“Don’t Be A Pussy — Do Something Painful Instead!”
It’s really common in feminist spaces, or honestly anywhere that women are speaking, to hear statements like “the patriarchy hurts men, too” or more specifically “toxic masculinity is harmful to men.” But men, in my experience, either don’t hear these things because we aren’t participating in those conversations, or we aren’t receptive to the messages. An awful lot of men, especially blue-collar men, hear a phrase like “toxic masculinity” and parse it as “men are bad”. So they feel attacked, and withdraw from that conversation. It’s not productive for them.
Here’s a video that I think makes the same point in an unmistakable visual language. It was circulating on virality social media with the caption “a man will do anything if you call him a pussy” which, sadly, is too-often true. For too many men, no amount of physical pain is worse than the idea that his buddies will think him unmasculine. This man, although he clearly knows he’s going to experience sharp and immediate regret, allows himself to be goaded into touching his tongue to an electric bug zapper paddle, while other unseen men say things like “stop being a pussy” in the background:
Weaponized misogyny is a drug, gentlemen, and you might be its next victim!
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I get the points about toxic masculinity in the name calling, but it feels to me like this could have been filmed in any kindergarten, with (non gender specific) kids daring each other to do something stupid. It feels to me more about maturity than gender.