also has many female and straight male commenters, this matter came up in a thread. And one gay man made one of the most profound observations that I have ever heard on this subject.
He said that while many straight men have feminine or soft behaviors, truly effeminate behavior such as the way a lot of gay men act is not common in straight men. This is completely true, and it is a remarkable observation. This is the first time I ever heard anyone make that observation.
Then he said something truly profound. He said that even many softer straight men have a sort of a “soft or quiet masculinity” about them. This is the first time I had ever heard anyone make that observation, and of course it is 100% true. Even your softer and quieter straight men often have a certain masculine vibe about them.
I also just now realized that many to most nerdy men actually act in a masculine manner – that is, they act rather hard, have deep voices, move in a rather rigid way, stand straight, control their emotions well, etc. We miss the masculinity and can’t see it due to it’s being clouded over and confused by all of the nerdiness and social awkwardness.
That is, the nerdiness forms a sort of a mask over the man such that we cannot see the obvious masculinity that he embodies. Because we cannot see it, we say that it its not there. But just because you can’t see something, even something right in front of your face, doesn’t mean it’s not there. And of course it is true. Nerds are often masculine. They’re nerdy, but they’re still masculine. They act like men, not women.
What was amazing is that it took a gay man to finally figure out what masculinity really is. Most straight men and even straight women just don’t get it.
They think:
masculine = hypermasculine feminine = effeminate feminine = gay soft = effeminate nerdy = effeminate
But the truth, if you will only think about it and open up your mind a bit, is that none of those equations are true. With the exception of the first one, those statements are not even partly true. In fact, a most of them are more false than they are true. And the second one is not even true at all, since if you are one, you are not the other, or at least you cannot be both at the same time.
What was truly shocking about seeing this was that the first human I have ever met who seemed to truly understand masculinity was a gay man. Straight women don’t really get it, and many are just as homophobic if not worse than straight men. And straight men do not understand masculinity at all, which is both curious and sad, because they build so much of their lives around that very principle.
This is really an indictment of straight people that they are so closed minded and brainwashed by Normies that they don’t even get what masculinity really means in its totality.
Think about that. The first man I have ever met in my entire life who truly understood masculinity was a gay man, who understood it better than any straight man or woman that I have ever met.
Come to think of it, that is downright pitiful.
