First of all, before we get into this you have to know how impossible it was to find a decent pic to go along with this post. Just about every potential image I initially thought would be clever turned out to be nothing short of creepy.
Maybe there’s no coincidence there. Perhaps talking about men as having a “feminine side” is inherently creepy to begin with, it’s just that nobody dares say anything because the idea of “getting in touch with one’s feminine side” has become such a cliché over the years.
And like most clichés, people tend to use that particular one conveniently when it seems to fit the situation…without really giving much thought to it.
But what in the world does it MEAN for a man to “get in touch with his feminine side”? And is it a good thing to do so? Geez…do we even HAVE a “feminine side”?
I’m reminded of the “Most Interesting Man In the World” commercial that features this gem: “He’d get in touch with his feminine side…if he had one.”
The oxymoron there is what makes that hilarious, of course.
I have to tell you, I’ve been immersed in the art or science (or whatever you want to call it) of how masculinity and femininity work for nearly a decade now, and I STILL can’t locate my “feminine side”.
Maybe that wouldn’t be the case if I had actually spent any time honestly LOOKING for it…except that I haven’t yet figured that to be necessary. At all.
Now, before you respond with a comment seeking to lecture me on what exactly I should “get in touch with”, know this. Whatever definition of “feminine side” drives your point of view, it’s really NOT an established standard.
Seriously, I did my homework before writing this. Due diligence on Google revealed dozens upon dozens of articles and so forth on “how a man can get in touch with his feminine side”, etc.
Every single one of them said something completely different.
Interestingly, about as many were written by MEN as by WOMEN. Some were penned by married couples exhorting me to “compromise” the masculine and the feminine to find “balance” or “equality”.
Good God Man. I can only imagine how boring THEIR sex life must be. Good luck with that.
Here’s where the rubber meets the road.
Masculinity and femininity serve ONE purpose. That’s to create sexual polarity.
To put it more viscerally, masculine stuff makes feminine people horny, and vice versa.
That’s it. There’s nothing more to it. Start applying cultural memes and sterotypes to it all and you’ll confuse the issue.
Moreover, start pronouncing value judgments on masculinity OR femininity in the name of “social progress” or whatever and the conversation will become all the more flabbergasting.
One website I happened across actually attempted to equate masculinity with “strength and self-reliance” while femininity was allegedly aligned with “goodness and caring about others”.
Here we go again, right? In other words, men (being associated with masculinity) are typically the selfish aggressors who hamfist everything into oblivion, while women…err, I mean “femininity” is about selfless giving and working tirelessly to do the right thing for the good of others.
No matter how thinly veiled the “man bashing” argument is, it’s really beside the point.
Even if the syntax is psychologically pleasing to people who write this stuff, they’re completely missing the central purpose of masculinity and femininity.
The purpose is to make men horny for women, while making women horny for men.
Sure, that makes masculinity and femininity opposites. You know, “Yin and Yang”, etc.
But don’t kid yourself. That doesn’t mean they’re the opposite of each other in every way you can think of.
For example, one doesn’t have to be “good” and the other “bad”. That’s a classic example of logical fallacy at work—no more, no less.
I’ve said it before in countless coaching calls. There are black-hearted people and others with hearts of gold…of BOTH genders.
And if you get right down to it, the truly masculine traits that drive women wild are all VIRTUOUS aren’t they?
Courage. Solid decision making. Protection. Provision. Having a plan in the short term as well as long-term ambition. Dare I say “leadership”?
What drives us as men wild about femininity is the fun, playfulness, comfort, hospitality and joy that it brings to the world.
Yes, all of that can be twisted into vice for the purpose of manifesting darkness. But the point is that the “good vs. bad” aspect of human dynamics is NOT gender specific. And to be honest, whether or not any of that has to do with generating sexual attraction is HIGHLY debatable, at best.
Look, don’t ask me WHY femininity makes men want to have sex with women, and don’t ask me WHY masculinity makes women want to have sex with men.
I realize there’s a decidedly mystical quality to it. All I know is that it WORKS, and that’s the whole purpose of the design.
Well, I do know one other thing. No matter where you go in the world, masculinity and femininity are consistent.
Masculine men adore feminine women, and regardless of what a vocal minority may preach the vast majority of women love masculine men.
For what it’s worth, I’ve read in several places that “getting in touch with my feminine side” might mean becoming more sensitive or compassionate. If there are any common themes that can be derived from the whole idea, that’s probably one of them.
Please. Compassion is not necessarily a “feminine” emotion. Compassion is empathy for the suffering of others. It often takes a masculine courage, ambition and leadership to stand up to the injustice and wanton human rights violations that stand in the way of restoring peace, health, prosperity and happiness.
Similarly, men are not inherently “insensitive”. All men are not boorish Neanderthals without regard for others. This is yet another trap designed to snare the gullible into believing that “women are good and men are bad”.
Isn’t it amazing how an understanding of masculinity and femininity as the building blocks of sexual attraction as opposed to some iteration of “good versus evil” illuminates everything so much differently?
And yes…that’s what I really believe has driven the widespread call for men to “get in touch with their feminine side” all along.
To make the point crystal clear, ask yourself this. When was the last time you heard any encouragement of women to “get in touch with their masculine side”?
Telling them to stand up and demand equal pay for equal work doesn’t count. That’s not really a matter of sexual polarity at all.
Gentlemen, if you succumb to pressure to “get in touch with your feminine side”, all you’re doing is throwing water on your natural ability to attract exactly the type of women you’re most sexually attracted to (i.e. the feminine ones, of course).
I trust you’ve already got virtue rooted deep within your soul. Believe in it, whether it’s masculine virtue per se or simply human virtue in general.
If you’re at a loss as to how to “get in touch with your feminine side” it’s most likely because you never had one to begin with.
And believe this, if nothing else: If you DO find a “feminine side” and embrace it, you can indeed fully expect whatever women who encouraged you to that end to clap for joy…right before they tell you that they “just want to be friends”. Go figure.
What’s that you say? You’ve been given the “let’s just be friends” talk before and you NEVER want it to happen again. I hear you…and that’s why this free report is just for you.
Be Good,
Scot McKay
P.S. What do you think? How you do define “feminine side”, and should men “get in touch with it”? Should women get in touch with their “masculine side”, assuming they have one?
This is so true. We live in a world, which seems to equate masculinity with war, death and exploitation. Wouldn’t it be nice if men (and women) could learn to differentiate true and responsible masculinity, -as described in this blog,- from the brutal kind? Our distorted perceptions of masculinity profoundly impact every one of us, from our personal love lives to our overall social economy–and our very survival.
Scot-
You really hit the nail on the head here.
This is an unfortunate side effect of the pendulum swinging the other way from those 1950s era rigid gender roles.
So now we have women who have adopted more masculine roles in society – (most MD students are women, women are fighter pilots, etc).
And I think that’s great!
But in moments of intimacy, if there’s going to be ANY spark, there needs to be a masculine pole and a feminine pole.
Otherwise, there’s no passion.
You see it in MANY long term relationships.
The man starts out by leading – (what is seduction other than having a specific plan and sweeping a woman away on a journey?)
The woman is ‘taken’ by these clear demonstrations of masculine characteristics – and her feminine fullness BLOSSOMS as a result.
And what do most couples get for those first few months of heightened sexual polarity?
That’s right – LOTS of passion.
And then, the fire and ice polarity diminishes – a subtle, bored domesticity creeps in.
Some of her femininity, passivity seeps out into his behavior.
“No honey, where do YOU want to go tonight?”
And vice versa.
Subtle resentment creeps in on both sides. And the sex suffers.
What I like about your presentation of “the Big Four” is that it presents an extremely positive vision for ethical behavior that is unabashedly MASCULINE.
Women respond to those traits and behaviors. And there is something that feel so ‘right’ internally when we as men remember to align ourselves with these principles.
(A bit of a rant, I know, but I’ve been experiencing this vividly both in my own life as well as my friends, so I thought I’d chime in…)
Thanks again for your post!
-Michael
Well Michael, it sounds like you’ve got an honest handle on the nature of sexual attraction. It’s amazing how both men and women ultimately enjoy that design when it’s represented in a healthy way, despite all the political posturings to the contrary.
Rock on!
wat u said has struck me n scot thanks for all the work put down strait why wud a man want to tap into his feminine side i belive a man is a man in every essence n thts wat attracts women to us think abt it why r women not attracted to gays or chicy guys n why r men not attracted to tomboys n women wt male characteristics its simply sexual n sex
Damn Scot, this really was a well writen (and thinked) article.
This whole “looking for a feminine side” remembers
me that movie with Liz Hurley and Brendan Fraser “Bedazzled”, when the devil gives Brendan something like i don´t remember how many wishes, and in one of them he asks for beeing more able to show his feminine side to his girlfriend, but he ended up boring her and turned himself into a rug, etc. etc.
Did you see that movie?
If a man is looking for his “Feminine Side” is maybe because he is not comfortable enough with
his masculinity.
Kindness and sensitivity are not just traits for Women.
Real masculinity are compatible with this traits too.
I haven’t seen that movie, but I’ll have to Netflix it. Thanks for the tip…
To best respond to this I can best quote some lyrics composed by a woman who sang in a band in which I played: “Real men don’t eat quiche, so they say; I saw it on a postcard, just the other day. The postcard read, on the picture side: ‘Real men… eat anything.”
Without digressing into a nutritional discussion about what foods to eat to boost testosterone, she makes the point very well that masculinity is not about superficial choices or stereotypes.
In many cases, “Being in touch with one’s feminine side” is a misstatement of being above superficial stereotypes.
Scott thank you thank you thank you.
It’s quite simple really… a real guy wants a real girl.
It’s about time a guy called it as he saw it, and you did it beautifully my friend!!
XOXO
Gigi Belmonico
Well, Scott, I do want to say that generally speaking I like a lot of your insight into things, but I think I’m going to have to play the contradictory for this one.
It seems to me you really are looking a little too much into the whole masculine and feminine traits definition. I’m not convinced that one is necessarily held up in a ‘good’ way and one is a ‘bad’ way. I’m sure you can find cases where people do try and distort them that way, but really, there’s just traits that are have been considered masculine and traits that have been considered feminine. It’s been that way for centuries. It your real issue comes down with how some are put into certain categories. Like the compassion you used being considered feminine, when I think you would prefer it to be just looked at as a good, solid human trait to have regards of gender (at least that’s how I’m understanding you there). Believe it or not, that isn’t a particularly radical viewpoint, I’ve often heard that argued in varies degrees. But we naturally tend to have a duality mindset, especially in the West.
I’m not convinced that the whole ‘feminine side’ thing is an attack on men or masculinity, at least not at its core. It may have been distorted that way by certain parties, but at the base of it I think it really does come down to balancing yourself out. Whether you want to call these traits masculine or feminine or whatever name you want to give them.
And I also think I would disagree about women not being told about getting in touch with their masculine side. You may not see that term, but I think in recent years women have been pushed to be a lot more assertive and ‘go-getter’, which would definitely fall under a stereotypically masculine trait. Honestly, it may not be as blunt for women, but there’s been as much call for that sort of thing with both genders over the last couple of decades.
Perhaps it’s just that the gender-neutral virtues have been claimed as “feminine” when many of them are not gender-specific, huh?
I think you only have to look at the media to see how masculinity is diminished and femininity basically deified. That has been at the expense of men’s ability to naturally attract feminine women, and perhaps also has caused some women to masculinize themselves to the point of being less attractive also.
Scott, This gender thing is huge. I really appreciate your deeply thought out post.
In some places it seems like in order to be masculine we have to get rid of all our feelings to make it safe for women to have feelings….
In others it’s like we are supposed to be women with penises
But being able to demonstrate leadership doesn’t negate being able to feel. There is so much confusion about this topic that I dare say you may have a new product in the works.
I will buy it. I will sell it. We NEED intelligent discourse on this…ASAP!
thank you again for all your great work.
Mark
Mark, one thing you’ll never hear me advocate is the idea of “women being emotional and men being logical”. I see neither as being gender-based traits.
Take a look at The Master Plan. The good news is that’s already my complete system for reclaiming masculinity as women define it.
Hi Scot,
I feel I’ve mostly been consisting of a feminine side all my life. In fact, what I’ve been missing is the masculine side. And thanks to all of your programs and the others’ I’ve signed on I’m trying to find it. =) I never had a father to share my inner world or hang around with so I’ve grown almost entirely attached to my mom. Even though my dad’s always been around he’s never sorta been there.
What it is is considering others, not getting angry at people when they’re getting mad at you. Being “beta” in that sense that you’re submitting to the angrier person in the sense that his or her rage doesn’t sweep you with them.
When someone does you injustice you elaboratingly notify of it like a woman would but keep your verbalism limited to the point that you only state the issue and not go looking for trouble. And not trying to pick a fight like an “Alpha Male” would do.
It’s kind of staying open hearted at all times, but especially at times when you wouldn’t expected to be. As a guy, having used this in my junior high and high school, with a lot of the alpha attitude around, I feel this as being in touch with the feminine side. You could also call it acting “chibi”, if you know the japanese cartoon style.
Here’s a brilliant suggestion for a man who wants to get in touch with their feminine side: go look for Magic Knight Rayearth opening theme in Youtube. I’m talking about the English version, none of that crap sung by Aiko whatshername, by Susan Fox and if it makes you feel something inside you’ve got a feminine side. 🙂
But I absolutely don’t recommend other men getting in touch with this side. I’ve systematically followed my own style for a decade and it hasn’t gotten me anywhere in particular. I’ve gotten no friends with it, don’t have a job, people don’t really get me and I always feel like the weird guy in the bunch. Have had a hellofalotta fun though. =)
As for women, well I think you know about masculinity more than I do Scot so why don’t you tell about it? 😉
– AJ
I believe “submitting to anger” is letting an angry person’s anger AFFECT your mood. Being “dominant over anger” is not out-angering the other person because you are unaffected. I think a lot of guys get caught up on one-upping others that they weaken themselves in the process. You seem to have a fair bit of anger directed at these “alpha males”.
Real men know what battles are worth fighting. They stand in the face of fear, knowing it is only an obstacle to something they may want. Insecure men need to fight every battle possible or run in the face of fear.
Well, I’d have to agree that “alpha males” don’t necessarily go looking for trouble. @Ardiana and @Jammer it looks like you guys agree on that subject, so hats off to you for that. Ardiana, it’s time to give yourself some credit for perhaps being more “evolved” than you think.
Make no mistake, being “evolved” as a man does NOT mean “turning to the feminine”. It means cultivating masculine virtue to a higher level.
The beauty of that is that since it’s one’s masculine virtue that’s being lifted to a higher level, so is one’s attractiveness to women.
Thanks for this one Scot, thanks for the thought that went into it. It’s such an interesting discussion. I think the idea of certain qualities being masculine or feminine only exists outside the realm of attraction/ polarity as a generalization; e.g. I don’t believe a quality man would be interested in a woman who had no leadership qualities- how could she take care of children in his absence? Not that all women or men want to be parents, but these are the traits that made our species so successful, so they are evolved in us. I think all traits are available to all people; and some feel more natural, + express more easily than others; hence the stereotypes of masculine (whether positive or negative) and feminine (whether positive or negative). However in the realm of sexuality, attraction etc it’s clear that polarity is enhanced by the femininity and masculinity expressions as you describe, and diminished when other combinations happen(for heterosexuals anyway). I do think that now we have evolved to want, and need to become whole beings in our own right, whether coupled or single, the lines have blurred; possibly evolution is occurring right in this very issue. Hence men are encouraged to explore the traditionally feminine characteristics, and vice versa. Make no mistake, women have definitely been pushed to express masculine traits: to reach any level of financial freedom, we have had to do that, there was no other model in the 60s for financial independence but the masculine one. Now, thankfully, we women are exploring + discovering how to be powerful + still be feminine, especially in business. There’s a big subculture around this.
It underlines what you said about the “mystical” quality of sex and attraction, I think you are so spoton with that, the life force is indeed mystical, I do believe we can only understand it to a certain point, yet we certainly feel it when it’s present between us and another. Viva la difference!
Thanks.
I don’t know if I’m on board with “wholeness” necessarily involving a holistic embrace of masculine and feminine qualities in one’s own being. That said, I do agree that it’s likely more accurate to position “relational leadership” as masculine rather than socio-political leadership. What do you think?
Nice clarification Scot, makes sense to me.
Thanks Scot! 🙂
Haven’t had dad either,mom raised me,so I have been always wondering,why girls go for “bad boys” and come cry to me,when her BF messes something up or cheats on them.
Thanks Scot for sending us those newsletters!
It’s really something now,when I watch into girls eyes and and start to chat with them to see something burning into their eyes,it’s the fire of passion,it’s like it fries my circuits,they are extremely nice and smiling…damn! =)
Learning how to be a good man!
Still learning,taking my baby steps,thanks Scot!
Also have found Brent Smith’s stuff,he has lots of videos on youtube about relationships,he was one of your podcasts also,what I listened through I-Tunes also ;D
Have also registered to Emily’s newsletters,to really have a sense how women think.
Thanks for the effort Scot!
When you mix “political correctness” with “spiritual ideology”…..Your going to get an ill informed mess about men and women.
Men are Men and Women are women because nature evolved us that way.
It’s in the DNA, the biology. And the biology is simple.
A lot of what you have talked about Scott is Natural to maleness (Masculinity).
The problems, the confusion arises when it come to the psychology of men and women.
To put it simply, our psychology is programmed with a lot of “bullshit” without understanding the natural biology of men and women.
And male-female sexuality.
Like you I have read lots of “stuff” about “masculinity” and “femininity” and it is so far of the mark and from “la la land”.
No wonder so many men and women are so confused when they believe this “la la land” stuff to be true.
Without going into all the Science……..You summed it up succinctly is these couple of sentences…….
“Masculinity and femininity serve ONE purpose. That’s to create sexual polarity.
To put it more viscerally, masculine stuff makes feminine people horny, and vice versa.
That’s it. There’s nothing more to it. Start applying cultural memes and sterotypes to it all and you’ll confuse the issue.”
Simply it’s in the DNA and “How” nature has evolved us.
Once you understand male/female biology and how it works.
The psychology becomes simpler.
Very good article.
Ange fonce
I’m not old enough to know when and why the “get in touch with one’s feminine side” thing started, but maybe it had something to do with people who were tired of wars and violent crime. Because talking to resolve conflicts is not considered masculine, so arguments between people turn into gunfights, and arguments between nations becomes war. The very hormone that makes us men makes us dangerous when we don’t practice self-control, but the very practice of that self-control is not considered masculine in many segments in our society. I am always amazed when I meet or hear of men who say they have never been in a fight. How? Even when you don’t go looking for a fight, a fight will come looking for you.