The End of Manhood: Parables On Sex and Selfhood: Revised Edition by John Stoltenberg

Author:John Stoltenberg [John Stoltenberg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2011-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

Another Optional Feelings Check

For some readers raised to be a man, it may be time to acknowledge those waves of gender anxiety again. Those flustery, sometimes blustery feelings of nervousness or discomfort or anticipation of punishment. Those feelings that seem to physically revisit your body whenever certain questions come up about your manhood “I.” Questions about whether you are who you would like to be on the vertical scale of manhood. Questions about whether the vertical scale of manhood is real and whether you’re really on it. Those waves of personal identity anxiety.

There’s no magic wand* to make those waves go away. And even if you think you’ve cleverly managed to keep your gender anxiety feelings at bay…they’ll be back. You can count on it. You’ve got Lesson B in you, right there in your flesh-and-blood feeling body. And if you were lucky, you’ve got some Lesson A too. One human body, two contradictory lessons. Now and then you’re going to re-feel them. And the waves of anxiety from Lesson B can really get to you sometimes.

Though you can’t make those waves go away, you can become more alert to what you’re feeling when they come for a visit. You can remember to run a self-check routine whenever they show up. You can ask yourself, for instance,

“Who am I deciding to be—right here and now?”

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