Thinking Out LoudIn these days of T-maxxed ‘men’s health’ and Tate-inspired toxic masculinity, I’ve found my nose pressed up against the grimy window of the manosphere. It’s all-too-familiar for me – uncomfortably so.
I grew up in the Western Suburbs of Sydney in the 60s and 70s. A time when sport (read: football and cricket) and cars and girls and alcohol tolerance were the marks of a man. I worried about my masculinity, for that simply wasn’t me.
Well, I suppose I was an accomplished athlete; but in my world no one cared about 200m breaststroke. I preferred reading and conversation to chasing balls and hitting people, so I felt more than a bit of a sissy (you can look up a dictionary of archaic political incorrectness if you don’t know the word).
Mine was an uncomfortable adolescence, and I was glad to escape it. But the manosphere manifests a weird nostalgia for those clear, well-defined notions of ‘masculinity’. In the wake of feminist activism and #MeToo, archaic and toxic versions of manliness have reared again their ugly bearded heads.
But this time, I don’t feel threatened, nor am I tempted to resort to the manosphere for my role models. I’m comfortable in my skin, for I’ve found a rich, variegated texture of masculinities and femininities in other places: in the people I love (including some who like footy!), in the Scriptures, and in the person of Jesus. Few, if any, look like the masculinity I grew up with; all of them are coloured by grace.
You know, I no longer worry too much about how masculine I am, but about how Christ-like I am. Jesus, who explicitly rejected abuse of power and gave himself in love of the least and the lost – that’s the kind of bloke I want to be.
This Thinking Out Loud was first published on Facebook.
Image: Simone Pellegrini on Unsplash