For anaesthesia, I again received a needle in the eye. Eighth needle in the eye this year. I posted a pic after and a lovely admirer of mine posted "Brave you are". I don't think so. It had to happen. I had no choice. Stoic, yes, but brave? I don't think so.
Interesting though how the subject turned to courage and masculinity. Why? Plenty of courageous women out there and honestly I think a far greater proportion of women display courage versus men. But somehow talk turned to masculinity and the alpha male.
Alpha males versus beta males, and then gamma, delta...to omicron. But aren't omicron males in ancient greek cultures more powerrful than alphas? Who cares. It's all pseudoscience anyway, a category built to assuage men who think they deserve more than their lot, and who are probably tiny peened as well.
Somehow, a guy named Nick Adams pooped into my feed. On Twitter, he is Nick Adams (Alpha Male). He has a quote as to how alpha males eat wings at Hooter's while beta males eat soy or something like that. Here is a pic of him,
and as you can see, not only is he a disgusting soft body, but is originally a pudge from Australia. He can never be a red blooded fillled-to-the-brim-with-testosterone American alpha male. I don't think he really understands the pseudoscience behind his declaration.
Most of the concept of manly man goes, via the Brits, to ancient Greece. Now, the British through some rather dubious logic, traced Western civilization back to the Greeks, via a radical theory that European superiority came not from Chistianity, but from the Greeks, who invented freedom and rationality. Rome then spread these virtues to the rest of Euope, culminating, obviously, with the British Empire.
Let's ignore the bullshit and run with it. By cultivating the ancient Greek version of masculinity, the manly alpha male is defined. But don't look too closely at the sexual practices of the ancients. More on that in a minute.
The Greeks themselves, through the writings still extant, were positively obsessed with the Persians. Given an obvious inferiority complex towards their powerful eastern neighbors, they often lampooned Persians in a negative light. Greek art endlessly portrayed the Persians as cowardly, scheming, effeminate barbarians. The Greeks defined the Persians as the ulitmate 'Other'.
For exmple, there is a wine jug, the Eurymedon vase, from about 460BCE, that celebrates a Greek victory over the Persians. On the vase a Greek hoplite (a GI Joe) humiliates a Persian soldier.
The Greek is bent at waist grasping his erect penis, rushing to pentrate the Persian's rear end.
"Look at me, buggering this bloody Persian!" says the commerative jug. This was then a common practice. Indeed, sexual mores and gender roles being what they were back then, pederasty was practiced frequently among the Greeks and the Romans.
A common definition back then was that a true alpha male is never anally penetrated. It's OK to fuck anythhing else, women, men, boys, aninals were all fair game. But you were taken down a peg if it was ever known that someone had slipped the pink one in your bum - knowingly or not. (There are Roman comedies with unfortunate characters ending up as bottoms either from inebriation or accident).
NIck Adams may, by this definition, be an alpha male in ancient times if he has not been buggered. But he must also bugger others to show his innate European superiority. That might happen at a Hooters. Or a locker room, or a slip on a piece of soap. But most Greek hoplites would just look at Nick and see, not a real man, but someone who can squeal real good.
