- cross-posted to:
- humanities
Men do think about matters of the heart, but writing about it publicly could be seen as undignified, says journalist Imogen West-Knights
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Would many straight men even read this fabled column? Again, I asked some friends. “I probably wouldn’t be interested in reading a column by some dude cos I’d just think, well, that’s him I guess. I can’t imagine finding it useful or applying it to me in any way.”
I think this is it for me. Women vary, and what works for some dude’s woman probably won’t work for mine.
I think the snag is that “talk to your partner” is a boring, factual, real-world response to most questions – which is very, very good advice… that nobody wants to hear.
A lot of the time that is the response after someone says that they did try to talk to their partner too. It is both true and a non-helpful answer in a lot of cases because the problems to discuss are caused by underlying communication problems.
That is true. You could spruce it up about specifics about how to talk about it but you are right. Most relationship problems are boring and that is the boring answer. You need some advice about the interesting parts of sex and relationships where there are a focus on the sex especially non PIV sex.
Meh. Both people not understanding what they want or how to solve a problem is entirely possible, but the solution to that is to try a few different things and talk some more. Maybe that could be the hook… Talking to couples instead of just one person. Anyway. As much as I’d love for someone to pay me to talk about sex all day, it’s not happening.
I think that is true for most advice columns. I think it would need to a hook (bi, kinky, poly etc.) of some kind as well. It is interesting that it doesn’t exist
Because either A: it’s viewed as creepy or
B: no one cares
Straight men don’t need to write about sex; a lot of us are terrible at it. Read Dan Savage instead, he’ll sort you.
10 / 10 would recommend Dan Savage for everyone
I have been reading / listening to Dan Savage for years for my sex and relationship advice. With him being a gay man its interesting to hear his perspective as a man and dating men. Its been wonderful for my development and I highly recommend him to everyone.
That being said it would be interesting to hear from a straight or bi men as well. I often hear things that he says about men in general that I disagree with and wonder if its me, a gay thing or something different. A diversity of voices is always helpful especially if its about kink. Its more interesting as a topic and there are plenty of kinky woman writing now and few kinky men. Which is ironic since there are more kinky identified men than woman as a population overall
I wouldn’t mind writing, but I’d first have to find a date…
What would I even be writing about without publicly exposing my personal life intimate details (don’t want to) or that hasn’t been said ad nauseam by better and more known writers at this point? What’s a sensible sex and dating column that doesn’t simply reduce into the usual “be empathetic, respect other’s space and boundaries, open dialog, know yourself, seek therapy, etc”?
For the starters, men need to learn to talk about sex. I never had a useful conversation about sex with other men, with women sure easy topic (just don’t be a creep).
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Nora Ephron, Anaïs Nin, bell hooks, Elizabeth Gilbert, Dolly Alderton, Candace Bushnell, and so on.
A recent New York Times article about the podcaster Scott Galloway noted that he smuggled relationship content into advice about career paths.
And of course, as so many young men are doing of late, you can dive headlong into the cesspit of woman hacking, care of professed misogynist Andrew Tate.
“If it’s going well, it comes off braggy and vulgar, and if it’s going poorly, stop whinging in print.” So maybe it’s not surprising that a lot of male writers wouldn’t touch this subject with a bargepole.
“I think some of the things I get away with saying about men would seem a bit gross from guys, because of the obvious power imbalance,” Annie Lord, British Vogue’s dating columnist, told me.
But not even an imagined – and it seems pretty impossible – golden age of personal writing by men is going to force straight guys into hand-holding, tear-shedding summits with their friends when the truth seems to be that, whether for societal or biological or whatever reasons, they don’t want to.
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