Androphilia by Jack Malebranche

[injest]

There are a group of us that are reading this book. Anyone that has read it is invited to come talk about it.

This book is controversial, and Mr. Malebranche pulls NO punches. But his viewpoint strikes a chord in a lot of men today and I think it would be interesting to hear what ya'll think of it.

A warning for the ladies, this book was written by a man FOR men...he comes off as a bit mysoginist....but I think he isn't intending to sound as harsh as he does. Remember he is not writing to you but to other men.

I am finding it very interesting...like overhearing a locker room conversation.

If you haven't read it...I highly recommend it!

http://www.jackmalebranche.com/hub/

[injest]

one of the first things discussed in the book is the premise that women and men are different. While that may seem obvious, there are some interesting points.

We have started blurring gender roles in both public and private life. Traditional roles have been dropped for the most part. The family with the male breadwinner and the stay at home mom is rare today. While traditionally 'male' jobs...fire fighter, police...are held by a lot of women. Look at the very words...used to be fireman...now it fire fighter.

But we ARE different. Men are not women and women are not men. To say they are is to deny each their birthright.

So what is male? What is masculine?

One thing I do know...masculine is not a LOOK...it is only partly physical appearance...and that is not the most important part. Masculine comes from inside.

**

[injest]

The other definition I am struggling over is what is the 'gay community'?

Is there such a thing? Maybe I am ignorant but there is the NAACP that kinda forms policy for the civil rights movement....what is the equivalent in the gay community? Who are the leaders?

I don't know that there is such a thing as a 'gay community' much as Plato said there is no demos...just a billion individual souls that sometimes come together to form policy for the benefit of the group...

Malebranche wants to seperate himself from the 'gay community'...how is that defined?

[Shakesthecoffecan]

This sounds like a good read Jess, I will have to check it out. Some of the issues you have put up here are of interest to me. Men and women look at things so differently sometimes, neighter being the "right way" mind you, but there are so many area we are strangers.

And yeah, what is a gay community? After BBM, a different place that I would have described a few years ago. There is an article in the Washington Post that may have been posted here, Tom Shales writing about Brokeback and how it change things. I'll see if I can find it again.

[injest]

I am so ambivalent about this book. Part of me is saying "Yes! Exactly!" and part of me is thinking I shouldn't agree with it. and if I do not to admit to it.

I have a problem with the victim mentality that has grown up in our society. Everyone seems to be a victim of something. or looking for something to be a victim OF! He preaches a lot of personal responsibility and how can you argue with that? But I can also see the other side where we NEED some degree of government intervention to prevent abuse.

He acknowledges that the advances in human rights for homosexuals (he rejects the term gay) have been brought about by the 'in your face' groups and grudging thanks them...while telling them to leave him alone.

I asked a gay man one time how to express the difference between (forgive me, I don't know how else to describe) the "Will and Grace" crowd and the "BBM" group...
his response is there is none and I was wrong to suggest that there was. That I was showing homophobia....

The question is not homophobic I don't think. I have had a very limited exposure to gay people. I am sure there are plenty around but not out...not in my group of acquaintences. My impression of gay people was what I saw on TV...and honestly, it wasn't good (to me). BBM was a revelation.

and yes I am aware I am rambling...be glad when the others join me! Garry is waiting to get his book in...

[Jeff Wrangler]

I asked a gay man one time how to express the difference between (forgive me, I don't know how else to describe) the "Will and Grace" crowd and the "BBM" group...
his response is there is none and I was wrong to suggest that there was. That I was showing homophobia....

Bullshit. That was not a homophobic question, and you were not showing homophobia.  And you can quote me on that.

I have no idea who this person was to whom you asked the question, but I'm hard put to imagine a more ignorant response on his part.

The truth is there is no one, monolithic "gay community." There are only many "gay communities." And those communities can be as mutually intolerant of each other as the most self-righteous socially conservative right-wing religious fundamentalist can be of all of us.

[injest]

Bullshit. That was not a homophobic question, and you were not showing homophobia.  And you can quote me on that.

I have no idea who this person was to whom you asked the question, but I'm hard put to imagine a more ignorant response on his part.

The truth is there is no one, monolithic "gay community." There are only many "gay communities." And those communities can be as mutually intolerant of each other as the most self-righteous socially conservative right-wing religious fundamentalist can be of all of us.

Thank you Jeff...

[Jeff Wrangler]

Thank you Jeff...

My pleasure, ma'am ( Jeff comes down off his high horse  , touches hat brim to Jess).

[injest]

My pleasure, ma'am ( Jeff comes down off his high horse  , touches hat brim to Jess).

SUCH a gentleman!!

 

[injest]

Well Garry has his book...now if I can pry him outta the Store to come discuss it!! LOL!!

One of the things he talks about in the book is how gay movements started up and got a few successes..and then stagnated. What worked in the 60s is not working anymore and rather than change they became parodies of themselves...

That the popular conception of what it means to be a homosexual is so out there that a lot of men look at it and say 'there is no way I am gonna be associated with that!'

I can see where he is coming from. There is that group (or groups) of gay men that are just not comfortable with the 'Will and Grace' lifestyle....and those are the men that need to be seen now...

[Jeff Wrangler]

I can see where he is coming from. There is that group (or groups) of gay men that are just not comfortable with the 'Will and Grace' lifestyle....and those are the men that need to be seen now...

Well, there is another book out there, about growing up gay in the small-town Midwest. Of course its title now escapes me  , but the author's name is Will Fellowes (sp?). I read or heard somewhere that Ang Lee gave it to Heath and Jake to read for "homework." I haven't read it--nor have I read Malebranche--but I'm sure people who grow up in that atmosphere can be very different from the Jack Macfarlane character on Will and Grace.

[loneleeb3]

Well, here is my feeling. I haven't read the book but I would like to.
What we see on TV is enough to keep people in the closet!
When I was old enough to know what gay was, the images i saw are not who i was or what i wanted to be.
I mean no offence to people who are like those depicted on TV. We are who we are and that is not who i am.
My image of a gay man was some guy in gold lame' short shorts dancing on a float during the gay pride parade or Jack on will and grace. Had I know that there were masculine gay men I probably would have been able to accept myself and my sexuality sooner. With the internet and BBM I am learning that there are as many types of gay men as there are straight men. Maybe growing up in a small rural town and in a fundementalist family kept me sheltered or just afraid to look. I don't know. But it's comforting to know that I can be gay and still be a man and that there are others out there like me. The effiminate gay men do nothing for me. Again, I mean no offence but thats who I am. If I liked that sort of thing I'd probably be straight. I mean I have been living a straigt life and it has left me empty and broken and soon will have hurt a lot of other people too.
We need more images of masculine gay men to show the world that we are all not drag queens or girly men and thats ok either way.

[injest]

I am at a point in the book where he is defining what he views as masculinity.

He makes the point that women don't have to 'prove' their femininity. That no matter what we do; we are always seen as women.

But that thru history the most common punishment given to homos (HIS word) has been castration. That the modern gay culture encourages men to castrate themselves...to be more like women.

That men in general have to PROVE their manhood...their masculinity..it is not enough to just be a male to be percieved as masculine. Men have to DO. To do something to be considered masculine.

I have been thinking about this. Do women agree with that statement?

that women are considered women no matter what they do?

in my experience this is true. Even the most macho woman is still a woman...but an effeminate man is not considered a man unless he has certain other characteristics...like a high powered job or they hunt or something...

[Jeff Wrangler]

That men in general have to PROVE their manhood...their masculinity..it is not enough to just be a male to be percieved as masculine. Men have to DO. To do something to be considered masculine.

But isn't that pretty much the way it is throughout the animal kingdom? The male has to prove his maleness? It's the bull elk who defeats all comers who gets to breed the cows. ...

[injest]

But isn't that pretty much the way it is throughout the animal kingdom? The male has to prove his maleness? It's the bull elk who defeats all comers who gets to breed the cows. ...

yes, but he is saying that the current 'gay culture' encourages men to be more 'in touch with their feelings' which to him is feminizing and doesn't encourage them to do that.

I am beginning to see his point (he doesn't carry thru on his points as much as I would like) but he was talking about the 50s and 60s; saying that homosexuals were fighting for civil rights using the arguement that Kinsey and others had made that homosexuality was only a variation....a matter of degree. But in the 80s and 90s the gay leadership joined with the feminists and started saying that being gay deserved minority status. Effectively turning them into 'victims' instead of just people.

[Jeff Wrangler]

yes, but he is saying that the current 'gay culture' encourages men to be more 'in touch with their feelings' which to him is feminizing and doesn't encourage them to do that.

Oh, boy, just what we need in this world, more insensitive male clods on the loose like bulls in a china shop. Don't we have more than enough of them already, straight and gay?

I am beginning to see his point (he doesn't carry thru on his points as much as I would like) but he was talking about the 50s and 60s; saying that homosexuals were fighting for civil rights using the arguement that Kinsey and others had made that homosexuality was only a variation....a matter of degree. But in the 80s and 90s the gay leadership joined with the feminists and started saying that being gay deserved minority status. Effectively turning them into 'victims' instead of just people.

Maybe so, but others have commented on the "cult of victimhood" that has developed in this nation since the 1960s. Everyone is a "victim."

This is beginning to sound like where he is going is that there should be no legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation. ...

[injest]

well I am not thru it yet. But I do agree with him about this culture we ALL have these days of everyone being a victim.

and it is interesting Jeff that REAL VICTIMS of crimes are encouraged to call themselves 'survivors'. I believe words have power. I went to incest 'survivors' group a few years ago. Went for a while but I was not happy calling myself a 'survivor'; I hadn't been almost murdered...I had been raped. Why call me a survivor? You don't die from sex....

anyway, I would go and look at these women that had been coming for YEARS, telling the same stories and having the same trouble...and I didn't want to be that person. They got something from being a 'victim'. If they were victims they weren't responsible to change their own lifes. To take care of themselves.

I prefer to think of gay men as men. Just men that would rather have sex with other men. Some macho, some not so macho.

Malebranche is not against antidiscrimination....just against this culture that encourages people to be something they are not. That worships looks over character.

Or at least that is what I am getting from him...

[Jeff Wrangler]

and it is interesting Jeff that REAL VICTIMS of crimes are encouraged to call themselves 'survivors'.

That is a VERY good point! 

Malebranche is not against antidiscrimination....just against this culture that encourages people to be something they are not. That worships looks over character.

Can't disagree with that. But it's an up-hill if not a hopeless battle, I'm afraid.
 

[Shuggy]

Well I have't read the book but I did read the article at the top and his responses to gender studies man Cameron Le Vogt (sp?), and I'm a bit inclined to say a plague on both their houses. There should be room for wimps and flamers and big butch macho guys. I see leather men and bears who are camper and more pathetic than faeries and dragqueens, so I'm not very impressed with his "just guys" stance.

There is still discrimination against us and plenty of hatred, but not - thank the Great Teapot - much left here in NZ. We still have our mind-forged manacles, though, and the memory (and the memory of the memory) of when just admitting to yourself that you loved your own sex was an uphill job. They should both cut each other some slack. There is room for activism, and analysis (but Post-Modernism seems to be finally getting its comeuppance, thank TGT), and just getting on with life too.