Masculinity Mondays: 11

 A delayed post, as I've been out for work related reasons today.

This morning, I decided to meditate while I was showering.  Hot water is fantastic for well-worked-out muscles, and also a good mental reset, too.

That meditation led into reflections on the gendering of elements, and assigning particular elements to particular genders. Water, for example, is "feminine" - and yet being muscular is "masculine" - and, specifically, masculine as held by (cis) men - that's gospel truth whether you listen to the Andrew Tates of this world, or their female counterparts; men just obviously have more, and more powerful, muscles than women - ergo, if someone isn't musucular, they're not a "real" man.

However: without hot water, well-worked muscles cannot relax. And if muscles don't relax, you can't move with that panther-like fluidity, the wolf stalk, or whatever other animalistic hyperfixation the Tater Tots are on today. Without relaxed muscles, as anyone with a musculoskeletal condition will tell you, you'll be unable to do much of anything.  And will be in pain whilst not doing much of anything.

So, if we believe that muscles are masculine, and water is feminine...then masculinity needs femininty.

Which doesn't mean "masculine people need feminine people to take care of them!" - but, in fact, that masculinity needs to hold some femininity in itself.

In contrast, femininity is complete in and of itself.  Femininity doesn't need masculinity; it chooses it.

Which means masculinity is a choice for femininity.

Which means masculinity has to make itself a desirable choice - and why would any adult make a bad choice if they had better choices available to them? (They wouldn't. That's why so many men are on lists that no one should want to be on...because they rely on people who are not adults being talked into believing that manipulation is those non-adult people "being so mature and grown up, and making a choice.")

Sure, feminine people with uteruses who wish to have children used to need masculine people with penises to make those children happen.  That's...not so much the case any more.  Adoption is less stigmatised and more open these days.  Some feminine people have penises. Some masculine people have uteruses -  those masculine and feminine people could have kids together if both are interested.  Not every feminine person with a uterus wants to have children - and not having kids is becoming more socially acceptable than it has ever been.

But outside of an increasingly dwindling pool of feminine people with uteruses who have a specific focus on giving birth to their own biological children, femininity can be complete without masculinity; masculinity, in contrast, requires femininity to be healthy and functional, and they need to be able to source that masculinity by themselves, without demanding that feminine people provide that necessary femininity for them.

If you're masculine - you're a choice for feminine people.  Work to make yourself the best possible choice for those people, a choice which adds to the completeness feminine people enjoy.