Gendered question, I know. If you don’t identify as a man, please feel free to answer with whatever you want. I meant to post it in the Men’s Lib sub but somehow it always bugs for me.
Let’s spill the tea lads
I like painting my nails.
I like gardening and I take great pride in my plants and upcoming indoor veggie and herb garden.
I dance when I go out.
I like bright colors.
I like candles that smell nice.
I like flowers.
I like Harry Styles.
I like crocheting.
Whatever you like, be proud of it. There is no such thing as liking something unmanly. Nothing can harm your manliness. Do what you want.
I think the term “manly” has been so polluted. I don’t think there is nothing “unmanly” with:
- Loving nature.
- Loving your neighbor (even Jesus said to).
- Loving culture (and accepting other’s culture).
- Showing emotion (except for you narcissists who use this as an excuse for abuse. Fuck you).
- Dancing.
- Going outside just to feel the wind gently blowing your hair and caressing your face.
We are capable of very complex modes of existing. There is no reason to keep being the same hateful person every day. It takes courage to go out of your confort zone. It takes courage to be a “man”. Whatever it is that word means. Love you all. <3
Edit: Guys, are comments like this valuable? On Reddit I felt the need to write this way, but everyone seems so chill here…
We are very chill here. I hope this post can show the new people what Lemmygrad can be as well, a fun and supporting community. There’s no need to hide who you are here, so feel free to type whichever way you want.
💪
I love adorable animals, I’ll squeal with delight whenever I see a video of one. Alpacas are my favorite.
atta boy
Girl, actually. She touches more grass than I do.
Aww 😍
her widdle tummy. oh my gods 😭
Alpacas are great. I rented this tiny house in the woods this one time and it had a small animal farm (commie reference) next to it. I woke up next to the alpacas everyday and I had some coffee while they kept eating grass non stop.
Sounds like heaven, you’re making me jealous. I used to volunteer in my city’s zoo every summer and on lunch break I got to go to the petting zoo for the alpacas.
Why didn’t you teach the Alpacas communist theory when you lived there? smh
Reptiles are my favorite and every time I see some lizard or tiny snake, I let them crawl on me
When I visited Disney World as a kid I loved the little lizards running around the resorts. Those lizards are the only good thing about Florida.
And alligators
I don’t think anyone should feel the need to quantify their actions into a specific gender.
It’s so fun though! I like painting my nails and shaving my arms! I like wearing lipstick to work and doing my hair!
I try to walk more feminine and I enjoy how my voice is still really manly.
I probably show a lot more emotion then is stereotypical. I was on swim team in high school. In my heterosexual relationship I was the one that really wanted a child first. If my wife made enough money I would absolutely be a stay at home dad if we needed a stay at home parent (We don’t need any parent to stay at home thankfully right now, the way childcare is working out). I go to therapy and actually find it useful. I guess for the typical “male” things I do power lifting (Swoletariat FTW), but I really didn’t get into to that until later in life anyway, and I don’t follow any of the prototypical lifters.
Bro, therapy is so underrated. Growing up I was made to believe only crazy people needed it. But like, we are not perfect. And talking to someone who was able to call me out on my BS (in a good way) and show me my blindspots was such an eye opener. Would recommend.
I like gardening
This is seriously considered unmanly? Smh
I refuse to believe it
I write poetry, garden in the spring and summer, and enjoy the likes of Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, and Tetris; all of which it puzzles me how those games got classified as ‘girly’. Like mf, I’d like to see YOU manage a hundred lines at TGM 20G with steadily-rising garbage lines; see how ya do
🥁🥁🪇
(Imagine the maracas are cymbals.)
Poetry is a strange one. I also write some and when I mention it I get the strangest looks and have had some awful responses.
I usually refer them to Akala when I hear the gendered shit. If you haven’t heard of him, he’s a British rapper. He wrote a great book about race. He works with the Royal Shakespeare Company (I think) and goes around schools putting Shakespeare to a beat and explaining how e.g. Tupac rapped in iambic pentameter. He has videos on YouTube and his Fire in the Booth rap is great.
I want to say keep rhyming, Reggaelater Demoman, but my poems don’t always rhyme and yours might not, either. Keep writing!
My problem is I can’t not write rhymes; and it didn’t always used to be that way. In elementary, thanks to the teacher who passed along that proclivity to the whole damn class, my bestie was always the one who could write fluent, metered bars; and I just sorta e.e. cummings’d my shit. Liked using the formatting of the lines for aesthetic purposes, but never really had a handle for fitting rhymes to how I was feeling.
…Then I started dipping into UK grime(talm like, Kano, Skepta, Dizzee Rascal, Jme, Tempa T, and them), used that as a springboard to start swimming through the kinds of music my family wanted to keep me away from. (Ironically, my own damn culture, or what shoulda been.) On the other side of a crippling clipping, JPEGMAFIA, Saul Williams, and Stormzy addiction, though, all of my stuff comes out rhyming nowadays. My compositition book looks deadass like a backpacker’s lmfao
I don’t think any videogames can be considered non “manly”, like 90% of people who play pretty much everything you mentioned are men.
That’s always been the thing that confused the fuck out of me. It’s almost like if your library isn’t exclusively milspec propaganda, mtx-laden rosterbators, and one simulation-standard racing game, you get derided.
Tons of things like others have said. Gardening, dancing, fashion, romance, R&B, Opera, growing my hair out, wine, healthy food. I don’t really even consider these unmanly, but I know many do for a cis hetero man. Other than choosing clothes that fit my body type, my gender has no influence on the things I do or choices I make.
So many things really. I’ve never had any issue with identifying as a man and have always considered myself straight or whatever but I have also always enjoyed “feminine” things without any shame.
I love dancing, fashion, home decorating, really any sort of “domestic” stuff I can get into like cooking or gardening or whatever. I’ve always been into feminine sorta music artists like Lana Del Rey and what not. I wear lots of pinks and other colors and have some feminine sorta tattoos like butterflies and such.
I’ve also worn a dress and done up my makeup a couple of times which was a fun experience. You definitely appreciate how long it can take women to get ready to go out once you try it all yourself lol. I’m honestly glad society doesn’t expect that sorta thing of me (hair, makeup, nails ect) cause I could easily see myself getting very into it and that shit costs lotta time and money.
I don’t see why any man can’t just enjoy the shit that they are drawn to or interested in.
I’ve had a bad case of anhedonia the past few years, so I don’t find myself enjoying many things, manly or otherwise. However, I can say some “manly” things I don’t like.
I never cared for professional sports. I could maybe get it if the teams actually had ties to the cities they’re in, but trading players between teams baffles me. Then you get to fantasy sports, where people basically just track numbers and bet. People tell me sports teams are a great way to find common ground with strangers, but all I can see are brands being used to shove ads in peoples’ faces and encourage people to gamble.
Same, all the guys I’ve met are crazy about sports and FIFA games. When I was in high school, I would skip playing football during Phys Ed and watch what the girls were doing instead.
The only sports games I ever cared for was the stuff that came out under EA BIG. This FIFA, 2k, Madden shit honestly just gets on my nerves, like, I’m not gonna sit here and front like I’m just this flower-loving, herb-growing hippie with a backpacker’s composition book-- if I was squadding up with the boys in meatspace, we were playing streetball, or basically modified rugby or smth full-contact and full-friendly-disrespect-- and shit like NBA Street, NFL Street, SSX, it felt like it nailed the fantasy of what we were doing before the streetlights buzzed on.
I miss games like that. Low-realism streetball, super-low-realism skating, honestly; I think our media’s fascination, fixation, and bordering-on-fetish for realism has only really amplified the toxic narrow-mindedness those spaces could grow.
I got out of gym class in highschool because people in band class don’t have to take it.
I could maybe get it if the teams actually had ties to the cities they’re in, but trading players between teams baffles me.
I think this is probably part of why the only time I follow football is when it’s the World Cup or the Euros or something with the national teams like that. Obviously I’m not super into the nationalism aspect of it all, but I guess I just find the concept of managers having to kinda just work with what they’ve got more appealing than rich clubs just buying up most of the best players.
Olympics are better somewhat since national allegiance is much more stringent, but things like the World Cup, Euros, FIFA suck as the teams are bought and traded basically. Like how Frances team from this past FIFA was basically all made up of players from its colonies and not France.
I wear and have a lot of pink things. I have a few pairs of flower earrings. I like cute things. If I drink I prefer fruity cocktails.
“Mmm this straight-up hard liquor tastes so good”
- Liars
fruity cocktails taste the best and usually have higher alcohol percentages than beer or “manly” cocktails. if you wanna get hammered, go with what the high femme gal at the bar is ordering.
I love knitting and sewing. It’s very relaxing and I love seeing what I make! Even better if I do a good enough job to wear it!
I sleep basically every night with a stuffed animal that I received from a very close and important friend. (He’s also pink so it’s even more “unmanly”)
Gardening is so fun! My cucumbers and tomatoes are coming along so well! (My watermelons not so much, only 1 of 4 have survived due to deer)
Cleaning is very fun to me. Seeing things become clean is very rewarding, especially if I’m doing it for someone else close to me.
Cooking is a very high interest of mine! Particularly baking!
Painting my nails is also very fun and I can’t wait to do that more, as that’s sadly a dangerous thing to do where I live.
Kissing other guys. This is either extreme manly in the eyes of the Greeks and Spartans, or extremely unmanly in the current western purview.
I do funny little dances when I hear songs I like playing in the store.
I sleep basically every night with a stuffed animal that I received from a very close and important friend. (He’s also pink so it’s even more “unmanly”)
Okay, I love this; bc my partners have made a habit of getting me plushes related to the games in my library; and right now on my computer desk, there’s a Nookling, a Protoss probe, and a crocheted Cacodemon stacked atop each other like a totem pole of programmer’s rubber ducks. (I’ve even used them that way to clear some of my appdev classes.)
I like doing skincare and facial scrubs and fancy soaps and such (I do wish it wasn’t as tarnished by consumerism but I’ve got no other alternatives)- and apparently I’ve gotten too good at it because strangers mistake me for a girl sometimes.
Same. Skincare routine for men is underrated. Skincare after shaving is still skincare, guys. Apply creams, moisturizer, face masks etc. Your skin will thank you.
I have this instinctive distrust of skincare products. On the one hand I can see that they make a difference, but on the other it all feels so marketed and I have difficulty trusting the companies that sell them. Like I sometimes wonder if some of those products are very simple, very accessible chemicals that are cheap to get/make, but with extra smells and a price hike slapped on.
That said, used coffee grounds as a facial scrub <3
Stole this from a blog, but making everything is also an option- this is one for cleansing face wipes
EQUIPMENT 8 ounce glass spray bottle Reusable fabric wipes (or cotton rounds) INGREDIENTS
1 cup distilled water 2 tsp aloe vera gel 2 tsp witch hazel ¼ tsp castile soap (or less if desired) 1 tsp olive oil (or almond, avocado, fractionated coconut oil, etc.) INSTRUCTIONS
Add the oil, aloe vera, and witch hazel to the bottom of a glass spray bottle and mix to combine. Add the castile soap. Last, add the water just until the bottle is almost full. If you’re using a 16-ounce spray bottle then fill it halfway full. Shake and spray the mixture on your cloth wipes right before use. Store the mixture in the fridge and use within 1-2 weeks.
Strong agree. I don’t know how some people don’t do it. My skin is unforgiving, though. I couldn’t shave if I didn’t moisturise after. Alum block also comes in handy.
I’m old so when I was a teenager the Spice Girls were on top of the charts.
I would blast Spice Girls songs on my stereo and sing along. I don’t know how it was around the world but here it was heavily considered “girl music” in the 90s and if anyone from school saw me doing that they would heavily bully me and call me gay or whatever.
Luckily for me I lived very far away from school, and also discovered myself as bisexual 20 years later soooo… call me gay as much as you like. :)
Domestic tasks like cooking, washing dishes, folding laundry. It’s something real I can do to make me and my partner’s lives keep going smooth, plus they’re great opportunities for either podcasts or mindfulness.
This is me lol. My wife and I really don’t have gender rolls as a married couple but I ended up being the one that cooks and cleans for the most part. She hates it and I actually like it so maybe she lucked out. 😂
Looking at this thread and how all kinds of farming and landscaping in my experience are overwhelmingly male dominated profession it’s probably not that extraordinary of an answer - but yeah, plants and gardening are awesome. I’m a big sucker for well built parks and botanical gardens too, not just forrests, meadows and fields.
Idk why but since this spring I really grew to love flowers as well. Still not big on cut, indoor flowers, but flowering bushes, trees and all kinds of plants this time of the year just brighten up your day heaps. They add so much colour, life and smell to even the most boring parts of cities.
I never was big on flowers either until the cities here decided to stop mowing everything and let things grow. Suddenly there were wild flowers everywhere and the insects returned with them. It’s cool to see that such a small decision van create so much new life, and flowers are the key factor in this.
