Do you have toxic masculinity?

The logic used to declare toxic masculinity nonexistent doesn't apply to anything else in life. Toxic masculinity cant exist because there's already general toxicity? Sexual assault cant exist because regular assault already exists? First person shooters cant exist because there are already shooters? Slaughtermaps can't be real because there are already maps?

What designates toxic masculinity among other forms of toxicity is that there are specific male centric toxic traits that are bred from shitty men that get together that are not bred when groups of shitty women get together. There's a lot of competition among men that, when not focused on positive things, can escalate to very dangerous and violent behavior.

I'm stronger than you! I can fight you! I can drink more beers than you! I can fuck more women than you! etc. etc. Insecure men who need to overcompensate in these areas to impress their male peers can get overly attached to the concept of winning at these things and become very dangerous when challenged. If you get the worst kinds of women together it, it gets bad in other ways but not like this.

40oz, it's hard to define "toxic masculinity" because it's hard to agree on definition of "masculinity" to begin with. When you are look into it you will find masculine traits in both sexes.
Also, even if we were to define and accept this term, the criticism that it can be used to attach label to people in effort to cause shame and confusion and undermine themselves is valid. Because it can be employed as an attack vector, consciously with malevolence or uncosciously. This, however, raises the question of whether there is a better way to solve the issue of "toxicity" - a true answer would be the one that actually motivates the people to change for the better without destroying them.

"Toxic masculinity" simply is not constructive way to promote better behaviour in people. A constructive way is needed, but this approach is the wrong one.

And which exactly particular type of masculinity it is then, and how does is this notion helpful? My perception is that:
1) it is not readily identifiable in a way all people will agree (other people may have different views of what masculinity entails)
2) because of the former (and also because it is attached , it is also prone to abuse in a hostile attempt to undermine other people, cause them shame and confusion.

! Also, how is "toxic masculinity" unique to men? Not really unique to men at all. Women acting in a way I perceive as masculine and uncaring are actually fairly common, for example, some ultra-conservative politicians with ridiculous views on family duties (must be no less than 3 children in what is to be considered a family), LGBT, etc. Not even just politicians, though, there are enough masculine women in real life, and they don't identify as men, but I just can't see them as women, I really see they as men-in-character, but fuck, very few men have fucked up mentality like that.

And if your definition of "toxic masculinity" doesn't include "promoting your views and seeking to mold the world in accordance with them in an uncaring fashion", then I don't see how such a notion could be useful.

Personal connection and avoidance of conflicts would be more important if you were actually taking lessons from women (the positive ones). It should be noted that while women do have conflicts between each other, on a women's forum where men can post it's the latter who usually seek and cause the most conflicts with other people. That is because women may hate each other but they also need themselves to be loved, where men prefer strife. A bit stereotypic sounding, but I don't use stereotypes as a form of labelling, only as loose pointers to something greater which can't be precisely captured by words.

I'll say it again. If it exists, women are also part of the problem. Many of them encourage such behaviors, as evidenced by my previous post and they would do well to admit it if they really want to change the problem. Young men especially are influenced by what women think of them. I'm not making a judgement btw, it is what it is. I hate to say it, and you can call it patriarchy or whatever but men with toxic masculinity built what we have. It wasn't nice, weak men. Therefore, while I think weakness and toxic masculinity are both bad I would sooner respect a toxic man with positive qualities than a weak, cowardly male who has some positive attributes but is unable to stand up for himself. Therefore, if the "toxic" attitude is used to build something it can but not always outweigh the negatives. I myself don't want to be like that and don't like such people but it is what it is.

On the flipside, there is another side to this. The Pickup Artist and especially Incel communities are exceedingly creepy. If you demean women and treat them like cattle or coin machines and act like they (or anyone else) owe you something, you deserve to be mocked. I have similar views on women who view men as only walking wallets. Some degree of objectification is natural in both genders but becomes harmful only when it prevents you from seeing the person before you as a person. I think such people are much much worse than the overtly aggressive ones.

I don't have time to engage in debate at the moment, so I will address only some parts of the posts I actually want to address.

The particular case of toxicity I am pointing at is not about having an agenda or getting paid, but about relentless pursuit of debate and trying to change other people opinion's (especially when you declare your opinion is educated while theirs is not) or dictate how they should behave.

He may have used an example from public sources, but he may also arrived at his opinion on his own, and I think I know where he - and GRUG - are coming from. No, it's not propaganda, it's the experience of growing up and trying to understand how to be a successful man - among other things, how to be attractive to women. It's about the experience of seeing some guy belittle a woman (using some innuendo) and her apparently enjoying (rather than protesting as from perspective of man this experience should be perceived as humiliating if one projected themselves to receive it) it and the man as well, whereas treating a girl you have yet nothing in common with care yields nothing but "thank you". That is, it is about being rejected for being nice but loved for doing things one might even initially hate (if one was brought up, say, by old parents who were religious), or at the very least surprised that such things can be attractive.

Here is the relevant example from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four:



I remember an incident where I was a schoolboy, riding in a public bus, and was real pissed and angry at some guy, so angry I could feel it radiating from my face. I thought about all the ways I can fuck him up, and I wasn't really happy having to go through all those thoughts. There was a girl across the bus who looked at me with some kind of silent reverence. Down inside I hated her for appreciating me in the moment where I was thinking about doing unpleasant things. Thinking about violence made me somehow attractive to her, but I wish such things were not.

This is another thing you don't understand - those who use propaganda to back up their arguments may use it to back their arguments but not to derive their original worldview. The reason is that thoughts can be rooted in experience and thus be "wordless knowing", which doesn't fair well in arguments, so when one tries to engage in debate one seeks the sources out there to communicate, in which case they may well end up using some propagandistic material. The reason is, it takes so much time to find a way to backup what you feel, or have learned in wordless way as part of your personal experience. And you declaring "it's propaganda" does nothing to address it. You might (in theory) win a debate, but you won't actually change their mind, cause they actually know where they are truly coming from.

Fuck, even as I had tried to limit my time to reply I still spent too much on it. I didn't even tell everything I wanted you to tell, but - for a start - this will have to do.

Oh I see, so the suffering of men is less important than the suffering of women. If men are equal to women that is not possible. If that is the case, I should not have to care about their suffering anymore than I care about that of random dude, which is to say not at all. I'm sure getting raped by a huge, disgusting guy is awful but at the mere threat of that, men need to endure just as worse, if not worse pains by being torn to shreds by machine gun fire, blown to bits by constant bombardment and then being unceremoniously eaten by huge rats at night. So when women are merely threatened, men need to endure any kind of pain. I'm not saying that's NOT what men should do if the danger is real and immediate but it's funny to hear this from feminists, who constantly hammer that women are as good as men in every way. Why don't they defend themselves then? Why do I owe my life to a bunch of strangers then?

Oh please, women complain all the time about how they were treated by men hundreds of years ago and act like it still affects them. If MEN complain about their problems they will be mocked by men AND women.

EDIT: Also, it doesn't matter if it's propaganda. It exploited what was already inside these women so they are still part of the problem.

Oh please what? If it's absurd when feminists do it then why does it apply when YOU supply "evidence"?

You're misunderstanding me, I don't think I was very clear. I didn't intend to suggest that the article cited or that the mistrust of feminism is propaganda.

My post was to remind doomro that media manipulation provokes the public to think, say, and do things that they likely wouldn't think say or do without it's influence. And I was just talking about it's probably effecting him more than he knows when he said 'fuck you' to me, my friends and family without even knowing who they are.

Doomro cited the story of feminists shaming men into going to war as an example of women being toxic and therefore toxic masculinity isn't real/isn't useful to acknowledge.

Then later in the article, it elaborates that the feminists have always been known to be pro-peace. It changed because a propaganda campaign designed to break up the feminist movement presented the war as a feminist issue, and people bought into it, forming the white feather feminist groups.

The parallel I'm making is that the current state of our media is not simply free press, it's owned by large corporations that have a vested interest to drive a wedge in the public. Its an "us vs them" attitude it wants its listeners to have. It's an enormous feedback loop of hyperbole formed in echo chambers, and it's effects often leak here onto this forum.

It comes in the form of posts making contentious arguments against points that weren't even made here on the forum. Stating what the opposing party wants, thinks, and does when they aren't even here to speak for themselves. Were on this forum together, we should be talking to each other.