Andrew Tate, a social media influencer and the so-called “king of toxic masculinity,” kicked off 2023 by getting arrested in Romania for allegations of human trafficking, immediately after getting into an online tussle with Greta Thunberg over car emissions (and getting bodied by Thunberg). While Tate himself is an interesting microcosm of Internet culture, what I personally find more interesting is the associated discussions surrounding the manosphere, and left-wing masculinity, or lack thereof.
"Personally, I think that we on the left should actively work on redefinining American masculinity for a new generation, because if we don’t, the right-wing will co-opt masculinity, and they’ll unceremoniously make things worse for everybody that isn’t a straight, white man."
--- It will make it worse for men in general because women will simply refuse to have anything to do with them. Already Gen Z women are saying no to dating and sex. Why do you think conservatives are whining about "the male loneliness epidemic"? And "the sexless generation"? Which is a funny twist considering that for decades prior we had to hear conservatives whine about "out of wedlock birth rate" and "teen pregnancies". Now that that teen pregnancies and out of wedlock birth rates are going steadily down, down, down, you would think they would be happy that unmarried young people are not having as much sex as they used to and when they do, are practicing safe sex. But no, somehow it's now a national crisis.
So let them keep passing their backwards draconian laws. They will witness massive population decline as a result.
You make some strong points, and this is a needed long-form contribution to the Twitter masculinity discourse, which can at times get exhausting. But I feel like you actually agree with Sid here, who in my reading at least argues that the Left, not women specifically, need to advocate for new forms of mainstreamed masculinity rather than accepting the right-wing framing.
"Personally, I think that we on the left should actively work on redefinining American masculinity for a new generation, because if we don’t, the right-wing will co-opt masculinity, and they’ll unceremoniously make things worse for everybody that isn’t a straight, white man."
--- It will make it worse for men in general because women will simply refuse to have anything to do with them. Already Gen Z women are saying no to dating and sex. Why do you think conservatives are whining about "the male loneliness epidemic"? And "the sexless generation"? Which is a funny twist considering that for decades prior we had to hear conservatives whine about "out of wedlock birth rate" and "teen pregnancies". Now that that teen pregnancies and out of wedlock birth rates are going steadily down, down, down, you would think they would be happy that unmarried young people are not having as much sex as they used to and when they do, are practicing safe sex. But no, somehow it's now a national crisis.
So let them keep passing their backwards draconian laws. They will witness massive population decline as a result.
You make some strong points, and this is a needed long-form contribution to the Twitter masculinity discourse, which can at times get exhausting. But I feel like you actually agree with Sid here, who in my reading at least argues that the Left, not women specifically, need to advocate for new forms of mainstreamed masculinity rather than accepting the right-wing framing.