Men these days have decayed from the power and virility of their forebears. Think of those mountain men who’d go off into the wilderness alone and hunt and fish and trap and live off the land, to return after months or years with a sledge loaded with valuable animal pelts. They were awesomely self-sufficient. We have degraded over time, to the point where some men are little more than weak parasites on society who depend on others to tend to their frail, fragile selves and pathetic needs.
I speak, of course, of American conservatives.
These smug, self-satisfied little ‘men’ chortle and laugh as they’re asked if they would rather do dishes or laundry…and admit with an air of pride that they don’t do either. Not only are they ineffectual and incapable, they are vain about their deficiencies. It makes them a special elite, I guess.
Listen. It makes them spineless atavisms.
Here’s what a real man should be able to do:
- Cook a healthy meal.
- Clean up after themselves.
- Maintain their clothing and their home.
- Sew a button.
- Humanely remove a spider from a room without squealing.
- Change a diaper.
- Have a relationship with a partner, not a servant.
- Call their mother.
- Cry when appropriate.
(This is what a real woman should be able to do, too, so maybe it’s a list of what real humans do.)
These guys have gone from whining about “stand up straight” and “clean your room” to bragging about their incompetence at elementary chores. I do all those things, including washing dishes and doing laundry, and I’m a wokefied candy-ass liberal who uses pronouns.
On the bright side, American conservatives are on the road to extinction.
I owe a lot to my mom who swore she was not going to raise any helpless males.
My Boy Scout training gave me all those tools and more. Although I am officially retired “squared” (from two careers), I pitch myself as a “personal chef to a family for 44 years,” which is accurate.
Can you bake a cherry pie, Billy Boy, Billy Boy? Yes, I can, and Beef Wellington.
I’m quite confident that the 12-year olds in our troop could outperform Shapiro in any task, and they don’t whine about it!
Men should also know how to dance.
But a real manly man will welcome spiders into his home.
I have no partner (nor servant), my mother is dead, and I’m disinclined to cry in public. Other than that, though, I’ve got it pretty well covered.
Of course, with no partner I’m forced to do some of those myself (if I want them done). There are no diapers to change anymore, but I changed many back in the day. I was primary care giver for my daughter from the age of nine months to 27 months about 40 years ago.
And I’ve become quite the expert spider wrangler. Far from squealing, I mostly just mutter, “aw, buddy. Sorry, buddy, you got to go outside.”
I recall Robert A. Heinlein had a list of things people should be able to do. Don’t remember much in the way of details, but it was quite an extensive list, including “change a diaper,” but also “plan an invasion.” Heinlein felt that “specialization is for insects.” He did have a military background, and his attitudes toward women were maybe a little problematic (he tended to write women characters the way he wanted women to be), but I kind of agreed, at least in principle.
Now if you’ll excuse me, this manly man needs to go bake some snickerdoodles.
Is this a deepfake? I can’t imagine this group of clowns on a zoom call together doing a game show style thing for real. I find it especially hard to believe any of them answered that question without going on an anti-feminist rant, though Matt did come close to starting one.
@ Reginald Selkirk :Depends on the spiders species. Some can be genuinely harmful and dangerous and give a venomous bite. Most are good & welcome though.
.***
Are some people really gunna be this proud of their own sad, misogynistic incompetence? Seems so. (@OP)
A lot of these people would dismiss fatherhood as “women’s work.”
A while ago I went through a period of reading a whole bunch of Patrick O’Brian’s rousing series of naval novels, in which of course the bold sailors spend a lot of time hacking each other to pieces and doing many manly things at sea. And when the captain is ashore between missions, he always staffs his house with sailors, because, of course, they’re the best housekeepers.
I was a boy scout too, back in the day, and we learned to sew and darn socks, wash and iron, cook and do the dishes too.
I am ze bestestz becoz I wllfully cannot & will refuse to do th basic-est domestic chorezz!!! I depend on others to do what I am too lazy, bigoted and deliberately useless by choice t’do. You Tarzan, me Jane .. wait no, I meantz Alphaz Meh-yule!!!1ty!!!.. D’oh!
Do they have any inkling how sodding obscenely absurd they sound?
@ 8. Bronze Dog : Yup. Thread won.
@9. Matthew Currie : I remember reading Pugwash the Pirate as a kid…
Or quietly decaying on the forest floor. Being entirely self-sufficient means being incapable of getting help at all if one is badly injured enough, compared to being in a group, who can render aid and get the injured or ill to help.
Still, the conservatives of today are the antithesis of the warriors that they claim to be. A samurai could sew on a button, clean up after himself, cook a healthy meal and well, meet every other quality PZ spoke of and more. A conservative out of money would be living a fine quality life, if a pig stye is considered a fine quality of life.
@1, you had it easy, well, according to your statement. Only Mom insisted. I was raised in a home where Mom and Dad insisted on that.
So, I can cook, clean, sew, changed our kids and grandkids diapers, slung concrete, ran wires and plumbing, rendered advanced first aid and more and like our peers, am far the better and self-sufficient for it.
When my wife died, I continued to exist comfortably, despite not feeling like I am.
@StevoR, yep! I’ve a scar on my right calf from a hobo spider bite. Before that, I was inclined to leave the spiders alone in my house, much to my wife’s annoyance. After, they got relocated outside whenever possible, well, for those who could harm any mammalian occupants of our home.
Now, excuse me while I make my breakfast of fresh blueberry pancakes and reheated sausages. Dinner will be reheated leftover tortellini with home made pasta sauce (with pork necks and feet to flavor and thicken the sauce).
Cooked and froze a gallon of sauce earlier this week in quart containers.
Yes! Thank you to my quietly feminist stay at home mother who insisted that any son of hers would know how to cook, and clean, and take care of oneself. Those cooking skills came in rather handy when dating my now wife, and 15 years in I do a majority of the cooking in our house.
Nothing was quite as pathetic as the sight of my university roommate who at 20 years of age had no idea how to turn on a laundry machine. Fortunately he was a quick learner because I wasn’t about to teach him twice.
StevoR@#10:
Do they have any inkling how sodding obscenely absurd they sound?
They sound like a bunch of incels in progress.
@ wzrd1 : If memory serves the Spartans were proud of their long hair.. (Googles.)
Source : https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-historical-badasses-who-looked-way-sillier-than-you-think
Scroll down to 6 there.
@ 15. Marcus Ranum : Incels? Progress?
Reckon they, well, as the title here notes, degnerate more like…
Funny that. For certain values thereof.
But yes. Cheers.
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.”
-Robert Heinlein
wzrd1 @13
Hard to compare; due to divorce, my mom was my sole parent for nearly all of my pre-adult years.
Marcus Ranum @ 3
“Men should also know how to dance.”
Every time I try though, people keep asking if I’m OK neurologically. I’d love to see one of those Ben Shapiro types on one of those “The Last Walking of Us Dead” shows though. My guess is that they wouldn’t last long.
I’m second-hand embarrassed just watching that clip.
Don’t conservatives pretend to praise self-sufficiency?
That so many of them stated they didn’t even know how to do laundry? And I’m pretty sure we aren’t talking about old low-tech laundry, using washboards or smacking clothing with rocks down by the river. It’s literally putting soap and dirty clothes in a machine, pushing a button/turning a knob, and then putting them in another machine, and pushing a button/turning a knob. How helpless can you get?
I think I couldn’t possible hold these people in more contempt, yet everytime I hear something new about them, it just increases my disdain for them.
When one lives on one’s own, one has to get used to these things. It would seem that society’s couple-obsessed take on things assumes that it is the norm to apportion different domestic tasks to different people, rather than (and which seems much more normal) just… have everybody do what they personally need doing.
Indeed, were I ever to have to share my domestic arrangements, I would feel positively uncomfortable having someone else doing things for me, or doing things for them. But that’s about as likely to happen as any of these rightist wankers getting a sense of perspective, so not a huge concern.
OK, I can do all these things except change a diaper. I’ve never had kids, I will never have kids. Babies are my kryptonite. On the other hand, I will never bring a baby into this world therefore I shouldn’t need any baby related skills. That said, Just in case, can we start tattooing changing instructions on babies in case I ever do need to change a diaper?
Ray Ceeya:
Just in case, can we start tattooing changing instructions on babies in case I ever do need to change a diaper?
There is this thing called “google”….
I just checked and it says diapers are headgear. Probably explains Shapiro’s issues.
Joking aside:
1) remove diaper, best done with baby on its back or on fox and friends
2) diaper will be full of shit or soaked with piss, like Jordan Pererson
3) put diaper in a plastic bag for fermentation
4) use paper towels or wipes or kleenex or confederate flags to wipe the baby
5) poop is a health hazard; do not get it in any of the many holes babies come equipped with. Alcohol may be used as a disenfectant but just drink it unless it’s isopropyl.
6) reverse the removal process with a fresh diaper
7) be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater
8) baby skin is delicate so make sure it puts the lotion on so it can be used to make a nice hat eventually. Powder or lotion may be good, meat curing salts, not so good.
9) at all times handle the baby like it might explode.
If you have a 12 year old handy you can teach them a useful skill and keep your hands clean by talking them through it while you observe.
PS – don’t use alcohol ona confederate flag when using it to wipe a baby, because those colors will run.
Wow, forgot about the fermentation, didn’t forget about the running colors.
Note to self, stop using meat curing salt as a personal anti-chaffing agent…
Oh, baby diapers can get starch, underwear, not so much. ;)
The samurai regarded flower arrangements as a martial art, because of the precision required.
@HidariMak #20
Me too, although I used to dance in public a lot as a younger man, far more enthusiastically than gracefully; but that, like my clubbing nights where it happened, are long behind me.
I have adopted the meme “I danced like no one was watching…but they were and called 911 because they thought I was siezing” :-)
Though I live alone I don’t wash dishes or do laundry because that’s way too woke. The upside is I’m covered on the probiotics and my clothes need no starching. Take that cultural marxist postmodern critical theorists!
Changing a diaper does not require any sort of disinfectant, though sometimes it does require a bath and change of clothing for the baby. Soap and water are entirely sufficient for the baby, and washing your hands after changing a diaper.
Disposable diapers are highly absorbent, much less prone to blowouts then cloth diapers, and eliminate the far more stinky tasks of also having to wash the cloth diapers and diaper pail.
Everyone should dance, regardless of gracefulness. It’s good exercise, and a fun way to get endorphins circulating.
Partnered dance is fabulous, but it does take some teaching and practice to get this good.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jo9-A5wGn0
Tethys 31:
I hate dancing (doing it, that is. Watching modern dance can be absorbing), and it has nothing to do with ability or gracefulness. I get my exercise in other ways (running, soccer, cycling, cross-country skiing in my younger days. Stationary bike in my decrepitude).
I could as well say “Everyone should learn calculus, regardless of maths skills. It’s the gateway to understanding a lot of science”.
Why do you hate dancing Rob? I would not mind learning more calculus, but I don’t think I would get any health benefits or an endorphin boost from successfully solving equations.
A good partnered dance is basically sex on hardwood.
Yea, one can sneeze smarter lifeforms out of one’s nose than these ejits.
As #21 Lochaber says, what about competence and manly self-reliance? They are openly admitting that without some woman’s help, they can’t even wipe they own butts. Manly, it ain’t.
Also, what do they do all day then? It’s not as if they spend the time improving their own intellect, as we can see that’s not exactly their best suit.
Basil Fawlty said it best: “You are a waste of space”. Now if I had a spoon to flick on their heads…
Tethys @33: I’ve done it. I don’t enjoy it, even slightly. Do people ask you why you don’t enjoy the things they enjoy? And I haven’t had sex on hardwood, but I don’t think I’d enjoy that very much either.
Benefits aren’t necessarily about physical health. I’d say being able to read and understand Einstein’s 1905 papers is a positive. And the bar for understanding them is lower than most people think.
I see the rhetorical intent here — the contrast — but it’s no less silly than saying what they should not be able to do.
(And it’s weirdly specific; I’m not really able to call my mum, her being dead and all — so there goes that criterion for being a real man)
Luckily I can appreciate the electromagnetism of moving bodies, and the simple human joy of dancing to music.
Here is a demonstration of sex on hardwood, by the current West Coast Swing champions.
It’s not choreographed, just good partnering.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HUpHRT3P0Ok
Heinlein’s list also had: To shovel manure.
They’re really really good at that.
Tethys:
Um, I think you have a lot to learn about sex, if you think that qualifies.
Yet another instance of someone imagining that a particular predilection is universal. The one and only time I was harassed into trying to dance by someone (an epic feat, to be fair) did not end well — I was duly annoyed, my harasser was mortified. Far as I’m concerned, dancing is for other people.
I can appreciate the technical or physical expertise of top-tier dancers, but they still look damn silly to me. And the rest look damn stupid doing it.
Like that pair you featured.
[Mind you, I was most amused by Whedon’s dance of joy]
I suspect most dance curmudgeons of being the dudes who lack rhythm and musicality, can’t keep a beat, and count out loud the whole time. Sadly that describes a largish proportion of US men.
Stick to physics if that floats your boat, but it’s rather odd to claim that dancing isn’t beneficial to your health both physically and mentally.
Yet another instance of someone imagining that a particular predilection is universal
All children dance, sing, make art, etc….
It’s only adults who imagine that they can’t do those things due to whatever reason. Who cares if you look silly? Who is scoring?
Play and silliness are supposed to be fun, perhaps you should try some silly bopping around to some music and see if it doesn’t improve the rigidity and obvious grumpiness.
Tethys:
I “lack rhythm” because I don’t care about the categories people assign; timing, I can do. Patterns, I can do.
Same.
Now you’re just being silly.
Mind you, I was not aware one had to count to dance.
I’m a bit sus about that claim, to be honest.
Look, I have no problem with your particular predilection; it is you who has a problem with my lack of appreciation for it. Perhaps try being a bit tolerant, live and let live type of thing. You want to find sex in some dancing, go for it, though I think it a fetish.
Dancing is popular? No worries, just not for me.
Who do you imagine claimed that?
Mind you, though it is indeed beneficial to health (depending, you know those stories about ballet), that’s only epiphenomenally. As you put it, it’s a simple human joy.
And only physically for everyone; the mental aspect is only for those who require dancing in order to stay mentally healthy. I personally don’t. Just like I don’t need to go to concerts or meditate.
Again, I’m trying to tell you that your particular preferences need not be universal, and are demonstrably not universal. I am a counter-example.
Almost as silly as thinking chores are gender-specific, to get back to the OP.
Tethys:
FFS. Yes, I was forced into that sort of effort early on. So yeah, I did too.
Didn’t take. If anything, it prejudiced me against it. It jaundiced my perception.
Ah yes, people with agency who are not forcibly inculcated during their formative years.
Here’s the thing: I don’t “imagine” I can’t do that. I just don’t want to do it.
Here we are; apparently, in your view it is not universal that people care about whether they look silly, yet everything is somehow scored, nonetheless.
To be fair, I would find it nice to not care whether I looked silly or not, so in that respect I am inferior to you. But on the other hand, I don’t need to keep score, so there’s that.
Already told you I did, and it DID NOT END WELL.
As in tears of fury and vituperation from my harasser who harassed me into trying silly bopping around to some music. Strained relations for some time.
Why people such as she and you keep/kept trying to cajole me to do something I most vehemently tell them I do not want to do is beyond me. It can never end well, even were I to submit.
I used to like dancing when younger and too drunk to care. I tried practicing to get some moves down, but usually devolved on the floor to some wacko hybrid of running man and the Biz Markie dance.
I dated a Dominican woman who was into merengue and salsa and you just can’t wing that stuff. And hybrid Biz running man does not mesh with Latin moves at all. I tried. Nope.
I do have rhythm based on drumming by ear, but not advanced body coordination. If I were to pick a style I prefer it would be hardcore breakdancing, but Latin style salsa, merengue, tango etc is what to do with a partner. I did learn waltz, fox trot, and some other Euro stuff in 6th grade at my one year at a parochial school but it didn’t stick.
Tethys @42:
Some children dance and make art because it is expected of them. Doesn’t mean they like doing it. Speaking as a woman who probably never danced since the age of 11 and never made any artwork since age 13.
Oops, sorry, spouse and I did attempt some dancing lessons back in 2011, did not work.
@47 anat
I kinda wish I had taken formal dance lessons at some point. I appreciate dancing. But I never really had the initiative. I wish I had learned to read music too. I still appreciate music, though more than dancing.
Um, I think what Tethys thinks is that there’s not need for formality in dancing, just the joy of it.
This business of formal dancing lessons and styles of dancing and whatnot kinda vitiates the very point that it’s supposedly an universal innate trait.
Clearly, it’s much more of a cultural thing.
(I mean, nobody needs formal jogging classes to go jogging)
@49 John Morales
Well if just going to a club with music after a few drinks there’s not necessarily a formality to it. I dated a black Jehovah Witness (very long story) and she loved to dance but wasn’t into formal stuff. I could keep up with a groove to a point, but was not into the marathon aspect she was. I was ok with dancing but she lived for it, just to be out there on the floor when most people would drop from exhaustion.
It was her need to get back in good graces with the Kingdom Hall that doomed the relationship though, not the marathon dancing. At least she wasn’t into salsa and merengue. Those are way outside my “skill set”.
I don’t think I would go out on the floor now at my age. There is an aerobic aspect to it, but I walk around the neighborhood listening to a podcast or audiobook these days. Nickel beer nights when MC Hammer and Young MC were crushing it was a different era decades ago. Fun times breathing other people’s cigarette smoke while hammered on Cisco (don’t ask).
Is human waste better going into sewage processing or landfill?
I hated the dancing we were forced to do in school. Making kids square dance is a good way to make them dislike dance. I didn’t learn to love dancing until I learned swing dance and it’s variants. I’ve always wanted to learn tango, but I find most of the Latin ballroom dances rather repetitive and don’t care for the music. It’s still fun to be able to bust out a cha-cha, or rumba, but the slingshot action of swing dance is the part that makes it such fun.
Once you’ve mastered lead/follow, it’s easy to learn any dance. I certainly would not call partnered dance an innate human trait, but I’ve never met a small child who did not enjoy bopping to music, or being held and danced around the room.
I value my neck and ankles remaining unbroken too much to attempt dancing.
I’ll do some foot tapping and/or head nodding to music I like (and, likely, out-of-sync…), but that’s about it for me.
It can be pretty amazing to observe someone who is skilled and enjoys dancing do their thing, it’s a pretty special blend of art and athleticism, and can be just completely fascinating to observe…
So, even though I don’t feel much desire to dance/take any pleasure in dancing, I’m really fucking glad a whole lot of people do enjoy dancing, and sometimes do it in public, and/or record their dancing and post it on the internet. It’s pretty neat to see
Hm, Tethys. “A good partnered dance is basically sex on hardwood.”, you wrote earlier.
—
Anyway, the topic is gendered roles assigned to chores, no?
And those who hold on to those. (heh)
I know that when I was little, those types of roles were most definitely gendered.
For example, in my high school, boys did woodworking and plastics and girls did home duties and economics. No choice about it.
Cultural hangover. Still lingering, apparently. Silly.
@ ^ John Morales : I did both home economics and woodworking classes at high school as a boy.
StevoR, I’m talking 1974-1975 in Daws Road High School, Pasadena.
Must have been more enlightened by your day.
Mid 1980’s Adelaide hills Heathfield High. Guess so. Sign of an improving trend? Well, ok, just two examples so too small a sample size really but yet.
We had dancing lessons too – square dancing and a school formal. I sucked at and disliked both.
Also music class which I didn’t mind and drama which was one of my fave classes even though I sucked at that too.
Count me among those who don’t like dancing. I just think people look kind of stupid when they dance.
I’m pretty sure I’m not lacking in rhythm or musicality, having been a music major for four years and playing bass and singing professionally for a decade plus, so there must be some other explanation.
Maybe it’s all the oafish “running men” I saw attempting to dance while I was playing in the bars. Maybe it’s modern TV commercials, where people dance over the dumbest little things–three dollars off my phone bill! A little bag of stupid fart food!
Oh, DING DING DING I think we have a winner here. I, too, was forced to square dance in grade school. Hated every minute. Oh, a heel and a toe and a heel and a toe and a slide slide slide. That’s the explanation. THEY DID THIS TO ME. And I would make them pay, if they weren’t already dead. ARE YOU DANCING DOWN THERE? I DON’T SEE YOU FUCKERS DANCING.
My wife is a tenured professor of modern dance, choreography and physical theater. You better believe I know how to dance. It’s all in the hips, as she’s fond of saying. So many pleasant activities are.
Tethys @52: The kind of dancing we attempted to learn was indeed the kind of partnered dance you mention. We found it unappealing.
The only dancing I’ve enjoyed was DDR, and it was more like timed stomping with various levels of accuracy. Might try breathing some life back into my PS2, since I found my dance pad recently, and I need to get back to exercising.
Didn’t like dancing as a kid. If I could have gotten away with it, I would have remained stationary during “If You’re Happy and You Know It…”
That list was almost funny to me . My late father and my late uncle would rather have been burnt at the stake than do any housework. My sons had to learn to do it all. The turning point for me was when my father would come home from work and wait until one of us girls would come home to get a meal for him. I’d never heard something so stupid in my life and when he complained and told me he’d been waiting for hours , that’s when the penny dropped about how sheerly stupid toxic male behavior was. That was some time during the late 60s right before the woman’s lib movement got popular
brightmoon, so when he ended up alone entirely, with all daughters on their own, he then promptly starved to death or simply went broke buying meals out?
Me, I’m infamous for standing with a spatula in one hand, big cooking spoon in the other, saying, “I shall die by my own hand!”. ;)
Although, resupply of some grocery items has been problematic for the past handful of days, barometric pressure is bouncing about, making the mile and a half walk to the store impossible. :/
I’ve a standing joke that’s as much a truism, “I miss the Middle East, we didn’t get weather there”.
“Oh, a heel and a toe and a heel and a toe and a slide slide slide”
Great, now I remember even more of middle school that I didn’t want to!
I must be the oddball with not negative memories of a square dance. Not my preferred manner but was at a wedding and reception at a converted barn in Tallahassee that had a proper roasted pig. Best pork ever.
For clarity, I don’t dislike dancing generally and happy to watch people dancing especially if they are doing it well. Seeing good dancers can be a lot like seeing good gynamists – pretty amazing & artistic things that they can do. I just didn’t like the rigid group square dancing form they taught us at high school. Later adopted a martial art that I was doing into a form of dancing on the rare occassions I did something approxiating partying.. which seemed to work ok & was fun & goodexercise at the time.
@67 StevoR
I can actually see commenters like John Morales’ point. I’m definitely not a good dancer. It can be awkward but fuck it. It can be fun to. I’m not a good DJ but that didn’t stop me from trying and pissing off the folks on the dance floor at a bar after the actual DJ quit and I thought listening to excellent Miami style DJs substituted for expertise. Escorted out by bar managers. One of my favorite drunken memories. Why the fuck not.
As for my opinion of dance…mostly white boys doing stuff, but very well!
Hell yeah! If only I could do that. The music too…is the important part!
Since I got a microwave oven I have never picked up a cookbook. Making the effort for a single person is just not worth it.
“Housecleaning” just means getting rid of most of the cat hair, and discovering places behind the furniture where the cats have vomited.
Come on, now.
You’ve never found a rad spider in your house and squee’d? Not even a little bit?
The positive effects of dance have been well documented by brain scientists. It doesn’t seem to matter what style of dance is involved, but moving rhythmically to music is excellent for exercising your motor neurons and preserving plasticity and connections.
Tai Chi also has some of the same benefits, but the research shows that music and movement in combination are effective methods to enhancing overall mood AND brain functions.
The only criteria for dance is to move your body to whatever music that may induce you to tap your toes, and execute some patterned steps in time to the music.
https://hms.harvard.edu/news-events/publications-archive/brain/dancing-brain
Tethys @71: I’ve never doubted that dancing has huge benefits for people who like to do it. You seem to have a hard time understanding that some people just don’t take to it (indeed, some hate doing it), and it’s not just those who “lack rhythm”.
Playing soccer brought me decades of joy. Yet I know many people can’t stand the sport, playing or watching, and there would be no point trying to convince them otherwise. I’ve also known people for whom the only exercise they enjoyed was dancing. Whatever floats your boat!
Regarding dancing and dementia, that’s great news! Again, for people who like to do it. Citing studies on the benefits of activity X isn’t going to make those of us who hate X take it up.
I wonder if those positive benefits still accrue when I fall and smash the dogshit out of my knee on the dance floor?
I also wonder as to how I’d dance, what with my cane and all.
That double amputee in the wheelchair might have a bit of a tough go of it as well.
Moving your body to the music doesn’t require legs, and can be done with a cane.
@Rob Grigjanis
Why are you taking my citing the science personally? I’m going to give as much credence to claims that you hate dancing as I would to various peoples claims that they hate vegetables, or children’s claims they hate naps. Hating ordinary things that are good for you is simply unreasonable.
Chair dancing is actually a thing, especially for elderly people with balance issues.
I’ve danced with a few people in wheelchairs that came to listen to the band, and they seemed to enjoy being included even if they can’t use their legs. Nerve damage is another area where dance therapy can in fact promote healing and regular practice can dramatically improve overall function.
Tethys:
I’ve known people like you over the years, whose theory of mind is similarly weak.
Tethys, some people who hate vegetables are supertasters, exceptionally sensitive to bitter taste. This is a genetic trait that can be tested for. Some people have different sleep cycles and indeed are incapable of napping or incapable of sleeping the typical number of hours, or get more benefit from sleeping at different times than typical. Lectures on the benefits of eating cruciferous vegetables are not going to make my supertaster colleague choke down broccoli, nor are lectures on the benefits of sleep make me sleep more. All us non-dancers discovered one way or another that we do not enjoy this activity in various forms. There is a limit to how much not-fun stuff people are going to be willing to put up with for the sake of their health. We each have our ways to prioritize, and for some of us dancing does not make the cut.
When you post to a forum with diverse readership a message saying everyone enjoys this thing that I like, and if they don’t there is something wrong with them, expect to encounter dissenters.
I posted that dancing is good for your health, both mentally and physically. It is well documented by multiple scientific studies. Any type of rhythmic movement to music will improve your brains connections and function, in addition to the benefits of exercise. I have not found any other therapy that heals nerve damage, and I’ve tried everything the medical experts had to offer.
Having crabby men complain that they hate dancing is beside the point. Especially when said men also stated that they can’t dance.
If you haven’t learned to dance, you really don’t have any rational basis for hating it.
I find it sad that so many people have negative associations to dancing, but I understand why that could be true if the only dancing they know is being forced to learn boring dances to music they don’t like.
Tethys, your posts bring up one of my issues with dancing: gender expectations. Hey, I’m a woman who dislikes dancing. We exist. I tried it for several months (of my own choice, not anything forced on me), was not fun, and I don’t care how beneficial it could have theoretically been. I’m doing plenty of things for my health, most of which I am emotionally neutral about. It is work I do for the sake of long term benefit. I am not willing to add dancing as yet another form of work.
You start by stating that dancing is categorically fun. When some people say it is not fun to them you start looking for what could possibly be wrong with people to make them dislike dancing. How about just accepting that people have different tastes, end of story?