#misunderstanding masculinity

[justinnault]

True Masculinity Unveiled, How Misunderstanding Masculinity Harms Your Health

In a society where masculinity often gets misrepresented, many men find themselves caught in the web of “traditional” ideals that don’t necessarily serve their well-being. The impact of these outdated views can reach far beyond one's self-perception, leading to serious consequences for both physical and mental health. It’s time to bust some myths and discover a healthier, balanced approach to masculinity.

Understanding the Health Risks of Misinterpreted Masculinity

Men who strictly adhere to conventional masculine ideals often shy away from seeking help, even when they need it most. Studies show that behaviors like risk-taking, excessive alcohol consumption, and drug use are frequently linked to “being a real man.” But this mindset can be dangerous. As a nutritional therapist, I want to guide you through the process of redefining masculinity in a way that supports your physical and mental well-being.

Myth vs. Reality: What True Masculinity Looks Like

Myth: Seeking help is a sign of weakness.

Reality: Asking for help is an act of courage. It demonstrates self-awareness and a commitment to self-care.

Myth: Real men don’t show vulnerability.

Reality: Vulnerability allows you to connect on a deeper level and build trust with others, which is essential for strong relationships.

Myth: Masculinity is about toughness, both physically and emotionally.

Reality: True strength includes emotional intelligence and the ability to express oneself.

Q&A: Embracing True Masculinity for Health

Q1: How can redefining masculinity improve my mental health? Toggle to see the answer. Embracing a balanced view of masculinity means letting go of the notion that men need to bottle up emotions. By acknowledging and processing emotions, you reduce stress and anxiety, which positively impacts mental health. Research indicates that men who seek support for mental health issues experience significantly lower rates of depression.

Q2: Does avoiding risky behaviors actually impact my physical health? Toggle to see the answer. Yes, absolutely. Risky behaviors, such as unprotected sex, excessive alcohol use, and drug consumption, not only harm your body but also lead to chronic conditions and even life-threatening diseases. By understanding that taking care of your health doesn’t make you any less masculine, you’re prioritizing long-term well-being.

Q3: What role does nutrition play in redefining masculinity? Toggle to see the answer. Nutrition is foundational to physical and mental health. When you nourish your body, you’re taking a step toward self-respect and health, which aligns with true masculinity. Proper nutrition supports energy levels, mental clarity, and resilience.

Practical Steps for a Balanced Approach to Masculinity

Seek Help When Needed Whether you need medical advice, therapy, or simply a friend to talk to, never hesitate to reach out. True masculinity includes knowing when to ask for help.

Adopt Healthier Habits Focus on habits that align with your wellness goals. Reduce alcohol consumption, avoid harmful substances, and engage in regular exercise.

Redefine Your Inner Strength Strength is not solely physical. Embrace mindfulness practices, journal your thoughts, and allow yourself to process emotions in a healthy way.

About Justin Nault: Your Guide to Wellness

Justin Nault is a Certified Nutritional Therapist with a deep background in nutrition, fitness, and human metabolism. As the founder and CEO of Clovis, and creator of the Clovis Daily Superfood Powder, Justin has helped over 2,500 people find a balanced approach to health. His work redefines health and fitness, aiming to create sustainable change through holistic nutrition and wellness.

Start Your Journey Today!

Are you ready to embrace a more balanced, healthier approach to masculinity? Watch our video for in-depth insights and practical tips to start redefining masculinity for a better life. Let’s shift the narrative together and explore the power of true masculinity!

[lesbianjackies]

hold my hand and say it with me: jackie taylor is not a femme

[starredforlife]

okay. so none of you should be allowed to use to the word butch ever actually

[aliusfrater]

you've got to be kidding me

[pikslasrce]

whoa there lady! i heard you say you hate men? try replacing 'men' with 'women', not so funny now, is it? #checkmate feminists 🤓

[macchiatosdumptruck]

Me: I'm over CK. It can't hurt me anymore.

Me, as soon as I think about it for more than 13 seconds:

[gingermintpepper]

I have finished the book. It was not a very good book at all. My preliminary thoughts are as follows:

Prose is the best part about it but also one of the worst. Evocative and lovely language was used for what I can only describe as manipulating the reader. In a different book by a different writer, perhaps that would be the mark of a good unreliable narrator but this is not that kind of book and the writer, I fear, is not clever enough for that kind of narrative.

The characters - I do not think of them. Trapped as we are in Alcestis' head, she is a passive, dull thing who I do not know any better at the end of the book than I did at the start. I couldn't distinguish where her voice ended and where the author's began and it is through that haziness that all other characters are observed. Admetus is an objectively phenomenal husband but his kindness and regard is made bitter because he loves Apollo not her. Apollo is no more than a ghost haunting them both. Hippothoe and Phylomache exist as images of what Alcestis could be - a woman who dies of illness or children - and Heracles is awkward and small, quiet and passive in the way everything is in this book. Persephone and Hades are perhaps the only characters of some interest in here, but Persephone is a volatile mess of power masquerading as empowerment while Hades, like all the men in this book really, is small and passive and really only becomes worth something when out of Persephone's massive shadow.

The romance - What romance? There is no romance in this book. Alcestis imagines that what occurs between Admetus and Apollo is a romance but we do not get to see that story. The obvious regard and kindness Admetus holds for Alcestis would be romance in any other book - but in this it is described with so much apathy and loathing so as to make Admetus' actions seem unremarkable and lacking. As for Persephone and Alcestis; Alcestis wants nothing to do with her until Persephone forces her. She assaults her, like Hades assaulted her, while speaking the words of that tale into Alcestis' flesh while Alcestis rejects her and somehow this becomes the catalyst of their 'love'. There is no romance in this book.

The queer themes - I am not sure how one makes a story so easily given to a queer imagining biphobic, lesbophobic and not poly but it sure did that. Alcestis' ideas about love and sexuality and how it might possibly have different forms and fashions is unchanged from start to finish and homosexuality, for all that it is what she blames her ruined marriage on, is never explored past a few fleeting, derogatory descriptions and quickly brushed over allusions.

The Apollo Thing - Listen to me so carefully. Apollo is only in a single scene of this book. One single scene and it is the wedding scene where Admetus calls upon him to save them from the poisonouse snakes. Every other mention of him in this book is in passing, an offhanded mention of a person praying to a god, or with the underlying scorn and anger of a wife thinking of her husband's mistress. Apollo is not even there when Alcestis dies. He wasn't even responsible for Heracles eventually going down to the Underworld to retrieve her. If the author could've erased him from the wedding scene too, I'm sure she would've invented a way to do it. Apollo has no relationship with Alcestis, we do not get to see the nature of his relationship with Admetus and every other opportunity which existed to show him on their side was neatly and entirely erased. Thanatos, naturally, is completely absent from this novel.

In short, this was entirely unpleasant from essentially start to finish. I was very excited when I started this book and saw the quality of the prose and also the ambivalent character sketched of its gods but things went so rapidly and extremely downhill that I am left wondering how it was possibly flubbed that badly.

Regarding this book's feminism, I will dedicate a separate post to that entirely. To this book's credit, it did not have the superficial girlboss feminism that many of its contemporaries tend to champion but to its complete and utter detriment, the feminism it champions is perhaps the most insidious kind. The sort that excludes the disenfranchised, the impoverished and the normal woman. This book's feminism is for the privileged and the powerful and it is a deeply upsetting thing.

Lastly, I would like to thank @superkooku , @konu-d and @waterlinkedgirl for cheering me on through this absolute torment. I would not have finished this without them. Take that as you will.

If you are interested in the tale of Admetus and Alcestis or just want to read a retelling, I urge you to just read @reawakened-revenant (CiCiRose on ao3)'s God of the Golden Bow series. It is captivating, enthralling, impeccably researched and so utterly submersed in passion, love and care that it is breathtaking to read. It is a personal favourite of mine and the standard to which I hold all other Admetus and Alcestis retellings.

With all that done, I am going to stare at a wall and contemplate the horrors now. ✌🏾

[metamorphicmuse]

You decide: "Celestial Rave" or "Instagram photo shoot with the leftover prom decorations"?

AI Bloopers

[ceramicbeetle]

comrade in arms pt 2 is kind of funny for hawkeye’s flat “oh yeah” for casual sex fans followed by his ‘im going to killing my self’ facial expression when margaret wakes up and tries to start LARPing a long term romantic relationship with him

[nonasemporium]

points at how john interacts with, talks about, and even resurrected g1deon

points at how john engages with augustine in comparison to both g1deon and mercy (will get more into in just a second)

points at how ianthe sought power in her relationship to john by shifting to a more masculine presentation, when before she had a relatively feminine presentation

points at how john seems to take some extra joy out of both shaping alecto into the appearance of a white woman and also how he seems to feel a very specific facet of power in how he engages with mercy, who is also presumably a white woman

points at the concept that if pyrrha WAS a white woman there's a very specific exchange in how john perceives and engages with her relationship to g1deon

points at how cavaliers are repeatedly referred to, in some way, as largely darker in skin-tone than the necromancers AND how they're constantly described with/compared to beasts in some sense

points at how john is fixated on the roman empire and also catholocism

points at actual catholicism (and the history it has with race and colorism)

now.

is it hard to see how colorism is also a possible read into his character

[sp1resong]

yknow people claim that 'tme/tma' labels are supposed to 'not disclose your assigned gender!!!' but the thing is that... when you present yourself as nonbinary.... it pretty much does

[givemebishies]

Wearing a navy blue shirt instead of all black today #hyperfeminine #girlypop #barbiecore

[whoiskt]

can we please stop identifying having muscles as a masculine trait? everyone has muscles!! it comes free with have a moving body!!!!

[desultorydenouement]

ken isn’t about all these big adult man words you’re putting on him. he’s not a grown man knowingly exploiting thousands of years of suffering. he is a little 8 or 9 year old boy out there who is just now learning that patriarchy feels powerful and by putting girls down you can lift yourself up, who doesn’t really understand why or how, but like any little kid, he likes that feeling of power. so he’s gonna try to keep it.

[arsenicflame]

not necessarily a Trope but how do you feel about izzy (or any of the others) being trans in the canon era (because of the historical accuracy of it and all that)? genuinely curious, no wrong answer <3

ha well oh boy, maybe not a specific trope, but oh boy was i thinking about this earlier!

A: Love it. Spend my time combing AO3 for it.

i love love LOVE trans izzy. he is everything to meeeee. but yes! the historical portrayal is important to me too in all of this, im particularly fond of fics where Izzy being trans is acknowledged as part of the plot, not just a thing he is.

i think being trans works for izzy because of his social position (being a pirate & criminal, its easy to shake off a past identity) & we historically know people could disguise their sex on ships! fics sometimes lose me with HRT & top surgery- im personally probably a no top surgery trans izzy truther- i dont see him as willing to risk the downtime for the recovery of an 'unnecessary' surgery in their line of work (also it gives me some time to nerd out over stays as binders which is so interesting to me). the hormones too, i suppose my ideal set up is izzy who already has hormone imbalances, making 'natural' solutions more believable. (my biggest trans izzy turn off is modern hormone methods just, thrown into history. have some fun with it!!!!) socially, i love the potential of trans izzy as a bonding moment with the crew, jim in particular, but any revealing of a secret involves a layer of trust that inherently aligns him with the crew. (on that note, forced outings can be a very touchy subject, but i think they can be done well with izzy- old crews where his secret was known, bringing it up to the revenge expecting them to join in mocking him (after all, they already were) but the crew suddenly turns on them & rally around him, finally breaking conflict between them) just in general, i love the layers it can add to his character, a forced portrayal of masculinity as armour to keep his secret safe- he cant possibly be seen doing anything remotely feminine because it would be a betrayal of who he is.

on the other characters- i generally only have major thoughts on trans ed & stede in canon era (& jim, but obviously thats not HC) with ed, i think he ticks a lot of the same boxes as izzy for me, but i personally much prefer transfem ed! i think theres wonderful potential with her, with the opposite of izzy in the masculinity- Having spent so long portraying perfect masculinity as a front to hide the fact that maybe, maybe, she doesnt actually really want to be a man.

with stede, i do like trans stede buuuut i very rarely see it done in a way i actually like fhfjfbfdfs for trans stede to hit for me personally i need him to have basically just started transitioning as he joins the revenge. i need mary to be a man and have no idea stede felt this way (i think he'd be accepting a la the ed thing, but those two do NOT communicate well enough for stede to have mentioned it before) i think stede would have no idea about most things to do with this, especially not that there were other people out there like him (he def wouldnt know he gravitated to a queer crew) theres a lot of fun there in combination with trans izzy or ed, having him learn from both experienced pirates & experienced trans people. but yeah i dont think in the fics i read ive actually seen a trans stede fic that considers how to play the precanon era in a way that works for me and it just. takes me out of the moment

Give me a fanfiction trope and I’ll grade it

[pegglefan69]

feeling at peace with decision that I should Probably Find a New Therapist Soon, or at least Stop Seeing This One. Also smiling tranquilly + looking forward to finally transcribing & posting a really hot passage from an essay in this leathersex book I'm reading... probably tomorrow depending on my energy levels. Maybe I don't need therapy right now maybe what I need is to talk about Weird Gay Things with Weird Gay People