Seriously- you can get young men to do a lot more crazy shit with the promise of being surrounded by other young men than the promise of being surrounded by women. Look at the military and fraternities. Communities and friendship are obviously as or more important than sex to men this age.
When one variable has a high value, that doesn't necessarily prove that other variables have lower values. If there were a mutually exclusive choice, if the cost of joining a fraternity was giving up sex and breaking up with my sweetie, then at age 19, I would not have joined my fraternity....
...and when men join an all-male military, how many of them chose that _in preference_ to an equivalent option which surrounded them with women? What exactly are those options?
College and most retail jobs.
Most men wont admit it: the feeling of belonging is no less important to us as adults than when we were growing up. Having a sense of community is very fullfilling and easy to manipulate if people are feeling alone and lost. The forces of patriarchal capitalism impose isolation as much as possible
Indeed. Patriarchal capitalism doesn't want us growing vegetables in our back yard, nor creating community without its involvement. Patriarchal capitalism wants to charge fees for Premium Prestige Membership, whether at the local bowling league, or on an airline, or on a dating app.
Exactly. These institutions exploit something that can actually be quite beautiful when used towards positive ends. Young men needing to belong to each other is how we got the Beatles and sports.
I hate it so much! Ive had some deep and meaningful friendships with groups of both men and women thanks to music and nerdy stuff and it has always been such a lovely and positive thing. I am not religious by any means, but it is like these institutions are spitting on something holy and sacred
YES. I don’t think you’re wrong about it being holy- there are so many religious traditions based around male kinship and it makes sense as an instinct that would help a group survive. In many ways nerd culture can be very subversive in the way it can encourage healthy male friendships.
Absolutely! I LOVE how nerd culture can bring people together. There are certainly a lot of toxic men who engage in nerdy stuff, but ive personally seen a few men stop engaging with incel/podcastbro content when they realized that real life doesnt work that way. Only works if they actually go out
And meet with other people though. I think that ties back to the isolation thing. It is VERY difficult to manipulate people away from a strong community, but conversely very easy to manipulate them into a toxic one if they are lonely
I am profoundly grateful for all of the nerds who have taken care of my nerd brother over the years.
Me too 😊