Looking through the forums last week one poster brought up something that I have been thinking for a while. She complained that there were six women talking, and then one man talking and one other person talking who she didn’t really know if he was a man or a woman.
Todger Talk was originally set up as a place for men to talk comfortably about sex. Usually this happens without women looking over our shoulder and commenting on everything we say.
Men can be quite shy creatures when it comes to talking about sex and relationships, especially if we are going to get a good thumping from articulate and opinionated women.
So it turns out that what men are thinking about relationships and sex has proven to be rather popular with the ladies – as is evidenced by all the great discussion that has been happening on the forums. And of course there is a great benefit to male readers, we get lots of advice and perspective from the fairer sex.
But I have to say I am a little worried that the blokes are being a bit scared off.
So lads, let me suggest as solution, become invisible men. Protect yourself. Make use of the great thing on blogging ANONYMOUS POSTINGS. You can say what you want and they won’t know who you are. We want to hear from you, so stick on the magical cloak of invisibility and get talking.
All that said, I was really pleased to see that Dave’s piece last week really flushed the blokes out of the woodwork, hopefully a trend that will continue.
But dear readers I’d be interested to hear what you think.
Are the forums here so dominated by women that it looks intimidating? Are you a male reader but just can’t bring yourself to join the discussion? Do you feel you are just going to get a bollocking if you speak your mind? Is it ace to get all that free female advice?
Todger Talk was originally set up as a place for men to talk comfortably about sex. Usually this happens without women looking over our shoulder and commenting on everything we say.
Men can be quite shy creatures when it comes to talking about sex and relationships, especially if we are going to get a good thumping from articulate and opinionated women.
So it turns out that what men are thinking about relationships and sex has proven to be rather popular with the ladies – as is evidenced by all the great discussion that has been happening on the forums. And of course there is a great benefit to male readers, we get lots of advice and perspective from the fairer sex.
But I have to say I am a little worried that the blokes are being a bit scared off.
So lads, let me suggest as solution, become invisible men. Protect yourself. Make use of the great thing on blogging ANONYMOUS POSTINGS. You can say what you want and they won’t know who you are. We want to hear from you, so stick on the magical cloak of invisibility and get talking.
All that said, I was really pleased to see that Dave’s piece last week really flushed the blokes out of the woodwork, hopefully a trend that will continue.
But dear readers I’d be interested to hear what you think.
Are the forums here so dominated by women that it looks intimidating? Are you a male reader but just can’t bring yourself to join the discussion? Do you feel you are just going to get a bollocking if you speak your mind? Is it ace to get all that free female advice?
25 comments:
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I have to admit when checking the chat sections on this i have noticed it being overwhelmed by women,so i think its good this post was put up, time we stopped being so shy about stuff, I read somewhere about men discussing things compared to women (possibly on here not sure),
Im just a typical shy bloke trying to muddle my way through life and this blogspot is good to know i am not the only one suffering from the indeciviness that seems to have gripped the men these days
Your articles on Frienditis struck a chord with me, the amount of times i have fallen into teh 'We are good friends' with women when all i wanted to do was give them a damn good seeing to
Ahh keep posting guys, i love my daily fix
I've noticed how the boards are overwhelmed with women, which I think's quite funny but to be expected. This is much like a look into the mens world, which I can imagine fantastic as every woman I know claims they don't understand men (seriously, we're simple creatures, you just overcomplicate us).
I think it's a good call on the anonymous commenting. I've always been quite open so it's not much of an issue, but I know I'm the exception.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE this blog, mainly because it gives me a real view on blokes, and how generally fab all you gentlemen are, and how vulnerable, too. I'd just say - get posting, as I think this is the only place I've ever seen on the net that's so friendly, funny and sexy. But if it makes guys feel better, I'm happy to bugger off, plug your site on mine, and just enjoy the ride...
I don't think anyone's suggesting that the females pipe down, Clair (and certainly not me - i think the female input has been invaluable). I think what Sam's trying to say is that men shouldn't be pissy-knickered YITNEYS and speak up a bit.
I LOVE THIS BLOG
i was reading Girl with a one track mind before and as great as that is about sex , everything Abby says i know already because its written from a womans POV and isnt anything new. This however is totally original and isnt something you find on the net, men writing honestly about sex and relationships.
Any woman that writes on this site is one intrigued not hostile.
Men don't be afraid :)
Stupid question - where are these forums? All I see on this site is a blog plus associated comments - is that what you're referring to when you say forums?
This a great site but I'm with surfsofa - where are these forums? I'd be more than happy to contribute if I could find them...
I think the 'forums' are comments, as on sex blogs the comments feature almost always seems to serve as a forum. Anyway, forums isn't a word. It should be 'fora'.
Hmmm, a sex blogger forum... there's an idea...
The problem with me and this blog is its attitude - I think it's a great thing that it's been set up so guys can talk about sex in an open way, but the guys who run this blog seem to be rather 'laddish', especially in the idioms they use and the situations they describe.
I, on the other hand, avoid pubs, hate football and don't mind being 'just friends' with girls. So, any comment I make here never quite seems to gel with the general theme of the blog!
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But what's wrong with that, IL? Liking pubs and football shouldn't automatically equate 'sexist mouth-breather'. The 'laddish' element is all mine, but that's down to background and experience, and for me to pretend to be anything else would be defeating the object.
(and for the record, I'd say that me and Sam are very different people who happen to work in the same field and agree on more than a few things)
All the men being scared off--not bloody likely. Actually reading the women's post is usually a damn site more interesting. But then I like the talk of women; I like being with them, conversing and not especially trying to get in their knickers--Lauren would kill me and I'm not fool enough to lose that lovely. So if the "boys" are turned off, their loss, is my verdict. Wankers all for not paying attention.
So Cheers from
Beau in Seattle.
First time poster to this and to anything actually, anyways IL and this blog (and its contributors) in general make a semi-decent point, I said semi, how funny (in an entirely mature way of course).
We are as men are going through a master of nothing stage, expected to be everything to a women in a relationship but also expected to be everything to a woman or a man in a friendship.
The point about not like football, pubs, clubs etc is a good point, personally I love my football but hate rugby (‘it is well gay’ – as the kids say derogatorily in their hoodies), but more crucially I don’t drink and I am not a lad – hate to be a caricature, plus Britpop was ages ago despite what Kasabian and certain advertisers want us to believe.
Not drinking makes me very much an anomaly in Scotland, and in some view (both men and women) that makes me less of a man somehow and should sit in the corner out of the way of the real men, therefore in the ‘dating scheme’ not a potential person as the theory of a non-drinker being with a drinker is just ‘shit crazy’ (pretty sure the kids don’t use this anymore, its hard to keep up and I am only 25, but keeping it post-ironic ‘thug4life’ by wearing a hoodie).
It is this real man image versus modern expectation and pre-conception, with an added dose of the heritage ideas of man (i.e. post world war values and role models) that has left men idle, treading water waiting for the good woman to take them in the right direction.
By this I mean that often men lack the confidence to speak up and out, as we are labeled ‘jobby jabbers’, ‘bent bawbags’ or ‘soft lad/big girl’, generally if we do ‘out’ ourselves as having thoughts and opinions on something other than the knuckle dragging and down right laborious boorish man topics makes you wrong within the often two dimensional and un-stimulating man community.
As said before men are quite happy to read this blog without putting our hands up (me included – until now albeit as an anon (for now, be gentle with me)) but that’s not to say we do not participate as more often or not we take what discussed on here, the issues and the issues around the issues into our everyday conversations, meaning the blog is having a more powerful positive response than imagined and perceived, people just cant see it.
Added to this is the fact this blog is a proper good read, properly written and has intelligent women on it, women who also express their opinions and is an insight (its an inescapable fact, a lure and turn-on), as frankly women in a relationship for some of the time don’t express their thoughts as much as men despite them saying otherwise (but in a far more baffling and cruel ‘Cluedo-like’ way sometimes – but I suppose that’s ‘the game’).
Anyways this is pretty much the first thing I have ever written that’s not been about or related or inter-related to football and have probably missed the point, failed to argue persuasively enough or ignored others views completely such is my stream of consciousness –I suppose I am saying its all about confidence and the cultivated environment available to post in but it doesn’t mean men aren’t commenting and conversing.
I think every man wants to know what the women are thinking. To a lesser extent, every man wants to know what other men are thinking, but for different reasons. We want to know what the ladies are thinking because it might give us an "edge" in getting them into the sack. As for the other men, on the other hand, we only want to know (a) if we qualify as "normal" relative to everyone else, and (b) if another bloke has some secret weapon for getting the ladies into the sack that we can use.
As a result, I think you'd find that a lot of men are content to "lurk" - they're looking for ideas, but they don't want to give away any of their own thoughts in case there's a hidden "secret weapon" that the other men could somehow use.
Yep, I'm a man - a Canadian one in fact (and very often that is my secret weapon, but it's not something you other guys can easily adapt, sorry). I've commented on here a few times before, and I will again, but always anonymously.
I'm with Clair - I find this blog really interesting because it's full of the stuff about men that they never normally let out when there's a woman around. Or never normally let out at all. I understand the worry that can be caused by a lot of girl comments, though - there's a parallel problem in feminist spaces, maybe more so IRL than online; sometimes you get That One Guy In The Women's Meeting who talks over all the women, won't shut up about whatever opinion he's touting, and generally doesn't get the idea that if it's a feminist/women's meeting, even if it's open to men, it's fucking well meant to be about women. This blog is meant to be about men, and I hope to god that my girl-comments are not talking over that.
I'm not sure how parallel this is; when online discussions about women's issues get clogged up by men, some women call describe the space as 'hostile' and leave. Is a men's space invaded by women 'hostile'? Do men ever feel pushed-out that way?
Men like:
War
Sex
Sharks
Programmes about Hitler
Fighting
Porn
Bullets
Chainsaws
Airbrushed pictures of wolves
Drink
Lung Cancer
If a woman can get 'er head round that lot, she's well on her way to knowing how to please a man, i.e. leaving the house so he can watch a documentary about D-Day, then coming home ready to drop 'em only to find him drunk with a broken nose, a shark clamped to his head, no legs, riddled with cancer and watching porn. Wearing a jacket. With a wolf on the back.
And a prostitute.
Amusingly, if you're thinking of the same post I am (the post I made), the person you're referring to as "she" here is actually a man.
Just a man with a rather foppish username.
FWIW, I'm more than happy to talk about sex, relationships and whatever else springs to mind.
I haven't commented because I've got fuck-all to say.
Like the blog though. A lot.
If I could just give my two-penn'orth, I'd just like to say, if posting anonymously helps people, then great, but if every comment is from "anonymous", then it's going to be harder to have discussions, because no-one will know who anyone else is referring to. I'm saying this because scottish thug4life anonymous made some really good points up there, I thought, worthy of further discussion. How about posting anonymously but using a non-gender-specific name?
Or, how about all the shy boys post under names that you just don't get any more, like Colin, Tony, Brian or Ephraim, to stop them dying out?
I would suggest that, as ILB says, this blog has too much of a certain attitude to be all things to all men. Indeed the men I know that have seen this blog find it rather unrepresentative and distasteful. And, as I do, very of the Men are from Mars, Women from Venus vein in being diffentist nonsense.
Still, I keep reading, as it seems does ILB, because I suppose it is at least interesting.
Oh, well that's alright then.
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