Last week I had a column about the new word “middlescents,” which refers to people in midlife. I also made passing mention there of “manfants” and “man babies” and said I would explain these later in the column, which didn’t happen. Intrigued friends have been asking, and offering right guesses about who they might be.
I thought I might as well talk about several words that have been coined in English around males. I warn my male readers that these new words are not always positive and were probably coined by women who want us to shape up.
So, yes, “manfants” and “man babies” are men who behave like, well, babies. That’s why I mentioned them in my column on middlescents. Manfancy, if I might attempt another neologism, comes and goes. So, next time our teenage sons or nephews or grandsons act up, don’t say, “Act like a man.” Instead, say, “Stop being a man baby and grow up.”
Talking about males who are teenagers and young adults, you may have noticed the new style in their use of pants. What we used to call bitin, or pants that are supposed to be long pants but don’t quite get there, is now a fashionable tokong (note: tokong, not tokhang), and when boys and men wear their pants that way, they expose their… mankles. In some circles, the mankles have become sexy, if not erotic, so make sure your mankles are presentable. No, glutathione won’t work to make them whiter.
An aside here: Body parts become eroticized if they’re usually hidden. And part of the charm of the hidden is their becoming paler than the rest of the body, ending up catching more attention. With Japanese geishas, the nape was considered very erotic, and they would intentionally dab more powder on that area. A glimpse of that powdered nape was said to be most—let me be careful with my words and just say “interesting.” So, guys, make your ankles interesting.
‘Mansgrooming’
Not that men haven’t tried. After all, with most animal species, it’s the male that must be pretty, that must catch the attention of the female. In fact, there’s a term, “peacocking,” used to refer to human males who try to project high status through cars and clothes to attract women.
Human males think they get to choose the women they want, but even in societies where women are subordinate—and there are many—men actually have to try very hard to get, and keep, the love of women.
(I have a Muslim woman friend who tells me that precisely because their marriages are arranged, they sometimes threaten their husbands: “Don’t forget that I didn’t marry you because of love. You have to work for my love to grow, and to endure.”)
So, yes, men have to make themselves interesting and attractive, and our men, like their counterparts throughout Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, can be quite meticulous about their appearance.
I love this poem by Australian Allan Boyd, who calls himself an antipoet and has a piece titled “Mansplaining mansgrooming to men” on the internet. (Just google the poem’s title to get the link.)
Let’s save “mansplaining” for later. The poem is really about the way men groom themselves these days when they go to the “boy salon.” There’s manicuring (Boyd should visit the Philippines to see our pedicuring), there’s massage, spray tanning, and shaving (and not just of the face). Boyd declares, tongue in cheek, I presume: “I love me, I wanna marry me!”
Remember the term “metrosexual,” about men who clean their homes and groom themselves? I don’t hear the term too often now and I suspect it’s because these metrosexuals are more the rule now than the exception. Feminists have criticized the term, saying metrosexuals are not liberated men but men who obsess with themselves, and that’s what Boyd is describing. But hey, let’s give men a break: A trip to the salon may involve motives similar to those of women, including just wanting to feel good. Even dogs love getting a good grooming at a spa.
But yes, as Boyd’s poem goes, what you see in the salons are men-canvasses being worked on. And that’s not new either. Tattooing dates back centuries, and although anthropologists emphasize tattooing as a way of inscribing a person’s membership in a tribe, and is a symbol of status, it still goes back, for both women and men, to the idea that our bodies are canvasses that can be painted or written on. Even President Duterte has a tiny tattoo on his hand, said to identify him as a member of the “Magic Group” of the Guardians Brotherhood, a military fraternity. (Again, you can google this, photographs included.)
Mansgrooming and manscaping have still another synonym, and this is broscaping, taking off from “brod,” which became “bro.”
“Bro” is an old word that has survived in slang. I hear even preteen boys calling each other “bro,” and I smile, wondering how many more years before they go off to the salon together. “Brod” is more exclusively fraternity-based; “bro” is, well, just a good man friend, who might even develop with another a bromance, an intense but nonsexual (or so they say) relationship.
‘Man-cold,’ etc.
Let’s get back to man words.
There’s man-cold. I wish someone would do a scientific study infecting men and women with the same cold virus strain. The “man-cold” camp says that if you did that test, you’ll find men whining and complaining much more than women, making you think they were dying of some agonizing disease. Many wives and mothers (and some fathers like myself) will attest to that.
Maybe it’s because women have to go through childbirth that they have a much higher pain threshold. So much for the courageous male.
Two more man words: One is “manspreading,” referring to men taking more space by keeping their legs apart when they’re seated in public transport (and, the worst, airplanes). Look at our jeeps and buses and you find loads of these manspreaders.
Last word for the day: “mansplaining,” which was actually chosen word of the year in 2014 by Macquarie Dictionary in Australia. That term refers to the way men explain things to women, in a tone that makes you feel utterly stupid. Ever since I discovered the word, I’ve been conscious about how I lecture in class, or write my columns, worried I might end up mansplaining.
I don’t know. As a Filipino, I first thought the word referred to the way men complain, as when they get a man-cold. Then when I realized it meant condescending talk, I thought hard and felt, rather strongly, that women in the Philippines tend to do a lot of mansplaining (or womensplaining) as well. But that’s for another day to discuss, or to whine about.
mtan@inquirer.com.ph