Have you noticed?

I also see questions from men about whether (ahem) size is an issue. And there was a gentleman that got rather astonishingly emotional over the topic of baldness.

I think the body image idea gets jammed down women’s throats from a fairly young age by all types of media. And all the pagents are mostly for girls and women. And the concept carries through all aspects of society. Syz called me personally on it one time. (And lay off my hair).

Let’s just say I’ve never seen a No Fat Men bumper sticker on the back of anyone’s car. I’ve also never seen silhouettes of largely endowed (or otherwise) naked men on mudflaps of trucks, nor have I seen swimsuit competitions or beauty pageants for men. Men with big noses generally don’t get ridiculed, men with grey hair are considered to be distinguished, women with gray hair or a few extra pounds or some wrinkles are considered old. Men that are 30 lbs. overweight don’t generally have people screaming “fatty” or “whale” or “cow” at them, at least not as much as females do. Woman generally do not yell out catcalls at men on the street drawing attention to their sexual parts or their weight or their juiciness or lack thereof. Most women don’t have erotic fantasies about underage boys, men that do have fantasies about underaged females are not usually considered to be disgusting perverts if they have a sexual attraction for a 16 year old girl, whereas women are considered disgusting perverts. Boys do not get lectured by their parents about acting or dressing lady-like. Males can sit in a chair with their legs all sprawled out and nobody considers them to be acting slutty, “naughty” magazines with pictures of nude men and women, are mostly ogled by men, I was horrified recently to find out that young women are shaving their pubic areas in greater numbers these days due to porn (in the first place) and fashion magazines (in the second place, due to the porn movies) so grown women are made to feel inferior if they don’t look like pre-pubescents etc. etc. etc.

I do think that some, but probably not most, men have some insecurities about their bodies, but I also think that most, not just a few, women have lots of them. I think men’s biggest insecurites are about the size of their member (which most women don’t really care about, as long as he knows how to use it and his other appendages) and baldness, which is kind of in fashion now, so it’s not that big of a deal. Baldness, or thinning hair on a woman, though, is not considered sexy or fashionable. Women’s fashion magazines suggest that a female is not sexy unless she crams her ugly step sister sized foot into a teeny-tiny pointed Cinderella sized shoe with 5 inch heels, something a man would never do, because it’s ridiculous and unhealthy for anyone’s feet.

Most of what women have to live up to to be considered sexy and relevant in today’s society are not practical or even realistic.

@Adirondackwannabe I did?

It is not a new revelatuion that society imposes more extreme and unrealistic standards about womens conduct and appearance than it does about men. The outcome is then easy to understand.

@Kardamom is right on the money. Women are inundated by how their body “should” look from a young age and deal with the “ideal” female image constantly. It’s not surprising so many women feel like their bodies are inferior all the time.

I’m a guy who has put on 5 pounds in the last year, and it does bother me. However, no one would ever call me fat since I have a 32 inch waist and that is considered slim for a guy. I don’t have to worry about other people looking down on me because of a couple extra pounds like women do. I wouldn’t ask a question on here about what to do because I know that losing that little bit of weight is something I would be doing for me, and not because I would feel pressured to by society like women have to deal with.

I think we have a society driven on insecurties, maybe its to benefit us or its for a good a reason, but I believe it all starts back to where you were raised. Low class, middle class, rich, poor. We base everything on material things, we look on the outside to see what its worth. From “material girl” to “I’m a slave 4 U”. The media, Hollywood, to the little city at the edge of town all exude toxic information to us about the way we should look, live, act and even talk. We need a reason to live so I also believe that this has become our purpose otherwise if we the people are not constantly striving to make anything look better inside and out including ourselves, what is this life all for?
That is really the only reason I can come up with.

Believe me, I would love to be the first one to drop my bipolar pills run naked through the streets in a manic state and love myself for it and say fuck you to the rest of society that doesnt want me to be who I am really supposed to be.

I think that might be equivalent to how an overweight person or a girl out of place wants to just feel accepted.

Men definitely have body issues, and they aren’t all around penis size. They are around body size and bicep size and sixpack size, etc. Men just get compared on a lot of other things, like brain size and size of their wallet and car and house, etc. Men are success objects, the same as women are sex objects.

Women don’t know much about this because they don’t experience it (not being men) and because they tend to focus on their own issues. This all makes sense. We all focus on what we know. It’s harder to empathize with things outside of our own experience. So if you don’t know something, it’s as if it doesn’t exist.

Men tend to complain less because it is unmanly. We don’t talk about our problems because we’ll get made fun of. We’ll be accused of being like women. Although women don’t like complainers, either.

As a result, I don’t think male pains are seen, nor acknowledged much, least of all by men. It is not manly to have problems, so we don’t talk about them. We don’t talk, period. This drives women nuts, because they think they want to hear about our emotions, but I suspect that if we did speak about them, women would tell us to shut up and act like men, anyway.

So we ogle women, instead. Make dirty comments. Dream of sex with supermodels, and play our part in making women feel inferior, while secretly carrying our own deep inferiorities. We hide the inferiorities and act like we’re king of the world, and somehow, women believe it most of the time. And that little fact really messes us up.

^^ Wow! That was really profound @wundayatta. I think you really hit it and gave the reasons why it is the way it is.

@wundayatta Gotts second @Kardamom on this one. There’s nothing left for me to say.

@syz I knew there had to be something out there. Thanks for reminding me.

@Adirondackwannabe Are you saying we should have men pageants… Totally!

@Kardamom Love it. The Every Woman has spoken and from a place of knowing. Thanks for sharing.

@syz and @Adirondackwannabe Sometimes simple truths or being called out on something are all we need. Funny how it stays with the receiver of the comment but rarely the speaker. In this case it seems positive.

@Dr_Lawrence I know it must seem like I am beating a dead horse but I find it impossible to understand a point of view where there is no pressure, so I think there must be. And I wanted to know if there was a secret to dealing with it or if it was just a repressed.

@amujinx Thank you for bringing a personal note into this. It adds depth.

@nofurbelowsbatgirl Heck that sounds pretty fun. Are you sure we can’t do that?in the summer Seriously though the self improvement track seems way over rated, I guess I have admitted I want to be the best person I can be at some point.. But since then I found out that it is important not to lose, in my case myself, in the process.

@wundayatta Perfect! Thank you for being so open. I suppose that I should have known that but you said it so well and it is nice to have a male confirm it.

@ETpro Except maybe what would a society be without pressure? A vacuum? But then why does it seem so unhealthy, has it just taken that turn or is there a personal balance? Maybe even a societal balance, can we redirect the pressure in other more productive ways? Because if you look at the media et al the world seems sick. Psychologically. It needs healthy individuals and groups a movement. But a movement to what?

Sometimes I wonder if I can say just about anything I want about men since most men won’t speak up about any sort of dicy issue. I believe what I say, but I could be full of shit. I will say this is nothing I didn’t learn 38 years ago in college. Or maybe even earlier. It’s not like any of this stuff should be a surprise. But I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same. The lessons of the sixties and seventies seem to need to be relearned today.

I’m glad you think what I wrote was profound, @Kardamom and @ETpro. I find that odd, of course. Partly self-image stuff (who me? Profound?). But partly because it is stuff that isn’t news to me. Not by a long shot. What does it mean that people I respect act like it is something unusual?

I think men should be reflective and speak up about weakness. I think that if we acknowledge our self-image challenges, we can grow past them and find a more enduring strength.

@rosehips Lets start a parade! A bipolar streaking parade! Lets do it the day before gay pride! Or even on the day of…heck we could have a gay pride bipolar streaking parade…do you think the gays might be offended? Maybe we should do it an hour before, just so we don’t take away their rights….ugh why cant we all just be equal.

This comes to mind.

There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas

The trouble with the maples
(And they’re quite convinced they’re right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light
But the oaks can’t help their feelings
If they like the way they’re made
And they wonder why the maples
Can’t be happy in their shade

There is trouble in the forest
And the creatures all have fled
As the maples scream ‘Oppression!’
And the oaks just shake their heads

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
‘The oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light’
Now there’s no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe and saw
~The Trees, By: Rush~

Women worry about body issues as it applies to men. Men worry about checkbook issues as it applies to women.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Nothing new here people. Fluther merely reflects the eternal truth of existence.

@wundayatta Give a little credit to the inquirer or observer of your thoughts. If you said something patently false there would be a point where believability vanished. But by all means if it forces men to speak up for themselves and correct the lens in which they are portrayed it might be worth it. An example: A couple both have an addiction, one sees the problems and takes action AA and Al Anon but the other refuses to acknowledge the problem. However they both choose to stay together. Is anything accomplished, a better question; could more be accomplished?

So I agree wholeheartedly with your last statement.

@nofurbelowsbatgirl That was my favorite song on Rock Band. I’m all for it!

@josie Change takes place slowly and may take generations or longer but it does eventually happen. There will always be a down side so there will always be conflict but conflict fuels change and change prevents stagnation and causes growth. There is always room for growth. The truism “nothing is new under the sun” recently reincarnated by you as: Nothing new here people. Fluther merely reflects the eternal truth of existence. is somewhat of a cop out in my perspective. While generally true it is a gross oversimplification.

I’m late to the party. I agree with @Kardamom and @wundayatta. Men aren’t supposed to have problems, so they go cry in the car. Or, they sublimate their insecurity by buying lots of shit.

Women are taught that worrying about their appearance is how to be feminine, and capitalism is only too happy to oblige. The roots go back much further, of course, but this topic always makes me think of Émile Zola’s Au bonheur des dammes which was about the new phenomenon of department stores, and how female consumers had to be trained to feel insufficient and dazzled to want to buy things to “improve” themselves.

In either case, heterosexcapitalism sucks.