Ah, nothing like picking on an easy target early in the morning. And Takimag’s Twelve Step Plan for American Machismo is the easiest of targets. Apparently, the premise of the article is that American men are insufficiently manly, and therefore women don’t want to sleep with them.
1) Stop ordering women’s drinks.
Acceptable drinks: Budweiser, possibly other beers, whiskey, bourbon. Drinks that are not allowed: mixed drinks, low-calorie drinks, wine except at dinner.
Now, I’m straightedge myself, so my entire alcohol experience has been limited to a taste of my ex-boyfriend’s trademark butterbeer cocktail and occasional sips of other people’s wine to attempt to find a kind of wine that doesn’t taste fucking nasty. But isn’t Budweiser a crappy beer? My beer snob friends keep telling me you’re only supposed to drink, like, microbrews and shit. I am not sure why manliness is expressed through drinking a type of beer that is terrible.
Sexist Ideas Count: femmephobia, the bizarre idea that men can’t be healthy.
2) Carry a briefcase.
Acceptable: with suit, leather briefcase or Filson; on bike, backpack made of old-timey canvas and leather. Not allowed: courier bag; straps; with suit, nylon zip bag, tote, backpack; backpack with gel pockets and waterproof headphone holes; gadget packs; wearing backpack in the elevator.
Let the record show I have no idea what half those things are, but have faithfully transcribed them for the benefit of my more knowledgeable readers. It is unknown what it is acceptable to carry if you are neither on a bike or wearing a suit. Briefcases look weird with jeans and a T-shirt. Or do Real Men wear suits to the beach? Also, for Christ’s sake, carrying a backpack looks ridiculous and hurts your arms; I’m not knocking it if it’s someone’s style, but backpacks have straps for a purpose.
Sexist Ideas Count: femmephobia, success myth, whatever you call the idea that old-fashioned stuff is MANLY and AWESOME.
3) What is on your head?
Acceptable: unknown. Unacceptable: bike helmets, fedoras except as part of a full 1940s ensemble.
But trilbies are good, right? We can still wear trilbies?
So apparently we’re supposed to pretend it’s the fifties, but pretending it’s the forties is Right Out. Personally I believe people should pretend it’s whatever decade makes them most happy, but don’t listen to me, I occasionally dress like a Ramone.
Also Christ I have to excerpt this sentence:
And what can I say about bike helmets that hasn’t been said about retarded people?… Just as my reaction to these ridiculous drunk-driving laws is, “If you can’t command a vehicle after two beers, you can’t command a vehicle,” I say, “If you can’t ride a bicycle without wearing an extra skull, you can’t ride a bicycle.”
TAKIMAG ARE YOU AWARE THAT EVERY PERSON WORKING FOR YOU IS THE WORST PERSON EVER?
Sexist ideas count: the bizarre idea that men can’t be healthy, whatever you call the idea that old-fashioned stuff is MANLY and AWESOME except the old-fashioned stuff we don’t like.
4) No umbrellas.
Acceptable: getting soaked. Not allowed: umbrellas.
I spent my formative years in Florida, so my idea of what counts as a rainstorm is forever skewed. I’m not going to go bring an umbrella during a light shower (=”rainstorm” to non-Floridians), but in an actual storm (=”AARRRRGH WHAT IS THIS DID SOMEONE BUILD AN ARK AND NOT TELL ME”) you are going to need an umbrella, assuming you don’t like wringing your clothes out for fifteen minutes before you can wash them. That is not a manliness thing! That is a people thing!
Sexist Ideas Count: what is this I don’t even
5) Cut down on shorts.
Acceptable: suits on a bike if you’re going a few blocks, shorts when biking a long time, small tennis shorts if the temperature is above 90 degrees and not at night. Not allowed: cargo shorts, “wigger shorts.”
“To let our pants go wet with sweat during a heat wave is to deprive women the right to let their panties go wet with lust.” Poll: how many women are feeling their panties go wet with lust over this dude?
Sexist Ideas Count: homophobia.
6) Get that goo out of your hair.
Acceptable: Brylcreem to slick back hair. Not allowed: spiking hair.
YOU WILL TAKE MY GEL FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS
Sexist ideas count: homophobia, femmephobia.
7) You may only cry at movies.
Acceptable: crying a single tear at Up, crying while standing tall at funerals, silent heaves into your hand. Not allowed: any other kind of crying.
The previously-mentioned ex-boyfriend watches Up at least twice a week and has been occasionally known to have all-day Up marathons. I dunno, this is very “boys don’t cry” shite, justified by the idea that you have to PROTECT YOUR WOMAN and if you don’t you will FAIL AS A MAN, but I’m kind of pleased at the idea that real men watch Pixar movies. Because Pixar movies are awesome and even gender-enforcing asshats can see it.
Sexist ideas count: “boys don’t cry,” knight/beast dichotomy.
8) Stop caressing her and fuck her.
Acceptable: rape. Not allowed: listening to sexless lesbians for sex advice.
Takimag you are full of the worst people alive. Did you know that “no” doesn’t mean no? Instead, three “no”s means no! Look, TakiMag dude, I’m not going to address your soul or your sense of empathy, because you sold them both two years back for a bigger cock. Just think about your pure self-interest. Would you rather fuck a woman begging you for your cock, screaming in pleasure when you fuck her, digging her fingers into your back as she writhes under you? Or would you rather masturbate into the vagina of a woman who doesn’t really want to be there? Which of these sounds like good sex to you? Would you, in fact, rather have less really super-awesome sex or more terrible sex that traumatizes your sex partner? The sexless lesbians have this shit figured out!
Also ahahahahaha sexless lesbians. I’d get some of the lesbians I know to comment on that, but they’re too busy doing suspension-bondage fisting after a touch of fireplay.
Sexist Ideas Count: homophobia, RAPE CULTURE OH GOD SO MUCH RAPE CULTURE.
9) Cover your man toes.
Acceptable: sneakers– yes, even at the beach. Not allowed: “mandals.”
I love this. “La la la la la fedoras suck we like crap beer la YAY RAPE la la mandals.” Talk about your mood whiplash. Apparently sandals suck because you can’t fight people in them? Good to know.
Sexist Ideas Count: men are violent.
10) What’s on your T-Shirt?
Acceptable: T-shirts, grudgingly. Not allowed: band shirts.
This guy hates the Ramones. Further proof– in case the ableism, the pro-drunk-driving, and the yay rape weren’t enough– that TakiMag is full of the worst people alive. Is it just me or is this entire list about clothes? I thought men didn’t care about fashion!
Sexist Ideas Count: …actually remarkably non-sexist. But shit, man, who dislikes the Ramones?
11) You can only call your wife once a day.
Acceptable: one, private phone call per day with your wife. Not allowed: checking in with her after a meeting, asking your wife’s input before making a major decision.
Because real human relationships are for sissies, right? God forbid we ask the advice of those we love, that’s the worst. Thing. Ever. Unilateral decision-making is the best possible thing for your relationship! You definitely wouldn’t marry someone whose input and opinion you trust and value. That would be absurd!
Sexist ideas count: femmephobia, success myth, virgin-shaming, “men are loners who don’t care about anyone or at least better pretend to,” women like purses.
12) iPads are for girls.
Acceptable: notepads. Not allowed: Didn’t you read the title? iPads.
Because… men can’t play Angry Birds? Or something?
A grown man is meant to be prepared for conflict and provide for his wife and family. Indulging oneself like a gay teen on vacation is not only abandoning your post, it’s leaving women to pick up the slack.
Instead be a manly man! Rape women, never ask your wife’s advice about anything, and don’t wear sandals!
About ozyfrantz
I’m guessing it’s not what you were going for, but it made me laugh. “Liking” things on Facebook, probably not manly enough for this dude, actually.
Who/what the fuck is “takimag” i have never heard of these people, and I can see why.
Apparently a blog for pseudointellectual neocons to get their blue-collar on by trashing libs and parroting bullshit about “character” (usually defined as “beating ass”).
As a beer nerd and one who is endlessly fascinated by the incredibly convoluted gendering of food, I’ll weigh in on that one. Budweiser is kind of a mid-shelf beer assuming you’re not talking about fancy-ass microbrews. It’s not in the PBR category, but it’s far outstripped by, say, Guinness or Tecate (which costs about the same but is Mexican, so I guess people avoid it and the intersectionality of ingrained racism and nutritional anthropology is a whole other topic…). It is, however, very successfully marketed as All-American and MANLY for… no particular reason at all. It’s the route they went, I guess because “it’s pretty okay if you don’t want to pay a lot” is probably a lousy marketing slogan. The history of beer and gender is a weird, confusing one, but the highlights do all come down almost entirely to marketing. Schlitz once tried to market itself to ladies by changing its recipe from near-tasteless to entirely tasteless, because that’s how ladybeer is supposed to be? And that tanked. Some recent entrepreneur tried to sell beer in a pink and black sixer that looked like a purse a little bit? She babbled a lot about how womanly beer should be… feminine tasting? Not hoppy and lightly carbonated, I think, because… Again, I don’t know. Mostly in the packaging. Tastebuds aren’t actually sexually dimorphic, after all. Then there’s the fact that sugary beer-substitutes are generally referred to as “bitch beer,” because women are all about hard iced tea, I guess? One of those places where “ladies always diet” and “ladies like sugary stuff” crosses the streams and blows up the world, I assume. Porters and stouts are usually considered manly, but I’ve never noticed that pale ales are considered feminine, which you’d think would be the opposite? Anyway, beer gendering, and by extension alcohol gendering, and by extension food gendering, seems to be three parts marketing and two parts the conviction that strong flavors are for dudes and sweet flavors are for girls, except when the girls are dieting.
Where I live, not wearing a bike helmet can get you in trouble with the police. Apparently arrests and fines are manly then?
(Though wearing a bike helmet apparently doesn’t actually help that much… in high-speed crashes, such as a car ramming into you, the head damage comes mainly from your brain smacking the inside of your skull, which a helmet won’t help with at all. And people who wear helmets strongly tend to feel “safer” and end up being more reckless as a result.)
Thank you for that information. In my few years as abacus cyclist, I’ve never heard that. Personally, helmets are still hella good for me in case of hitting concrete/trees/most non-car related crashes (I mountain bike more than road bike), but this is good to know. New rule-no getting hit by cars.
It’s not my ability to ride a bicycle I’m worried about. It’s the inability of distracted drivers to notice me until it’s too damn late to swerve.
…But then, I do have a delicate ladyskull, so.
“But isn’t Budweiser a crappy beer?…….”
Your beer snob friends are smug hipsters who assume that everyone should like what they like. Just like TakiMag presumes that everyone should accept his/her/their judgments.
Why is it OK for your beer snob friends to pontificate on what beer is or isn’t ‘crappy’, but somehow it isn’t OK for TakiMag, whoever the hell that is, to pontificate on which beers are or aren’t ‘manly’? What the Hell’s the difference?
Telling someone their beer choice isn’t manly enough is challenging their identification with a specific social group. It’s saying – your beer choice indicates that you are not a “real man,” or at the very least that you are not performing your gender ‘correctly.’
Telling someone their beer choice is ‘crappy’ is just challenging their opinion. Big difference.
Speaking of [identity]ing beer at strange cross purposes. I’m confused as to how “hipster” became to go-to insult for unknown people you potentially disagree with, but then, I lived in the part of the country with actual hipsters. In most of American, “hipster” has come to mean “person between the ages of 18 and 35 who acts in a way I do not condone.” Weird bit of language evolution. I suspect it’s going to turn out roughly the same way “hippie” did for my parents’ generation.
But I digress. “Hipsters” simultaneously only drink fancy microbrews and PBR, because they’re some kind of… elite… irony… something! Pretty much the same way girls simultaneously drink only sugary, fancy things and diet booze. It just becomes a code word.
I’m not necessarily defending hipsters. Some of them are a bit much, and the subculture such as ’tis is a breeding crowd for disingenuous faux-liberals. But using the word to dismiss those damn kids today who think they’re cooler than you or something is just silly.
Hipsters generally describes young, usu. white, regimentedly-individual types who are very heavy with the ‘More culturally critical, cutting edge, and contrarain than thou’ vibes. Typically w/ faux/pomo/disingenuous liberal bent.
What does the word mean to you?
I thought the main defining trait of hipsters was that they liked non-mainstream things just because they’re non-mainstream, the more obscure the better.
That actually sounds more like than most characterizations I find on the internet. I’m thinking of, say, the phenomenon of http://lookatthisfuckinhipster.com, which consists mainly of people who don’t seem (as much as one can get from a picture, which is the whole point of a site full of images) to be hipsters at all. AnonymousDog’s comment was a very standard use of hipster as a meaningless pejorative, mistaking symptoms of indier-than-thou for the cause. You can be particular about beer because you like beer, the same way you can shop at Goodwill because you’re broke or listen to obscure music because you’re odd. It’s no reason to accuse strangers of being some kind of hateful demon elitists.
Interesting. Accuse someone of being a ‘racist’ on the internet(see below) and that’s pretty much that, the accused has been effectively silenced. Accuse someone of being a ‘hipster’ and people come out of the woodwork to defend hipsterism and argue about its definition.
“If you can’t ride a bicycle without wearing an extra skull, you can’t ride a bicycle.”
As someone who has lost the man who raised them due to head injury from a bicycle accident, I couldn’t continue reading after this. It doesn’t matter how manly or how skilled a cyclist you are. If you value your brain, WEAR A HELMET.
Who says the author values his brain?
“Also ahahahahaha sexless lesbians. I’d get some of the lesbians I know to comment on that, but they’re too busy doing suspension-bondage fisting after a touch of fireplay.”
Favourite phrase on the internet today.
And the most f’d up part….is that there are indeed women that actually believe this shit and will hold men to it.
I’ve been told by women:
To stop ordering girly drinks and that Smirnoff Ice drinks are “bitch beers”.
That I don’t need an umbrella because I’m a guy (by a woman who had no umbrella of her own and was trying to talk me out of mine).
That a guy crying at a movie is and I quote, “a fucking pussy”.
But seriously I’ve never heard that iPads are for women. And besides that contradicts the existence of men that are “supposed” to be tech geeks.
Well I don’t know if that’s “the most f’ed up part” but it’s definitely a f’ed up part. Equally f’ed up is the way men will shame other men for not conforming to this.
But that’s what we’ve come to. Manliness is measured by how many pussies you’re willing to shame.
I was saying most f’d up because the idea of a woman referencing her own genitals (and her own gender by extension) as a sign of weakness in order to shame a guy is more f’d up than a guy doing it.
As in it’s one thing for a guy to use references to women to shame other men but for a woman to use references (largely negative) to women to shame men just seems a bit worse to me.
At least to me it is.
This is the sort of stuff I come here for, reading commentary about the most fucked up stuff ever published. Seriously. I had to read this twice to make sure I wasn’t imagining it.
I love the ‘about us’ section of Taki Mag;
“We at Taki’s Magazine take our politics like we take life—lightly. We believe political labels such as conservative and liberal are as outdated as flared trousers and Nazis. Ideology is a false god, a secular religion that seeks vainly to create a paradise on Earth. Our only ideology is to be against the junk culture foisted upon us and mirages of a new world order. Think of us what you will, but read us. Our writers are never boring.
Please share this article by using the link below. When you cut and paste an article, Taki’s Magazine misses out on traffic, and our writers don’t get paid for their work.”
Wait people get paid to write that? I mean I knew Cosmo was evil, but these guys are getting paid to write “Rape is OK”. Well, yep the writers sure are ‘never’ boring; that’s because they are a pack of frat boy animals (fratimals?) who have yet to be house-trained (read: socialised), or perhaps were socialised by their 1950s sociopathic father who finds the idea of equality and civil liberties to be a touch ‘quaint’. This makes them interesting in the same way that a poisonous snake in your kitchen is ‘interesting’.
Utterly disgusting, it reinforces why when the singularity rolls around i’ll be divorcing myself from that side of the human race quicker than you can scream ‘body hating misanthrope’. Fuck you Taki mag. I hope you all burn to death.
Wow. They speak pretty weirdly against ideology; but they do not act as they speak!
Mirages of a new world order? Never heard that one before. Do they know what EITHER of those are? Or even think they know?
Not to mention that religion does not try to make paradise on earth.
That recolonization thing: GAAAAH! KILL IT WITH FIRE!. I can imagine plenty of cases where colonization, when carried out in a careful manner by people who could wheigh consequences without self-aggrandizement, would serve the greater good. I suspect that is the case now; just as exploitative control ruined Africa, restorative control could rebuild it. But anybody who talks that way is absolutely, obviously, NOT GOOD.
And would definitely exploit. They would not serve the greater good. They would not even attempt to..
Whoa. WHoa. WHOA. This is one of their other articles. Really.
http://takimag.com/article/recolonizing_the_dark_continent_hannes_wessels#axzz1xioergbj
IDiom
Thanks for drawing that to my attention. Sweet dead rabbit, that shit is racist. You can always tell virulent racism from casual racism by comments like how Detroit is currently experiencing its trouble because there government is dominated by black men, (read: has had a black mayor since 1974). Never mind the complex reasons behind the decline of the US motor powers (and subsequently Detroit), and never mind that both the 1967 riots and the next 7 years were presided over by a white mayor.
AAAANNNNNDDDD nevermind. Takimah employs John Derbyshire. In fact he has 2 of the top 5 most popular. You’ll remember Derbyshire from that almost unbelievably racist article on the National Review’s website. It appears they’ve taken it down though. But color me no longer surprised that the IDiom’s referenced article made it there.
You mean this article? I don’t think that ever appeared on the NRO. And, I read the NRO pretty often. Addationally, the National Review canned John Derbyshire as a result of that article.
You’re right. I got it mixed up.
Still thought, if he’s the company they’re running around with, color me no longer surprised.
“sandals suck because you can’t fight people in them”
Damn those Doc Marten-wearing Vandals – the Roman’s never stood a chance !
Ohhh, jeez. I think that if somebody slaps ‘my’ girlfriend, SHE has the responsibility and honor of chasing.
That rape bit? Oh my god they actually said that. I thought you were exaggeration.
And I wonder if they even think or care that their claims of these things making one unattractive to women are true.
There’s something about the “manly men drink Budweiser” that irritates me.
It says to me…
Men aren’t supposed to enjoy sensuous experiences or to be connoisseurs. Enjoying the taste of something, valuing variety and knowing and caring about food and drink are non-manly. Even knowing about enjoying different types of beer is non-manly.
Which is a sad loss for manly men.
Manly here is lowest-common-denominator manly. You have no “tastes” as such. Your likes, dislikes, opinions and actions are formed entirely by your job and the not too varied flavors of the mass media.
If there’s satire here, it’s pretty subtle. Unlike the writing. McInnes/Takimag is probaby hoping at least some readers take it at face value. Mass media manliness is good for GOP candidates and advertisers.
The first thing you have to understand is that Gavin McInnes, the author of this piece, was one of the creators of Vice magazine, so he’s always had a hyperbolic, snarky writing style. He’s also always hated flip-flops on men. Since he started writing for Taki’s, he has in some ways attempted to “atone” for his hipster past by amping up the hyperbole in the conservative direction. What I’m saying is maybe don’t take this article at face value.
Going through this article and refuting the author’s points one by one strikes me as silly and almost childish. I think the things he said about bike helmets, umbrellas, shorts, crying at movies (I totally broke down at the end of Wall-E in the theater, whatever), calling your wife, and iPads are dumb too but I’m not offended by it. Isn’t the most “machismo” response to read the article, evaluate whether you agree with the author’s points or not, and then go on with your life ordering whatever kind of drinks you want, wearing your hair however you want, and proudly walking around town in your shorts and sandals? Isn’t that what a real man would do?
I felt physically sick reading that article, and the comments afterwards. Shit like that makes me ashamed of my gender. The rape bit is beyond disgusting and the bike helmet thing is just stupid. I lost a good friend in a bike crash, now I always make sure I’m protected.
dumbest article ever, buying into all this patriarchal crap wont get you laid, but not doing any of it wont get you laid either, talk about the definition of useless information <_<.
I ran a spot check on the author… he’s done another article telling what women have to do, it’s also pretty disgusting. He’s a rabble-rouser that writes pretty much extremist versions of right-wing beliefs but as an author of hipster mags it most likely just hipster racism, sexism and hopefully poe’s law rearing it’s ugly head once again…
At first I took no 1. to mean ‘don’t buy drinks for your woman friends unless it’s beer, whisky or bourbon’” because at fist glance I couldn’t imagine what else he meant by ‘women’s drinks’