The Men Who Jump Off Buildings is a documentary
I just watched on 4OD. It follows the lives of two, pretty different, guys who ignore the 1 in 6 death rate of 'base-jumpers', to gratify their need to leap from increasingly lofty buildings and cliffs with only a semi-reliable parachute, or more perilously, a sort of Erzatz bird suit- which I'm pretty sure is based on a design I sketched in my rough book at school.
There was a tragic, yet noble spirit in these guys that somehow strikes to the core of what I think it is to be a guy. My girlfriend was less moved, on the other hand, and just thought they were "bloody nutters".
The Streets said it best: "Geezers need excitement/ If their lives don't provide it then they incite violence". Skinners's words ring true to my life philosophy- that people should follow their desires and dreams without hurting others in order to prevent internal repression being outwardly expressed.
The philosophy of self denial- championed by Christians- for me denies what it is to be human, and especially male.
This documentary, coupled with the wealth of feminist friends I seem to have on Twitter, got me contemplating the differences between guys and gals- besides, y'know, boobs and that. It also made me question whether being a feminist, or male-ist(?) means anything at all.
People, it seems to me, basically embody varying characteristics of the yin/yang, or testosterone/estrogen balance- a spectrum with equally deplorable extremes, ranging as it does from Jeremy Clarkson to Nikki from Big Brother.
If societies' archetypes are applied to this hypothetical scale, then my interests in fashion, health and celeb news would be tempered by my tick boxing of football, science, rock music and cars. Admittedly though, I probably veer more into the camper, err, camp overall. I just happen to opt for the soft and curvy sex as opposed to the, err, stubbly and square(?) one.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, The Men Who Jump Off Buildings (gotta love Channel 4's abitrary programme naming system). I don't have the stats handy, but I'd guess that 99.9% of base-jumpers are male, therefore the pastime says something close to concrete about us dick-swinging humanoids.
From interviews with the death-defying pair's hapless WAGs, it became clear that these women can reluctantly sympathise with their partner's urge to constantly face their own mortality- to conquer something. Male viewers, on the other hand, will
empaphise.
Despite magazine demographics and such, there's no one activity that is exclusively masculine. Rugby players- oft seen as the straightest, most manly of all men- are also prone to dressing in drag at the drop of a hat and simulating gay sex under the pretense of a few Guinnesses.
That being said, I think the need to 'conquer' something is
the discernible male attribute. Be it a maths equation, a country, a yo-yo trick, a puzzle, a computer game. Women are better at juggling various tasks at once, and find amusement at our geeky endeavors and general try-hardiness.
Your girlfriend, as The Strokes said, "won't understand".
They can match us at pretty much everything now, but when it comes to reaching the pinnacle of nearly any given discipline, men will pretty much always come out on top. It's not PC to say it, but do truths have to be?
Women may read this as a 'men are better that women' diatribe, but that's just because our brains are hard-wired to compare, fear and find conflict. The fact is that I would no more wish to be all-consumed in an autistic quadratic equation than I would spend my time gossiping over the Benefit nail counter.
People inevitably fall somewhere in the middle of this ill-defined hormonal spectrum regardless of who floats their boat- and this is a good thing. Feminism, then, is something I "don't understand". They get red in the face when a columnist like
AA Gill uses the word 'dyke', in much the same way a Daily Mail reader does when they read trumped-up immigration headlines.
Would they react with equal angst if say, gay guys were tarred with the same brush? If no, then they are inverted bigots, if yes then this doesn't make them feminist at all surely? It makes them defenders of human rights or maybe defenders some sort of abstract notion of femininity which, if elaborated on, would probably offend women more than anyone else.
I have to be careful here, I sense. Words, as AA Gill found out, can get you in trouble. I could go through this blog post again adding appendixes and such, but I can't be arsed- I have a sudden urge to change my Fantasy Football team... or maybe jump from a small height and then work my way upwards.
