#that he isnt the ideal prince that he definitely is not doing his duty the way hes supposed to

[angelsaxis]

im by no means a writing expert of any kind but it is a bit worrying and very annoying when a character does something and a reader's response is "he's not supposed to do that (this is a mistake the author has made that needs to be corrected)" rather than understanding that that's a character's flaw and part of their personality and literal arc

[fashiontrendin-blog]

Men, Isn’t It Time We All Accepted That We’re A Bit Inadequate?

http://fashion-trendin.com/men-isnt-it-time-we-all-accepted-that-were-a-bit-inadequate/

Men, Isn’t It Time We All Accepted That We’re A Bit Inadequate?

Once you hit a certain age, say 40, it feels like a big deal because A) everyone tells you that it’s a big deal, and B) you probably remember your dad turning 40 and thinking what a real man he was. Just pure guy, 100 per cent bloke. The patriarch, the provider, the professional. He was probably good at football (or some other sport), confident, authoritative, an alpha male – everything a man supposedly should be. He was 40, and he encapsulated ‘dadness’.

Now you’re 40, maybe approaching it, maybe giving it the stare in the rear-view mirror. Maybe you’re a dad, too. Only what you see staring back at you each morning is something less certain, less overtly masculine, less blokeish. Sure, you’re a patriarch, but only in the biological sense; and you provide for your family, but so does your other half. This immediately presents two realisations: the first being that our expectations of masculinity might have shifted somewhat in the last twenty-something years, and also that your dad was probably blagging it anyway. Turns out he’s shy and kind, and he works hard, but a macho man, he is not.

Whatever overtly masculine vibes you saw him to be giving off had been fed to you. Fed by various suppositions that were nurtured in your head, passed down through the generations, and then passed through a basic set of childish filters. Because you saw him only in ‘dad’ terms, all you saw were the traits that dads were supposed to have. But the more you talk and reminisce now, the more he likely alludes to his uncertainty and insecurity as a young father. Of being a man.

The lesson here being that ‘masculinity’ in its most draconian sense isn’t something that’s easy (or even possible) to live up to. It’s long been absurdly defined as something stoical, successful, strong. Few of these traits honestly point towards the reality of being a man. Even the archetypes of brave soldiers coming home from battle belie a hidden truth of generations surely crippled by post-traumatic stress, numbed by war.

For every Gazza scoring an iconic goal against Scotland, thousands more Gazzas are looking lost and bewildered in the street. And as you lie on the beach during the summer, scroll through Instagram or sedate yourself with another episode of Love Island, it’s not hard to notice the hordes of guys who have succumbed to a social trend that requires normal people with normal jobs to have Olympian bodies. What the hell is that all about?

“Work was always the central way men could define themselves, their identity depended on it,” suggests sociologist Robert Proni. “Now, with the feminisation of the workplace, you could argue that there is more pressure to express masculinity through body image.”

Whatever it is to be a man right now, it all looks quite complicated and contradictory – gentle and sensitive but also beefy and strong, self-confident and go-getting yet humble. To put a positive spin on it, each of us has a chance to be a modern-day Renaissance man, open to and capable of anything. But it’s also little wonder men are having greater struggles with their mental health than ever before. We’ve forgotten that it’s okay to be inadequate, it’s fine to be unheroic, it’s no problem to like yourself in spite of all of the things you’re seemingly getting wrong.

“I’m not sure that the strong and silent stereotype for men holds true anymore,” starts masculinity expert, author and journalist Mark Simpson. “They perhaps don’t always express themselves in the same way as women, but that doesn’t mean they don’t express themselves. Perhaps people need to listen more.”

Mental health, certainly amongst guys, seems to be on the social agenda in a big way, with men talking about it on a bigger platform. Everyone from Dwayne Johnson to Stormzy has opened up about their experiences with depression. Even the Royal Family – notorious for centuries of oil paintings depicting them as noble warriors (or, at least, as better looking than they are) – have entered the debate. Princes Harry and William have taken to encouraging the nation’s menfolk to address their inner struggles and to tackle mental health head-on. This, it has to be said, can only be applauded, because the topic of depression has long been an absurd taboo, seemingly viewed as a sign of weakness.

However, the statistics tell a story of a society struggling to do battle with its demons. In the last couple of years, it’s been reported that suicide is now the biggest killer of men under 50 in the UK. Anxiety, depression and eating disorders have also skyrocketed by over 600 per cent in younger men over the last decade.

It’s impossible to say whether this is the result of a ‘crisis of masculinity’ — a phrase that seems to be wheeled out every so often at our convenience — or whether men are simply finding it easier to be open and, as a result, the reported cases are causing a spike in the stats. Whatever the underlying reason, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that men are becoming humanised in a way that makes for shocking reading, but also in a way that can ultimately benefit not just men, but everyone. Because once age-old notions of men being one way, and women being another, are finally laid to rest, society can edge closer to total equality.

Perhaps, though, any male ‘crisis’ is simply down to men being required to give up their privilege and reprogram their outlook. “Masculinity has been in crisis forever, but I don’t believe that masculinity is ‘in crisis’ today,” agrees Simpson. “On the contrary, it’s probably in less crisis than it has ever been before – masculinity has been liberated by a metrosexual revolution, from oppressive and impossible expectations of what ‘being a man’ is.”

So what are we left with? A society where men are being alleviated of (or stripped of, depending on your outlook) their old purported responsibilities. It’s no longer set in stone that you must be the breadwinner; you are no longer required to hunt and gather; you are allowed to feel weak, or unhappy; you have permission to share your innermost workings. You are not the king of your castle. Instead, you are a cog in a much bigger machine than you, sharing all of the duties and responsibilities that come with it, and you’re allowed to identify as a child of the universe – lost, uncertain and imperfect. Now, this all might sound a bit negative, but in reality, it’s brilliant. The freedom to embrace your inadequacies and to aspire to something other than being respected and stoical? Bring it on.

“Truth is, nobody knows what being a man involves today, and that’s actually rather good news, not a cue for ominous music and scary statistics,” continues Simpson. “Most of the ideas about masculinity, back when we all knew what it was, were prohibitions: not sensitive, not gay, not passive, not girly, not good with colours. Repression was an essential part of old-school masculinity, including the part of it that everyone misses: self-sacrifice, strength and stoicism.

“Essentially, being a man was sold as a form of heroism – a ‘man’ was a heroic ideal, something almost impossible to embody. That isn’t to say that everything is hunky-dory now, but on the whole, things are a lot better – we can actually talk about men’s ‘failings’ and problems now.”

Another area that has shifted markedly in recent decades is the come about of social media. In the same way you were not privy to your father’s inner workings, neither were you tuned into his brand ideals – he didn’t have a preferred Instagram filter and, in general, you didn’t see men on holiday turning their disposable cameras around and sucking in their cheeks and puffing out their chests.

In fact, when you look back at the men that defined masculinity around that time – Sean Connery, Tom Selleck, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, Bruce Springsteen – they weren’t sculpted and shaven, they weren’t even particularly shredded. Instead, that absurd subsection of muscularity was left to the Stallones and Schwarzeneggers, who were far from the norm. They were the exceptions, walking testosterone, something to be exhibited rather than aspired towards.

Skip to now, where everyone from boyband members to reality stars to A-Listers like Ryan Gosling and even Justin Beiber is seemingly expected to have Adonis bodies that tell a story of a lifetime spent in the gym. Add to that the occasional gigantic beard and the epidemic propensity towards getting multiple tattoos, and you start to wonder if these things might have a more profound message, that they might be totems of a lost masculinity. A desperate lunge towards validation as ‘men’.

“In terms of body image, any shift can be related to the consumer culture of today,” says Proni, who lectures at Kingston University, London. “The commodification of our bodies – the cultural emphasis on youthfulness, desire and pleasure – this doesn’t just apply to men, the media images for all of us are now woven into the fabric of our daily life. And unfortunately, this notion that we are all responsible for ourselves can lead to depression, confusion and anxiety in men. Instead of finding ourselves, we lose ourselves.”

Indeed, in the quest for validation and approval, it seems that many more men are going under the knife – presumably, in a bid to provide the world with the fantasy version of their masculine selves they would urge you, and probably themselves, to buy into.

“I’ve always had a high proportion of male patients in my practice,” says cosmetic surgeon Dr Jonquille Chantrey. “But there are definitely more men attending now than ever before. Their top reason for coming is to ‘look less tired’, but lots of them are also interested in non-surgical body contouring procedures to get rid of stubborn fat that won’t shift, even with their gruelling workout regimes.

“The pressures to look a certain way have been there for some time in terms of body appearance and grooming, but it’s quickly transgressing into face and health – most of the men we treat work hard to keep up their fitness, which can ironically make them look gaunt and haggard.”

“Modern men definitely feel pressure to be looked at and ‘liked’,” continues Simpson. “But that’s because we live in a hyper-visual, social media culture. I don’t think this is necessarily bad. It’s good that men no longer look, and women are no longer simply looked at. Men have discovered the desire to be desired – which was always at the heart of metrosexuality. It’s no longer something just for gays and girls.”

So, all of this would suggest that, with the diminishing gender divide, men are now essentially experiencing the same pressures to look a certain way that have been dogging women forever. The patriarchy is dying, the shoe (or heel) is on the other foot. Masculinity is reshaping itself, and presumably, some men have been left feeling confused, exposed, discombobulated and uncertain about their place in the world.

But don’t confuse this as anything other than positive. Men have been shackled by old notions of masculinity for way too long, forever urged to be part of a gang, or to fit into tired stereotypes. Now we can be honest, open, and complex individuals – we can unashamedly (or ashamedly, it’s up to you) be ourselves. We can dress how we want, we can be candid about our desire to become better people, healthier people, and we can even be truthful about the things that make us feel inadequate. We’re basically Eminem at the end of 8 Mile, listing our faults in a bid to become glorious and triumphant. And the nicest part is that we can now work on becoming genuinely brotherly with one another in a way that women have been supporting one another for years.

“Self-confidence is more powerful when it comes from a healthy inner perspective,” says Dr Chantrey.

We’ll drink to that.