welikeincrowds Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 I just found out about a book that might interest you: Self-Made Man: My Year Disguised As A Man. As you might have guessed, it's journalism by a lesbian who spends a year as a man to better understand gender. Apparently it was really popular in 2006. There's an excerpt on the Guardian's website. It includes the part about dating. The parts I'm including are the ones that reminded me most of the pained and lonely men here on LS. I thought dating was going to be the fun part, the easiest part. Certainly as a man I had romantic access to far more women than I ever did as a lesbian. I could partake at last in the assumption of heterosexuality and ask out any woman I liked without insulting her. Of course, I was in for a mountain of rejections, but to be a guy I had to get out there.On dates with men I felt physically appraised in a way that I never did by women, and, while this made me more sympathetic to the suspicions women were bringing to their dates with Ned, it had the opposite effect, too. Somehow men's seeming imposition of a superficial standard of beauty felt less intrusive, less harsh, than the character appraisals of women. The women I met wanted a man to be confident. They wanted in many ways to defer to him. I could feel that on many dates, the unspoken desire to be held up and led, whether in conversation or even in physical space, and at times it made me feel quite small in my costume, like a young man must feel when he's just coming of age and he's suddenly expected to carry the world under his arm like a football. And some women did find Ned too small physically to be attractive. They wanted someone, they said, who could pin them to the bed or, as one woman put it, "someone who can drive the bus". Ned was too willowy for that. I began to understand from the inside why Robert Crumb draws his women so big and his diminutive self begging at their heels or riding them around the room. Yet as much as these women wanted a take-control man, at the same time they wanted a man who was vulnerable to them, a man who would show his colours and open his doors, someone expressive, intuitive, attuned. This I was in spades, and I always got points for it. But I began to feel very sympathetic toward heterosexual men - the pressure to be a world-bestriding colossus is an immensely heavy burden to bear, and trying to be a sensitive new age guy at the same time is pretty well impossible. Expectation, expectation, expectation was the leitmotif of Ned's dating life. Dating women was the hardest thing I had to do as Ned, even when the women liked me and I liked them. I have never felt more vulnerable to total strangers, never more socially defenceless than in my clanking suit of borrowed armour. But then, I guess maybe that's one of the secrets of manhood that no man tells if he can help it. Every man's armour is borrowed and 10 sizes too big, and beneath it he's naked and insecure and hoping you won't see.
carhill Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 That's some really good writing, thanks If you have never been sexually attracted to women, you will never quite understand the monumental power of female sexuality, except by proxy or in theory, nor will you quite know the immense advantage it gives us over men. Dating women as a man was a lesson in female power, and it made me, of all things, into a momentary misogynist, which I suppose was the best indicator that my experiment had worked. I saw my own sex from the other side, and I disliked women irrationally for a while because of it. I disliked their superiority, their accusatory smiles, their entitlement to choose or dash me with a fingertip, an execution so lazy, so effortless, it made the defeats and even the successes unbearably humiliating. Typical male power feels by comparison like a blunt instrument, its salvos and field strategies laughably remedial next to the damage a woman can do with a single cutting word: no.
johan Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 My armor fits pretty good. Women just like to stay right on the line between impossible and accessible. As if they were born with the right to be contradictory and difficult.
mo mo Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 My armor fits pretty good. Women just like to stay right on the line between impossible and accessible. As if they were born with the right to be contradictory and difficult. Contradictory and difficult.. lol, so true.
Ross MwcFan Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 I don't know why more men just don't opt out of the whole dating thing, it all sounds like a load of crap.
carhill Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 Apparently, this experiment of dating women as a man drove her to a mental institution and onto Prozac and became fodder for another book, Voluntary Madness, a peek inside the mental health institution. Somehow, I'm not surprised
westernxer Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 I could barely stomach her writing and had to check to make sure my gonads were still in their proper place.
johan Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 I didn't have that strong a reaction to it, although I did find it annoying. She definitely has "wordy" figured out.
westernxer Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 (edited) She definitely has "wordy" figured out. Which lessens her credibility as a male infiltrator. The premise alone I found ridiculous, but that's just me. LOL Edited April 24, 2011 by westernxer
somedude81 Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 Apparently, this experiment of dating women as a man drove her to a mental institution and onto Prozac and became fodder for another book, Voluntary Madness, a peek inside the mental health institution. Somehow, I'm not surprised Amazing. Maybe I should do the same.
Mrlonelyone Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 In a sense my whole life has been such an experiment. Dating heterosexual* men as a transgender person I can say men are way easier to bed. Men are also harder to get commitment from. While women are harder to bed but easier to get emotional investment from after they do. * Yes they were straight, and masculine. My internal reality has been that I feel more straight with men and like a lesbian with women.
daphne Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 If you have never been sexually attracted to women, you will never quite understand the monumental power of female sexuality, except by proxy or in theory, nor will you quite know the immense advantage it gives us over men. Dating women as a man was a lesson in female power, and it made me, of all things, into a momentary misogynist, which I suppose was the best indicator that my experiment had worked. I saw my own sex from the other side, and I disliked women irrationally for a while because of it. I disliked their superiority, their accusatory smiles, their entitlement to choose or dash me with a fingertip, an execution so lazy, so effortless, it made the defeats and even the successes unbearably humiliating. Typical male power feels by comparison like a blunt instrument, its salvos and field strategies laughably remedial next to the damage a woman can do with a single cutting word: no. Hmmm... explains why a lot of guys bitch on here so often. Still, it's a double edged sword. Once we have sex, unfortunately we are at a complete disadvantage because that "power" is gone.
carhill Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 If one sexual partner can be replaced with another 'potential sexual partner' in a blink of an eyelash, there's still power. Watch married women for evidence of that
threebyfate Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 Never could understand the attraction of a new age sensitive guy. No thanks. I love my man as he is, a man!
daphne Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 If one sexual partner can be replaced with another 'potential sexual partner' in a blink of an eyelash, there's still power. Watch married women for evidence of that I like my rose colored version of life, thanks.
carhill Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 I wish I still had mine but the glasses got ripped off....
fishtaco Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 Sounds about right. So I do what I have to do to keep my head above water. If you don't learn to swim real quick, you drown. Anyway, so far, no Prozac yet.
daphne Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 Me, I'm just treading water. I found it interesting that she mentions the character evaluation. Guys won't give us credit for being less superficial about looks, but if I look back to the past few dates I've had, I would definitely say I was a bit critical in character evaluation. I wouldn't have realized it either without reading that. I'm not so worried about a guy checking out my butt but I'm not sure how I would feel if he was peering into my soul to see if I had true strength of character. Probably, because that would never happen with a man! :lmao:
AD1980 Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 Me, I'm just treading water. I found it interesting that she mentions the character evaluation. Guys won't give us credit for being less superficial about looks, but if I look back to the past few dates I've ! :lmao: We wont give u credit becasue as a whole youre not less superficial about looks its just that things like money power and status could make somebody average become hot to certain women otherwise looks are just as important to women.. Women are hillarious...If theyre arent dating a male model then they act like theyre doign the guy a favor and looks dont matter to them..
mo mo Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 Me, I'm just treading water. I found it interesting that she mentions the character evaluation. Guys won't give us credit for being less superficial about looks, but if I look back to the past few dates I've had, I would definitely say I was a bit critical in character evaluation. I wouldn't have realized it either without reading that. I'm not so worried about a guy checking out my butt but I'm not sure how I would feel if he was peering into my soul to see if I had true strength of character. Probably, because that would never happen with a man! :lmao: That's just cuz u haven't one out with me. I check out butts and peer into souls simultaneously.
Author welikeincrowds Posted April 24, 2011 Author Posted April 24, 2011 That's just cuz u haven't one out with me. I check out butts and peer into souls simultaneously. Wait. What are you peering into?
mo mo Posted April 24, 2011 Posted April 24, 2011 Wait. What are you peering into? I dont think I can describe the process without breaking some of this site's rules
Woggle Posted April 25, 2011 Posted April 25, 2011 I tionk both genders trading spaces for a few months to maybe even a year would end the battle of the sexes. I admit there are probably quite a few things I can learn about being a woman and a few things they can learn about being a man.
somedude81 Posted April 25, 2011 Posted April 25, 2011 LOL, If I could be a woman for a month I'd have so much sex. Then I'd find some guy(s) to buy me stuff.
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