Poll: Is it "strange" for men to listen to female pop artists?

Exactly.

 

The thing is, we're talking about people on this forum who won't admit to listening to female pop singers, not junior high kids.If you're into your twenties or thirties and still feel insecure about your masculinity to the point where you can't listen to a type of music for fear of being labeled gay , then, yeah, there's a problem.

 

What is strange to one person isn't strange to another. Do what you like and what makes you happy. Only you. Don't try to conform to anyone else's standards because of any pressure. In fact, if you feel pressured or constrained by certain people for putting you down then it's best to just avoid them by cutting them out of your life. What they're doing is attempting to control you and only serves as a benefit for them and their ego, not you.

 

The Thread That Wouldn't Die--and for good reason. I probably posted in this thread long ago and I have no doubt whatsoever that my response was flippant--for which I must now apologize. For this is actually a very serious subject, and it is now my intention to give it the soberness it demands.

First let me dispense with the suspense: the answer to the question is it strange for men to listen to female pop artists is an unequivocal yes. Why? Because it is unmanly--that is, it makes a man less of a man. This should be intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer. I need say no more. The real question here is determining the proper counterbalances so as to keep one's essential masculinity intact. In this regard I can in all modesty present myself as an expert. What follows is a strategy for a lifetime. Use it wisely.

When I was a boy--that is, just before I had a driver's license--I was already in possession of a deep appreciation of the dangers. Whenever I enjoyed a Lesley Gore song (or a Beach Boys or Four Seasons song for that matter--falsetto is subversive, make no mistake)--I would apply an immediate corrective so as to restore the natural balance of my male essence. My unwavering practice was to do a couple hundred one-arm pushups and then top it off by breaking an empty beer bottle over my head. Problem solved.

In following years, as a young man--after, say, a binge of Joni Mitchell--I would cruise off to the local intersection, roll down the window and rev my engine under the red light while shouting, "What about that football game?" Then I'd break a beer bottle over my head. Perfection. Only a fool could doubt I was a man.

And when I became a Man, after some furtive Linda Ronstadt or such fare, my unfailing remedy was to drive down to a local biker bar, locate the biggest guy with the most tattoos and announce: "Those tattoos look really stupid--what exactly is your problem?" This was elegant. I didn't have to break the beer bottle over my head.

And now I am an older man and I have used the years to refine and perfect my masculine maintenance. After a living room session of listening to my beloved Dionne Warwick, I simply pick at myself and grunt. My wife--from the kitchen--bounces an empty beer bottle off of my head and...somehow...the circle is complete.

 

There are gender biases in music. It gets more complex than men listening to male singers and females listening to female singers. There are gender stereotypes as to what each are supposed to listen to and what they aren't. Usually it ends up being ok for females to listen to all music but males aren't supposed to listen to certain types of music or their masculinity is questioned. That's wrong.

 

Just brilliant. Post of the month.

 

Thank you. Thank you.

 

Not really related, but kind of.

 

Though I don't care for the few you mentioned, there is absolutely nothing wrong listening to music you enjoy.

 

Gender insecurity and the longing for social approval are going to linger out there for most people. The hope is that as we grow up we stop letting it guide us into doing things we know are wrong, or not doing things we know we should do, or avoiding the things we really like to do, or hiding who we really are.

It can be exhausting coping with a hostile world, though. When I was in 8th grade, I dressed in clothing from the 1920s and listened to music from that period. I was also small for my age. I was catnip for a bunch of bullies and jerks. Then in the summer between 9th and 10th grade, I became close friends with a kid whose facade was "normal." I started wearing Levis and Adidas, and listening to mainstream rock. I started playing sports again.

The way the kids at my school received these changes exceeded my wildest dreams. I have to admit, I loved being branded cool instead of weird. I made a vastly larger circle of friends, nobody picked on me, and I stopped being invisible to girls. It was great not having my appearance and tastes openly policed.

There is no way in hell I would have had the guts to profess my devotion to the "wrong" musicians after I had tasted popularity, any more than I would have returned to dressing as a jazz age fop.

The funny thing is, when I run into kids I grew up with (I moved away, as did most kids in my class), quite a few of them remember me best as the kid who wore a blue serge suit with a bow tie and a homburg hat, and who talked about movie stars from the 1940s.

 

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Excellent post!

 

I checked "ok if you're alone" because it will make your privates shrivel as if you were in a snowstorm without underwear.

Especially if it's an unattractive female artist. The very thought of it makes me shiver with from a ghoulish horror. Remember Rosanne Barr singing the Star Spangled Banner? And what about Ms. Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl. Demonic. Suitable for black masses with animal sacrifices only.

 

My post was made in jest to the ridiculously, obviously intentionally funny OP's post.

 

Yes, and I know some guys who, after listening to Whitney Houston or Kate Bush or The Cocteau Twins cruise in their cars to the nearest pick-up parking lot after dark. Not looking for women, of course.

 

Isn't it a terrible thing the way longing for acceptance and approval of your peers leads people to jettisoning all the things that make them unique and fun to begin with. The smart ones eventually bring all that stuff back into their lives as they get older and realise that all those people they were tryng to conform to were idiots. The frightened ones just turn their light down low and squeeze through life.

 

Listening to women singing might lead to dancing...

 

This is heartbreaking to read. Did you have some friends who accepted your Twenties style when you were doing it? Did any of them try to develop their own style and tastes, as opposed to going along with the masses?

 

Very heartbreaking. And believe it or not, this is how most of you got into the music you listened to. You got into the music your friends thought was cool. If your friends didn't think it was cool you didn't think so either. Most of you didn't listen to anything that your friends didn't. If you did it was only a couple of things. Most of what you listened to your friends did too. The music we listen to during our formative music discovery years is very trend and peer oriented.

 

As a broad proposition I agree. Breaking it down a bit, I think there are some additional factors to consider.

1. Levels of intimacy and extroversion. I've known a few people who seem to have no filter. They say the same things to strangers on the subway that they say to their best friend after a couple of drinks. At the other extreme are people who try to reveal as little of themselves as possible. Most people are somewhere in between, adjusting what they reveal according to who they are telling and the setting. In fact, appropriately timed revelations can be powerful components of creating intimacy.

2. What we're talking about. Musical tastes, even if they don't conform to gender and age stereotype, are pretty tame. Other parts of "the real me" are hotter buttons.

If a grown-ass man can't own his love for Katy Perry on an anonymous online forum, that's pretty uptight, but really nobody else's business (deliberate choice of gender-specific language -- I haven't seen any indication that this is an issue for the women on this site). On the other hand, policing other people's tastes is not so benign. I'm not a Justin Bieber fan, but the incessant sneering around here sure doesn't send a welcoming message to a fan who might want to start a thread.

I am always glad when I see a thread that expands the conversation to artists and genres that can seem marginalized around here.

 

There were definitely other kids who accepted me. On top of that, there were lots of grown ups who were cool with it.

I was lucky to live in Ithaca, NY in the 1970s. It was a VERY accepting place for hippies and other non-conformists. My family had friends living in many of the communes in the area, and we visited them often. If anything, my unorthodox tastes in clothing and entertainment were admired there.

But school was another story. I went from a super progressive elementary school to a soul-deadening, rigid, and extremely conformist Jr. High. I hated it. I didn't face much overt bullying but most of the kids wanted nothing to do with me, because I was plainly a weirdo and social poison.

My first year in Jr. High, the school district announced that it was opening an alternate Jr. High. My dad emrolled me there for 8th grade. I hoped it would be like my hippie elementary school, which I loved and where I fit in just fine.

What a nightmare it turned out to be. There were some kids from my old school, and we quickly found each other. Mostly, though, it was a dumping ground for kids from the other Jr. Highs with discipline and behavior problems. The bullying was pretty relentless. That year, a tree blew down in our back yard. I spent a lot of time chopping it into firewood. I got pretty adept at splitting logs, imagining they were the heads of my classmates.

The next year I was back at the first Jr. High. There was less bullying but it still was a pretty awful place. On top of that, I was assigned to low-level classes, apparently under the theory that I must be a half-wit if I had attended the alternate Jr. High (a personally offensive conclusion, but one that I suppose was in line with the odds). The one consolation was that my dad quickly insisted that I be moved into more appropriate classes, and I manipulated this opportunity to make sure I was in every single class with the girl who starred in my 14-year-old fantasies. I also started smoking pot pretty regularly, and some of the kids in that scene were pretty accepting of my eccentricities.

The next summer the tailcoat and derby hat gave way to levi corduroys, and Irving Aronson and his Commanders gave way to Aerosmith. I remained terrified of my 9th grade crush but there were other girls at my high school.

 

Lady Gaga appeared in an episode of The Sopranos at age 15 and therefore has cred amongst males of all ages and creeds.

 

I voted no. I think the question is ridiculous.

 

No and similarly, I think the question is ridiculous and I also think the term 'girly' pop is infantile and downright stupid!