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greatbearA reader previously unknown by me stopped by and quite to my surprise hurled a 400 pound gorilla of a question in my lap that made me really think. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
freeman8 asks “What... in-depth is masculine to you and what is feminine to you? & what makes it so?”
Not sure if you are asking me to define in-depth what to me is masculine or feminine, or how do I see these traits coming from inside a person. The former is much easier for me to explain, the latter is so tough and so fluid that there is very little that one sex or another can claim as entirely their own. Men and women can both be fighters, and both can nurture. Dominance or submissiveness is not the sole property of either sex. The last installment of Survivor pitted a gay male hairdresser against a redneck Alabama steelworker in a strength contest. The hairdresser totally trounced the macho steelworker. There are bodybuilding women out there with 20 inch arms that can benchpress 500 pounds or more. Trying to nail down being masculine or feminine to a particular sex is tough enough. It only gets more complicated when both sexes seem to share butch or femme behavior freely between them. What separates these is innate traits versus outward behavior.
At the risk of sounding a bit stereotypical, masculinity for me is demonstrated by being comfortable doing the things and behaving the way men are generally ascribed to throughout history. Providing, building. protecting, teaching and such yet not being too afraid of stepping outside of that role and extending into the female-traditional realms of nurture, domesticity, and the like. Physical masculinity is a male physique (natch), deep voices, strength, assuredness. Granted, that aforementioned female bodybuilder would possess these traits as well, and I’d consider her quite the man too in most cases.
As far as femininity, well, I guess the usual applies here too. Classic female traits, whether held by a woman or a man. Christopher Lowell, for example is a man with masculine features but some rather feminine behavior. Richard Simmons is a man with not only feminine behavioral traits but some physical traits as well. Some people see a man speaking with a lisp and waving his hands about as feminized. Huh? Walk past any group of women chatting and see if they are speaking with lisps or flailing their hands and arms around. I bet that wont be the case.
A man having lots of female traits does not lessen him in any way as a person; ditto a woman with primarily male traits or behaviors. These are things that make people unique. There is far more to human sexuality than can be neatly compartmentalized. It’s sad that people are so uptight about it that they don’t want to know more about it and learn more.
freeman8 asks “What... in-depth is masculine to you and what is feminine to you? & what makes it so?”Not sure if you are asking me to define in-depth what to me is masculine or feminine, or how do I see these traits coming from inside a person. The former is much easier for me to explain, the latter is so tough and so fluid that there is very little that one sex or another can claim as entirely their own. Men and women can both be fighters, and both can nurture. Dominance or submissiveness is not the sole property of either sex. The last installment of Survivor pitted a gay male hairdresser against a redneck Alabama steelworker in a strength contest. The hairdresser totally trounced the macho steelworker. There are bodybuilding women out there with 20 inch arms that can benchpress 500 pounds or more. Trying to nail down being masculine or feminine to a particular sex is tough enough. It only gets more complicated when both sexes seem to share butch or femme behavior freely between them. What separates these is innate traits versus outward behavior.
At the risk of sounding a bit stereotypical, masculinity for me is demonstrated by being comfortable doing the things and behaving the way men are generally ascribed to throughout history. Providing, building. protecting, teaching and such yet not being too afraid of stepping outside of that role and extending into the female-traditional realms of nurture, domesticity, and the like. Physical masculinity is a male physique (natch), deep voices, strength, assuredness. Granted, that aforementioned female bodybuilder would possess these traits as well, and I’d consider her quite the man too in most cases.
As far as femininity, well, I guess the usual applies here too. Classic female traits, whether held by a woman or a man. Christopher Lowell, for example is a man with masculine features but some rather feminine behavior. Richard Simmons is a man with not only feminine behavioral traits but some physical traits as well. Some people see a man speaking with a lisp and waving his hands about as feminized. Huh? Walk past any group of women chatting and see if they are speaking with lisps or flailing their hands and arms around. I bet that wont be the case.
A man having lots of female traits does not lessen him in any way as a person; ditto a woman with primarily male traits or behaviors. These are things that make people unique. There is far more to human sexuality than can be neatly compartmentalized. It’s sad that people are so uptight about it that they don’t want to know more about it and learn more.
