Masculinity and vegans. Vegan Bros and Vegans

[Lou]

Good article in the Guardian.

In my own experience, I have not experience the kind of vegan shaming that the author has. But I am self conscious about it - must have gotten that from somewhere.

TIL that "hench" is a British term for buff.

Some lines from the article.

Every time a man becomes a vegan, it challenges basic assumptions about masculinity and femininity.​

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Often men are proud of eating meat. I get called a ‘soy boy’ and there’s a lot of, ‘Ed must be gay because he’s vegan’​

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does the best hope of convincing men to put down their kebabs really rest with a new generation of hench vegan bros?​

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“But what we perceive to be masculine is also a social construct, created by advertising, by media and by peer pressure.”​

A good part of the article is about Bosh.TV.

Meet the ‘vegan bros’ here to bust the myth that real men eat meat

From plant-eating bodybuilders to role models like Lewis Hamilton, so-called ‘hegans’ are turning gender stereotypes on their head

www.theguardian.com

 

[silva]

Henchherbivore

 

[Lou]

Word of the day.
that guy is Hench.

 

[Tom L.]

I haven't gotten flak for my diet, and I went pescatarian back in high school (between 10th and 11th grades). But I have a naturally skinny (ectomorphish) build, and sometimes I wonder if it's easier for me to follow a vegan diet because of this (not so much muscle tissue hollering "MORE MEAT! MORE MEAT!" all the time...)

I worked out with Nautilus/Cybex equipment at the local YMCA from around 1983 to 2019, although I initially joined to swim. I never was, and don't think I ever will be, Hench!

 

[VeganRachel]

Do y'all understand that the opposite of compassion, love, and empathy are cruelty, pain and selfishness......
Who would want to be that?. Vegan men are sexy and strong, they do not need to eat the dead and their blood
to be masculine. So sad that society has taught males that its' okay to get angry and violent and that eating dead
animals is manly.

 

[Tom L.]

Do y'all understand that the opposite of compassion, love, and empathy are cruelty, pain and selfishness......
Who would want to be that?. Vegan men are sexy and strong, they do not need to eat the dead and their blood
to be masculine. So sad that society has taught males that its' okay to get angry and violent and that eating dead
animals is manly.

I think some people basically equate compassion, love, and empathy with weakness. I know how utterly warped and backward that attitude is! (I could have used more precisely and accurately descriptive terms, but the board's software would have had to "****" those words out).

 

[Lou]

I think some people basically equate compassion, love, and empathy with weakness.

Maybe ..... people equate compassion, love, and empathy with femininity. And femininity is perceived as weakness.

Its a cultural thing and it actually crosses many cultures. And it sucks. Perhaps it has some biological/historical roots but we need to get past that.

 

[David3]

I'm not sure about other cultures, but North Americans admire power more than "doing the right thing".

In 1977, after the release of "Star Wars", kids had Darth Vader T-shirts and lunch boxes.



Darth Vader was complicit in the genocide of planet Alderaan, wherein 2 billion people were killed by the Death Star weapon.

Although the movie didn't show it graphically, Darth Vader also tortured Princess Leia during her interrogation on the Death Star.

Nevertheless, moviegoers overlook these unspeakable crimes, because Darth Vader is powerful and impressive.

 

[VeganRachel]

Maybe ..... people equate compassion, love, and empathy with femininity. And femininity is perceived as weakness.

Its a cultural thing and it actually crosses many cultures. And it sucks. Perhaps it has some biological/historical roots but we need to get past that.

ABSOLUTELY, compassion is treated by society as a weakness--when it IS a strength. Compassion is sexy. Jeshua was a compassionate
vegetarian role model for all of us. Vegetables and salads are also seen as feminine, which is why the opposite, animal flesh/muscle is seen as
strong and powerful. The ability to eat the dead means we have power over its' life and are superior?. It is so psychological. Being skinny
does not mean weakness, through history humans were often very lean and strong. In the Ninja Warrior competitions, the muscular
big guys never did well. It was the lean, average, strong guys who won the competitions. I admire and respect compassionate vegan
men as real men. It is more challenging for a guy to be vegan because of all of the brainwashing that the male society has done to
boys and men to eat meat and to stifle emotions. Eating the gentle dead animals does not make anyone more powerful or masculine.
Be strong in your veganism and stand up for what you believe, let your actions define who you are, not someone else's criticism of your
choices. They make their own choices and get their results. There is a guy on Youtube who was young and began a carnivore diet. He bragged
about it, promoted it, taught it to others, and dissed vegans. He did this faithfully for 6-7 years and then became very unhealthy with severe
liver problems. He stopped being carnivore and added some plants including bread potato and pasta to his food choices. However, despite the
fact that he was only eating animal stuff for years, and working out a lot, he had trouble gaining muscle and complained about that. Yet males are told meat creates muscle.
Peace is powerful, wars are Satanic and are not powerful. Peace to all.

 

[David3]

ABSOLUTELY, compassion is treated by society as a weakness--when it IS a strength. Compassion is sexy. Jeshua was a compassionate
vegetarian role model for all of us.

.
Jesus had some good lessons, but some of his actions are really puzzling to me.

Matthew 21:18-21

"Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered. When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked. Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done."


Why would Jesus destroy a fig tree, just because it wasn't bearing fruit? Very strange.

 

[VeganRachel]

.
Jesus had some good lessons, but some of his actions are really puzzling to me.

Matthew 21:18-21

"Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered. When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked. Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done."


Why would Jesus destroy a fig tree, just because it wasn't bearing fruit? Very strange.

sounds like a fake story created by scribes who were known to instill false narratives, if i were Jeshua I would love the tree enough to PRODUCE FRUIT AGAIN. Not tell a tree to never produce again, or to tell a mountain to throw itself into the sea. The bible has many contradictions in it because so many different people were making up untrue stories to reflect a religious dogma There actually are over 500 bible texts, most of which were deliberately omitted from the "modern" bible because they reflect a spiritual as well as a vegetarian way of living, the way humans were designed to live. The Nag Hammadi scriptures, the lost books of the bible, The ebionites, and the books of Enoch, tell a lot of truths:

Amazon.com

www.amazon.com

Amazon.com

www.amazon.com

Amazon.com

www.amazon.com

Amazon.com

www.amazon.com

 

[Tom L.]

I'm not sure about other cultures, but North Americans admire power more than "doing the right thing".

In 1977, after the release of "Star Wars", kids had Darth Vader T-shirts and lunch boxes.

Darth Vader was complicit in the genocide of planet Alderaan, wherein 2 billion people were killed by the Death Star weapon.

Although the movie didn't show it graphically, Darth Vader also tortured Princess Leia during her interrogation on the Death Star.

Nevertheless, moviegoers overlook these unspeakable crimes, because Darth Vader is powerful and impressive.

(I didn't include your links from your original post) I also had a problem with Jesus driving some demons out of someone (which was good) but then sending them into a herd of swine, who went insane and drowned themselves in the sea. Why not send the demons back to perdition, where they belong?

I never could fathom how popular the character of Vader was with some folks. Maybe that's why Tarkin, who actually gave the order to destroy Alderaan, didn't have many (if any) fans: he was just as fundamentally evil, but not nearly so personally powerful.

I suppose something similar happened with Zachary Quinto's character (Sylar) in the "Heroes" TV series. With the exception of Peter, Sylar was the most powerful character, but had a lot of fans. In one interview, Quinto was talking about his character's possible evolution, saying that he didn't see a way the character could be redeemed, considering all the murders Sylar had committed. However, late in the series, Peter absorbed Sylar's first power (intuitive aptitude) and became similarly compelled to dissect people's brains to understand and absorb their powers. I guess the writers decided to make Sylar's original power to blame for the way he acted.