One of the more interesting phenomena to come out of the feminist attack on Macho Culture (incidentally, an area where I’d agree with feminists if it weren’t for the fact that what they’ve replaced it with is even worse) is the phrase “I’m secure in my masculinity.” To me the truly interesting thing about this phrase is how it can completely run the gamut from being an absolute display of betatude on the one end to the complete opposite end of the spectrum where it’s totally true and an alpha display.

Of course, a claim like that warrants examples. Exhibit A: my father. My father is an undiagnosed Aspie. One of the lesser known symptoms of Asperger’s Syndrome is a significantly greater than normal like of bright, highly saturated colors. My father’s favorite color is orange. Bright orange, like the fruit. [As a side note, I have a lot of Aspie traits myself, and this is probably at least partially responsible for my love of red hair.] But he also likes other bright colors. In some ways, especially in social situations outside of the family, my father is pretty alpha. He’s been an engineer for his entire career, which until the early 90s or so meant wearing a suit to work, and until about a decade ago meant wearing a tie to work. At one point in the mid 90s he went out one day and bought himself a bright pink dress shirt and started wearing it to work. On my father it works. My sister (among others) would tease him about being “secure in his masculinity” for wearing it… but it really just worked for him. It helped that it was actually a really nice shirt, and it also helped that he never made a big deal about it.

Exhibit B: my brother Wilson. Wilson has been known, from time to time, to wear pink shirts. Especially when it matches up with his wife’s clothing (ew, the cutesy his and hers matching… barf). When he does this, he puts on his doofus smile and yammers on about how secure he is in his masculinity. At no point in his life has he actually established his masculinity to anybody’s satisfaction, so it completely fails to work. It doesn’t help any that the pink shirts he wears is pretty cheap.

Exhibit C: I have a good friend in the Army who is generally very alpha. Sometime’s too alpha, to the point where he makes people very uncomfortable. When he wore a pink shirt last New Year’s Eve, bringing no attention to it whatsoever, it worked as an alpha play. It helped that it was one of those smart ass pink shirts (I can’t remember exactly what it said), which completely fits his sense of humor.

There are some definite guidelines for this kind of thing, however.

  • Establish your alpha cred. Generally it’s best to do this before hand, but you can do it upon meeting a brand new group through a combination of demeanor and contrast. For example, showing up to an event in a pink shirtriding your motorcycle with your tattoos showing and your Hell’s Angels jacket, along with a demeanor that screams “Bad Mother Fucker” would probably work OK.
  • Whatever it is you’re doing is No Big Deal. You don’t even bring it up on your own. If others bring it up, you act like it’s nothing. Just something you happened to do today. Anybody who was cool would’ve done it, too.
  • Never, ever utter the phrase “I’m secure in my masculinity” unless you’re doing it with a cocky smile. Even then, use it sparingly.

For a great example of a man pulling this off on the basis of demeanor and reputation alone, enjoy this clip of Robert De Niro from the movie Stardust.