Intergalactic Summit

I am not a well-read or educated man, but having experienced the great many deal of cultures the Federation has to offer during my professional career, I do like to think I have the ability to see the cluster from differing perspectives. After all, that's a necessary trait for someone working in a command position, but that's another subject altogether.

What we see a lot of in the capsuleer community is a cult of a particular style of masculinity, enshrined as the benchmark and sole example of such. Large height, large muscles, facial and bodily hair, and so on. This is a straightforward interpretation of masculinity, and does not require much explanation. As far as I can tell, this type of masculinity has its origins in multiple different cultures, and the lines are so blurred that it is not possible to pinpoint from which major interstellar civilization this came from. Certainly, there are examples of this in multiple cultures. What I would challenge, however, is the belief that this is the only valid form of masculinity.

There are examples in a handful ancient Garoun cultures of a slightly varied form of masculinity. This one espoused minimal body and facial hair excluding the scalp, and it's not hard to understand this concept when you think about it. As humans, we have evolved as the highest species, rising above baseline animals and petty creatures. Having bodily hair, then, associated you with a lesser being, and insulted the principle that you were the prime evolved being. Being pristine and free of any body hair demonstrated your ability, as a human, to shed the furs of an animal and survive using intellect, such as tailoring clothes to protect you from the elements. Having body hair would be seen as having fur, thus making you an animal.

In the contemporary Federation, this concept of "higher evolution" and masculinity is taken even further. Thanks to human science, the ability to make oneself androgynous stands testament to rejecting the enforced duality of the biological universe, ascending to another level of humanity that is not held back by variables outside our control (namely, sex at birth). Tangentially, this is key to the Gallentean mindset of "breaking the rules". Most of the time, individuals are not conscious of the philosophical implications of hedonism; the idea that you are rejecting the current norms as outdated is a form of progressive thinking in its own right.

It is ironic, then, that a capsuleer who is androgynous would be interpreted by their peers as less or not at all masculine compared to a capsuleer who is of heavy frame. This latter capsuleer would be seen in a certain light as animalistic and sub-human, inversely.

There's a lot to be said on this subject. There is a shared emphasis on muscular prowess, be it lean and sleek or bulky and heavy. Also to consider is how masculinity fits into cybernetic augmentation; replacing biological parts with parts derived by the power of the human intellect is seen in another light as also "masculine". From these few examples, though, I hope I have given you some things to think about.

Interesting ideas. I don't agree completely, though. Specially when you state that androgynous males are a form of masculinity, precisely they that try to blurr the line of division between genders shouldn't be considered such. Surely they don't go as far in breaching gender divisions as transexuals or people that dress like the other gender, but certainly they are closer to the border.

Do note that I don't say this in any derogatory way. I believe that, on some matters, our vocabulary is quite limited and by now we should have started to consider other options and ideas such as more than two genders.

I'll be frank: this sort of talk baffles me. Perhaps this is why the 'gender studies' courses at the SWA were so sparsely attended.

I do love a good set of muscles for purely aesthetic reasons, but they seem to be terribly useless when being shot at from kilometers away by a starship.

I'm the most fabulous person you'll ever see!

Ah, the ever lasting discussion on the idea that how we look determines how we are, who we are, and how we want to be. It is an internalized way of thinking about gender and the roles that we impose on it. Our societies as a whole seem to have outgrown the concept and we as capsuleers have the ability to go one step further and change ourselves.

So what does that make us?

As capsuleers we do not fight a physical fight. Our abilities do not come from years upon years of hard labour and physical training. Most, if not all of our activities are determined by our mental capability alone. In that aspect, following the lines of primal logic, what would make us masculine is a big and strong mind.

Ah no, apologies. That was not what I meant to say.

I was saying that where we once valued large muscle structure and well for lack of a better term "brawn" as masculine that by that logic we would now have to say, at least for us capsuleers that a big and strong mind would be "masculine."

The power of your mind has nothing to do with the classification society imposes on the shape and form of our bodies.

I stopped reading here.

Some of us Gallente do appreciate our beards. Of course, strictness and thoroughness in personal grooming is a universal virtue, and the beard is no exception to that rule. Maintaining a beard in its proper state can be a time-consuming task, so it is understandable that many choose to opt out of having one altogether. I am sure the same is true in most other cultures, too.

The thing about cloning technology is that appearance is a cosmetic choice. I make no secret of the fact that my current appearance is an idealised version of what I used to look like. I'm leaner, taller, more toned, my cheek bones are more prominent, my jaw is squarer and my facial hair is a uniform colour and not patchy. It's still recognizably the same face, just tweaked to enhance the traits I was most proud of.

Why worry about my appearance at all? Because I think it's important to remain anchored in and relevant to humanity, and grooming and appearance are very human things.

Why worry about physical prowess? Primarily because physical health is tied to mental health, and a capsuleer's mental health is a notoriously shaky thing anyway. Exercise, a healthy diet and looking good are all closely correlated with good mental health, and that's important to me. I won't lie, there's some vanity involved, too, but vanity is not necessarily a bad thing. Also, life isn't predictable and situations could arise where being strong, tough and fit would serve me better than being intelligent and wealthy. When it's so easy for me to keep myself prepared for those scenarios, why wouldn't I?

With specific regard to masculinity - I don't take it seriously. The whole "GRR BEARD FIST FIGHT MEAT BEER" thing? It's comical, it's ironic. In the modern age there really is no more inherent value in being a hirsute wall of muscle with a jaw that could sharpen swords than there is in being fine-boned, slender and hairless. They're just fashion choices, working with what you've got, or in my case choose to have. I think you'd have to be very, very silly indeed to think that conforming to a particular standard of manliness was in any way important.

The same goes for any particular standard of femininity. The terms are arbitrary ones. In such a personal matter as appearance, what matters is the person, not the standard to which they choose to conform.