After reading Dan’s recent post, I bought me a copy of Robert Jensen’s Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity. I’m still in the first few pages, but I’m excited, hoping this book may challenge and inspire me. I was already getting geared up already to write about my own mysandry. I noticed it flaring up when I found, in conversation with Dan after reading a recent post of his, I had absolutely no sympathy for men’s advocacy groups and their defense of the beaten down [white] man, while Dan had a much more even-handed take.
I simply do not like or trust men as easily as women, nor do I empathize with their/our plight. I am the product of my lefty feminist upbringing: men have oppressed, period. White men especially. So, for this brief period in American history, if a white man loses a job to a "lesser qualified" woman of color, I’m really okay with it. If guys complain that their wives are frigid bitches, I assume that anyone married to someone who’d use the term "frigid bitch" is bound to get turned off. You get the idea.
Now along comes Jensen and makes, at least in his first few pages, an interesting argument about men and masculinity, and posits no less than a revolution. He also makes me think that it’s not necessarily men I inherently distrust and dislike in comparison to women, it’s masculinity! He begins by stating the obvious, that men have long been defined as men based on, in large part, "the ability to supress emotional reactions and channel that energy into controlling situations and establishing dominance."
But from there he makes a leap I haven’t read before:
One response to this toxic masculinity has been to attempt to redefine what it means to be a man, to craft a kinder-and-gentler masculinity that might pose less of a threat to women and children and be more livable for men. But such a step is inadequate; our goal should not be to reshape masculinity but to eliminate it. The goal is liberation from the masculinity trap.
And that’s just the introduction. I especially look forward to his discussion of pornography. One chapter in particular I’m sure will pose a challenge to my own way of thinking (that fantasy is fantasy and is almost by necessity founded on taboo for most people). The chapter is titled "We Are What We Masturbate To." Gosh, I hope not.
I’m guessing that in the end, Jensen’s going to turn out to be too much of an idealist/idealogue for realist/cynic me, but we shall see.
My semester ends this week and I’ll surely be posting more between now and Jesus’ birthday on Jensen’s book and on some Dworkin speeches I’ve been listening to online . Here’s hoping you’ll join me.
