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The Miseducation of the American Boy

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AwkwardlySet said:
I am mostly amused by the use of The Iliad as a credible source of the customs of the time.
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Particularly given the confusion about when precisely "the time" was. :)

Still, I think the example stands. There have been plenty examples of "manly men" in literature who weren't afraid to cry. Unfortunately, nowadays I don't think that literature is where people look for their role models.
 
RejectReality said:
Yeah. With less adult supervision, increased mobility, and access to drugs and alcohol, most of them get even worse.
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You seem to be confusing what [some] boys do with my recommendations for an alternative approach that would, IMO, be more successful.

Em
 
StillStunned said:
Particularly given the confusion about when precisely "the time" was. :)

Still, I think the example stands. There have been plenty examples of "manly men" in literature who weren't afraid to cry. Unfortunately, nowadays I don't think that literature is where people look for their role models.
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"In Literature" - that's the whole point. I don't care if men cried or not, but poets are by default prone to romanticize something, so they are hardly reliable in that sense. I mean, there is no real consensus about the history of the last 20-30 years or so, and it is the age of mass media, internet, and satellite communications, so are we really going to assume something happened just because Homer said so?
History is a very... fluid thing, to put it mildly ;)
 
AwkwardlySet said:
just because Homer said so
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Not just Homer. Like I said, there are plenty of examples in literature. Off the top of my head, from popular literature that had a huge impact on a generation: Sturm Brightblade in Dragonlance Chronicles. From a generation later, Harry Potter, if I remember rightly.
 
AwkwardlySet said:
"In Literature" - that's the whole point. I don't care if men cried or not, but poets are by default prone to romanticize something, so they are hardly reliable in that sense. I mean, there is no real consensus about the history of the last 20-30 years or so, and it is the age of mass media, internet, and satellite communications, so are we really going to assume something happened just because Homer said so?
History is a very... fluid thing, to put it mildly ;)
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Homer was telling stories designed to illustrate the mores of the time during which he was selling his tales. He wasn’t even pretending to be historically truthful. Nobody here is saying “it happened because he said it did;” we’re saying his words reflected attitudes of the time, otherwise he’s unlikely to have added them to the legends he was discussing.
 
I remember hearing something Michael Lewis said (before he went nuts over FTX and lost all subjectivity) and that was that the percentage of the US population who were 6ft and over, male and white was less than 10% (and that figure would probably be far worse now) but over 50% of CEO’s were…

White
Male
And over 6ft tall.

The culture itself values and promotes things which is arguably why the US (to the rest of the world has such poor leadership and leadership candidates)…and that’s me saying that from the U.K.

😳😳😳
 
Bramblethorn said:
Given some of our previous interactions, this is kind of hilarious.



Because sometimes I make the mistake of assuming I'm having an amicable conversation with room for a tiny speck of facetious humour. Don't worry, won't happen again.



Which is why I then posted a non-funeral example.



You're right, I should have included some kind of disclaimer along the lines of "I'm not by any means suggesting that the ancient Greek model of masculinity was a healthy one".

...oh, wait, I did.
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Sweetie, just take the L.
You put your foot in your mouth, people make mistakes just move on.
 
Maybe with more in common with this place…

tumblr_c56fe2bace2a1174adc6110f55304463_a85cec46_500_0c5ae821208ec9e764a6b43c153924ab588927d4.gif
 
I just realized that even my male telepathic space octopuses cry 🤣.

—

I spoke more with sadness and incomprehension than anger. The anger had gone. He'd behaved like a dumb fuck, then he was a guy after all.

"Is it OK to reply to your thoughts?"

I nodded.

"Listen. I've screwed up so many times. My people may have unlocked the secrets of the Universe, but -- just like your people -- not everyone is a great thinker. I can be pretty stupid. In my defense, the millennia I spent floating in space by myself didn't exactly hone my intellect. I've only begun to feel a bit more like myself since I met you."

I realized he was crying. Tears rolled down each side of his large head.

— Determination
 
I think some of my male characters have cried? I dunno?

I'd definitely do it if it was appropriate to the character, but I tend not to write "heavy" stories. Come to think of it, I doubt many of my female characters would cry much, either.
 
Voboy said:
I think some of my male characters have cried? I dunno?
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I frequently get accused of writing unrealistic male characters as they cry too easily.
Voboy said:
I'd definitely do it if it was appropriate to the character, but I tend not to write "heavy" stories. Come to think of it, I doubt many of my female characters would cry much, either.
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My FMCs cry as well - and my octopuses (as above).

Em
 
EmilyMiller said:
I frequently get accused of writing unrealistic male characters as they cry too easily.

My FMCs cry as well - and my octopuses (as above).

Em
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Yeah. I don't cry, and nobody in my family really does either, so I wouldn't say it's a default reaction for the people I write about either.

There are few tears in my life, whether personally or among the people I hang out with.
 
EmilyMiller said:
I just realized that even my male telepathic space octopuses cry 🤣.

—

I spoke more with sadness and incomprehension than anger. The anger had gone. He'd behaved like a dumb fuck, then he was a guy after all.

"Is it OK to reply to your thoughts?"

I nodded.

"Listen. I've screwed up so many times. My people may have unlocked the secrets of the Universe, but -- just like your people -- not everyone is a great thinker. I can be pretty stupid. In my defense, the millennia I spent floating in space by myself didn't exactly hone my intellect. I've only begun to feel a bit more like myself since I met you."

I realized he was crying. Tears rolled down each side of his large head.

— Determination
Click to expand...
Being totally self-indulgent, but was always kinda proud of this paragraph (same story, same section):

—

I reflected that perhaps it wasn't that easy being a space octopus. Maybe I could help him with that. He'd done things he had no right to do, but at least no one had been hurt, the opposite if anything. It was hard to argue that his three hearts hadn't been in the right place. Even if his brain had clearly taken a vacation.

Em
 
EmilyMiller said:
I frequently get accused of writing unrealistic male characters as they cry too easily.

My FMCs cry as well - and my octopuses (as above).

Em
Click to expand...
No-one makes fun when an octopus cries. They can wipe their eyes, blow their nose and still punch you in the face six times.
 
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