Because men think hurting yourself needlessly means something

I have discussed on this blog before men’s peculiar habits and the strange meanings they attach to them. 

 

however there are few stranger than the actions that are taken in the name of machismo.

 

Lets look at a few of them:

 

– Doing outrageous stunts on bikes

– turbo charging a skateboard

– cliff diving

– running in front of stampeding bulls

– attempting impossible stuns on ramps

– wrestling snakes and crocodiles 

– riding bulls

 

The show that properly represents these incredibly foolish acts is Jackass. I have yet to meet a man who doesn’t defend Jackass. The amazing thing is not so much the defence (after all, this is a blog defending the right to read romance novels) it is more the meanings attacked to the acts themselves. They have a sort of love for machismo. Even though the behaviours of the shows hosts are foolish, there is something very special and brave about it.

 

A more serious treatment of a similar subject occurs in the book Fight Club. In this book the self-abuse is definitely seen as a kind of machismo; a reaching into the depths of oneself for a meaning that is never there and can’t ever be there – but you come out of it a man.

 

In romance novels men are heroes the hard way. By choosing to take a stand and then taking that stand. they fight for who they are and they fight for their women and their loved ones and their principles. They are not men who are so filled with nothing that even stupidity makes them feel more like men.

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