Boys Don't Cry

Ages ago i went to Frankston, a suburb which is located at the southern part of Melbourne. The first thing that was caught by my eyes was a group of men wearing short, sunglasses and sports car. This kind of guy was nearly everywhere. I know that the suburb has the beach and the beach has always been a masculine space in Australia. I am not denying that many women do hang out at the beach or do surfing as well but still the masculine culture is pervasive.

I feel suppressed sometimes by sexual cultures which sets a rigid boundaries between masculinity and femininity. I don't have a tendency to have an alternative sexuality. I am a straight guy. However, it is still difficult to draw a line between straight and less straight, between masculine and less masculine. When i hang out with some friends who have their biceps like Popeye the Sailor Man, i feel less manly. But i drink what most men drink and sometimes i also enjoy their blokey jokes. Only sexiest comments which discomfort me. Maybe concern with my body size, i was encouraged by friends to take up training at the gym. I thought once i got into the gym then the next thing that would be in my wish-list will be a sport car. I can't imagine myself driving a flashy sport car with a full-blast hip-hop music, wearing a tight t-short so people can see my muscle plus a girl siting next to me.

My dad used to tell me that i should do something that real man would do. But that was back then, in another part of the world which has a completely different sexual culture. Although it differs in their cultures, sort of adage: boys don't cry (of note, this is one of my fav song from The Cure) is a general consensus. So being tough was thought very manly. I should not cry when i was dumped by my girl. But i wept mournfully when he closed his eyes forever and i wondered if he could see me crying for him, would he say the same thing?

Once i settled in Australia, i partly learned about a set of cultural norms that prevail here. One of them is that boys don't share bed. So in several occasions, couch whether it is comfy or not was the only place for me to rest everytime i stay over at my male friends' house. I don't have any problem with it for i understand this as a culturally acceptable norm. In Jakarta, i used to hang out at a friend house. His house was kind of flexible with rules. In a tiny room with a queen size bed, four or three of us would lay there after spending the most evening chatting and drinking beer. Maybe because we know that neither of us have a tendency to like same sex relationship. There will be an awkward feeling if we knew a gay will stay over. In term of sexuality, i was not that open-minded back then, even though i claimed myself to be radical. But i do have gay friends and accept them as they are.

Here, we don't like sharing bed between boys but in some instances male kissing other males' cheeks are not that controversial. I have a friend who object to share bed with boy but at ease with the idea of kissing cheek. Oddly enough, we don't do that in Jakarta or to be precise, my friends and I never bring up the idea of kissing male cheek into our friendship.

Having learned these differences, what is called manly thing is never clear in the first place. But we actually never get into this idea as the dominant would insist that the definition of manliness never changes and would impose their definition upon others.