Making guyhood better means involving the screens and valves that relieve male anxiety.
In her fantastic book, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man, Susan Faludi has a section on The Citadel Military Academy of Charleston, South Carolina and their spartan, fraternal masculinity. At the school, the Cadets lovingly care for each other, acting as almost surrogate mothers through “dependency,” and “affective intimacy.” They embrace, kiss, and hug one another. They shower naked together without self-consciousness or judgement. They clean, cook, and help dress their fellows.
Beneath the surface, most of the Cadets understandably experience “anxiety over society’s judgements… [about their] intimate relationships” with each other. Such worry, a worry with which most guys my age should be well-acquainted, is a direct result of the conventional masculinity that so many of us feel pressed to perform and which stands in opposition to any kind of “affective intimacy” between men, any type of domesticity, any form of “dependency.” To resolve the “fears and tensions” that their contradictions with hyper-masculinity create, the cadets at the Citadel have developed a “needed screen and an escape valve.” To erase any doubts that they are full men, the cadets compensate with an aggressive, terrorizing, otherizing masculinity. Teachers and upperclassmen would use the tandem threatening identifications of “effeminacy and homosexuality,” to pressure cadets and encourage desirable behaviors. Under the guise of “[breaking] down” cadets so as to build them up into “whole [men],” upperclassmen would constantly berate cadets, bloodily beat them on occasion, and shun and continually abuse cadets who were seen as gay, womanly, or simply different. All in all, they would prove their “contempt” for non-masculine behaviors and beings to each other with demonstrative hyper-masculinity and through each other with brutal domination.
These behaviors functioned as a “screen” because cadets could avoid criticisms of their tenderness and care for each other by establishing and hiding behind a masculine shield of dominance, aggression, and alpha-male superiority. Such shelter fended off the societal expectations and stresses that came from without and within. And, they functioned as an “escape valve,” because through compensatory shows of patriarchal manhood, they could seemingly resolve the inner anxieties that those outer pressures created by expressing their opposite. When faced with some amount of inner worry, compensation always appears as a possible, yet simplistic solution.
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I write about The Citadel, and I reference their screens and escape valves often, because their behavior isn’t all that different from what I see in the all-male groups to which I’ve always belonged and given my love.
The ironic homoeroticism and sincere homophobia of my high school serves a good example, as many students could only stand to be affectionate toward each other if they also spoke in effeminate voices, called ‘no homo,’ or called out ‘fag’ after the fact.
Most fraternity hazing, much of it peppered with sexist or homophobic language, posturing, and activities, falls into this category of compensatory screens and escape valves as well. It doesn’t, on the surface, make sense that pledge-masters and older brothers would be hateful and demeaning toward pledges who are slated to be their future, beloved brothers. However, as they haze their pledges, aggressive and oppressive initiation rituals can serve as a screen for brothers who are anxious about their belonging to a group that is all-male, making it possibly homosexual, and caring, making it possibly effeminate. And pledges, many of whom willfully and happily choose their torment, can resolve their own worries of joining such a group by living up to the hyper-masculine tasks set before them.
And, of course this happens on the individual level as well. Many of us respond with anger, stoicism, or even violence, traditionally masculine behaviors, if we feel weak or vulnerable, traditionally non-masculine positions. Or, on another note, I’ve always found it easier to describe my own feminism and gender-criticism because I have a fairly deep voice and tend to flavor my speech with f-bombs. It also doesn’t hurt that I almost exclusively listen to punk rock and hardcore, that I smoke cigars, and that I am a member of a relatively party-heavy fraternity. Those are my screens. Those are my escape valves.
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So, about these screens and valves. They’re obviously, absurdly destructive in a bunch of cases. Hazing kills and violates, as does homophobia and misogyny. Additionally, this single post is too limited to discuss this fact, but the cultures that such compensatory behaviors tend to create are the same cultures that perpetrate rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment, among other malevolent crimes of modern masculinity.
But, they exist alongside structures that are also positive. The community atmospheres of fraternities and militaries are constructive for countless guys, and I like my cigars, my voice, my punk music, just as so many other guys like the small, oft-harmless rituals that help them feel comfortable in their own male bodies.
And, that comfort leads to another point. Traveling through guyhood and navigating masculinity are two inherently difficult journeys, and they generate a good deal of anxiety along the way. Screens and outlets serve a purpose in that they can mediate these fraught endeavors.
On the other hand, screens and outlets are built upon a construct of conventional, hyper-masculine manhood that should be addressed rather than hidden behind and compensated for. In the words of Tyler Durden of Fight Club fame, trying to do nothing more than redirect or tinker at these compensatory behaviors would be kind of like “polishing the brass on the Titanic. It’s all going down, man!”
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And, what to do about them? As I’ve hoped to show, many of the behaviors that we young men engage in, whether they be hazing, hyper-aggression, promiscuity, anger, bullying, homophobia, binge drinking, drug abuse, fighting, etc., are actually undertaken to function as screens and escape valves for an unhealthy and unrealistic masculinity to which none of us can fully live up. But at the same time, those behaviors only come to be because we are each working to challenge the tenets of conventional masculinity in some way or another. Shielding and compensating are sad responses to a sick construct, tools that make a difficult job just a little easier for each one of us.
Is there some way to challenge the dictates of patriarchal masculinity without reactionary and defensive behaviors? One day, I bet that there will be, and any approach to modern masculinity that actually cares about men must work to realize that goal. But additionally, on the way, I think that most of us still need a few screens and outlets. The trick is just to make them moral.
For example, the purpose of a screen is to have some synecdoche of masculinity behind which each of us can better weather the anxieties of incomplete manhood. One of the easiest ways to do this is by being a valued member of an all-male group, whether it be an infantry company, a fraternity, a sports team, or a group of close knit friends. I believe in these groups, as should anyone who means to improve the lot of males in America. To speak of my particular focus, all-male groups mediate the transition through guyhood better than almost any social structures out there today. They provide communal identity. They encourage a sense of devotion. They deliver support and care. And, of course, they can serve as shields from the hard edges of hyper-masculinity. They function as screens because they succeed as screens. It is easier to be non-masculine if one is also a part of a group that is all-male, perhaps connected to each other as brothers, united in the pursuit of an admirable goal, or solid and supportive in their friendship. All in all, these groups make it easier to be a guy going through guyhood.
Of course, in good conscience, we cannot advocate for all-male groups if we do not also advocate for the improvement of those groups. The hazing and bullying mentioned above are behaviors that just barely scratch the surface of the damage that we men often do to each other and others in our groups. Rape, domestic violence, and sexual harassment are just a few of the manifestations of hyper-masculinity that our groups unfortunately tend toward.
But these behaviors are not endemic. In any instance of socially encouraged violence, most participants are bystanders who don’t agree with what they see, whether they be uncomfortable with prejudicial language or cringing in horror at a crime they are witnessing but can’t seem to stop. Such is the case with guys in all-male groups, as so many of us are unsatisfied with the quiet complicity that we give our peers when they say ‘bitch’ or ‘cunt’, joke about rape, or bully the ‘others’ in our midst. Believe it or not, it doesn’t take much to break the culture of silence, to use the words of Michael Kimmel, that helps to allow the worst offenses of hyper-masculinity and all-male groupthink. Often, all that it takes is one resolute guy, making a stand against something he doesn’t like, to change the momentum of his all-male group. And once we work to move our groups beyond their socialized failings, we can consolidate their benefits, as sources of identity, community, devotion, support, and defense from the challenges and stereotypes that accost us each day.
Likewise, the purpose of an outlet valve for non-masculine behavior is also to resolve some sort of anxiety, but the outlet valve seems to exist on a more personal and directly tackled level. We address the worry that we are not manly by acting manly in response. But, of course, there is a failure there. The best treatment for any kind of worry, stress, pressure, or concern is to air and understand it, rather than compensating for it or replying in kind. Not one of us needs an outlet valve for anxiety if we can discuss it, reason about it, grasp the impetus beneath it, and maybe eventually relieve ourselves of it through desensitization and social support. I think that we would gain a lot in our transitions through guyhood if we better learned to do just this. Furthermore, if we were to realize this as a better response to the individual anxieties of manhood, we could step right past the antisocial and often evil directions in which outlet valves sometimes like to go.
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As Faludi’s observations at The Citadel demonstrate, the worst sides of modern masculinity come to show themselves when the screens and outlet valves of non-masculine behavior meet and combine. Hazing, harassment, incessant bullying, and more of the like are so common because their male perpetrators can hide behind their unfortunately masculine connotations (using them as a screen), and because in them, they can relieve their own worries about their manhood, (using them as an outlet).
Screens and outlets can be fixed, though. They can be made to work in more positive, prosocial ways, helping men live free and independent of the expectations of masculinity.
I think this is doable, and the thought of such meaningful progress is heartening to me, especially so because just as negative screens and outlet valves are at their worst when blended together, so are they at their best when improved and made to meet. If all-male groups can progress beyond the bad behaviors that hack at their reputation and efficacy, and if we young guys can find it in ourselves to let our anxiety about our always-incomplete manhood see the light of day, we might come to see a feedback loop of improved responses to the worry that so many of us are made to feel.
In all-male groups, of which we can be fully, unapologetically proud if we remove their worst tendencies, we can experience our male identity through community and solidarity, rather than through the coercion, domination, and displays of hyper-masculinity. We can relate as brothers and friends, teammates and trustees rather than as alphas and betas, oppressors and oppressed. With the strength and support that virtuous community can provide, we may find ourselves in a better position to air our own insecure masculinity and address it healthily. And, as is obvious to anyone who has seen the benefits of male friendship if it is relieved of its fear of emotional intimacy, the honest sharing of anxiety and vulnerability only tends to improve interpersonal bonding. Positive screens of community involvement can lead to better outlet valves of anxiety, which in turn strengthen social, and group involvement.
That is a virtuous cycle, a virtuous cycle of improved masculinity, to give it a longer name. And, I plan to make it real, to turn it from theory into practice in the lives of me and my fellow men, whether it be with my friends, fraternity brothers, acquaintances, or the countless other young men who yearn for something more in the occupation of their social identity. Screens and escape valves may be a current fact of guyhood. But if we can redirect them toward values that we freely choose, away from the patriarchal values which have so long been chosen for us, they will become a means by which to create a better guyhood. They will become a means to a better guyhood, and a means to a better world.
Things Referenced
Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man, by Susan Faludi. The pages quoted include 126-132, and 149.
Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men, by Michael Kimmel. The page quoted above is 280.
Image Via:GankRawrs/Flickr
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