# 185 - Can Men Get Along With Their Metamours?  URL:: https://share.snipd.com/episode/5eccb2a9-ed0c-40f7-90d4-b5435760dba2 Author:: Multiamory: Rethinking Modern Relationships  ## AI-Generated Summary None ## Highlights > **Express Culture** > - Understand your true desires before expressing them to others. > - Find satisfaction in expressing those desires, regardless of the response. > Transcript: > Dr. Alex Bove > Guest culture is this more implicit culture of, and by the way, I think guest culture kind of gets a bad reputation. I mean, if everybody's doing guest culture, it's fine. If everybody's doing ask culture, it's fine. And in fact, I've read some articles where people don't call them cultures, they call them strategies, which I actually really like a lot. But the thing about asking, when I think about this in the context of masculinity and particularly heterosexual interactions, though it doesn't have to only be that, is that the process Of asking can still create implicit pressure or coercion because a question kind of demands an immediate answer. Even if the answer is, I need some more time, still, I mean, it's rare that you really can say that. I mean, when someone asks you a direct question, you really usually feel that you have to give them an answer. Yeah. And so I've been endorsing this thing I call express culture, which is to, and again, in a heterosexual context, I would say, you know, charging men with number one, getting in touch With your authentic desire, right? So first and foremost, don't ask someone out because you think being a man means asking everyone out. Don't ask people out to show off for your male friends. Don't ask people out, you know, don't try to engage in sex with people because you think that men need to have sex or want to have sex all the time, or you're trying to prove something. So first just get in touch with your own desires. And then step two, express those desires in a non-threatening way. And, and that this third part's related to the second part. Get your satisfaction from the expression of the desire, regardless of the outcome. ([Time 0:48:09](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d9939129-9c34-4d41-a9b8-5127e63ad9cb)) > **Masculinity and Belonging** > - Men often cling to hegemonic masculinity due to a fear of not belonging. > - Unlike women who have diverse femininities, men outside this norm often feel they have no other group. > Transcript: > Dr. Alex Bove > Great accomplishments of feminism is that it's given women many femininities that are relatively equally, you know, you can be, you can have a sports femininity, you can have a political Femininity, you can have, you know, different kinds of femininities and, and, and they're, they're not as, they don't have the cultural cache of the sort of, um, makeup, high heels, Long hair femininity, but, but they're, they're places that women can go to. But if you're a man outside of hegemonic masculinity, if you're not queer, like outside of hegemonic masculinity is basically nothing. And there's so much fear that men have of not finding a group to belong to that they often cling to and are complicit in hegemonic masculinity and support hegemonic masculinity even In all of its horrors because they're so afraid of being kicked out of the club ([Time 0:58:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/34f7852c-3765-48b3-a308-25f36f287b59))