5 ms·

Male energy is in crisis. In the modern world boys aren't allowed to be boys to make sure they will become men grown tame. Boys are grown by women—and these day

by yason 14y ago

Male energy is in crisis. In the modern world boys aren't allowed to be boys to make sure they will become men grown tame. Boys are grown by women—and these days also men who have adopted the women's way of growing kids. We think that male energy is aggressive and offensive, and it must be suppressed and tainted, while simultaneously we have lost our icons of what real manhood entails. We don't have rites of manhood like indigenous people had: the boys were cut off their mothers and their mothers let go of the boys, they started living with men, and the rites eventually transformed a boy into a man. THis doesn't happen anymore. And if you, instead, grow a boy to a man the woman way, what you get is not a man but an overly feminine male who is at loss with his manhood and who has two balls that are barely working.

stbtrax 14y ago
This is such a stupid argument that I don't know where to begin. Do you seriously think performing male rites of passage will somehow increase sperm count? You come off as an old curmudgeon that resents advances in women's rights and the lgbt movement and sees this as some sort of threat to old practices which were somehow more masculine in your mind.
freyrs3 14y ago
> THis doesn't happen anymore. And if you, instead, grow a boy to a man the woman way, what you get is not a man but an overly feminine male who is at loss with his manhood and who has two balls that are barely working. This reasoning seems a bit specious.
rmrfrmrf 14y ago
Oh, Lord. HN is turning into Reddit more and more by the minute.
- icebraining 14y ago
  If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.) http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - m0th87 14y ago
    That's sort of a dated rule. I've been here even longer than my account suggests, and the quality has most certainly degraded - both from comments like OP's, and from people defending it under the umbrella of free speech (kind of an absurd stance given every community enforces quality standards.) PG himself has acknowledged the degrading quality. Thankfully some work has been done to curb this trend, but it does seem somewhat unavoidable as a community grows.
    - Mz 14y ago
      PG himself not only acknowledges that quality has declined but also that he has no idea how to reverse it. I don't know if I can effect change here, but I do know how it is done and I have done it elsewhere. Raising the bar on treating other members with respect and tolerating a diversity of viewpoints is part of how that is done. You are, of course, free to make fun of me while bemoaning the decline in quality. I am free to think you are clearly clueless if you cannot see a connection between the two things.
Mz 14y ago
My two kickass adult sons would find this paragraph laughable. -- Their Mom Though, in all fairness, I am kind of a ballbusting bitch and did not raise my sons "normally". My ex was career military, so I could afford to be a ballbusting bitch since my anachronistic family of origin and the federal government both had my back. But I imagine that a) you wouldn't be up for a meaty discussion of that sort and b) hn is probably not the place to have it.
- return0 14y ago
  The parent thread was probably trolling, or not aware of some details about these rituals of passage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambia_people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambia_people) Gender role development is a touchy but very important subject (although i m not sure it's related to sperm count). Related: http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/you-can-give-a-boy-a-doll-but-you-cant-make-him-play-with-it/265977/ http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/you-can-giv...
  - Mz 14y ago
    I have been called a troll (or treated like one). I am not. For that and other reasons, I am very reluctant to hang that on this person. HN is an actively hostile environment for some topics. Regardless, most people do not want to have a real serious discussion about a touchy topic like this, under any circumstance. That is the only piece I really take issue with. As someone who believes in a lot of things that would not be respected here, I would happily defend the OP's right to free speech and to have a different mental model. The problem I have is that they are highly unlikely to be willing to engage in serious discussion, therefore they probably should have not bothered to post it here.
    - yason 14y ago
      Comments like yours are exactly why I posted the original article. It's really nice to hear from someone at HN who sees beyond the controversy caused by a totally different mental model, as you put it. I'm surprised I wasn't downmodded more aggressively. I wouldn't have answered to this thread unless you had written these two comments of yours: HN certainly isn't the place for serious discussion about such topics and while I don't necessarily like it that way, that's just the way it is. But I sometimes keep fishing for different responses. Now, anything related to gender, sex, gender roles, and the masculine and feminine parts of a person's psyche and spirit seems to be a touchy subject: add in a few feminist and antifeminist preconceptions—or just any politically correct one—to the mix and what you have is the mother of all can of worms. It's virtually impossible to discuss those in a large group unless there's a predefined consensus that limits what can be said. All we probably can agree with together is that there's a difference between the masculine and feminine, but there are indefinite ways of how that could unfold into a discussion. Yet it's a very fundamental dynamic of life that you're bound to deal with one way or another, regardless of if you're a man or a woman. Further, there are so many angles into this gender topic that it's hard if not impossible to establish a definitive model of how to present my thoughts on such a topic myself. And that doesn't fly well at HN: generally people who are thinking more aloud than asserting their final conclusions don't fare well on internet forums. So, a fruitful conversation of the subject is probably only possible with at most two people who trust each other enough so that they're able to just reflect the other person's thoughts instead of trying to argue them out. I know there are tens of thousands of different people on HN and most do have beliefs and attitudes that don't fit in the canned scientific-consensus impression most people present on HN. There is a wealth of intelligent people here and I sometimes wonder what they think of things that can't be said here.
illuminate 14y ago
"Male energy is in crisis" Yes, and thank goodness strict gender roles are considered arbitrary and laughable if they weren't so damaging.
saraid216 14y ago
You know what my favorite rite of manhood was? Taking a sharp rock and slicing the bottom of your penis. You should try it. Source: Joseph Campbell.

by yason 14y ago

stbtrax 14y ago

This is such a stupid argument that I don't know where to begin. Do you seriously think performing male rites of passage will somehow increase sperm count? You come off as an old curmudgeon that resents advances in women's rights and the lgbt movement and sees this as some sort of threat to old practices which were somehow more masculine in your mind.

freyrs3 14y ago

> THis doesn't happen anymore. And if you, instead, grow a boy to a man the woman way, what you get is not a man but an overly feminine male who is at loss with his manhood and who has two balls that are barely working. This reasoning seems a bit specious.

rmrfrmrf 14y ago

Oh, Lord. HN is turning into Reddit more and more by the minute.

icebraining 14y ago
If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.) http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- m0th87 14y ago
  That's sort of a dated rule. I've been here even longer than my account suggests, and the quality has most certainly degraded - both from comments like OP's, and from people defending it under the umbrella of free speech (kind of an absurd stance given every community enforces quality standards.) PG himself has acknowledged the degrading quality. Thankfully some work has been done to curb this trend, but it does seem somewhat unavoidable as a community grows.
  - Mz 14y ago
    PG himself not only acknowledges that quality has declined but also that he has no idea how to reverse it. I don't know if I can effect change here, but I do know how it is done and I have done it elsewhere. Raising the bar on treating other members with respect and tolerating a diversity of viewpoints is part of how that is done. You are, of course, free to make fun of me while bemoaning the decline in quality. I am free to think you are clearly clueless if you cannot see a connection between the two things.

Mz 14y ago

My two kickass adult sons would find this paragraph laughable. -- Their Mom Though, in all fairness, I am kind of a ballbusting bitch and did not raise my sons "normally". My ex was career military, so I could afford to be a ballbusting bitch since my anachronistic family of origin and the federal government both had my back. But I imagine that a) you wouldn't be up for a meaty discussion of that sort and b) hn is probably not the place to have it.

return0 14y ago
The parent thread was probably trolling, or not aware of some details about these rituals of passage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambia_people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambia_people) Gender role development is a touchy but very important subject (although i m not sure it's related to sperm count). Related: http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/you-can-give-a-boy-a-doll-but-you-cant-make-him-play-with-it/265977/ http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/you-can-giv...
- Mz 14y ago
  I have been called a troll (or treated like one). I am not. For that and other reasons, I am very reluctant to hang that on this person. HN is an actively hostile environment for some topics. Regardless, most people do not want to have a real serious discussion about a touchy topic like this, under any circumstance. That is the only piece I really take issue with. As someone who believes in a lot of things that would not be respected here, I would happily defend the OP's right to free speech and to have a different mental model. The problem I have is that they are highly unlikely to be willing to engage in serious discussion, therefore they probably should have not bothered to post it here.
  - yason 14y ago
    Comments like yours are exactly why I posted the original article. It's really nice to hear from someone at HN who sees beyond the controversy caused by a totally different mental model, as you put it. I'm surprised I wasn't downmodded more aggressively. I wouldn't have answered to this thread unless you had written these two comments of yours: HN certainly isn't the place for serious discussion about such topics and while I don't necessarily like it that way, that's just the way it is. But I sometimes keep fishing for different responses. Now, anything related to gender, sex, gender roles, and the masculine and feminine parts of a person's psyche and spirit seems to be a touchy subject: add in a few feminist and antifeminist preconceptions—or just any politically correct one—to the mix and what you have is the mother of all can of worms. It's virtually impossible to discuss those in a large group unless there's a predefined consensus that limits what can be said. All we probably can agree with together is that there's a difference between the masculine and feminine, but there are indefinite ways of how that could unfold into a discussion. Yet it's a very fundamental dynamic of life that you're bound to deal with one way or another, regardless of if you're a man or a woman. Further, there are so many angles into this gender topic that it's hard if not impossible to establish a definitive model of how to present my thoughts on such a topic myself. And that doesn't fly well at HN: generally people who are thinking more aloud than asserting their final conclusions don't fare well on internet forums. So, a fruitful conversation of the subject is probably only possible with at most two people who trust each other enough so that they're able to just reflect the other person's thoughts instead of trying to argue them out. I know there are tens of thousands of different people on HN and most do have beliefs and attitudes that don't fit in the canned scientific-consensus impression most people present on HN. There is a wealth of intelligent people here and I sometimes wonder what they think of things that can't be said here.

illuminate 14y ago

"Male energy is in crisis" Yes, and thank goodness strict gender roles are considered arbitrary and laughable if they weren't so damaging.

saraid216 14y ago

You know what my favorite rite of manhood was? Taking a sharp rock and slicing the bottom of your penis. You should try it. Source: Joseph Campbell.