The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Enjoying Buzzword-Free Masculinity

Posted on | December 3, 2014 | 31 Comments

by Smitty

I’m old enough to remember when duty, honor, and manhood went both without saying and without marketing buzzwords:


For a lumbersexual definition, dive into this settling pond.

For anybody ambiguous on the point of manhood, take a four-day sabbatical, pray and read one Gospel a day. You’ll not regret the time investment.

Category: Culture

Comments

31 Responses to “Enjoying Buzzword-Free Masculinity”

  1. PineBaroness
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 9:29 am

    Ok so what’s the difference between a spornosexual, a metrosexual and the disco guys of Saturday Night Fever? Or even the snuff sniffing dandies of the 19th century?

  2. Gunga
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 9:29 am

    Your last paragraph contains the best all-around-advice-fit-for-nearly-every-situation I’ve ever seen in print. Insert problem X, then “take a four-day sabbatical, pray and read one Gospel a day. You’ll not regret the time investment.”

  3. Adobe_Walls
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 9:35 am

    Very little.

  4. Adobe_Walls
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 9:38 am

    Unfathomable that growing a beard makes one a separate gender identity. As for me, I’m just a guy with a beard.

  5. Bob Belvedere
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 9:47 am

    Same here, but perhaps these ‘I’m a lumberjack[off] and I’m okay’ types should be separated from us gender-wise for our own reputations.

  6. JackAfter6
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 9:47 am

    There’s a certain kind of guy who thinks he’s admired my men and lusted after by women. There’s a song about him.

  7. Bob Belvedere
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 9:57 am

    That many people born as males have come to be Metrosexual or Spornosexual is victory for the Homosexual Male Subculture.

    All of the attributes of the two, Metro and Sporno, were first believed in and practiced by gay men.

  8. K-Bob
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 11:27 am

    I thought it was a misspelling of sporran.

    I don’t get the critique about the shorts though. First of all, I thought the metros or whatever they have devolved to were all about ending body hair. So what’s with the gross out over exposing “hairy” (but more likely with metros, depilated) thighs? I think someone got their memes mixed up.

    Second of all, a lot of us Rodney Dangerfield types wear shorts year round. It’s not a “look.” it’s more of an “FU I’m Finally Comfortable” thing.

  9. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 11:43 am

    Isn’t masculinity a bad word?

  10. Dana
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 11:49 am

    Mr Belvedere wrote:

    All of the attributes of the two, Metro and Sporno, were first believed in and practiced by gay men males.

    FTFY

  11. Dana
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 11:50 am

    So, would a cross between a spornosexual and a metrosexual be a male who grows a beard but shaves off every other bit of body hair?

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  13. RKae
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 1:02 pm

    One thing I respect about Native American culture is their concept that everything’s pretty much done and figured out; they have everything they need. I like that. I want to live like that: in a culture that’s not perfect, just done.

    Not only do we need to stand in line for a new iPhone while the “old” one still works, but we’ve brought that pestering consumerist idea into every aspect of our lives. We need new categories for sexual identities? Really? After all this time, we need a new analysis of what it means to be a man?

    We have too many people with too much time on their hands and a desperate need to be “the guy who came up with a new gender.”

  14. RKae
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 1:03 pm

    Snuff sniffing dandies were called “fops.”

    Not that I’m correcting you; I just LOVE the word!

  15. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 1:56 pm

    http://theothermccain.com/2012/12/18/hes-a-lumberjack-and-hes-ok-the-wobbly-scholarship-of-erik-loomis-ph-d/ A classic post!

  16. M. Thompson
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 3:15 pm

    If you need a buzz word to describe yourself, than bugger off.

  17. Wombat_socho
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 5:00 pm

    SJW BS is the cancer that is killing America.

  18. Kirby McCain
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 5:26 pm

    One day long ago in a trailer far away after a night of fun beneath the sheets my girlfriend donned her shorts and discovered her reddened inner thighs showing. I shaved before our next meeting.

  19. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 5:45 pm

    Are we SJW for the rational?

    That said, I cannot imagine a TOM gathering event where you would find Smitty, RSM and Wombat in the men’s room, standing in front of the mirror and applying facial cream.

    You would all have the class to do that prep work at home!

  20. Finrod Felagund
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 6:05 pm

    +1 for Pink Floyd alone.

  21. Bob Belvedere
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 9:24 pm

    TMI, man.

  22. Quartermaster
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 10:37 pm

    And men looked down on fops just like men look down on _____sexuals today. They’ve always been a contemptible lot.

  23. RKae
    December 3rd, 2014 @ 11:35 pm

    Duke of Argyll: So, Mr. Cunningham, what are these principle sins that distress your mother? Dice? Drink? Or are you a buggerer of boys?

    Archibald Cunningham: It is years, Your Grace, since I buggered a boy… And in my own defense, I must add, I thought him a girl at the moment of entry.

  24. Daniel Freeman
    December 4th, 2014 @ 12:26 am

    I honestly don’t understand. If you’re a man, then all you have to do is be yourself, and mission accomplished. That one guy sounded so defensively proud of his beard. Dude! Mark! That’s just your face after you stop abusing it with sharp rocks! Kick up the proud, lose the defensive.

  25. Wombat_socho
    December 4th, 2014 @ 12:26 am

    You’re lucky if I remember to shave, these days.

  26. Adjoran
    December 4th, 2014 @ 6:04 am

    On a bit of a tangent, the UK has outlawed internet porn depicting bondage or spanking.

    So if they catch a wanker on those sites, do they lead him away in cuffs to be punished? What’s the point?

  27. Bob Belvedere
    December 4th, 2014 @ 8:53 am

    Duke of Argyll [supposedly overheard in the Necessary]: Sock it to me.

  28. Bob Belvedere
    December 4th, 2014 @ 8:55 am

    I thought many pols in Britain had an affection for German Pron?

  29. Bob Belvedere
    December 4th, 2014 @ 8:57 am

    I got tired of nicks and cuts in 2004 and grew a beard – it’s white, like my hair.

    Since then, every December gals sit on my lap and ask for things.

    Win-Win.

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  31. ubik
    December 7th, 2014 @ 11:35 pm

    Watch High Noon until Will Kane is embedded as the male archetype. Life is better after this, for everybody.