skirtcafe.org

Grok wrote:...I think that the Gentleman would be a fine alternative model for masculinity. Something to bring back...

The trick is to be polite and considerate without seeming condescending.

Grok wrote:I think that the Gentleman would be a fine alternative model for masculinity. Something to bring back.

What, precisely do you think I was driving at?

But I can imagine one difference from the past-a 21st century gentlemen having the option of wearing skirts.

Indeed. The old rules don't seem to apply any longer, so we get to pick how we want to structure things.

crfriend wrote:The old rules don't seem to apply any longer, so we get to pick how we want to structure things.

Quite right

Whilst on holiday I started reading a series of books and the current one is called The Eye of The World. It's a magic and baddies sort of thing but sometimes you come across interesting titbits in such fantasy novels which turn out to be literary gems. Context: in the story a young girl, Egween, has temporarily been given refuge in a gypsy-type camp and has been in tete-a-tetes with the camp leader's wife, Ila. The following is a conversation between the girl and one of the other leading, male, characters.

Finally he said, "What did you spend so much time talking about with Ila? If you weren't dancing with that long-legged fellow, you were talking to her like it was some kind of secret."

"Ila was giving me advice on being a woman," Egween replied absently. He began laughing and she gave him a hooded, dangerous look that he failed to see.

"Advice! Nobody tells us how to be men. We just are."

"That," Egween said, "is probably why you make such a bad job of it."

If you think about it there are lots of magazines, books and other publications that advise women on being women. I know also that they mean well but do a very poor job of it, giving women lots of phobias about body type and so on but there are very few such things for men. Even the magazines such as GQ don't go close to fulfilling this role. Maybe that's one reason we end up being so f*ck*d up. And why it's so hard to deviate from the rigid expectations that others have about us.

Just saying.

Sinned wrote:If you think about it there are lots of magazines, books and other publications that advise women on being women. I know also that they mean well but do a very poor job of it, giving women lots of phobias about body type and so on but there are very few such things for men. Even the magazines such as GQ don't go close to fulfilling this role. Maybe that's one reason we end up being so f*ck*d up. And why it's so hard to deviate from the rigid expectations that others have about us.

Just saying.

We can conclude that humans, on the whole, are pretty sh1t beings then lol. They have always sort to control people since biblical times at least - Genisis mentions servants being given to Abraham. These days we are slaves to a media controlled society that regulates body image, fashion and social norms with virtually no hope of escape, it would seem. Until they are on board with MIS then it looks to me like it's going to be an uphill struggle all the way. Maybe we need some sort of festival or something to attract a wider audience.