Aman’s Reviews > The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love > Status Update

idk how she has so much smoke for single moms but nearly not as much for the nuclear family as an organizing structure, it's truly baffling

on the sex chapter, and i'm kinda wondering what her thoughts on BDSM are like. i have begun to eye discussions of sex disentangled from the concept of consent (or very tangentially related to it) with some suspicion, but she writes such obvious facts that are at the very least anecdotally valid it's difficult to not be persuaded or see her point. and it still leaves me thinking but this isn't the entire story is it.

"To truly protect and honor the emotional lives of boys we must challenge patriarchal culture. And until that culture changes, we must create the subcultures, the sanctuaries where boys can learn to be who they are uniquely, without being forced to conform to patriarchal masculine visions."

thrashing rowling is always a good thing in my eyes but doing it in 2003 and for this reason (won't elaborate lol) is especially impressive

there is a peculiar disinterest in empirical data which i find disturbing because it keeps leading to leaps in logic i'm having trouble following
"Most gay men in our culture are as embracing of sexist thinking as are heterosexuals," (which is true) becomes, "[they] construct paradigms of desirable sexual behavior that is similar to that of patriarchal straight men." (which is also true-ish) But where is the link?

Loving maleness is different from praising and rewarding males for living up to sexist-defined notions of male identity. Caring about men because of what they do for us is not the same as loving males for simply being. When we love maleness, we extend our love whether males are performing or not. Performance is different from simply being.

unfortunately not gay but I'm approximating, plus it's for a book club