I saw your post about male intimacy and whatnot, and it made me want to share.
I don't know if it is gendered, but I assume it is (it could just be me) but something that makes that experience so much more oppressive is how American men are raised to handle emotion. From the very beginning you are shown that the worst thing a man can be is weak, and that emotions are weakness. So, without even realizing it, you strangle your emotions relentlessly, throttling your 'weak' responses and thoughts, until one day it doesn't bother you anymore. And then, once you realize that doing that was unhealthy, you find that the reason it stopped bothering you is that the process is so subconscious now that you don't know what you are feeling anymore. Unless it is a societally approved emotion like rage or joy (how horrid that rage fits in here) you just can't tap into how you feel. You have reactions and then later you say, "Oh, I think I acted that way because I was sad."
I'm putting this in on anon because I don't have the courage to be seen, as a man, putting this forward in my own voice. It's weak. I feel ashamed even typing this, but something is pushing me forward. And worst, I consider myself well-adjusted compared to lots of my male peers. This is a tragedy that we have been conditioned to perpetrate against ourselves.
Thanks for your post. It kindled something in me that feels very important. I wish you the best on your journey.
I've only just begun to experience what it's like to be perceived as male, because I hormonally transitioned during the pandemic.
But for what it's worth, maybe I can try to provide some context for what it is you guys are going through.
(Disclaimer: I'm not a psychologist.)
So, I'll start by pointing out this terrifying thing: Every last ask given to me by cis men (which are many!) describes male conditioning the same way my followers who grew up in religious cults describe their religious brainwashing.
Take a moment to swap "being weak" with "sinning," the word "man" with the word "Christian," and "emotions" with the word "doubt," and you will have something extremely close to the same thing.
The same way cults enact undue influence on their followers, it seems like American culture enacts undue influence on men.
I'm also someone who has complex lifelong traumas and was successfully treated for them, so I can tell you that I intimately know the feeling of:
"I want to act on this authentic impulse, but I can't seem to make myself do that because I'm fucking terrified the rejection will be too much to handle."
This is what my EMDR therapist described as "programming and conditioning." This is something that's learned by a very deep part of the brain, one that controls our basic survival. This part always overrides our higher thinking because it's evolutionarily designed to do so, for our protection and survival. Even if we want to act differently, we can't because of how our brains work.
But I'm telling you this here and now, as a man who grew up as a woman—this fear of weakness you have looks more like a programmed thing than a masculinity thing. Because I actually feel WAY more comfortable expressing my softer and shyer side now that I'm on T and presenting masculine.
Also, the compulsion to shove down your emotions or do things that "fight against the weakness," is behavior that looks striking similar to the way cult-members use affirmations or certain activities to self-indoctrinate. Self-indoctrination soothes the brain and stops it from doubting or questioning the views of the cult.
(Come to think of it, shoving things down is also how the Boomer generation goes about ignoring their traumas, as if that somehow doesn't come out sideways in every interaction they have.)
I guess the point I'm trying to make is this:
It's not that this just "sucks." This is literally actually trauma.
I can't even begin to describe to people the awful, gaping, howling, wordless wound that's inflicted by lifelong, early-childhood trauma. It is a yawning and cavernous need that sits at the very bottom of your soul. It feels like you're always mourning the loss of someone you love, but you don't even know who. And nothing you do ever seems to remotely reach it, let alone give it what it's crying out for.
Good gods, it took me months and months of extremely difficult and specialized therapy to uncover that starving part of myself. Sure, I am never able to change the fact I had been so hurt—but I did finally get to feed that starving part of myself.
What I'm saying is, the healing is possible and the affects of the wound can be nullified.
I think the more people destigmatize treating mental health, the more awareness and availability there will be for these kinds of things.
I genuinely want everyone who's AMAB to know that struggling with this kind of thing is brutally hard, is NOT a sign of weakness, and IS something you can justify treating as trauma, rather than a moral failing.
People want to be intimate with people and that's simply just a human thing, not a gender thing.
