Irish Rugby Culture

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/painful-truths-about-rugby-culture-1.1729828?page=2

The image many of us males have of what it means to be a man, is disturbing and it doesn’t much differ from the rugby world’s ideal. One feature it surely does not include is homosexuality – the ideal man, hegemonic man, is certainly heterosexual, perhaps aggressively so. A bit prone to violence or at least “able to look after himself” – ie able to beat the bejasus out of anyone who challenges him. A capacity to drink enormous amounts of pints – sensibly of course – is almost de rigeur. And being a good man with the girls, lots of girls

I tend to agree with Brownes points as regards the core argument as to how men view themselves, not too sure his point is borne out within the context of rugby though. Rugby has become more inclusive over the years but there is an element in Irish society that men must view themselves in a particular way. Brownes points may have been made better if he looked at two things. Firstly we have a male dominated hierarchial society, in government dictating to women what to do with their bodies and secondly there is this context that we men must not talk about our feelings, which has partially lead to a spike in suicides. Private schools encourage an elitest gentlemans club, a lot of these are the people who go on to be judges, civil servants etc. Maleness in general is consumed in Ireland with the pursuit of quarry in some cases when you go to Coppers or somewhere similar and yes as a red blooded (gay) male I have been like this in my younger years but grew out of it, some people never really do though do they? I have made the same argument about the effeminisation of gay men on the gay scene and the same point is also made about straight men feeling they have to butch because to be anything else is just not acceptable. Its more about being comfortable in who you are, not responding to peer pressure and if you want to drink ten pints in a night as I do, do it because you want to not because you feel you have to point out what some people think. There is a lot of men out there keeping up with the joneses, just be yourselves lads.