You can just vent if you want, but here’s more context: We’re playing a DnD oneshot soon, and the theme is toxic masculinity (particularly in a gym). We’re all playing dudes who visited the gym for a long time already. I already have some ideas for my character, but I want to collect some more stories of toxic masculinity, as I’m quite lucky that my bubble doesn’t have much of it.
There are a lot of great answers here, but I’d like to add one that I think is often forgotten in these conversations:
Purposeful incompetence around supposedly non-masculine skills.
It drives me up the wall every time I hear some dude talk about how they don’t know how to do basic tasks of living because the women in their lives take care of it for them.
Guys who act like laundry, cooking, dishes, changing a diaper, gardening, grocery shopping, etc. require arcane knowledge they just don’t possess.
+1 if they can rp the incompetence into an adv roll. Literal weaponised incompetence
Every time the party encounter a FEMALE they have to comment on their body and if they’d have intercourse with her or if she isn’t hot enough to be worthy of their attention. And if all of them say no but one says he’d “do her” all the others have to mock him for his low standards (see moped).
They all have to one-up each other all the time on all kind of small things.
No one can ever see another man peepee. They all have to refer to their peepees with highly sounding names that confer absolute potency (e. g. the horn of breeding).
Their horses/companion animals have to be waaaay oversized and impractical, with no real bonuses and lots of drawbacks (e. g. Brutus the destroyer, a 100kg dog that is slow, eats all the time, shits copious amounts that they have to pick up and has a dps of 2, and love scratches behind the ears).
They have to carry
walletsswords on their back because it looks cool but it’s absolutely impractical. A couple of true stories on this last bit: my dad once told me I should start putting my wallet in my back pocket “like a man”. A friend of mine got back problems because he used to sit all day with his wallet on his back.Love the ideas
Just thought of a couple more: they have to eat unhealthy amount of meat (pork or beef only obviously) and zero vegetables (fries are acceptable). Breakfast is a mixture of (leftover) pizza, fat, eggs and any other kind of heavy greasy food. Even better if blended together so they can show how manly they are by their prowess in eating shit. They have to drink lots and lots of beer, and the first one to say they had enough (of either meat or beer) is mocked for being a lightweight.
Music was always the one for me. I couldn’t listen to that music or this music because “That’s gay bro”. It didn’t matter that I listened to a large variety, it was instilled in me that some music is okay, other stuff is not.
One of my earliest memories was being into Britney Spears. I was young, 10 or so. Dad was never home and I learned to like my own music on my own time without him, and I liked her music. My memory is that I was listening to it in the car, my CD of hers, and then I remember mom and dad arguing, and I don’t remember ever seeing that CD again. My mom confirmed when I was an adult that dad threw it out because he didn’t want me to listen to her. Did he share any of his music with me as an alternative? No of course not, I just couldn’t listen to that.
Now as an adult I’ve fully embraced it. I love me Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen, and other “manly” bands (Yes I know, I chuckle too at Queen), but I’m also an avid Swifty (I even mod [email protected] ) because sometimes you just want a song that feels a bit happier, and I even took my wife to the Eras tour. I love Olivia Rodrigo because damn if we don’t all have some teenage angst sometimes, and I’ve gone back a bit to Britney too - but not as much.
What a shame that people think that art should be subject to what they think the world is like. There is room to like many different things. Enjoying one thing doesn’t mean you dislike another thing. People can like many different things. I can enjoy A24 films while also laughing at Wil Farrell movies. None of that means that I’m this or that - humans are complex and like what we like. Thanks for reading this far :)
One of my earliest memories was being into Britney Spears. I was young, 10 or so. Dad was never home and I learned to like my own music on my own time without him, and I liked her music. My memory is that I was listening to it in the car, my CD of hers, and then I remember mom and dad arguing, and I don’t remember ever seeing that CD again.
Its so funny to see all those guys, who called groups like Nsync and BSB “gay” back in middle school in the '90s, lose their fucking minds and start singing and dancing along when something like “Bye Bye Bye” comes on the jukebox at the bar.
To be honest, I hated boy bands back then too but there’s definitely some nostalgia hearing them today.
Honestly I look back and put them. How many of them had similar experiences to me? That was taught to them, they didn’t make it up themselves.
Thanks for your view, I hadn’t considered music before.
“Real men don’t put cream in their coffee.”
No, real men don’t give a shit how others drink their coffee, Stanley.
Real men cream in their coffee
This guy masculinates intoxically.
I’m a real man : I drink coffee that’s ben masculinated in by other real men
Real men characteristics:
Uneducated
Willing to fight after losing a debate
Only have 3 emotions- mad, sad, horny
Refer to themselves as alphas
Impose favors on women for a reward
Assume women are flattered by attention
Might makes right
Ends justify the means
Say offensive things to assert dominance
Believe that children are small adults
Try to take charge by yelling
Poor impulse control
Only have aggressive impersonal seggs
Low Theory of Mind ability
Man up, stop crying. Walk it off. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It builds character.
talk over all female characters because you know better than them. Disregard professional advice if it comes from a female character. Ask if you can get a second opinion, but only if the first one comes from a female character. Females are lower than men. Your job is to provide for them. They do not have the emotional stability to run anything. That’s why they clean, cook, and take care of children. That is why men handle politics, governance, leadership, and other important roles. Wo- cough Females can’t be trusted to be stable enough to handle such big tasks. You are important. You are big and dominant. Feeeeemales are small and submissive.
Real men have muscles. Real men don’t cry. Real men are physically strong. Real men are stoic, only showing emotion in instances of overwhelming happiness or loss. Real men know how to fight. Real men never back down. Real men never run away. Real men can do anything. As a man, you own the world around you, including feeeeemales.
I can keep going, but tbh I feel gross. I had to deal with a lot of this as a kid. I don’t think my parents realized how gross the male adults around me were, otherwise I’m pretty sure they would have been shocked and appalled by it.
Every time I see the word “females” in contexts like this I imagine the person writing the post is a Ferengi pretending to be human.
Which is kinda funny because I would use shimpoo, but gods forbid men can have some skin routine. It’s not my thing, but let people do what they want.
a DnD oneshot soon, and the theme is toxic masculinity
Sounds like… fun. Why do you want real-world problems in your games?
To make satire of them and laugh about it
