Alex Bove - The Mangina Monologues: The Battle Over “Real” Masculinity

One of the worst things I have seen men do to other men in recent years (other than sending them to die in battle or mines and so on) is to label them women for expressing feelings (such as wanting equality for women) with which the hypermasculine traditional males disagree. The term they like to use is mangina. I have had that label tossed in my direction many times, unfortunately for them I could not care in the least what those MRAs think about me.

At the Good Men Project, Alex Bove has written an interesting overview of the "mangina monologues."

The Mangina Monologues: The Battle Over “Real” Masculinity

October 3, 2013 by Alex Bove



Will the real “real men” please stand up? Alex Bove would like to examine this unhealthy conception of gender.

—–


A recent photo shoot for the U.K.’s Sun newspaper presented side-by-side images of “real” men and athletes/models dressed only in underwear.

While we might be inclined applaud the “positive” message that “real” men don’t look like soccer stars and models, I think we ought to question whether any group of men ought to claim the mantle of the real. I endorse a maximally-inclusive version of masculinity that embraces cisgender men, transmen, men of color, gay, straight, and omnisexual men (and asexual men too), vegans and hunters, atheists and Baptists, young and old men, men of all physical and mental abilities, and yes (gasp!), even masculine-identified women. I will not accept an unexamined conception of gender.

Conversations about “real” men abound in the men’s rights blogosphere and are usually couched as battles between authentic men and limp-wristed, so-called “beta” males. A term has been coined for these men: “manginas.” Some bloggers have even attempted to parody this web site’s name, and to malign its authors. I’d like to take a moment to examine what I think that means.

On one level, ridiculing men by calling them women is classic misogyny. The insult only works if observers believe that being a woman is a bad thing, or that displaying womanly traits is unmanly. Likewise, calling a man limp-wristed is not only homophobic but also misogynistic. After all, gay men are men. The insult is not necessarily intended for all gay men but only for effeminate ones (those whose body language approximates traditionally feminine mannerisms). Thus, what is truly unacceptable is not men who desire men but rather men who act like women.

But I don’t think the primary purpose of the “mangina” epithet is to place non-gender-conforming men in the same category as women: rather, the goal is to circumscribe the category of “real” men. This strategy still reinforces a binary, but the binary is not so much man/woman as it is man/not-man. What I find most troubling about this world view is that it almost always seeks to define the (usually privileged) category of “man” extremely narrowly. While women certainly fall outside of the realm of “real” men, so do a large number (perhaps a majority) of men.

The worst thing about being a mangina, according to men’s rights advocates, is that it requires a man to mask his true identity, all because of feminism’s nefarious influence. As MRA Jack Donovan says in his critique of the Good Men Project:

if you let women dictate what kinds of male feelings are acceptable, you’re going to get a site that’s about what men think women want to hear — not a site about who men really are.

The proposition that “who men really are” is unacceptable to women is only true if we assume an essential (real) masculinity, from which all other masculinities (along with the entirety of female experience, of course) must be excluded. It requires us to accept that all men are one specific thing. Since feminism embraces the theory that gender is constructed, and therefore provisional, it allows for the existence of more than one masculinity. A flexible notion of gender can be threatening, especially to those who believe that authenticity is the sine qua non of masculinity.

Anti-feminists sometimes frame this threat as an existential one, but challenges to traditional masculinity only threaten masculine privilege. No one is suggesting that “manly” men ought not to be allowed in the club. What we are saying, however, is that we want to diversify the membership (to torture the metaphor). One way to view the “threat” of diversity is to see it as an incursion, and to imagine that the small, exclusive club of masculinity will become overcrowded (and we all know how much men like to stretch their legs and relax). But another way to see it is as an opportunity for expansion, allowing everyone to have the same amount of space in a much bigger building.

I’m not suggesting that we take away hypermasculine men’s right to call themselves masculine. I also don’t think, as Jack Donovan does, that openly criticizing traditional masculinity is a form of “explaining to men what they are doing wrong, and what feminists think those men should be doing instead, so that women can be happier or feel safer in some way.” We must criticize elements of masculinity that may be harmful to both women and men, but doing so should not dehumanize men who identify with those traits. It’s possible (preferable, even) to discuss what has historically been “wrong” with masculinity without throwing out the baby with the proverbial bathwater.

Ultimately, it would be wonderful to remove the gender binary altogether and to see gender expression as falling somewhere along a continuum (and as fluid, open to change throughout a person’s lifetime). Why should my vulnerability, compassion, and empathy be in conflict with my self-sufficiency, stoicism, and toughness? These things don’t feel contradictory to me. They are a set of skills I use at different times for different purposes. Doesn’t everyone?

Perhaps not. Not everyone has a mangina, after all.

Photo: [main] renaissancechambara / flickr, Mark Hillary / flickr, jbcurio / flickr [inset] queerity

Masculine Identity in Breaking Bad

When Breaking Bad began its story, Walter White was a meek, under-achieving everyman who teaches high school chemistry to uninterested kids and who is diagnosed with lung cancer. We sympathize and we like him. Even when discovers a way to leave some money for his family (he assumes the cancer will kill him sooner or later) by cooking methamphetamine, we still like him because we sense a man pushed to the brink who is desperate to be a good husband and a good father, and that means, in part, taking care of his family financially.

As a fan of the show, I was horrified (for lack of better word) when Walt stood by and did nothing while Jesse’s girlfriend Jane died (end of the second season). Jesse is Walt's partner in cooking the meth, and until Walt decides to go big with his pure blue meth, Jesse handled the street side of things, setting up a ring of dealers to peddle their chemistry project.

Hank and Walt

Jesse is a former student of Walt's and for most of the now five seasons he still calls him Mr. White, and this simple act serves to support and reinforce the power differential between the two men. In large part, Walt (and later Mike) are surrogate fathers for Jesse. We learn a while into the show that Jesse comes from a well-off family where he has been the scapegoat or the exile - the one who holds most of the pain and raw emotions and often acts out as a form of rebellion against being exiled.

And Jesse is literally exiled from his family, who appear to have put him in rehab a couple of times, but have largely asked him not to come around. Which is why he looks to "Mr. White" as a kind of father figure, and also why he is the one of the two men who is capable of feelings and feels horrified by some the things they have done (especially the killing).

Gus, Jesse, Walt, Mike

I could go on and on - and one day I might. The relationships between the men on the show is interesting and worth exploration. The main dyads are Walt and Jesse, Walt and Junior (his son, Walter, Jr.), Walt and Hank (Walt's hyper-masculine, DEA agent brother-in-law), Jesse and Hank (enemies, who find common ground as the show draws to a close), and Jesse and Mike, (an enforcer for Gus, who was a major player in the drug trade, and who Walt eventually kills in his first power-grab - he also kills Mike, which is devastating to Jesse). Even the relationship between Gus and Walt is interesting for what it says about men and power.

For those who are interested in this topic, the below article was first published at Huffington Post and then at the Good Men Project. Also check out this article from NPR on Death and Walter White.

‘Breaking Bad’ and the Foolishness of Masculinity‏

September 20, 2013 by Pete Strauss

The male characters of AMC’s hit series deconstructed. Is male pride a destructive influence?

Breaking Bad is but a few episodes from completion and it’s hard to say anything about it that has not been said, but I bravely intend to do so anyhow. In recent weeks, there has been much discussion of the lack of strong female characters (which I personally think does the show a bit of a disservice), but not enough has been made of the show’s persistent and fierce criticism of masculinity that has permeated the show throughout the five-season run.

Walter White’s descent (or ascent depending on how you view it) from a justifiable anti-hero to a loathsome villain has been gradual. Vince Gilligan described the character’s transformation as “protagonist to antagonist,” and when we first meet Walter as the protagonist, he has lived a life forever repressed and stripped of the limited power available to him. His family affairs up until this point have been predominantly controlled by Skyler, he teaches chemistry to a largely indifferent group of teenagers and his brother-in-law Hank represents a cliched hyper-masculinity that serves to diminish Walt’s already lowly status further.

So when he finds an area in which he can assert dominance and power, his ego grows exponentially. The decreased empathy that we feel for Walt runs in tandem with his acts being less about selflessness or basic self-preservation and infinitely more to do with retaining power in an industry in which callousness and violence are prerequisites. Walt becomes obsessed with his manhood, even going as far as to purchase a car wash in order to spite the owner for a perceived slight that occurred sometime beforehand. The zenith of Walt’s egomania is perhaps typified with the memorable “say my name” scene. This scene exemplifies the transformation from the timidity and nervousness of Walter White into the arrogance and ruthlessness of Heisenberg; the conversion from protagonist to antagonist is complete.

Hank’s character starts life as a stereotype of masculinity, a jock. He subscribes to a largely outmoded but still prevalent criteria of what it means to be a man. At family gatherings, he frequently takes the time to emasculate Walt and assert a dominance within the family that had previously gone unchallenged in Walt’s pre-Heisenberg days. However, as the show develops, the characters develop as well, and before long, Hank becomes much more than a caricature, but rather a rounded, three-dimensional character. Perhaps more than any other character in the show, Hank is obsessed with the projection of masculinity; from his home-brewed Schraderbrau to his job at the DEA, he seeks to emanate a brashness and confidence. However, rooted in his masculinity are deep-seated insecurities and anxiety attacks that impede his judgement.

Hank’s sense of himself is almost completely based around basic tenants of what he views to be essential to being a male. His own masculinity is perhaps at its most destructive when refusing money for treatment that would enable him to walk again, which echoes Walt’s own refusal of monetary help for his cancer treatment from his former business partner. Masculinity in these instances is associated with a detrimental desire to be self-sufficient. Indeed, had Walt swallowed his pride at this early stage, then he would have saved everyone a lot of bother.

Jesse is by far the most tragic character in Breaking Bad. The initial projection of youthful overconfidence and independence gives way to a lost boy desperately in need of the father-figure that has been sorely absent in his turbulent life. At different stages of the plot, he comes to see Walt and Mike as paternal figures, but it’s his persistent reference to Walt as Mr. White that gives an indication of the perverse and manipulative relationship between the two. It is no coincidence that the character that seems most troubled with the morality of his actions is also the character that has long eschewed the facade of masculinity. Jesse is also one of the few male characters that seems willing to discuss his feelings and not act with the apparent indifference or stoicism of which Hank and Walt are both guilty.

As the series hurtles to a close, it is becoming very apparent that its creators seek to portray male pride as a destructive influence. The large yet fragile egos of all of the male characters at some point or another leads to miscalculations or seemingly needlessly vindictive acts. Time and again, the damaged pride and vanity of the male characters cause them to act without logic and—at their most destructive—extreme violence. Between Walt’s angry desire to be a “pursuer rather than pursued” and Hank’s desperate need to create the illusion of self-sufficiency, it becomes clear that masculinity is twinned with the wholly negative traits of the male characters within the show.

Originally published at The Huffington Post

Documentary - The Bro Code: How Contemporary Culture Creates Sexist Men

This is an educational documentary meant, I assume, for university campuses. Sounds pretty similar to Jackson Katz's Tough Guise. Here some of the main points of the film, according to the supplemental materials.

Key Points
• The filmmaker admits that he grew up in “bro culture,” pointing to his background in sports and music.
• He then suggests that boys today are being raised in the same sexist ways he was raised.
• But he underlines a key difference between then and now: he claims that the sexism inherent in today’s “bro” culture is far more dangerous than in the past.
• The primary aim of the film, he says, is to understand the variety of ways that this increasingly dangerous strain of sexism continues to be lauded and defined as cool by mainstream media and mainstream male culture.

You can also read a transcript of the film (here)and a study guide for the film (here). Below is a low-resolution full-length preview of the film.

The Bro Code: How Contemporary Culture Creates Sexist Men

Filmmaker Thomas Keith, a professor of philosophy at California State University, Long Beach, provides an engrossing look at the forces in male culture that condition boys and men to dehumanize and disrespect women. Breaking down a range of contemporary media forms targeted explicitly at young men, Keith teases out the main maxims of "bro culture" and "the bro code," and examines how this seemingly ironic mentality reinforces misogyny and gender violence in the real world. Whether he's looking at movies and music videos that glamorize womanizing, pornography that trades in the brutalization of women, comedians who make fun of sexual assault, or the recent groundswell in men's magazines and cable TV shows that revel in reactionary myths of American manhood, the message Keith uncovers in virtually every corner of our "entertainment" culture is clear: that it's not only normal -- but cool -- for boys and men to control and humiliate women. Along the way, The Bro Code makes a powerful case that there's nothing normal, natural, or inevitable about this toxic ideal of American manhood, and challenges young people to fight back against the resurgent idea that being a "bro" -- and a man -- means glorifying sexism, bullying, and abuse.

Featuring interviews with Michael Kimmel, Robert Jensen, Shira Tarrant, J.W. Wiley, Douglas Rushkoff, Eric Anderson, and Neal King.

Sections:
Intro (2:15)
Step 1: Train Men to Womanize (18:03)
Step 2: Immerse Men in Porn (13:25)
Step 3: Make Rape Jokes (11:33)
Step 4: Obey the Masculinity Cops (12:22)

Viewer discretion advised : Contains violent & sexual imagery and profanity.

Filmmaker Info

Written and produced by Thomas Keith
Director of Photography: Michael Enriquez
Additional Photography: Mitch Lemos
Editing: Thomas Keith

Filmmaker's Bio

DR. THOMAS KEITH | Director, Writer, Producer

Dr. Thomas Keith teaches philosophy at California State University, Long Beach and California Polytechnic University. He specializes in American philosophy and pragmatism with an emphasis on issues of race, class, and gender. In 2008, Dr. Keith directed and produced the bestselling film, Generation M: Misogyny in Media and Culture, which is used in classrooms around the world.

Ian Sinclair - Football’s Dangerous Masculinity

This is an interesting article from The New Left Project, based in the UK, on the issue of masculinity and football (soccer for the American readers). However, I suspect this perspective speaks equally well to our own issues with hyper-masculinity and American football.

Key observation:

As these representative examples show (I could easily have cited countless others) the type of masculinity constructed and reinforced in the footballing world shows football to be an important, highly conservative influence on contemporary gender relations, largely working to reproduce existing inequalities in society.

This is important to be talked about - when I was growing up in sports (football, basketball, and soccer), I had coaches who instructed us to "take out" the other team's best player. As we got older, locker room talk about females became incredibly objectified, boasting of conquests (sexual or otherwise) escalated, and subtle restrictions on what constitutes a "man" became more hyper-masculine and less human.

Then we wonder why some men grow up to be violent, emotionally cold, and insensitive to the feelings or needs of others.

Football’s Dangerous Masculinity

May 21, 2013
by Ian Sinclair

As the UK’s unofficial national sport and with the season running for nine months a year it often seems like it’s impossible to escape from football. It’s the default conversation topic from the office to the barbershop; the latest Premier League happenings round off television news broadcasts and large portions of our newspapers are dedicated to reporting and discussing every minute detail of ‘the beautiful game’. This cultural supremacy has been demonstrated by the recent retirement of Alex Ferguson, the manager of Manchester United for the last 26 years. Treated in a similar manner to the death of a member of the royal family it was the top story on the BBC website and splashed across the frontpage of all the next day’s newspapers. Even Nick Robinson, the BBC’s Political Editor, felt the need to comment, gushing that Sir Alex was the “greatest living Briton”.

However, considering football’s importance to many people and society more broadly, progressives have remarkably little to say about it. Certainly there is ongoing concern about the ever increasing capitalist nature of the game but what is almost completely lacking is an honest discussion or critique of the ideology of the game – in particular football’s relationship with men and masculinity. As Mariah Burton Nelson notes in her 1994 book The Stronger Women Get, The More Men Love Football: Sexism and the American Culture of Sports, “We need to take sports seriously – not the scores or the statistics, but the process. Not to focus on who wins, but on who’s losing.”[1]

As Men’s Studies scholars have noted about sport generally, the hierarchical and highly competitive world of football is one of the key sites for the construction and reproduction of masculinity today.[2] Through playing and watching the game boys learn what it means to be a man – which values and behaviour are manly and which are unmanly. “Be tough”, “be strong”, “play to win”, “get stuck in”, “don’t be intimidated”, “don’t cry”, “don’t wimp out” – all are common encouragements and admonishments to young footballers. And when they return home to watch Match of the Day they hear commentators praising their idols for “dominating” their opponents and “controlling” the game. Those players that play through great pain are heralded as heroes and those, like Roy Keane, who intimidate and revel in the violence and hyper-aggression are feted by fans and awarded with trophies. “I'd waited long enough. I fucking hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that you cunt. And don't ever stand over me sneering about fake injuries”, wrote Keane in his autobiography about his premeditated revenge take down of Manchester City’s Alf-Inge Haaland in 2001, which effectively ended the Norwegian’s career. “My attitude was, fuck him. What goes around comes around. He got his just rewards. He fucked me over and my attitude is an eye for an eye." A subsequent investigation led to Keane being banned for five matches and fined £150,000, although sceptical readers may wonder how long a prison sentence Keane would have received had the incident occurred outside of a football stadium. Three years later Keane was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame.

While Roy Keane was Manchester United’s enforcer on the pitch, Sir Alex ran the club like a dictatorship. “Fergie’s rule was absolute”, notes Channel 4’s John Anderson. “Loyalty was a quality to be demanded and repaid in equally unswerving fashion, and his word was law.” Pundits marvelled and chuckled at his ability to discipline his players and play macho psychological mind games with his opponents. On several occasions he has been banned and fined for using abusive language to match officials. In a widely reported dressing room incident he kicked a boot in anger that hit David Beckham in the face, requiring stitches. Never mind that this bullying management style would get him immediately sacked from every other workplace in the UK – Sir Alex, we have been told repeatedly in the last week, is the greatest manager ever to have graced the English game. His “achievements demand not just respect, they deserve to be studied and learned from”, argued Robinson. Tony Blair’s own enforcer Alastair Campbell may look up to Ferguson, but what has any of this got to do with those working for democracy, justice and equality except to serve as a guide about how not to behave?

As these representative examples show (I could easily have cited countless others) the type of masculinity constructed and reinforced in the footballing world shows football to be an important, highly conservative influence on contemporary gender relations, largely working to reproduce existing inequalities in society.

And nowhere is football’s resistance to contemporary gender norms more obvious than when talking about the total absence of openly gay players in the professional game. The first openly gay footballer was trailblazer Justin Fashanu – also the first one million pound Black player. "A bloody poof!" was how his manager at Nottingham Forest football club, Brian Clough, described him. Justin’s own brother disowned him when he came out in 1990. “He has come out publicly and stated his sexual preferences, so now he will have to suffer the consequences. I wouldn’t like to play or get changed in the vicinity of him”, said John Fashunu. John went on to present the hit TV show Gladiators. Justin killed himself in 1998.

While sports scholars like Ellis Cashmore and Jamie Cleland argue homophobia among football fans has significantly decreased since those dark days the lived experience on the ground gives less cause for hope. In January 2012, Robbie Rogers left Leeds United by "mutual consent". A month later he announced he was gay. In a statement Rogers said that remaining in football after declaring that you were gay was "impossible".

Football is also stuck in the stone age when it comes to women. This shouldn’t be surprising when you consider sports scholars have long explained that professional, organised sport as we know it emerged in the late 19th century in response to a number of challenges to men’s traditional power, not least the rising consciousness and power of women in society. As Michael Messner, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California, notes:

Sport was a male-created homosocial cultural sphere that provided men with psychological separation from the perceived ‘feminization’ of society, while also providing dramatic symbolic ‘proof’ of the natural superiority of men over women.[3]

More than a century later and “the locker room” continues to be “the last preserve of the all male world”, according to Michael Kimmel, Professor of Sociology at State University of New York.

Football’s endemic sexism hit the headlines in 2011 when the Premier League’s top commentating team, Sky Sports’s Andy Gray and Richard Keys, were caught making disparaging and sexist comments about a female linesman and to a female colleague in the studio. In another incident Keys, off air and talking about Jamie Redknapp’s former partner, lewdly comments “Would you smash it [have sex with her]?... You could have gone round there any night and found Redknapp hanging out the back of it”. Gray and Keys were dismissed by Sky Sports, but it’s important to note their behaviour only became an issue when a (presumably disgruntled) colleague leaked the footage to the media.

What should be clear from all these examples is that the type of masculinity promoted reproduced in the footballing world is not an aberrant masculinity which can be dismissed as the way other men – criminal and psychopathic men, perhaps – act. Rather, it encapsulates many of the values and behaviours that make up mainstream, perhaps even the dominant, form of masculinity today.

The problem, as Cynthia Cockburn and Ann Oakley cogently argued in 2011, is that these “widespread masculine traits and behaviours are dangerous and costly both to individuals and society.” According to Government figures, in 2009-10 men were the perpetrators in 91% of all violent incidents in England and Wales: 81% for domestic violence, 86% for assault, 94% for wounding, 96% for mugging, 98% for robbery. 2009 Ministry of Justice figures show men were responsible for 98% of sexual offences, 92% of drug offences and 89% of criminal damage. 99% of child sex offenders are male. On the road men commit 87% of all traffic offences, 81% of speeding offences, 97% of dangerous driving offences and 94% of motoring offences causing death or bodily harm.

To summarise, the sport that so many of us support financially and emotionally, and the players we idiolise and cheer on, promote a highly conservative version of masculinity that is damaging, sometimes deadly, to women, children and society more generally. Where, then, are the progressive and feminist voices raised in protest and anger at the gender politics of football? Where is UK Feminista? Where is the Fawcett Society? Where are the critiques in the Guardian’s women’s pages? And where, most importantly, are the men who say they are feminists who want more equality between men and women? As chef and Norwich City fan Delia Smith once shouted: “Where are you? Where are you? Let’s be having you! Come on!"

~ Ian Sinclair is a freelance writer based in London and the author of The march that shook Blair: An oral history of 15 February 2003 published by Peace News Press. ian_js@hotmail.com and https://twitter.com/IanJSinclair.


[1] Mariah Burton Nelson, The stronger women get, the more men love football. Sexism and the American culture of sports (Orlando: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994), p. 8.
[2] For example Michael Messner, ‘Boyhood, organized sports, and the construction of masculinities’, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, January 1990, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp-416-44.
[3] Michael Messner, Out of play. Critical essays on gender and sport (Albany, State University of New York Press, 2007), p. 92-3.

Last year, more men than women (13,900 men, 12,100 women) were raped by their fellow soldiers in the military. Percentage-wise, however, a much higher percentage of women were raped than men (there are 1.2 million men vs. 203, 000 women).

Men are having to fight against the tough-guy, hyper-masculine culture of the military to even report or seek treatment for the sexual assaults they have experienced. Not a good situation.

Male rape survivors tackle military assault in tough-guy culture

By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor

  Former Navy Petty Officer Third Class Brian Lewis talks about a sexual assault "epidemic" within the U.S. military while speaking on Capitol Hill Thursday. Lewis emphasizes that his chain of command "failed" him during his time in the U.S. Navy. 

Amid the legislation and indignation sparked by the military's sexual abuse crisis, male rape survivors are stepping forward to remind officials that men are targeted more often than women inside a tough-guy culture that, they say, routinely deems male victims as “liars and trouble makers.” 

The Pentagon estimates that last year 13,900 of the 1.2 million men on active duty endured sexual assault while 12,100 of the 203,000 women in uniform experienced the same crime — or 38 men per day versus 33 women per day. Yet the Defense Department also acknowledges “male survivors report at much lower rates than female survivors.” 

“As a culture, we’ve somewhat moved past the idea that a female wanted this trauma to occur, but we haven’t moved past that for male survivors,” said Brian Lewis, a rape survivor who served in the Navy. “In a lot of areas of the military, men are still viewed as having wanted it or of being homosexual. That’s not correct at all. It’s a crime of power and control. 

“But also, you’re instantly viewed as a liar and a troublemaker (when a man reports a sex crime), and there’s the notion that you have abandoned your shipmates, that you took a crap all over your shipmates, that you misconstrued their horseplay,” he added. 

Lewis, who was raped by a male superior officer aboard a Navy ship in 2000, spoke Thursday at a press conference introducing a bill that seeks to strip serious sex assaults from the military’s chain of command. At that event, he said: “Too often male survivors are ignored and marginalized.” 

“The biggest reasons men don’t come forward (with sex assault reports) are the fear of retaliation (from fellow troops), the fear of being viewed in a weaker light, and the fact there are very few, if any, services for male survivors,” Lewis told NBC News. 

Men in the spotlight 

All sexual assault response coordinators within the military are instructed to provide “gender-responsive, culturally competent and recovery-oriented” resources, said Cynthia O. Smith, a Pentagon spokeswoman.  

“Based on that guidance, each of the services customizes its training and implementation specific to their service,” Smith said. DOD offers a 24/7 “safe helpline” providing anonymous victim support, and its staffers “have been trained to assist male victims.” 

Still, the Defense Department acknowledges it must do more to help male victims. 

“A focus of our prevention efforts over the next several months is specifically geared towards male survivors and will include (learning) why male survivors report at much lower rates than female survivors, and determining the unique support and assistance male survivors need,” Smith said. 

The Pentagon “has reached out to organizations supporting male survivors for assistance and information to help inform our way ahead,” she added. 

“I applaud that stand on behalf of male survivors,” Lewis said. “However, I would be interested in hearing what organizations they are partnering with considering there are none especially geared for male survivors of military sexual trauma.” 

  Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is joined by a group of colleagues on Capitol Hill while introducing sexual assault legislation that would reform the military justice system. 

'Critical' part of process 

At Protect Our Defenders, a leading advocacy group for male and female service members who've survived sexual assaults, president Nancy Parrish said she would welcome the chance to offer guidance to the Pentagon as it develops better programs to support male sex assault victims. 

“As of yet, we have not been asked to participate in such an endeavor,” Parrish said. “For the success of the military efforts to end the ongoing epidemic of male and female military sexual assaults, it is critical that survivors are part of the process." 

An annual DOD report on sexual abuse, released May 7, described separate attacks on two male soldiers who were shoved down by fellow troops then sodomized with a plastic bottle or broom handle. 

Next month, a documentary called “Justice Denied” — which explores sexual assaults against men in the military — premiers at the Albuquerque Film and Media Experience. 

Assaults on men have been “carefully hidden from the public and covered up,” not only by the victims themselves but also by superiors within the chain of command, contends the film’s producer and co-director Geri Lynn Weinstein-Matthews. “It’s time for men to have their voices heard. It’s time for them to stand up against these vicious attacks and against the deception of some of their commanding officers.” 

  U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel addresses the growing concern over the number of sexual assaults occurring within the U.S. military. 

Related:

• Senators seek to reform military's 'unacceptable' sex abuse policies
• Gillibrand leads charge for protocol changes in sexual assault cases
• US military faces historic tipping point on rape epidemic
• Army sergeant assigned to sex-abuse prevention investigated for pimping, sexual assault 
• Air Force's sex-abuse prevention honcho charged with sexual battery

Cracked - The 10 Greatest Wrestler Glamour Shots of All Time

When you think of professional wrestling, you probably think of Hulk Hogan, Macho Man Randy Savage (below), or  the Undertaker (above). These guys generally try to be hyper-masculine.

Back in the 1980s, however, Memphis wrestlers Stan Lane and Steve Keirn, known as the Fabulous Ones, found success and fame as a tag-team. Unfortunately, the 1980s were not kind to macho . . . and there are pictures to prove it. Thanks to Cracked for this one.

The 10 Greatest Wrestler Glamour Shots of All Time

By:Cyriaque Lamar
April 24, 2013

Many pro wrestlers nowadays craft their ring personalities using some mixture of barbarian aggression and homicidal machismo. But back in the 1980s, Memphis wrestlers Stan Lane and Steve Keirn found success as a tag team known as the Fabulous Ones, whose schtick was that they were happy-go-lucky men of leisure who pumped iron for the ladies.

And to reinforce this maxin'-and-relaxin' playboy persona, the Fabulous Ones posed for what are easily some of the most retroactively hilarious photographs ever taken of adult human beings.

Memphis Wrestling/Flickr

"Saturday, Saturday, Saturday at the Clarksville Civic Center! You bring the entire family, we'll bring our dicks!"

Remember, the Fabulous Ones hailed from a gentler, more yacht-rocking era, so they were able to spin an acclaimed five-year career out of lubing up their torsos, donning bow ties, and obscuring their dongs under a tenuous veil of spandex. And during that period, the Fabs took tons of glamour shots, the likes of which make the Ultimate Warrior look downright Mennonite. Here are 10 of their finest moments, which I have taken the liberty of titling. (NOTE: All titles are also up for grabs as band names.)

#10. "Sebaceous Repose"

Memphis Wrestling/Flickr

Here we have two grown men wearing nothing but puce bikini briefs, assorted pendants and charm bracelets, and an entire industrial drum of canola oil. Now, note their footwear. THIS IS PROOF POSITIVE THAT FLIP-FLOPS DON'T GO WITH ANY OUTFIT WHATSOEVER.

#9. "Turgid Illusionists"

Myspace

What you're looking at here is every single one of Fred Phelps' nightmares transmuted into the corporeal realm. When he's thrashing around at night, entangled in his quilt -- which is presumably embroidered with passages from Leviticus and scenes of Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt -- Mrs. Phelps wakes him up by shouting, "FRED, CALM DOWN. YOU'RE HAVING THAT DREAM ABOUT THE GAY WARLOCKS AGAIN."

#8. "Maximum Cravat"

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I am so fucking disappointed that we don't live in a reality where the Fabulous Ones starred in a sitcom about two Chippendales dancers turned social workers whose penchant for pageantry brought hope to an inner-city youth crisis center. That show, by the way, would have been called Big, Big Brothers.

#7. "The Butt Janus"

Memphis Wrestling/Flickr

Sweet Jesus, gazing upon this picture for 10 seconds is like watching Road House five times in a row. If I were all about the fellas, I'm pretty sure I'd he-bop to this photograph with such unearthly vigor that my gear would eventually resemble one of those port wine cheese logs covered in slivered almonds you find at business-casual cocktail receptions.

#6. "Testosterone Acres"

Memphis Wrestling/Flickr

For whatever reason, the countryside in this shot reminds me of the second season of The Walking Dead, when AMC cut the show's budget and made the cast wander around an apple orchard all season.*

Anyway, that season would've been vastly improved if the characters had stumbled upon a duo of unflappable pretty boys who use their Greco-Roman prowess to suplex zombies. Like, The Walking Dead's shit-smudged survivors are busy boiling their boots when the Fabulous Ones roll up in their banana-yellow pickup truck, blasting "Separate Ways" by Journey. (Sample dialogue: "Hey there, strangers! The walkers swarmed our cabana, but at least we escaped with these great hats!")

*In the course of writing this article, I found myself Googling "WALKING DEAD" + "PRODUCE" + "HERSHEL'S FARM." That's easily the dumbest Internet search I've ever subjected myself to, so according to my own canon, it's a goddamn apple orchard.

#5. "The Prom Vikings"

Memphis Wrestling/Flickr

Everything about this photo is perfection, namely their poses and the jarring contrast between their bleached-white suits and their sun-kissed mullets. Their heads are so damn orange that they appear to be levitating, like they're the homecoming court of Sleepy Hollow Prep. A night of passion with the Fabulous Ones would be like getting double-teamed by Moose from Archie. (Well, Moose and his brother, uh, Elk?)

#4. "Malibu Sherpas"

Myspace

Remember that poignant-but-goofy-as-hell scene in The Wrestler where Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei accuse Kurt Cobain of ending the 1980s? Well, the above photo is what Arcade Fire would look like if Nirvana had never existed.

#3. "Key Party Alpha"

ProWrestling.Wikia

As you can see here, the Fabulous Ones are posing with fellow 1980s heartthrob grapplers the Rock 'n' Roll Express. WILL THEY SWAP PARTNERS? Anyone who gave this magazine but a perfunctory glance would assume that they'd stumbled upon a periodical either dedicated to exceedingly flamboyant Tennessee-area law firms or crafty swingers who make their own clothing out of old towels and wrapping paper. In any case, I'm guessing audiences packed arenas just to see if the Rock 'n' Roll Express would finally show up to a bout dressed in leotards made of Fruit Roll-Ups.

Memphis Wrestling/Flickr

Hot damn, Lisa Turtle had a posse.

#2. "Man Napkins"

Memphis Wrestling/Flickr

At some unknown point in the history of professional wrestling, you know a manager grimly handed his up-and-coming tag team the above photo in a 12-by-18 manila envelope emblazoned with the words YOUR NEXT MATCH in big block letters. Oh, to be a fly on the wall when that went down.

#1. The Fabulous Ones' Magical Music Videos

Of course, the Fabulous Ones' beefcake portraiture is only half of their legacy. The duo pioneered the use of wrestling music videos as promotional tools. And if YouTube videos that promoted neuron death were National Historic Landmarks, this shit right here would be Monticello.


What's awesome about this two-minute music video is that maybe nine scattershot seconds indicate that these dudes are wrestlers. The rest of it is mostly the Fabulous Ones expressionlessly drinking sherry in the bath or lounging in a hayloft. Anyone flipping channels in the early '80s would assume this was a paid program, jointly funded by Tennessee's influential beard, hay, and fedora lobbies.

YouTube - This here's what they call "The Chattanooga Iron Triangle."

In case the plot in that music video was too hard to follow, here are the Fabulous Ones hanging out in a closet for 160 seconds with nothing but a strobe light and sequined tuxedos. If Marvel Studios had only $15 to spend on Thor: The Dark World, you can bet it would look like this.


And do you want to know the secret of the Fabulous Ones' workout regimen? It's easy! Get mostly naked and jog around an indoor track with your best friend.


And finally, it's worth mentioning that the Fabulous Ones weren't the only Memphis-area tag team to splash their thoraxes with buttermilk and stare wistfully into the horizon. Another duo known as the New Generation used this formula as well, but they incorporated topless carriage rides into their repertoire (a perplexingly long shot of such kicks off at 2:15).


And so concludes today's column. If you found absolutely none of the above titillating, my gift to you is the equally garish Playboy's Roller Disco and Pajama Party TV special, which starred flugelhorn godhead Chuck Mangione and the noted sassy ventriloquist's dummy Madame.

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I could only tolerate 30 seconds of this, so it's unclear if Madame takes off her top.

Men's Magazines Target Hyper-Masculine Advertising Images to Adolescents

This article appeared recently in the XX Factor column at Slate (What Women Really Think). Amanda Hess offers a summary of a new article from Sex Roles that looked at how advertising in magazines aimed at young, lesser educated men define masculinity and manhood. The view is not good - the stereotypes being presented are very limited and limiting.

According to a survey of the advertising, a "man" is a "stomping, yelling, shooting, drinking, fucking, tough guy. He has big muscles and a limited emotional range—stoic, angry, horny. He exists in dark alleyways, war zones, and fast cars. He holds his beer bottle over his crotch to approximate a boner."

How Men's Magazines Sell Masculinity to Young, Low-Income Men

By Amanda Hess | Posted Friday, March 1, 2013

A group of psychologists read Playboy for the ads

What makes an ideal man? Page through the advertisements placed in a standard American men’s magazine, and you’ll find one idea: He is a stomping, yelling, shooting, drinking, fucking, tough guy. He has big muscles and a limited emotional range—stoic, angry, horny. He exists in dark alleyways, war zones, and fast cars. He holds his beer bottle over his crotch to approximate a boner.

If advertising is meant to be aspirational, these ads are presenting a pretty sad version of what American men can aspire to be. And advertisers aren’t selling this hyper-masculine ideal to just any man: They’re specifically targeting the younger, poorer, less-educated guys in the supermarket aisle. In the latest issue of the journal Sex Roles, a trio of psychologists at the University of Manitoba analyzed the advertising images in a slate of magazines targeted at men, from Fortune to Field and Stream. They counted up the adsthat depict men as violent, calloused, tough, dangerous, and sexually aggressive—what the researchers call “hyper-masculine”—then indexed them with the magazine’s target demographics. Hyper-masculine images, the researchers found, are more likely to be sold to adolescents, who find higher “peer group support” for manly-man behaviors. They’re also sold to working-class men, who are “embedded in enduring social and economic structures in which they experience powerlessness and lack of access to resources” like political power, social respect, and wealth, and so turn to more widely accessible measures of masculine worth—like “physical strength and aggression.”

The magazines pushing this image most aggressively are Playboy and Game Informer, whose ads play on hyper-masculine tropes about 95 percent of the time. (Compare that to magazines like Golf Digest and Fortune, which rely on those images for about 20 percent of ads). Playboy and Game Informer represent two different segments of the hyper-masculine demo: The playboys and the gamers are both bringing in a low annual household income, but the playboys are older (the target age for readers is 30 to 39) and less likely to have attended college than their gaming peers. So while Game Informer’s socially-mobile twentysomethings can conceivably age out of these hyper-masculine tropes, Playboy’s readers are stuck with them.

These advertising trends speak to the latest development in Hugh Hefner’s sexual revolution. When Playboy launched in 1953, it was billed as a liberating, sophisticated, and intellectual response to conservative sexual norms. It featured icons like Marilyn Monroe and Ray Bradbury. It was not, in fact, inconceivable to read it for the articles. Sixty years later, the magazine’s advertisers are chasing a readership of middle-aged men who are undereducated and underpaid. Its vision of masculinity now looks constrictive. And its titular image—that of the wealthy man of leisure—plays ironically. Playboy’s version of sexual revolution was never very empowering to women and gay men. But if the tactics of its advertisers is any indication, it’s not a very liberating mold for straight guys, either.