How Would You Describe What A Man Is? exploring masculinity in our world

[byrdhouse 0]

Hello everyone!

I am considering using this platform to launch a website to explore what defines a man. This will include physical, spiritual, psychological, emotional, etc. factors that sets a male apart from everything/everyone else. I would appreciate your input and any resources that you could provide. With your permission I may even include them on the website. I was considering on using the poll format but by its nature it has its own restrictions to possible biases.

 

Thank you!

[BoSZ 0]

hmm

 

i'll make it brief couse i dont have much time but i will thing bout it

 

a male is every being having manlike organs and not looking any thing like Beckham (or what ever you spell than *BLEEP* last name)

 

dont take it for a joke

im preety serious bout it

a man has to be a man not some mixture of male and female characterisics with majory of the second one

[DjLuki 0]

man i heard Beckham talk after the win over that last country they beat, it sounded weird, i had never heard him talk that was the first time.On Topic, a man should be straight..the most important thing.. that's all i have to say.

[Togi 0]

..although I dont think I've ever asked someone their "a/s/l", since it sounds lame.. reading your replies, the first thing that came to my mind is, "Are these guys themselves, saying this, or girls? ..wait, how old are these people anyway? o.o;"BoS says a man has to have 'manly' features, and Luki says men have to be straight. Maybe because I'm a girl, or maybe despite that.. those answers (no offence, lil dudes) kinda give me the creeps XD;I think it'd be hard to define a man.. because all the men (and boys ;p) in my life seem like pretty different people to me. The only thing they all have in common is probably.. their male sex organs. But then, I haven't exactly checked to make sure they all have them, so... o.o;

[stephanie 0]

that is a very hard question. i don't really know how to answer. i guess a man is an animal whith a small and full of crap brain who only thinks in his own satisfation(sex,sleep,etc), and competition (at work and with his friends always trying to prove to be the best). and also they can't do or think in 2 things at the same time and cen't live without a woman ( their mother or girlfrind or wife) behind them because they easily get lost in life when alone. phisicaly they have lots of diferent formats and the majority are bad looking types.but,who can live without them?

[RockinTheCasbah 0]

Describing a man in a physical way is pretty easy...just put on the right parts, give him the right traits, and well...bam. You got yourself a man. But as for personality, thats totally different. I suppose you could label them into some basic groupes, boys, men, and gentle men. Everyones take on how to define those groups are different I suppose.The way I would define them would be boys are the less mature, basically what youd expect to find in an elementry school...just...a boy. Or I guess you could take some guy who lived only for sex, sleep, food, and sometimes drugs to be a boy. Men are more mature..maybe the more experienced, but they could live for the same things as a boy. Then theres Gentlemen. Polite, looking to settle down (not nessasarily), someone who isnt always thinking about sex. It's actually kind of hard to explain.

[peo 0]

I personally beleive that there is no difference between a man and a woman. Our souls are all the same. Through religion i discovered that i was a female in my last life. Today i am a male, only the organs are different , however, Im homosexual. And i believe that souls only seek for another - Souls will never change on this fact. I will always like Male souls and this is a fact.You might not believe it , however, Straight people today are Homoesexual people in the after life.

[communitykat 0]

I personally beleive that there is no difference between a man and a woman. Our souls are all the same. Through religion i discovered that i was a female in my last life. Today i am a male, only the organs are different , however, Im homosexual. And i believe that souls only seek for another - Souls will never change on this fact. I will always like Male souls and this is a fact.
You might not believe it , however, Straight people today are Homoesexual people in the after life.

I have heard of legend that says...
during the "point of transcendence" when all magnetism is nill and a high frequency is nigh(hee hee) in order to pass through one must have ones spirit in control and accept becoming ones opposite. But how does sexuality fit in here? Does this mean that you will be straight in the next life, and what religious study are you undertaking if I can ask.

Also, even if you do have a womans soul, do you not have some needs of a man, such as feeling masterful and strong? I don't know because I am a woman, but it seems to me that men who do not have some sense of feeling masterful and strong have self-esteem problems. This could be from society, but really a man's hormones kind of demand a man to have masterful control. To control sexual urges and protect smaller creatures. (I really am making myself laugh, but deep down I think men feel this). I think about it a lot because I think women are losing knowledge about how to treat a man respectfully and properly. Of course men would never start rioting in the streets because women started disrespecting them, but society loses when men feel unimportant and unwanted. WE REALLY NEED YOU GUYS TO BE STRONG AND KNOW HOW TO HAVE MASTERFUL CONTROL!! Man, I love men.

[Yratorm, LightMage 0]

that is a very hard question. i don't really know how to answer. i guess a man is an animal whith a small and full of crap brain who only thinks in his own satisfation(sex,sleep,etc), and competition (at work and with his friends always trying to prove to be the best). and also they can't do or think in 2 things at the same time and cen't live without a woman ( their mother or girlfrind or wife) behind them because they easily get lost in life when alone. phisicaly they have lots of diferent formats and the majority are bad looking types.

but,who can live without them?

Fascinating. Is this what you really think men are like? What gave you the idea men can't do two things at one time? Or can't live without a woman? Or only think in terms of their own satisfaction and competition?

 

If a man said about women what you have said here about men, the whole world would jump on him and call him sexist. So I'll do the honors. You are sexist.

 

__________________________________

Now, to the topic at hand - as to what makes a man, I'd say that the question is both simple and complex. I don't draw an intellectual distinction between male and female, simply I've got some brilliant male friends and some brilliant female friends, and if you put the physical aspect aside, their minds work on the same level, and I respect both equally, as HUMAN.

 

Human.

 

So, what makes a man are his physical aspect and sexual apparatus. That is the simple answer.

 

 

On the hand, what makes us HUMAN is something far greater, and far more complex - it is our minds, and the ability to strive, to dream, to look up at the stars in wonder, and smile in the face of fortune or disaster, to write books and poetry, to struggle to develop a science that wrests secrets from the very universe itself, to try our best to look beyond the horizon.

 

To try to be all that we are, and to try to become all that we can be.

 

To be human is to be intelligent enough to dream and brave enough to struggle to realize those dreams.

 

And this is what I think it means to be human. And I also think that each human has a different view of the matter Each human must decide for himself or herself what it means to be human. And so each human is in this strange, little, wonderful, special way - unique. And this is also what it means to be human

 

What does tomorrow hold for humanity? Much depends on what humans are - but much ALSO depends on what they shall DECIDE themselves to be. And each man, each woman, must eventually decide that for THEMSELVES.

Edited February 12, 2007 by Yratorm, LightMage (see edit history)

[JasperIk 0]

Its actually hard to describe what is a man. In most cases it is anyone who has the male organs. But to go deeper, it becomes harder. Especially when you get into transsexual issues. So i guess it depends on the persons soul/heart. I was born male, i have male organs and aside from homosexual thoughts i have typical male thoughts (just i think of guys instead of girls)- but others who were born male and even still have male organs may identify themselves as female (regardless of thoughts of men or women...because that really just doesn't make a persons gender). And some people born female maybe identify themselves as male. It seems like such an easy question but it really isn't. As for masculine thoughts... its hard to say there, because what is a normal male thought?

[shadowx 0]

a man should be straight..the most important thing.. that's all i have to say.

Actually by my definition of a real man you would be one. I believe a male is one who has the male anatomy but a man is the following:

He will stand up for what he believes in
he will stand up for WHO he believes in, be that wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/pet cat
He will take a strike for those he loves.
When knocked down he will rise again stronger than before and smash his enemy to pieces, of course this can be metaphorical or literal.
He must believe in himself
He wont start an argument/fight etc he will end it.
He will only fight for something he truly believes in.
and the one at which the quoted poster seems to lack: he must accept others for who they are

most of them kind of stem to how a man would be in the age of castles and such and also the moral things i think a man can have. Any animal can be a male provided it has the right anatomy but only some humans can be a true man.

Well there you go...for the record i mean no offence to the quoted posted but i believe their comment was quite offensive to anyone who is homosexual or bisexual.

[Yratorm, LightMage 0]

Ah well, I suppose we must fall back on Kipling for an answer, hehe ...

 

The poem 'If' by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you.. are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you ..but make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting; or being lied about, don't deal in lies;

Or being hated, don't give way to hating.. and yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

 

If you can dream, and not make dreams your master; If you can think, and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster.. ..and treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken ..twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools;

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken; and stoop down and build 'em up again with worn-out tools..

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings; and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss;

And lose, and start again at your beginnings, and never breath one word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew.. to serve your turn long after they are gone;

And so hold on when there is nothing in you ..except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue; ..Or walk with kings, nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none.. too much.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute ..with sixty seconds' worth of distance run..

Yours is this world and all that's in it, And.. which is more.. you'll be a Man, my son!

It's pretty close to the codes by which I live.

 

But I still think that this poem could just as well apply as a code of conduct for a woman as for a man. I really don't believe in gender differences where intelligence and strength of character and will and determination are concerned - in these areas I believe men and women are equals, are the same.

 

Hmm, talking about courage/strength of character, etc. that reminds me.. I had an aunt (not really an aunt, a distant relative) in afghanistan - one day nine men tried to rape her. Tried. They picked the wrong woman by a long shot. She coldly killed seven of them with a Kalashinikov semi-automatic rifle. And she left two alive so that they could tell of it. See what I mean about gender differences not being as important as character/courage/will/intelligence, or the codes by which we live? Be we male or female.

 

What makes a man a man is the same thing that makes a woman a woman: Strength of character. Intelligence. Will. Ability. And of course, perhaps most important of all.. one's dreams.