In response to a question from drbitch about my last post.

[randomness]

One example is the man who has figured out that the "sensitive New Age guy" is attractive to women. As a result he is endlessly willing to listen to your problems sympathetically. On the other hand, he sticks to the old male stereotype of being a "strong, silent type" because he is entirely unwilling or unable to share his own emotions with you.

cme did share notes from a panel discussion on men and femininity whose URL is unfortunately in a chat log on a machine several hundred miles away. That discussion did cover a lot of the difficulties men face in letting down their guard with regard to feelings. I want to be clear that I'm neither minimizing how much resistance men encounter in doing this nor asserting that men are acting out of dubious motives when they behave this way.

(drbitch, I know I covered this in private email in less detail but I thought it might be worth sharing this part of the conversation in my blog.)

Comments

Re: sensitive, caring, and emotionally what?

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I suspect that being recently Wisconned makes everything look even more than usually meta. Ever considered going? Madison has great food

I did think about it, and then there was the whole kerfuffle over the GoH. That was enough to tip me back because I was pretty much on the fence about going that far anyway.

To be honest, I'm no longer much of a fan if I ever was one. Back in the day when there was an actual NECorridor con circuit it was a fun way to see people I knew all along that string of cities, but as we got older most of us drifted away. Since I was there to see people--I rarely went to programming--after the people I wanted to see went away, I did too.

would be happy to expound further elsewhere

Sure, that's fair.