Alan L, I would say that I can sympathize, but as an INTP, it is more of anunderstandingthan a feeling for your situation ;)
My "struggle," if you can even call it that, with masculinity has been entirely based on my lack of activity. I don't much care for sports, though I appreciate the importance of activity for health. I just am not motivated to be very active. I have always identified with masculine men and characters, but it is more of an intellectual activity then actually emulating their physicality (except for costumes).
I am definitely an intellectual (I've discovered that my answer to new coworkers, when they ask what I do in my free time, needs to be along the lines of, "I independently research music and theology," instead of trying to come up with some match to their fishing or sporting extracurriculars). But I have known of many male intellectual role models throughout my life, and I am learning through the Art of Manliness to appreciate the physical needs of my male body.
What interested me about this article was the notion of swapped gender roles in the parents. My parents were similar, with my mom as the no-nonsense "suck it up" type and my dad as the emotional one (my emotional sister went to him for emotional support; I am more like my mom, so I didn't seek emotional support). But my parents' physicality was very much related to their biology, so I never had any trouble matching my personality with my sex, even if so-called "gender roles" didn't always match.
Anyways, I like talking about myself, and studying my own personality, but I really hope I can convey the idea that my personality and my sex don't conflict, even if my "grammatical" gender is not up to modern-day culture's standards.
conor.p.cooksays...
Alan L, I would say that I can sympathize, but as an INTP, it is more of anunderstandingthan a feeling for your situation ;)
My "struggle," if you can even call it that, with masculinity has been entirely based on my lack of activity. I don't much care for sports, though I appreciate the importance of activity for health. I just am not motivated to be very active. I have always identified with masculine men and characters, but it is more of an intellectual activity then actually emulating their physicality (except for costumes).
I am definitely an intellectual (I've discovered that my answer to new coworkers, when they ask what I do in my free time, needs to be along the lines of, "I independently research music and theology," instead of trying to come up with some match to their fishing or sporting extracurriculars). But I have known of many male intellectual role models throughout my life, and I am learning through the Art of Manliness to appreciate the physical needs of my male body.
What interested me about this article was the notion of swapped gender roles in the parents. My parents were similar, with my mom as the no-nonsense "suck it up" type and my dad as the emotional one (my emotional sister went to him for emotional support; I am more like my mom, so I didn't seek emotional support). But my parents' physicality was very much related to their biology, so I never had any trouble matching my personality with my sex, even if so-called "gender roles" didn't always match.
Anyways, I like talking about myself, and studying my own personality, but I really hope I can convey the idea that my personality and my sex don't conflict, even if my "grammatical" gender is not up to modern-day culture's standards.