"i like masculine men"

We live in a world of opposites, a world that defines X as the exclusion of everything that is Y, and vice versa. White is “not black”. On is “not off”. This paradigm allows no room for flow or mutability or change. To be one thing is to necessarily reject everything contained by it’s “opposite”.

This is the basis upon which the masculine-feminine dichotomy rests.

So what does it mean to be “feminine” or “masculine” (read: in the US/the Western World)? Typical feminine qualities include sensitive, submissive, gentle, supportive, delicate, soft, weak. Masculine qualities are things like aggression, dominance, insensitivity, ambition, hardness, physical fitness, strength, power.

Looking at these lists, they appear fairly mutually exclusive. The problem is that human beings are not distinct programs; we are not lists. We are full of contradictions and quirks and things that just do not make sense. You cannot contain a human being within “ons” and “offs”.

So even though submissive and dominant are defined as opposites it is completely possible that an individual be both. Perhaps not at the same time, sure, but both these qualities can be present in the same personality without that person being a paradox.

Or maybe that’s the point. We are paradoxes; we can be both delicate and powerful, both empathetic and insensitive, both powerful and weak.

But.

As a culture (the US), we blanket deny this mutability. What else spawned the “crisis of masculinity” but 70s feminist taking on “masculine” traits? Feminists are, to this day, shamed for not being “feminine” enough, while men become “pussies” and “bitches” and “gay” for not beating their chests loudly enough.

This is ultimately hurtful for everyone. How can you possibly be emotionally healthy if, by virtue of gender, you are required to deny one half of the emotional spectrum? How can you be a full, rounded, interesting, productive human being if you are constantly policing yourself for signs that you might be behaving like the wrong sex?

It is absurd that we socialize our children so thoroughly that many people are not even aware of this paradigm of opposites, rather than teaching them that sometimes you need to be strong but other times it’s okay to cry. We are finally working to break down the laws that told us pink/purple is a girl’s color, and blue a boy’s, but we are not looking at the paradigm that spawned these rules. Six states have legalized gay marriage, but even in those that haven’t more and more people are learning to respect the blurriness that is inherent in identity, no matter what your gender or whom you choose to have sex with.

But this shift cannot be completed until we acknowledge that men sometimes feel weak, while women sometime feel strong; that women can be dominant without being safely packaged within the “dominatrix” trop, and men can be gentle, supportive friends and lovers. Only when we have embraced this truth, with the war truly be won.