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So i thought i should clarify


1.9.17

So this blog-thing is supposed to be really about my experience of masculinity and maleness. Instead of being sage and wise about it, I’m letting the experiences I have of masculinity which first spring to mind when I think about. So I’m not saying this is what all men are like. Because I haven’t met all of them. So I can’t describe all of them. So I accept the specificity and non-universality of my account

When I think about masculinity, a couple of events spring to mind. First is my short experience of assault and violent bullying.

So I have quite a comfortable background. And this- as is usually the case with posh kids- wasn’t something I was really aware of, aged 14. And I carried a briefcase. For a month. So the message I sent to my village was ‘I go to private school, and I’m proud of it’. So that was a bit stupid.

Well one day, a kid I knew from primary school told one of his big man friends -Josh- that ‘The posh boy, Tom Froy has been saying nasty stuff about your mum’. And the big man Josh was much bigger than either of us- he was 20. So he decided to settle it with that posh kid with the briefcase. Two of my other primary school friends waited at the bus stop, so they could tell the big man Josh when I was there.  The two friends followed me from the bus stop and cut a short cut through the village, to tip the big man Josh. Then the big man Josh, with his three friends, beat me up. For about 5 minutes. I hadn’t a clue why. I didn’t say nasty stuff about his mum. I’d never met her.

My little brother was on the other side of the road. Watching. I told him not to tell Mum and Dad. And neither of us did.

The same thing happened again two weeks later, about 50 metres from my front door. Then a week later, someone threw a brick through our window. A couple of days later, the big man Josh spent an hour cycling round in front of our house. And he stole my bike. And he spat on me when I walked back from the bus. He wanted to crush me whenever he could

So I told my parents. And they told the police. And we met the big man and his family. It was fucking intense.

His dad was terrifying. He was apologetic. But still scary. His dad was the big man Josh’s brother’s band manager. So the big man Josh’s childhood was spent in the back of a van while his dad managed his brother’s gigs. So the big man Josh was looking for man-attention because his dad had made the man out of his brother. So he went out and beat up the posh kid who might have been rude about his mother. Cos that’s what men do- protect women.

And maybe he came back the second time: because I wasn’t a good fight. I didn’t challenge his manliness. And without any challenge, he couldn’t impress anyone. But the big man Josh wanted everyone to know he was a man. That’s why he had an audience. And how did he want to be a man? By proving he was more of a man than me.

So his dad shouted at him. And told him he was worthless. And apologised to us.

We reconciled. We shook hands. Like men do. And they all lived happily ever after. I never caught the bus again, because I was too scared to. I cycled 20 miles every day to avoid getting the bus. That’s how I got into cycling. Silver linings n shit.

So that’s the experience that springs to mind when I think ‘masculinity’. Though I’m the one writing about it, the story isn’t about me. It’s about big man Josh’s search for recognition as a man, in which I became a convenient accessory. Big man Josh felt inadequate in front of bigger man dad. So he tried to crush the little posh boy. That’s what masculinity was to me at that age. Lonely men who need attention.

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