Nerd Culture and Bronies- 2

What is a Brony?

Ummm... How does one make
a pony in a racist caricature?
Ask the MLP zebra and she may
answer in fake gibberish Swahili.

Bronies are young men who are fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (MLP). Their female counterparts are called pegasisters. It is important to understand that there are several My Little Pony series, but most bronies and pegasisters are fans of Friendship is Magic only. It is also important to note that the show is not very good. The scenarios are unoriginal, the show is mildly racist (think African incantations in pseudo-Swahili), and the lessons learned are taught in exactly the wrong order for young children.

Studies show that children don't learn good behavior when T.V. characters do something wrong and then learn the error of their ways thereafter. In fact, in a study of children who watched Arthur the Aardvark and then played with one another, children were far more likely to engage in the modeled bad behavior from the beginning of the show than the corrected good behavior from the end.

MLP at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
The photographer, Bart Evans, called
MLP "strangely compelling."

Please note that my own 3-year-old is a huge fan (which explains my begrudging knowledge of MLP Geography including Ponyville, Manehatten, and Canterlot). But my real reason for writing about bronies is the intense reactions they inspire. People find bronies ridiculous, creepy, and/or weird, and deride them as though they were stalkers. Whenever a person feels strongly about something so innocuous as which television show someone else enjoys watching, there's clearly something going on.

WAR ON PINK

Many people say they dislike MLP because it is too "pink" (btw- pink is my favorite color because it is imaginary). Pink is not the problem. Pink being used to push powerlessness and objectification on girls who are expected to have particular body-types... that's the problem. Pink used to shame girls into being princesses instead of queens... that's the problem. Pink as a cue for "girls should do this," and it's corollary, "Boys should not do it..." that's the problem.

Pony cosplay just looks
healthier and more fun.
Photo by Mooshu.

MLP is pink, but it avoids, and even fights many of the problems associated with pinkness. The MLP kingdom is run by women; princesses that really serve as queens. The heroes are all young female ponies, and they're not promoting any particular body type because they're HORSES, and horses don't exactly conform to modern American beauty standards.

Too often, well-meaning parents try to compensate for gender normalizing by introducing violence to girls, which is supposed to help them be more boyish. It doesn't work. Violence is emotionally handicapped and cowardly. When you teach your girls about violent problem-solving, you are teaching them to approach violence from a place of callous madness. Stop teaching your girls about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Star Wars, and The Hunger Games in an effort to liberate them. Good parents hope that their children will never assault another person, so why would we encourage them to pretend to do exactly that? You're not liberating girls, just making them into sociopaths like way too many men.

More importantly, boys are not innately violent. Please stop teaching your girls that we are. We all understand that a superhero is one who is capable of wielding violence. Superheroes are often affiliated with the military or paramilitary, but nonviolent resistance superheroes are relegated to obscurity with the classification "alternative." Alternative to programming girls and boys to reward violent behavior in potential friends, role models, and lovers. Let's try teaching children that being a boy means being healthy, happy, and powerful. I am boy. Watch me genuinely love.

In the worlds of comic books, this drawing from Badger is
standard fare. Photo from Mr. Digressius' blog.

But the ponies in MLP don't use violence to solve their problems, so they are not taken seriously by a society that is so militaristic that people are comfortable showing war movies to 3-year-olds. Stop fighting a war on pink. Start fighting against America's militarism (including superhero worship), which is the true culprit keeping women (and men) oppressed.

MLP TEACHES E.Q.

While young children cannot, bronies and pegasisters are in the perfect position to learn from MLP, and they do. There are dozens of iterations of the Brony Code created by fans. As one prepubescent voice says over his YouTube sketch about the Brony Code, "Laughter is a pride feeling, so you can laugh with a brony, but not at him." Bronies and pegasisters are consciously developing their own code of ethics based on the "elements of harmony." These elements are the most powerful weapon in MLP. Think about that. Instead of guns, webs, swords, lasers, bombs, or fists, bronies have harmony which is made of honesty, kindness, laughter, generosity, loyalty, and friendship.

Hasbro selling some crap.
Photo by Mooshu.

How often do teenagers and young men spend time thinking and expounding on the difference between generosity and sacrifice? Thinking about these things is exactly what leads to higher E.Q. Creating these codes and attempting to live according to them prepares children and young adults to be good people.

While it is true that Hasbro just wants to sell ponies, I am okay with that. Doug and Melissa just wants to sell toys that teach children how to build, add, and read. By acting out the scenarios in the television show, bronies are learning the lessons of MLP, and they are lessons that boys don't often get. MLP is a part of the nerd lexicon that does not have superheroes defined by a capacity for wielding violence. It teaches a forward-thinking ethic based on nonviolence.

WHY ARE PEOPLE SO PISSED OFF?

Calm down. They're just kids.
Photo of Brony Meetup by Smitty.

Bronies and Pegasisters are so damn scary, raising their E.Q.s, solving problems through non-violence, and enjoying a *GASP* television show created for girls. Calm down everypony. Hold your... well, horses.

There are two main reasons why people react so strongly to the brony phenomenon. The first is simple, and this is the reason that some poor brony in North Carolina had his car vandalized and was subject to homophobic slurs when his neighbors found out he liked MLP. If MLP is not masculine, but there are males who like MLP, then masculinity is not concomitant with having a penis. Too many men, terrified of losing their place in the hierarchy of violence, and therefore an object of violent subjectification, strike out with anger and fear at being struck themselves. It is the same reason that men inside the hierarchy of violence lash out against gay men and transgendered women.

The other reason is more complex. Many feminists have failed to recognize that some parts of the traditionally feminine schema are as valuable as, or more valuable than some things that women were and are unfairly denied. Children love prettiness because it's pretty, not because they're girls. Working in the realm prettiness makes artists great, chefs desirable, and politicians legend. But more than that, the ability to solve problems as a group, in harmony with people who may be rivals, with courtesy and gentleness is the foundation of democracy. In real life, kindness, laughter, and generosity are far more effective than the tool belts of superheroes even if the former are associated with girly plastic ponies.

Viva My Little Pony! Long live bronies and pegasisters!

Everyday Man: Pancakes (Mancakes?)

photo by Alan Walker

Masculinity often focuses on the once in a lifetime stuff. Great men are presidents, generals who win decisive battles, thought leaders who come up with one amazing theory, and athletes who win the big game and set the big record. While we admit that nobody says on their death bed that they wish they'd spent more time at work, somehow all that gets lost in the everyday as even those who have enough accept more money to take on the harder job and spend more time working.




Part of what women perfected over the course of eons was living for today. That didn't mean going bungee jumping, or checking things off their bucket list. After all, the bucket list is simply another way of living for the future by saying, "these are the things I want to do before I die." Living for today means making pancakes for breakfast, not because it's a special occasion, but because when we make pancakes we take care of ourselves and the people we love.

After several years of making pancakes at least one hundred times a year, I have learned from my fore mothers and put together a delicious, healthy, everyday pancake recipe that you can make in 20 minutes for a family of four. The ingredients are listed below.

food production as women's work

Putting together these pancakes is more than just providing a substantive meal for my family, it is a meditation in the things that so many boys never get to learn. It's been called "learned helplessness," but it's more than the fact that college kids don't know how to arrange their lives in a healthy and organized manner. It is the forgetting of feminine knowledge. In a few short generations, we have handed over much of our women's work, like preparing food, hosting friends and family, and repairing our clothes to agribusiness, the internet, and the garment industry. When we do this, we trade satisfying tasks considered feminine, for masculine tasks that are repetitive, abusive and undervalued. This lost knowledge is taking its toll on our diets, our environment, our pocket books, and our mental and emotional health. One major flaw with "Lean In"-style feminism is the failure to recognize the value of traditionally women's work, like making pancakes.

food production as masculine labor

As I briefly mentioned in the last blog, pay equity is a very masculine way of looking at gender equality. It is an important index, but other indices, such as time spent with one's children, health of one's domestic sphere, and closeness and number of friendships are harder to calculate, and have not been the focus of modern feminists. It is no accident that pancakes have not been the primary worry of feminists. But when feminists emphasize equality in the spheres of politics and labor to the exclusion of traditionally feminine areas, they allow extreme masculinity to dictate the terms of the movement. By contrast, the basic tenant of masculine liberation is that feminine knowledge is inherently valuable as it is, not because the masculine marketplace acknowledges its value monetarily, but because things like domestic labor and deep loving friendships are valuable in themselves for both men and women.

So, regardless of whether you are a man, a woman, or neither, take a few moments to liberate yourself a little by connecting with your friends and family over a delicious homemade (not from a box) pancake breakfast. It will be worth it.

Gather all of your implements and ingredients before you start cooking. Put your griddle over the stove at the low end of medium. You'll have to figure out the temperature yourself, but because the structure of this particular pancake batter is so robust, you have quite a lot of room for error. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and sugar, then use the whisk to mix together the applesauce, milk, eggs, and oil in a separate bowl. Mix the liquid into the dry ingredients with a fork or spatula at first, but finish mixing with the whisk. Add milk one tablespoon at a time until the batter oozes through the whisk. See the video below to see a good consistency.

If you want to add ingredients, like chopped up apples and cinnamon, or dried cherries, add them at the end. Use your 1/2 cup measuring cup to pour the batter onto the griddle and flip after about three minutes. If you want, you can keep them warm in an oven at 180 for up to 30 minutes. Eat up and enjoy often.

Using the applesauce and white whole wheat flour makes these pancakes low calorie, moist, fluffy, and delicious, but you can trade up the applesauce and milk for buttermilk, and the flour for all-purpose if you want them fluffier for a special occasion.

When you buy pancake mix, you are paying factories money to mix the dry ingredients together, and maybe add some powdered egg, milk, and preservatives. It is less healthy, but more importantly, it is outsourcing the everyday stuff of life that makes us all happier. Enjoy your pancakes. Taste the liberation.

Ingredients:
1.5 cups of flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
2 tablespoons of sugar
8 ounces of applesauce
10 ounces of milk
2 eggs
1 tablespoon of canola oil

tools needed:
a stove top or hot plate
a plate to put the dirty implements on
1 .5 cup measuring cup
1 tablespoon
2 mixing bowls
1 whisk
1 stirring spoon or spatula
1 cast iron pan or griddle, or any non-stick pan
1 large spatula to flip the pancakes

Magic Daddy Kisses: Epigenetics

Did you know that daddy kisses really are magic? My three-year-old is more right than anyone thought possible.

The epigenome is the stuff in which the genome sits. EpiDNA tags DNA, highlighting and activating certain parts of the genome, and shutting down other parts. Two studies involving rodents show how epiDNA works.

The first was about how multi-generational PTSD can be handed down through mice. A group of female mice were trained to fear a certain smell. The stress altered the epiDNA near the DNA linked to that particular scent. The effect was not only that the mice had a stress response to that smell, but they're ability to smell it was heightened. The off-spring had the same reaction as their mothers, even when they had never been introduced to that smell in the presence of their mothers. In other words, the memory of being scared of something can be passed down without actually telling your children to be afraid of that thing. I guess that explains why I hate caves...

The second study showed how PTSD can be treated through affectionate physical contact. In this study, rat pups were better able to handle stress when they were licked and cuddled in their youth. Once a mother had cuddled and licked her pup, that pup was more likely to cuddle her pup and so on, breaking the stress cycle completely. That is until they encountered the cuddle monster, and then they were all messed up forever.

In humans, this epigenetic impact has been shown to be more complicated than a simple transfer of stress, but the research has indicated that most serious stressors (think holocaust survivors) require about three generations to find their way out of the epigenetic stress bog. Not only do epigenetics cause PTSD-type reactions, epigenetic garbage increases the likelihood of many diseases, including cancer. But oxytocin is here to save the day again!

If you don't know much about oxytocin, just think about it as the child hormone. This is the hormone that is released every time you touch your child. It is the hormone that launches childbirth (pitocin is a synthetic version). It helps mom's make milk. It is present in copious amounts when adults get together to make children (or avoid making children but still enjoy themselves). Oxytocin is the gene of physical contact, and it has the side effect of cleaning off your epigenetic material. So, the research seems to imply that when we cuddle our children, we are not only helping them cope with stress now, but also helping them cope with stress in adulthood, and helping them prevent cancer. Talk about magic kisses.

Photo by Lies Thru a Lens

All of this is very cool, but why mention it on a blog devoted to liberation of men from extremist masculinity?

First of all, Dr. Elliot documents several studies in her book, "Pink Brain, Blue Brain," that show that babies who are identified as male receive less physical contact than babies whose sex is unknown or who are identified as girls (remember, that's why we didn't want to tell anyone the sex of our babies). That same book documents the fact that boys touch and are touched less throughout childhood, depriving them of the epigenetic benefits at the times in their lives when they need it most. It goes on into adulthood. I remember being single and not touching another human being except for the occasional handshake for months. Which is why, in my late 20's, I became a hugger. A bro-hugger.

Photo by Sage Ross of Ben Huh.

One of the first things I did to liberate myself was adopt and revel in the bro-hug. It's great because once you get them in a handshake, you can just pull them in and clean that epiDNA (I love cleaning my epigenome with another man ;). I don't know who invented the bro-hug, but it's hard to imagine anything that has been better for men's liberation. Thank you, bro-hug dude. We love you (imagine me bro-hugging the bro-hug inventor right now).

And on top of saving my kids from cancer, and helping me keep my emotional health, bro-hugging and daddy kisses help us break cycles of abuse.  According to multiple studies, most abusers come from abusive homes, and (in line with our epigenetic science) an abnormal number of abusers are raised in institutional settings where they are not often touched. But when children of abusers are given loving physical contact from adoptive parents, those children are far less likely to become abusers themselves. So, men who are raised with more touching are less likely to be abusers. When we think that somewhere around 90% of spouse abusers are men, it is obvious that feminism will never succeed until men can break the glass ceiling of cuddling (a task that sounds more dangerous than it is).

The Chicago Tribune posted an article mocking men's liberation as a bunch of whining from men who are making more money than women. But income inequality is not the only index of equality, it is just the overly simplistic way that Ward Cleaver would judge equality. In other words, it is the most masculine way of judging equality.

As for me, I quit my job three and a half years ago because part of gender equality is how many kisses my kids get from their parents, and how many I give to them.

Home Ec-quality 101

A massive home economics movement would help equality. Without knowing about work that has traditionally been the purview of women, men could not possibly understand the true value and skill involved in such work. The Kamahamaha Schools in Hawaii used to have cabins where their female boarding students lived with orphan infants and young children to learn the best practices of raising children. They were eliminated in the 1950's, but why? Why can't we start day care facilities, or classroom sharing that are set up in a similar way, of course under strict adult control. If we made these classes mandatory, the benefits would be significant.

• Everyone, including men, would have knowledge about basic child rearing, including appropriate divisions of labor.
• Fathers would be able to have at least some limited experience with babies under supervision before the were on their own.
• The entire society would benefit from basic parenting skills, which is the fundamental building block of any society.
• Free or low cost childcare would be built in, and both parents would be able to contribute financially as well as with real labor, creating more economic security for poor families and middle class families alike.
  
  Most importantly, by having class time to explore the actual science of household management, we would all value these skills that have been relegated to a lower status. In fact, this work is very important, if not the most important part of life, and should be recognized as such and taught in our schools once again, but without the division of sexual differences. We can never have true equality until we start to realize that traditionally feminine tasks, like child rearing and housekeeping, are critical to our society. We can never see these tasks as equally important as business skills unless men and women are equally knowledgeable in these tasks. Learned helplessness is in fact not learned, but a lack of learning that creates perceived valuelessness.
  

Manifesto To Eliminate Masculinization (Part One)

Men are caged by fear, suffering and unhappiness. Suicide rates, self-destructive behavior, and neurotic violent tendencies belie this fact. This group must consciously support the quiet and radical revolution already under way. We must free men!
The women’s liberation movement cannot succeed until men too are freed from traditional gender’s tyrannical grip. Only a concerted effort to liberate men will provide significant race and national origin equality. Anti-gay bigotry, above all other kinds of prejudice, is rooted in the maniacal maintenance of traditional masculinity (hereafter “masculinity”). Therefore, the next logical step in the continually progressing civil rights movement must be the liberation of males from masculinity.
The women’s equality movement has begun to liberate men, kicking and screaming, but only with a more concentrated effort on the destruction and reconstruction of masculinity can we advance the freedom of men. Likewise, without a full frontal assault on masculinity, women’s is ended, and will not be able to progress, because women and men are intimately connected. Many women share their most intimate relationships with men, and so long as a man is suffering, so too will any person of empathy who loves that man. Suffering is the root of all fear, and fear is responsible for paralysis and retreat. When suffering does not bring about fear, it brings anger. Men should be angry that they are suffering at the whim of improbable oppression. However, all too often, that anger irrationally becomes violence against those who most desire to end their suffering. Too often, that same suffering is turned into violence that is used to make sure that other men suffer. This society can end the suffering of men. Society must direct its anger at masculinity itself and, finally, after millennia of the most insidious and malicious oppression, we must liberate ourselves.
In the next couple of weeks, this blog will publish a manifesto of freedom for men and all persons who have ever had any relationship with men. Acknowledging that if men are freed, it is due to feminist and critical race thinkers, this writing is not a work of academics, but a work of punditry and passion at best. In the next entry, the nature of the Masculization process will be shown to be a cycle of violence filled with bribes and punishments. After that, different specific functions of masculinity will be highlighted for elimination, from capitalism (an inherently masculine and violent method of societal interaction) to the male eviction from the home.