Androgynous men make better marriages!

[Dorit]

Hi Lexi! Correlation does not mean other factors do not play a part. Of course the women has everything to do with it too!

[Claire Cook]

DevorahK,

Add me to the list of those whose softer and gentler qualities have added to the success of our relationships. Sue has often told me that if I were a macho alpha male type, I never would have had a chance. She always called me "sweet one", even before I got into serious dressing. Now either as a "normal" hetero couple or as two gals we share everything.

Reine, I appreciate your comments about the distinction between being a warm caring male and CD'ing. But I know I feel more emotionally female when I'm dressed.

Hugs,

Claire

[ReineD]

Reine, I appreciate your comments about the distinction between being a warm caring male and CD'ing. But I know I feel more emotionally female when I'm dressed.

Claire, of course you do and I do not dispute this. Just saying that being a warm, caring person is not the providence of people who have feminine affinities or a female gender identity. There are CDers who are not warm and caring, just as there are cismen and ciswomen who aren't.

[Claire Cook]

Reine,

Of course there are (for all of your aboves!). And the feeling is mutual -- you know how much I/ we appreciate your perspective .

[Bridget Ann Gilbert]

Why must a man who is empathetic and caring be deemed "toward the female of the spectrum"? Or more accurately, why do so many CDers like to believe that nurturing men are feminine?

It just seems to me that members here subscribe to male stereotypes perhaps more so than average people.

You bring up a good point. Why do we cling to old stereotypes to define masculinity, femininity, and in the case of this thread, androgyny (which is generally understood to be a balance of the other two)? I’ve mentioned in other threads that all humans are capable of experiencing the same emotions and performing the same functions. It is becoming a rather quaint notion that some personality traits are distinctly masculine or feminine, yet it will take time for this notion to fade.

At the same time, there is an almost instinctual understanding that men and women are psychologically different, hence the popularity of the book “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”. The question becomes how does one measure those differences? If attributes like empathy or logic, aggressiveness, or gentleness, etc. are useless because both sexes can exhibit them to extreme degrees, what do we use?

Try this hypothetical scenario. Imagine you meet an alien species that functions as a simultaneous hermaphrodite (one that has both functioning male and female sexual anatomy). How would you explain to one of their individuals how human men and women are different from each other beyond the obvious physical differences?

I doubt we’ll come to an agreed upon conclusion. Volumes have been written in psychological journals trying to answer this question. I think that’s why addressing gender identity issues is so difficult. We have such a hard time getting even the basic definitions settled.

Bridget

[ReineD]

How do we describe the differences between men and women? Honestly, Bridget, I think we can only boil it down to differences in primary and secondary sexual characteristics (XX-estrogen vs XY-testosterone). We can also provide a historical context, that it is or has made more sense for the woman, who is smaller and who does lactate, to stay home with the child while the larger and stronger husband fends off the tigers and chases animals for food. Things just became less cut and dry with the disappearance of tigers from our neighborhoods, and the appearance of grocery stores where both parents can shop for baby-formula.

As far as I understand it, rapid advances in technology are causing an unprecedented equalizing of gender roles (which does inform how we behave). There are couples where the female is the major income earner and the male plays a larger role at home, either due to the female having a more advanced degree or the male having lost his job due to out-sourcing. Most couples do share work and household responsibilities. Does this mean that the female is "becoming" male and the male is "becoming" female? No. They still mate as man and woman, they still identify as man and woman, respectively, and they still present as such within our current cultural context.