[boots]

Something posted in another thread made me think about how we define gender and gender roles. I wanted to see what people here think.

So, what does being a man really mean? Surely it is more than having the bits and pieces. That just makes you male (or at least hermaphroditic)

(The same question can apply to women, but most of the people here are male. Please feel free to share your ideas on both genders if you would like.)

[Mastrap]

The question assumes that you're finding it a necessity to define yourself by your gender rather than by your personality.

[boots]

Originally posted by Mastrap:
The question assumes that you're finding it a necessity to define yourself by your gender rather than by your personality.

That's certainly true. Does sexuality play into personality? (I say yes.) And if so, does that change the way we perceive ourselves and others in terms of "man" or "woman?"

[wdlove]

Gender roles are definitely becoming blurred today.

[andi*pandi]

"but a deltoid, and a tri-cep... a hot groin, and a bi-cep..."

either that or

"slime and snails, and puppy dog tails... thunder or lightning, sounds exciting!"

Be back later when I have more time for serious thought.

[Dogma]

Being a man...

i always thought the ultimate definition of "man" was Al Bundy. Grunts a lot, drinks beer, hand down trousers, watches sports on TV.

I prefer to be a "boy" (I'm kinda pushing that term now...) as I want a new definition to grow into. I ain't gonna be that "man".

[maxelson]

[mrmister]

Well, the first step is to say it without "quotes".

[andi*pandi]

The second step would be to punctuate "properly."

No, let's not make this a grammar thread. I think we gots one of them.

[scottiB]

Inseminate as man women as possible (not via sperm bank) and shirk responsibility.

[Timo]

Originally posted by boots:
So, what does being a man really mean?

Being a man means looking closely at your father and speculating on what worked and what didn't; and not being too surprised when the past surfaces in the present.

[Spheric Harlot]

Gender is overrated.

Timo pretty much nailed an important aspect of becoming an "adult", though.

-s*

[wolfen]

My psychology research (and personal experience) provide the following. THESE ARE BASED ON NUMBERS, NOT INDIVIDUALS:


1) To forge new ground as opposed to maintaining old territory.

2) A tendency to justify oneself by (or link one's actions with) a system or standard beyond the immediate subjective context. [ie, Making rules and exploiting their loopholes.]

3) A tendency to pursue fairness rather than an ideal.

4) Pound for pound, you're stronger (overall) than a female.

5) More likely to find sex physically satisfying. [you orgasm more frequently]

6) A greater likelihood to pursue things that are personally rewarding "just because" you want it. [eg. asking for more $ before accepting a job offer]

6a) Corollary --> Less bothered by the idea that you can obtain more than someone else.

7) Fewer feelings of guilt, shame & anxiety.

8) Greater likelihood of abusing substances to deal with stress.

9) Less capable of reading body language and other communication signals in a social context. [aka, taking a hint]

10) More likely to distance yourself from unpleasant emotions in order to perform some task or achieve some personal goal. [excluding family scenarios]

11) Hint: below your belly button, higher than your knees.

12) More likely to put chrome wheels on a Neon...or anything else.

13) More disposed to violence.

14) Greater appreciation for porn.

15) Less appreciation for deep emotional bonds (or even emotional experiences).

16) Less likely to admit when you're wrong or apologize.


wolfen

[daimoni]

.

[Mark E]

"Now You're a Man" - D.V.D.A.

Hey!

What makes a man?
Is it the power in his hands?
Is it his quest for glory?
Give it all you got
To fight to the top
So we can know your story

Now you're a man (man)
A man, man, man
Now you're a man (man)
A manny, manny, man
A man, man, man (man)
You are now a man
You're a man
Now you're a man

Live it, live it

What makes a man?
Is it the woman in his arms?
Just 'cause she has big titties
Or is the way
He fights everyday?
No, it's probably the titties

Now you're a man (man)
A man, man, man
Now you're a man-man (man)
Man-man, man, man-man
Now you're a man (man)
M-A-N, man, man
Man-man, man
Now you're man

[SimeyTheLimey]

What do you need to be a man? Mojo! Yeah, baby, yeah!

[Timo]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
What do you need to be a man? Mojo! Yeah, baby, yeah!

[MikeM33]

Being a "Man" is all about responsibility. You think about your father and his "ordeal"/"journey". Like Homers Odyssey. This is what makes me a "Man". My old man was a good guy, lived his life and grabbed it by the horns. Always treated his kids well, despite his shortcomings (like drinking).

He volunteered for the US Army Air Corps during WW2, served as a Turret Gunner on a B-25 over then fascist Italy. He Also Studied Graphic Design at Cooper Union in NYC. He was an excellent letterer, sign painter and calligrapher before the dawn of computer graphics.

When I was born and I was like 3-5 yrs old he joined AA. He quit drinking FOREVER. I never ever saw the man touch a drop in my entire life.

I wish to be even half the man my father was.

Of Course, humpin' every hot piece of tail that comes your way would be cool too, although my dad never did that (But hey he was in Italy in WW2 so who knows?)

As an ex Navy Man and having done some time in Sicily, I'm willing to bet he got his rocket polished a few times

MikeM

[designbc]

Originally posted by MikeM33:
Being a "Man" is all about responsibility. You think about your father and his "ordeal"/"journey". Like Homers Odyssey. This is what makes me a "Man". My old man was a good guy, lived his life and grabbed it by the horns. Always treated his kids well, despite his shortcomings (like drinking).

He volunteered for the US Army Air Corps during WW2, served as a Turret Gunner on a B-25 over then fascist Italy. He Also Studied Graphic Design at Cooper Union in NYC. He was an excellent letterer, sign painter and calligrapher before the dawn of computer graphics.

When I was born and I was like 3-5 yrs old he joined AA. He quit drinking FOREVER. I never ever saw the man touch a drop in my entire life.

I wish to be even half the man my father was.

Of Course, humpin' every hot piece of tail that comes your way would be cool too, although my dad never did that (But hey he was in Italy in WW2 so who knows?)

As an ex Navy Man and having done some time in Sicily, I'm willing to bet he got his rocket polished a few times

MikeM

You are lucky you have such a father. I'm not very close to mine. I'd love to be able to talk about my father the way you talk about yours. And I respect the fact that you can appreciate what he did. Man, be proud.
I only hope my little 2 year old son could remember me that way in the future

Respect

[Xaositect]

What does it mean to be fully human?

It means making decisions.

It means cleaning up after yourself when you've made the wrong decision.

It means learning from, but not obsessing on, the past.

It means living so you're comfortable with yourself. (Not spotlessly clean, just comfortable)

It means knowing when to let all the heavy stuff stay behind, and you go out and have fun.

(Don't forget the last part!)

[Developer]

MAN(1) System General Commands Manual MAN(1)

NAME
man - format and display the on-line manual pages

SYNOPSIS
man [-adfhkotw] [-m machine] [-p string] [-M path] [-P pager] [-S list]
[section] name ...

DESCRIPTION
Man formats and displays the on-line manual pages. This version knows
about the MANPATH and PAGER environment variables, so you can have your
own set(s) of personal man pages and choose whatever program you like to
display the formatted pages. If section is specified, man only looks in
that section of the manual. You may also specify the order to search the
sections for entries and which preprocessors to run on the source files
via command line options or environment variables. If enabled by the
system administrator, formatted man pages will also be compressed with
the `%compress%' command to save space.

The options are as follows:

-M path Specify an alternate manpath. By default, man uses
manpath(1) (which is built into the man binary) to determine
the path to search. This option overrides the MANPATH envi-
ronment variable.

-P pager Specify which pager to use. By default, man uses %pager%.
This option overrides the PAGER environment variable.

-S list List is a colon separated list of manual sections to search.
This option overrides the MANSECT environment variable.

-a By default, man will exit after displaying the first manual
page it finds. Using this option forces man to display all
the manual pages that match name, not just the first.

-d Don't actually display the man pages, but do print gobs of
debugging information.

-f Equivalent to whatis.

-h Print a one line help message and exit.

-k Equivalent to apropos.

-m machine As some manual pages are intended only for specific architec-
tures, man searches any subdirectories, with the same name as
the current architecture, in every directory which it
searches. Machine specific areas are checked before general
areas. The current machine type may be overridden using this
option or by setting the environment variable MACHINE to the
name of a specific architecture. This option overrides the
MACHINE environment variable.

-o Look for original, non-localized manpages only.

By default, man searches for a localized manpage in a set of
locale subdirectories of each manpath(1) component.

Locale name is taken from the first of three environment
variables with a nonempty value: LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, or LANG,
in the specified order.

If the value could not be determined, or is not a valid
locale name, then only non-localized manpage will be looked
up.

Otherwise, man will search in the following subdirectories,
in the order of precedence:

<lang>_<country>.<charset>
<lang>.<charset>
en.<charset>

For example, for ``de_DE.ISO8859-1'' locale, man will search
in the following subdirectories of the /usr/share/man manpath
component:

/usr/share/man/de_DE.ISO8859-1
/usr/share/man/de.ISO8859-1
/usr/share/man/en.ISO8859-1

Finally, if the search of localized manpage fails, it will be
looked up in the default /usr/share/man directory.

-p string Specify the sequence of preprocessors to run before nroff or
troff. Not all installations will have a full set of prepro-
cessors. Some of the preprocessors and the letters used to
designate them are: eqn (e), grap (g), pic (p), tbl (t),
vgrind (v), refer (r). This option overrides the MANROFFSEQ
environment variable.

-t Use %troff% to format the manual page, passing the output to
stdout. The output from %troff% may need to be passed
through some filter or another before being printed.

-w Don't actually display the man pages, but do print the loca-
tion(s) of the files that would be formatted or displayed.

ENVIRONMENT
LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LANG
These variables specify the preferred language for manual
pages. (See the -o option above.)

MACHINE If MACHINE is set, its value is used to override the current
machine type when searching machine specific subdirectories.

MANPATH If MANPATH is set, its value is used as the path to search
for manual pages.

MANROFFSEQ If MANROFFSEQ is set, its value is used to determine the set
of preprocessors run before running nroff or troff. By
default, pages are passed through the table preprocessor
before nroff.

MANSECT If MANSECT is set, its value is used to determine which man-
ual sections to search.

PAGER If PAGER is set, its value is used as the name of the program
to use to display the man page. By default, %pager% is used.

EXAMPLES
Normally, to look at the relevant manpage information for getopt, one
would use:

man getopt

However, when referring to a specific section of the manual, such as
getopt(3), one would use:

man 3 getopt

SEE ALSO
apropos(1), groff(1), manpath(1), more(1), whatis(1), man(7), mdoc(7)

BUGS
The -t option only works if the troff(1)-like program is installed.

BSD January 5, 1991 BSD

[Sven G]

What does it mean to be a man?

... This, it means!...



... By Toutatis!

[beb]

A. To never ever ever ask for directions.

B. To be ready at all times to lob pineapple grenades at any bitch that pisses you off

C. To stand your ground -when it really matters.

D....

[Fyre4ce]

"What makes a man, Mr Lebowski? Is it being prepared to do the right thing, whatever the cost? Isn�t that what makes a man?"

"Sure, that and a pair of testicles."