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Good Husband or Emasculated Wuss?

Is this guy...

  • Just being a good husband

    Votes: 58 87.9%
  • Totally whipped

    Votes: 8 12.1%

  • Total voters
    66
A friend of mine posted this photo on Facebook just now after she took her kids to what I assume to be a Chuck E Cheese's or a similar type of establishment. What we see here is a man not only holding but wearing his wife's purse, taking photos with what is clearly her diamond encrusted iPhone.

[edited to remove photo]

A bit of the explanation from my friend:

"It's the way he's holding it lol he carried it around the whole time like that!"
"he held it the whole time even when she was standing with him. I thought it was a tad excessive, which is why I had to take a picture. He had a phone as well btw. All the other moms were making comments too, so it wasn't just me"


Her basic opinion what that the guy was totally whipped. There were dissenting opinions that he was simply being a good husband and carrying her purse while the wife played with the kids, happily putting his own masculinity on the line. After seeing the mini-debate that ensued, I thought what I've thought on numerous occasions... "I wonder what TBBS thinks?"

I'm not comfortable with the photo being posted here purely for mockery, so I went ahead and removed it. I can't do anything about your friend's Facebook post (which I think is a pretty dickish thing to do), but I can delete this. We often have threadbombs here featuring photos of real people not intentionally in the public eye being mocked, so I'll grant it's a bit of a double-standard, but they are usually countless times removed from the first person who posted the photo and it's been hopelessly spread around the web by that point.

I've always been kind of skeeved out by those "People of WalMart" sites and so forth that encourage taking pictures of people purely to make fun of them, but I'll admit to having laughed at a few of the more outlandish photos myself, so I'm not completely innocent. I've never actually taken or posted anything like that myself, though.

I don't think the lack of the photo hurts the clarity of your OP much, since you described the situation in detail anyway.

As far as the guy holding his wife's purse and using her phone to take photos of his kids, I'm not seeing the problem and don't think it's any knock on his "masculinity," which is a completely arbitrary construct anyway. If anything, it shows that he's far more comfortable and confident with himself than people who think holding a pink phone or their wife's purse makes them less of a man.

For my friend, it was the way in which he not only held it but actually wore it. And that he held it like that even when he and his wife were together (i.e. she could have taken it back from him) That, and the taking of the pictures with the incredibly feminine phone.

I know how much you hate when people make assumptions --except when you base the entire thread on making them yourself-- but isn't it conceivable that the wife was running back and forth wrangling up the kids for the photos he was taking? Or that she might have intended to be in some of the photos herself? Both good reasons to hand over your purse and phone to your husband.

Not me personally, no. Many wedding band options had diamonds in them but I elected for something without them as the tungsten band I chose looks, IMO, more masculine.
You based your ring choice on masculinity issues? Not what your wife liked or what you thought looked good, but what was the most manly (apparently the stuff they make tank rounds out of is what it takes to be manly enough)?

Maybe they don't hold the same respect for a guy who is seen as subservient to his wife as they would one who is at the same level as she is?
If your (general you) wife is at the same level as you are, you shouldn't have any problem doing a favor for her --even if you consider it slightly embarrassing or uncomfortable, as she has no doubt done numerous embarrassing or uncomfortable things to support you (again, this is a general you, not you personally). If your wife is at the same level as you are, you shouldn't feel embarrassed about temporarily doing something which might be considered feminine by some misguided people.

Seriously, the level of words being put into mouths here is obscene.

If numerous people are drawing the same basic conclusions about what you're saying, perhaps the issue lies with you and the way you come off. I mean, this is a regular occurrence in threads of yours. You ask for advice you don't want and largely ignore. You ask for opinions when what you really want is just confirmation that your own are correct. You get defensive, lash out at people, and then backpedal on what you said and act like you played no part in the way the thread developed.

How again has this become about me? I was just posing the damn question...

Wow. I don't even know where to start. I pose a question and don't even take a specific side myself and all of a sudden everyone is a damn psychology expert.

Case in point. You clearly agree with your friend's opinion from the OP based on your strong defense of it and the fact that you've added to it with several of your own opinions on masculinity, so why not simply own up to it instead of passive aggressively pretending you're just relaying the information?

Also, I love how a moderator got in on the pilling on, that's always awesome. :rolleyes:
He's not a moderator in this forum, just another poster like you who's welcome to his opinion. Furthermore, there's nothing more obnoxious than this "The mod said something I didn't like" shit. If you don't want us to have opinions on things but still moderate the board, that sounds like a job to me and we should get paid. Otherwise, we're just posters too --here for the discussion-- who do he moderating on the side because we care about the board.

That's certainly where the thread ended up, once the hivemind finished piling on. Not sure the OP established that, but the thread certainly did...

In other words: When a large number of people say something I disagree with, suddenly it becomes a "hive mind" to cast it in a negative light.
 
this thread is sliding off topic at increasing speed. Could we put it back in its tracks, please?

The question at hand is: would you consider it unmanly to carry your wife's purse or is it a good husband's duty, in your opinion?

I think that the main reason for the somewhat heated discussion (or quarrel even, to some extent) is that everyone has a slightly different view of what is manly and what isn't. While cultural background surprisingly seems to play a comperatively small role in this, there appear to be rather big individual differences. I don't know the participants of this discussion well enough yet to speculate on social background being a factor. However, age might perhaps be an influence on what one considers manly or wuzzy.

Let's not forget, please, that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and absolutely nobody can legitimately claim their own opinion is the only correct one.

If I had been at the restaurant at that time I'd propably have grinned as well. One isn't used to seeing a guy with a handbag, after all, and everything out of the ordinary has a tendency to look a little ridiculous.
At a second thought I'd have realized that I had fallen prey to a prejudice and taken a closer look. And there I'd have seen a husband who likes his wife enough to not even think of what he might look like because all that counts to him is doing his wife a favour. I am not sure if that would count as manly or not, but it's certainly the way a gentleman behaves. Sadly, they appear to be yet another species on the brink of extinction.
 
this thread is sliding off topic at increasing speed. Could we put it back in its tracks, please?

The question at hand is: would you consider it unmanly to carry your wife's purse or is it a good husband's duty, in your opinion?

The thread is on track (the Facebook and picture discussion is related and equally interesting) and I addressed that question in my post, so we're doing fine. Threads grow organically and if people would prefer discussing Facebook and posting of pictures to mock people, that's acceptable as well.
 
I am not sure if that would count as manly or not, but it's certainly the way a gentleman behaves. Sadly, they appear to be yet another species on the brink of extinction.

And well may they drop dead.

Let's have kindness and thoughtfulness as an admirable quality of people without attaching special gender categories to it.
 
Finding a man who is good and kind would be so much more important to me than anything else. But those are pretty vague terms, of course.
 
Smart is better. Base level expected human kindness and extra smartness. Do not apply without a sense of humor. I don't need extra goodness and kindness beyond the expectation I have of everyone, in fact I'll probably find it annoying. For one thing it will make me look like a jerk.
 
Smart is better. Base level expected human kindness and extra smartness. Do not apply without a sense of humor. I don't need extra goodness and kindness beyond the expectation I have of everyone, in fact I'll probably find it annoying. For one thing it will make me look like a jerk.

Hah, smart is nice but I think kindness is tops for me. But I think everyone here knows how important that is to me!
 
Let's have kindness and thoughtfulness as an admirable quality of people without attaching special gender categories to it.
While I do like being considered a gentlemen, I agree with this (minus the drop dead part :rommie:). Positive qualities are universal. I think the real point of this thread is how pervasive chauvinistic stereotypes still are.
 
That's certainly where the thread ended up, once the hivemind finished piling on. Not sure the OP established that, but the thread certainly did...

In other words: When a large number of people say something I disagree with, suddenly it becomes a "hive mind" to cast it in a negative light.

Not really. I just don't think Flux was looking to go as far as he did, but the people in here weren't satisfied with that, so poked, prodded, and twisted him around until he finally started saying the stupid shit that could be properly looked down upon.

Like any good flounce thread, he had help escalating things, he didn't get there on his own.

Can call it whatever you like, but this thread's been all over him from the get-go. Not that he should have started it, but it's certainly escalated, and not all at his doing.
 
That's certainly where the thread ended up, once the hivemind finished piling on. Not sure the OP established that, but the thread certainly did...

In other words: When a large number of people say something I disagree with, suddenly it becomes a "hive mind" to cast it in a negative light.

Not really. I just don't think Flux was looking to go as far as he did, but the people in here weren't satisfied with that, so poked, prodded, and twisted him around until he finally started saying the stupid shit that could be properly looked down upon.

Like any good flounce thread, he had help escalating things, he didn't get there on his own.

Can call it whatever you like, but this thread's been all over him from the get-go. Not that he should have started it, but it's certainly escalated, and not all at his doing.

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm not cool with giving casual sexism a pass--which is exactly what his original post and later defenses of it were. By the time I got to the thread, he'd clearly staked out his position that what the man in the photo had done was effeminate and unmanly. He doesn't know this man. He doesn't know anyone who actually does. And yet, he felt content to pass judgment, and no one should call him on that? Fuck that noise.

If people are routinely made to feel bad for expressing repugnant, bigoted opinions, and that compels them to keep such opinions to themselves, I'd call that a win. It would be better if they didn't think those things at all, but I can only do so much.
 
That's certainly where the thread ended up, once the hivemind finished piling on. Not sure the OP established that, but the thread certainly did...

In other words: When a large number of people say something I disagree with, suddenly it becomes a "hive mind" to cast it in a negative light.

Not really. I just don't think Flux was looking to go as far as he did, but the people in here weren't satisfied with that, so poked, prodded, and twisted him around until he finally started saying the stupid shit that could be properly looked down upon.

Like any good flounce thread, he had help escalating things, he didn't get there on his own.

Can call it whatever you like, but this thread's been all over him from the get-go. Not that he should have started it, but it's certainly escalated, and not all at his doing.

Not very manly if you can't take some ribbing off some nerds on a star trek talkboard!

<I'll glass any of you fuckers who comes at me>
 
In other words: When a large number of people say something I disagree with, suddenly it becomes a "hive mind" to cast it in a negative light.

Not really. I just don't think Flux was looking to go as far as he did, but the people in here weren't satisfied with that, so poked, prodded, and twisted him around until he finally started saying the stupid shit that could be properly looked down upon.

Like any good flounce thread, he had help escalating things, he didn't get there on his own.

Can call it whatever you like, but this thread's been all over him from the get-go. Not that he should have started it, but it's certainly escalated, and not all at his doing.

Not very manly if you can't take some ribbing off some nerds on a star trek talkboard!

<I'll glass any of you fuckers who comes at me>

You're all talk.
 
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