Fun discussion about manhood

I’ve done drag for a few years on nights out and it’s so liberating - even straight men have done drag and they have found the same thing - shows like Priscilla and RPDR, Paris is Burning have made drag more accessible and visible and drag queens get more attention 

As a gay man I don’t feel the need to be “alpha male” or “macho man” (boring lol) and because I have two drag names, I have turned up to some events in full drag given the opportunity 

IrishInManchesterUK said:

I find it very strange that there is such a lack of understanding about autism within the gay community and why prejudice and discrimination within the gay community is so rampant

I see two factors at play here:

1 - the gay community have such a big job to get accepted that they tend to become a "single issue" group and lack bandwidth for other causes.

2 - there is an element of the abused becoming the abusers (not literally though) - and having spent so long being treated badly then there is a lack of tolerance for othe issues (not actual abuse so perhaps neglect is a better term).

The gay community has had a heck of a lot to deal with and still has so I'm not surprised that this is where the focus remains.

An interesting discussion, about things in the past, about which traditionally, even thinking about let alone discussing, was actively discouraged and was seen as taboo in previous generations - given my years within the gay community there is still a discussion about masculinity, the whole “masc for masc” and toxic masculinity thing and within the gay community we see hyper masculinity - I’ve always believed that we as gay people have many similarities with autism and vice versa, so I find it very strange that there is such a lack of understanding about autism within the gay community and why prejudice and discrimination within the gay community is so rampant, including but not limited to, about autism related issues 

No one becomes autistic.  It's genetic. You're born with it. People raised female do get socialisation forced upon them but for an autistic this is stressful and bad for our mental healthand wellbeing. I thought I had been born with incurable anxiety but since starting testosterone it's melted away and a large part of that is that I now get to exist in public without attention being on me. Life as a (short, unattractive) man feels like life on easy mode, even with all the hoops I have to jump through to get access to T, change my documents etc. 

that is interesting! You may have a book in you there! Or an article. I would love to hear your story.

Believe it or not, there are....

PIxiefox's last two paragraphs describe how I approach and manage my (sucessful) relationships rather well, the mainstream approach simply didn't work for me as adverstised.

BUT. There is a reason that the NT's make games out of everything, and although WE don't often manage to "get it" and have a right to have reasonable adjustments made for our "neuro-spiciness", to a very large extent THEY SET THE RULES and they like to play their games.

I've since learned that we Autists can play some of the harder "games" laid out in transactional analysis just as enthusiastically as any neurotypical, (myself included) but learning and understanding the nicer games and choosing to play them, did and does, bring about an improvement in the quality and freqency of my sucessful interactions with other people. 2.50 and an afternoon well spent.. 

In fact, I think I'm long overdue refreshing my understanding of it myself.

I wish there were more people like you in the world Pixiefox

I get it. I was never worried about talking to boys and suggesting meeting up if I thought I might like them but they seemed a bit shy, as I knew they found it difficult. After a few years it resulted in a relationship which became long term. 

However, I was never bound by any rules of relationships that neurotypical girls seem to have, like waiting to be asked out and for the boy to call them first. For me, a relationship is an equal thing, a friendship that grows from an interest in each other, gradually blossoming into something deeper.

I think the way that "romantic" relationships are supposed to work are so cliched,. Love at first sight doesn't exist, only attraction, and the elaborate proposal thing, where it's done in public? Yuck! Not to mention the waste of money stag & hen weekends and the incredible amount of money spent on weddings & honeymoons. After all those performances, no wonder people get divorced - they probably don't even really know the person they're marrying! 

"Romance" for me is someone buying you something when it's not expected, just because they love you and want to see your face light up with happiness. It's writing someone a private, heartfelt letter. It's walking hand in hand through a beautiful place together, or sharing a favourite meal, or curling up on the sofa watching TV.  I really wish other people could get this.

I've always slightly envied women the option of wearing make up. If I have to "scrub up" for some kind of event there's not really much I can do, but at work events, weddings etc I see women turning up looking absolutely amazing, including women who normally, to be blunt, don't look amazing. There's nothing I can do as a man to glam myself up like that. I wish there was. If only the 1980s new romantics had managed to make that mainstream!

The other thing that men understand only too well, but I think an awful lot of women don't, is the absolute terror men experience because of the expectation that we have to approach women, we have to be the one that does the chatting up. In my case there was only so many times I could try that before the pain of rejection became overwhelming and disabling.

If only people could see us for the people we are, the way we come across in places like this

Hmm yes you are right, the sex here does not matter. I used to envy boys that they don’t have to have any make up that always made me uncomfortable annoying and drove me crazy. Often caused me tics, so I had a choice to hear stupid questions and remarks about my lack of decorations or questions “what’s wrong with you” when ticking and being generally nervous for no obvious reason. But I guess there are many things that men envy us women. As stated in the thread before. As for my experience of being chatted up - it was only for fun, to make fun of me and I obviously had no support and I was totally confused. It took me some time before I realized that they were making fun of me. 

I think that’s a general part of the human condition.  As a teenager one of my “friends” was stereotypically tall dark and handsome and when we went places girls would often come and chat him up. Sometimes they would speak to me, but only ever to get an intro to him.

I have never in my life been approached by a woman who wanted to chat me up.

As a female I would like to add here, that what I observed- yes, many girls and women have socialising easier, but! Only if they are attractive! If a woman is not attractive physically, in addition behaves weird (weird according to NTs) - then she also gets rejected, laughed at, bullied, abused etc. I have a long history of such experience. 

Caelus said:

a neurotypical man will likely display more signs of social anxiety than a so called autistic woman.

I think men suffer more in society because other males (especially kids but also lots of adults) pick on those who stand out or who don't really fit in. There is also an impact from our interaction with females where we are aften rejected for being weird or creepy - standing out is basically making us a target.

It is this oddly predatorial behaviour that seems common amongst symians (ie monkeys, apes and humans) unlike most of the rest of the animal kindgom where the female is most typically dominant.

Maybe I misunderstand your approach to female autists here, but my understanding is that their brains have the same early childhood development issue that causes autism in males, so the society influence is not really relevant to whether they are autistic or not.

Societys attitude towards women tends to lead to them being able to mask and blend in more effectively than males, but there is no cause/effect to autism itself.

Alienatedhuman said:

But I know I’m right. I always say, in our society we need both men and women. We only don’t need hatred.

I know you are right too. 

Debbie said:

The subject of this offshoot of the main conversation is female/male power.

You are quoting examples from countries with extremist religious controls (Afganistan, Pakistan) where womens rights are in the stone age. All the discussions here have been relevant to our experiences.

I feel sorry that these situations exist but they are far beyond my power to do anything about.

Debbie said:

Ah, women having the power to say 'no'?

An odd choice of example.

You are missing the point of my discussion - it is the power given to women to destroy a mans career without proof where the same does not exist for men.

I fully support womens rights to say no and be respected. It is deplorable that it was ever otherwise and I believe the law has restored this power.

Debbie said:

You live in Brazil though?

Only full time since 2022 and I still return regularly and have many active contacts in the UK. So my experience is still current enough to be permitted to contibute I would hope.

Time for an obligatory joke to lighten the mood (as per the thread title):

How are men like clouds?

When they disappear, it’s a brighter day.

TheCatWoman said:

Is that still happening? I thought we'd got over that in the 80's and 90's, it's a terrible practice, it makes a mockery of equality legislation

It is still very much an issue in IT.

Amerantin (former member) said:

the IT industry has tried just about everything to encourage more women to join. It’s been trying for decades.

My experience of interviewing dozens of female applicants was that the vast majority only saw the IT support area (helpdesk, deskside, back end and project work) as beneath them - they were using it as a way to get a foot in the door at a prestigious company and were already planning their next step out of the department.

There were a handful who were actually interested in the field and these resulted in me often having a choice of 1 or 2 candidates for a position rather than the 20+ that I would have if males were allowed to be considered.

There was a resultant impact in the team performance as everyone else had to carry a lot more work to compensate for the less talented/experienced newcomers and within a year what had been a significantly overachieving department was struggling to do the basics as most of the male staff left (quoting unfairness in the treatment of promotions and increased political correctness).

This then gave the issue of backfilling the departed staff from the same restricted supply chain. It was at this point I decided I had enough and resigned my management position to become a much needed technician (and I could work remotely from Brazil), leading me to retire in my 50s rather than keep going in a job market that was becoming toxic.

Needless to say I was replaced by a female who lasted a year before decding to have a baby and left the team without a manager for the next 18 months - I felt sorry for those left in the team as internal squables became the norm and the whole dept developed a poor reputation after over a decade of excellence.

I'm not saying this is typical but it had a very direct cause. It may be down to the nature of the people attracted to the role (neurodivergence was widespread) or just a series of coincidences. It was just my experience of the drive for "equality" in the workplace.

Now for the obligatory joke:

What’s the difference between a boyfriend and a husband?

45 minutes.

Maybe we could just accept the fact that men and women are different in nature and also statistically have more predispositions to perform in certain professions, while women in others. Statistically there are more male airplane pilots, that does not mean a woman can not do it. But as it’s highly responsible job, people’s lives literally lay in the crew’s hands, the applicants should be carefully selected, regardless of their sex and other factors. I heard that some company in the USA  (forgot the name) tried their best to show in their statistics how diverse they are. That’s a disaster. 

To be fair the IT industry has tried just about everything to encourage more women to join. It’s been trying for decades.

But I think the solution lies earlier in peoples’ lives - at school. By the time people make a career decision it’s already too late. Too many stereotypes and misconceptions have already been onboarded.

Is that still happening? I thought we'd got over that in the 80's and 90's, it's a terrible practice, it makes a mockery of equality legislation. It feels like it's all no sooner done than thought about, no thought has gone into the root issues of why some industries are so male dominated and try to address those. This way of recruiting is setting everyone up to fail and I feel sorry for those employed by such idiots.