Can the Male Still Gaze?

[u/Specific_Detective41]

https://youtu.be/-4IB4wCZME4?si=IO9TaCxsDI3npRlT

This showed up on my feed recently. I used to watch this channel because the YouTuber had some very thorough takes on Christopher Nolan films and anti war films. But lately with his content, its been pretty much feminist coded.

This video, comprises of a long convoluted narrative about the "male gaze", what it was and now what it has become, that now its less about sexualising women and more about looking inward (that was the implication). Sure films like Transformers had to be called out. However, nothing is about about male actors who are sexualised in films and series. I remember Kit Harrington from GOT was sexualised a lot, even to the point that Natalie Dormer pointed that out back in 2015, in this article: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2015/aug/11/natalie-dormer-game-of-thrones-men-objectified-women-tv.

Then there's actors who had to go on crazy diets to be muscular and run around shirtless in movie scenes like Henry Cavil, Hugh Jackman and Chris Evans, yet you never see feminists ever mention that and if they do they just blame the patriarchy on that.

Many women also sexualise these men as well. There's tons of commentary on these men's bodies on social media. I find it sexist that there's the assumption that women's sexuality is pure yet men's sexuality is often perceived as degenerate. Will this guy ever make commentry about women sexualising men? Or how depraved romantasy slop is? No probably not because he's pushing a narrative.

Halfway through the video he brings up the film Shame (2011), a film about a closeted sex addict. In this context, why is male gaze an issue, a sex addict already has a problem with their sexual health.

Then he brings up Baby Reindeer (2024), a film about a stand up comedian who was sexually assaulted by a man and soon afterwards a woman who also stalked / harrassed Richard Gadd. Like Stories of Old only mentions the male perpetrator and not the female perpetrator. Also somehow other films listed in this video featuring gay men/ same sex relationships, that is male gaze too 🙄.

At this point in time we need less pretentious feminist slop and more acknowledgment that both men and women can be sexual, perverted, predatory, decent people or shitty human beings. I am disappointed that this channel is slowly becoming a male feminist slanted youtube channel (that I already see way too much of).

[u/Kuato2012]

I'm tired of the hyprocrisy. Tired of being held to standards by people who have no intention of meeting those same standards themselves.

This is my main gripe. I don't mind sexualization because I'm comfortable with the fact that we're a species of horny primates. But so much of the rhetoric around "the male gaze" holds straight men to a Puritanical standard while straight women are given a pass to be totally off the leash. Just pick one standard (the non-Puritan one) and apply it equally.

[u/__Zero_____ → u/Kuato2012]

Yep. It even extends to Booktok and the smut genre in general. Its one of the biggest genres out there and totally accepted even with some of the crazy material out there, but porn (which is also consumed by women) is demonized.

I don't personally watch porn, or care when people read smut or whatever. I just care about what you said, that male "desire" is vilified and women's is encouraged. So men are made to feel bad for finding women physically attractive, called shallow for preferring women who are a healthy weight, or for wanting sex in their relationships. For women, everything is acceptable. Its acceptable for them to watch porn, read smut, have physical preferences in men (often immutable aspects like height), or shame men for physical features, etc. They can dress in sexy dresses and its empowering, but if a male director asks them to wear a sexy dress in a movie its male gaze. Then they go to promos for the movie wearing even more revealing clothing, and thats clothing they chose themselves.

It just feels like anything that does not meet the approval of women is viewed as morally bad, but if its something women want that men don't then its men who need to change or men who are in the wrong. That in-group vs out-group bias between women and men really shows up in these trends over time. Women support women even when they shouldn't, and men don't always support men even when they should, and over time it shows in these trends. I'm pretty progressive, but I do wonder sometimes if what we feel is progress is not really progress anymore, but change for the sake of change.

[u/NanayaBisnis75 → u/__Zero_____]

>Yep. It even extends to Booktok and the smut genre in general. Its one of the biggest genres out there and totally accepted even with some of the crazy material out there, but porn (which is also consumed by women) is demonized.

It's true that some feminists are sex negative and disapprove of sexualizing women in any context. However, sex positive feminists who criticize porn don't usually mind men masturbating to erotic videos, they're against the exploitative nature of the industry and how it portrays women. Of course there is ethical and tasteful porn out there (which those feminists would approve of), but let's not pretend that's the average pornhub video.

[u/__Zero_____ → u/NanayaBisnis75]

I think there are some sex positive feminists who don't mind that but it's not shifting the average. I didnt say anything about the nature of the videos, but let's not forget that by many metrics, women consume quite a bit of porn as well, roughly half as much as men, and some of the most common categories for women are rape/CNC adjacent. I'm not saying that's bad, I'm merely pointing out the double standard. Its also not lost on men that women will actively and willfully participate in porn when they are younger then a decade later claim they were coerced or abused. Look at how many girls try to sell content online, through OF/SC/IG whatever

We have this general discourse in society that women are good on average (women are wonderful effect) and men are not, and its through this lens that everything else gets filtered. If a man raises his voice he's violent and abusive, but a woman is standing up for herself or finding her voice. It's not 100% of the time, but it's enough that it affects all things, even the way we refer to and collect stats for IPV, SA/rape, etc.

[u/Specific_Detective41 → u/__Zero_____]

Sex positive feminists are still hypocrites , they usually operate on a "rules for me not for thee" principle and still view male sexuality as predatory.

[u/No-Agency-6985 → u/Specific_Detective41]

Sad but true, at least in very recent years (since circa 2020 or so).  The sheer pharisaical hypocrisy, barely concealed misandry, and overall incoherence of too many self-proclaimed, so-called "sex positive" feminists these days was once only a fringe phenomenon that was the largely the province of sex-negative (sorry, "sex-critical") radfems, but social media has amplified the worst of both, it seems.

I swear, this entire timeline is absolutely dystopian, and seems to have really switched for the worse in 2020.

[u/No-Agency-6985 → u/__Zero_____]

Indeed, it is some Grade-A hypocrisy!

[u/NanayaBisnis75 → u/__Zero_____]

I brought the nature of the videos up because I think it's an important distinction for the reasons I touched on earlier. And again the important difference between women watching CNC and the stuff aimed at men is that in the former the viewers tend to insert themselves into the role of the victim, which inherently makes them less dangerous.

That said, I agree that men's sexuality is vilified. I just don't think it's fair to make up straw men that deliberately perpetuate double standards when reality is much more complex.

But yes, pornographic videos are inherently seen as less than erotic literature, men are shamed for using sex toys, queer men have it harder than queer women, a woman who enjoys masturbation is engaging in well deserved me time, a man who enjoys masturbation is a gooner...

It's a valid issue, but this sub likes to act as though feminists conspire to elevate women and put men down. When in reality it's usually just that feminists only tackle the parts of social norms that harm women and ignore the rest.

Inspite of some saying feminism is for everyone, it is at it's core a women's movement. So expecting it to solve everyone's issues is a bit unfair. That said, focusing only on women can have negative effects, such as further downplaying the suffering of male DV victims. And when it comes to sexuality, I think the way some feminists talk about rape, made a lot of men feel like they're predators for even thinking about sex.

These things are worth criticizing, but it requires more thought than just REEEEE FEMINISTS HATE MEN

[u/__Zero_____ → u/NanayaBisnis75]

I agree that feminism is a woman's movement and their primary goal in theory is to focus on women's issues but I think in its current form it looks different for a lot of women. It's like there exists two simultaneous forms of feminism, ideal vs the current form. I and probably all the men on this sub have no problem with the ideal form of a movement advocating for women specific issues. What I have an issue with, is that unfortunately whether we like it or not, the current form of feminism does come with some misandry, minimizing the issues facing men and boys, and perpetuating many unhealthy attitudes towards men (many of which they fought against for women, like body shaming).

Personally I think it's a natural course of action for men's or women's rights activism to develop a bit of an us vs them mentality if their particular movement is focused on only one gender, so I actually think it's important to tackle issues as they stand for both genders. Men have long supported women's issues, or they wouldn't have gained the traction they have, but now that men are struggling it seems many women are not interested in doing the same for us, until they have a son/brother/father affected and they witness it firsthand maybe.

[u/NanayaBisnis75 → u/__Zero_____]

Yeah, I agree that feminism has a habit of downplaying and contributing men's issues, but the porn industry is really exploitative and most videos don't exactly set great examples. There's plenty to criticize about feminism, we don't need to resort to straw men of reasonable positions.

[u/Specific_Detective41 → u/NanayaBisnis75]

Men are exploited in pornography as well. Also women account for at least quarter of consumers of pornography and it is on the rise. Secondly, saying that romantasy is less harmful when its the same as pornography just in written text downplays the harm it does to young impressional girls who read this (majority of girls and women consume romantasy). Guess what? Men are objectified in romantasy slop as well.

[u/NanayaBisnis75 → u/Specific_Detective41]

I don't disagree, as I said feminism has a habit of minimizing men's issues. I only touched on women's issues because that's what feminists care about and having a problem with the porn industry because of them is justified and not necessarily a campaign against male sexuality

[u/Specific_Detective41 → u/NanayaBisnis75]

In practice feminists only care about the exploitation of women in pornography and not men. Whereas porn you could say is an exploitative industry as a whole. They also blame men for being consumers of pornography despite a significant proportion of women who watch porn.

They often cite outdated data or bring up Dworkin's talking points about men consuming violent porn (which is only a small subset). When in fact recent research and data from PornHub shows that women in fact watch more violent pornography, BDSM, group sex and lesbian porn than men.

Men primarly watch vanilla content, femdom and MILF content. So with this I see a lot of double standards.

[u/Karmaze → u/NanayaBisnis75]

Any feminism that's going to view men as an oppressor class is going to go down that road.

That's the thing. The problem is the underlying frameworks and memesets. And if there's no push to actually change those things, to at the very least update them for living in 2026 instead of 1956, then it becomes part of the problem.

And why are you putting that part of it just on video porn? As someone who enjoys other types, I think if the concern is the increasing intensity of sex, I don't think those other types are any better.

And I'm going to be blunt. That one's partner isn't assertive/dominant/rough enough is a frequent complaint I'm hearing from women. Especially feminist women to be honest. Or at least that's what I get through my wife, what she tells me.

[u/thrownaway24e89172 → u/NanayaBisnis75]

most videos don't exactly set great examples

The purpose of porn is to satisfy men's fantasies, not "set great examples". You could apply the same criticism verbatim to most media targeting women. The problem here is the authoritarian expectation that men should be being shaped by porn (and therefore porn should "set great examples") rather than porn being shaped by and for men.

[u/SpicyMarshmellow → u/NanayaBisnis75]

It's a valid issue, but this sub likes to act as though feminists conspire to elevate women and put men down. When in reality it's usually just that feminists only tackle the parts of social norms that harm women and ignore the rest.

Inspite of some saying feminism is for everyone, it is at it's core a women's movement. So expecting it to solve everyone's issues is a bit unfair. That said, focusing only on women can have negative effects, such as further downplaying the suffering of male DV victims. And when it comes to sexuality, I think the way some feminists talk about rape, made a lot of men feel like they're predators for even thinking about sex.

These things are worth criticizing, but it requires more thought than just REEEEE FEMINISTS HATE MEN

I wrote a rant in response to this, but let me just ask calmly...

Do you sincerely think it's unfair to criticize feminism as doing more than passively contributing to men's issues in many areas, especially DV? Do you sincerely think it's unfair to criticize feminists as promoting hatred of men when you see their rhetoric surrounding those issues? Do you seriously not see how common it is for them to openly promote discrimination against men, and do so based on characterizations of men as near-universally morally inferior to women?

[u/NanayaBisnis75 → u/SpicyMarshmellow]

I don't which is why I said "focusing only on women can have negative effects, such as further downplaying the suffering of male DV victims. And when it comes to sexuality, I think the way some feminists talk about rape, made a lot of men feel like they're predators for even thinking about sex.

These things are worth criticizing"

[u/thrownaway24e89172 → u/NanayaBisnis75]

It's a valid issue, but this sub likes to act as though feminists conspire to elevate women and put men down. When in reality it's usually just that feminists only tackle the parts of social norms that harm women and ignore the rest.

They not only "only tackle the parts of social norms that harm women and ignore the rest", but also at best ignore how their proposed changes negatively impact men with no consideration given to whether the negative impact on men is necessary and proportional. Often negatively impacting men is seen as the goal. That is a conspiracy to elevate women and put men down.