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stereotypes?

Guys who identify as straight BDSM submissives are one fabulous example of non-normative men who are frequently alienated from mainstream masculine sexuality, but who often don't have a forum. Men with small penises are a second. There are lots of others. In the words of sex blogger and essayist Thomas Millar: "The common understanding of male sexuality is a stereotype, an ultra-narrow group of desires and activities oriented around PIV [penis-in-vagina], anal intercourse and blowjobs; oriented around cissexual women partners having certain very narrow groups of physical characteristics."

Still, that doesn't mean that straight, dominant, big-dicked dudes who love boning thin chicks feel totally okay about the current state of affairs. It just means they tend to have less immediate motivation to question it. They also have less of an eye for spotting gender oppression, because -- though they've got their own boxes hemming them in -- they're still more privileged than the rest of us, and the nature of privilege is to blind the privileged class to its existence.

A male submissive once told me, "Lots of heteronormative men know something is wrong with the way we think about sex and gender. I can see them struggling with it when we talk. They can't put their finger on it; they have a hard time engaging it. But I engage it all the time; I have to, because my sexuality opposes it."

When is it to a man's advantage to examine and question masculinity and stereotypes of male sexuality? Which men are motivated to do so?

It's tempting to assert that men whose desires fit neatly (or at least mostly) within the stereotype have it made -- after all, their sexuality works within the norm so many of us struggle to escape. But I've had this assumption corrected several times, usually by smart "stereotypical" men themselves. At one point, while developing a sexuality workshop, I sent the outline to a bunch of friends. The original draft contained this paragraph: "Our sexual scripts favor a certain stereotype of men and male sexual pleasure, which makes it hard for women to figure out what we really want and what we really enjoy, and also makes it harder for non-stereotypical men to figure that out." One friend sent that paragraph back, having quietly appended: "... as well as for stereotypical men to discover or explore new desires beyond the stereotypical script."

When we discuss the limitations around sexuality from a non-normative perspective, how do we exclude normative people who might develop themselves in new directions if they had the chance? What do normative men stand to gain by thinking outside the box about masculinity and sexuality?

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Questions I Want To Ask Entitled Cis Het Men, Part 2: Men's Rights

In the 2006 documentary "Boy I Am", a trans man talks about how one of his mental barriers to transitioning was the fact that after transition, he would be a "white male." And, he laughs, the "last thing in the world" he wanted to be was a white male!

A year or two ago, I attended a lecture by Jackson Katz, a rather overtly masculine, cis

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