Sometimes I wish we could have "gentlemen's clubs" of the sort that existed in Victorian Britain (not the US strip club version), third-spaces where one could go to read or converse or play cards with other men or even have a meal or a drink. Having social space that's limited to a set of people one knows, more or less, and that has rules on behavior seems like a civilizing influence that's missing today.
> Having social space that's limited to a set of people one knows, more or less, and that has rules on behavior seems like a civilizing influence that's missing today.
You just described a country club, right down to the innate classism and exclusivity rules.
Country club’s are really a subset of this kind of thing and tend to have an overly wide membership to the point where you’re unlikely to know every member. The VFW is another modern take that’s got a very different vibe.
Similarly historically it wasn’t just elitist hangouts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_men's_club
Notably, VFWs are struggling because the Vietnam vets are not very welcoming to the War on Terror vets.
No women to blame there. What is the cause of the male loneliness epidemic then?
The fact that anybody would blame women for the supposed male loneliness epidemic is just wild to me.
You just haven't been to a good one.
Isn’t the whole point that you get people of similar socioeconomic status? Half the reason expensive things are sometimes nicer is that there’s no massive crowd in those stores.
You also had Working Men's clubs and the British Legion for the working classes in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_men%27s_club
It sounds great.
Like a bar, but you know that if they're there, they know a few people and aren't crazy.
Are male only country clubs legal?
Not only are they legal, many male only city clubs exist today!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gentlemen%27s_clubs_in...
Male-only country clubs also exist although are slightly more controversial and less common, such as Burning Tree, Garden City, Butler National, Augusta National (until the last ~10 years), Pine Valley (until the last few years).
The unfortunate reality for most of us is that these places are among the most desirable and hardest clubs to be accepted to in the world - and we probably wouldn't get in.
Maybe it's time start new and less desirable clubs for the common man.
A lot of new clubs are currently being founded in NYC and London in particular.
They're expensive to run, so they often target a wealthier demographic who can pay.
> many male only city clubs exist today!
Em. Nearly all clubs on that page that I checked are open to women or no longer exist.
Several appear to be women-only social clubs, placed on the page by mistake.
Private clubs have an exemption in several of the key civil rights laws, so they often can discriminate where businesses open to the public could not.
They can run into trouble when they allow the public to use their facilities, or grant membership so freely that they start to seem like they aren't really private.
Probably not, but the country clubs where I live all have men's locker rooms that have full bars, poker tables, and lounge areas with big screen tv's.
I have to ask, is the locker room clubhouse clothing optional?
It’s a locker room; making them not clothing optional defeats the purpose.
They may not be able to call themselves male only, but there are many private organizations that are all men. The Augusta national golf course was one for a long time
In the US? Absolutely. Private clubs have a broad ability to discriminate.
For an example of gender discrimination at private golf clubs:
https://www.golflink.com/lifestyle/no-women-past-rock-chicag... lists Old Elm, Bob O'Link, Butler National, and Black Sheep Golf Club as four Chicago area male-only golf clubs.
> Perhaps no club makes its restriction more apparent than Black Sheep. At the end of the club’s lengthy driveway sits a large rock and the internal slogan amongst members is, “No Women Past the Rock.”
https://forums.golfwrx.com/topic/2013806-black-sheep-golf-cl... has a comment from last year verifying that gender restriction. I have not verified the others.
No, but just like everywhere else, you can engineer a byzantine set of hoops to jump through so that the only people who "qualify" end up being the "preferred" sort of clientele.
Why do they need to be male-only to solve the male loneliness epidemic? Why can't men socialize in public spaces in a way that isn't offensive to others?
I say this as a former dude who has spent the vast, vast, vast majority of my life as a man, socializing with men and not-men, in public. I have never had a single issue.
They need to be male only spaces because introducing women to the space fundamentally changes the social dynamic among the men, especially the single men
I have seen this ever since the moment me and my friends hit puberty in high school, to this very day. When a group of men is hanging out they are more relaxed. The moment a woman is in the space the vibe changes
I cannot be the only person who has noticed this
This is a good point. I am a married man. As a woman, my wife cannot give me guy time - hence I love to hang out with my friends (who are all guys) - and I cannot give her girl time - hence she loves to hang out with her friends (who are all girls). The only women I am happy to be friendly with are colleagues (in a professional manner), family and ladies that my wife and I are friends with.
A lot of people baulk at this sort of arrangement/tolerance - but I bet it's quite common.
I'm sure it's common, but I've always hung around in mixed groups, doing whatever, so I'm puzzled and curious what guy time or girl time even is.
You've really never had an attractive member of the opposite sex show up and the girls/guys get all competitive? I'm wondering how that's possible, it happened multiple times a week - a day even - to me in high school and college. I guess always being in mixed groups meant it was always subtly in play.
5 dudes chilling is a different dynamic than 3 guys 2 girls. People who keep insisting it's about some weird need for men to be offensive don't seem to have ever observed basic gender dynamics.(not saying you are, other responders)
Maybe this happened when I was 19.
I haven't observed this sort of thing happening in decades.
Note I mentioned high school and college as the time of these interactions.
That being said it just comes more subtle as people get older or alternatively remove themselves from the dating pool.
You'll note that most people saying this stuff are being extremely non-specific about what it means. My impression is that a lot of what they want to do would be offensive to lots of guys as well. Essentially they want a space to act in a way that women would feel quite threatened by. Not that mixed groups don't already have that as an issue.
You couldnt be more wrong in your guessing. The answer lies in games all women play with both men and women constantly, never being truly honest with words, expecting men to pick up meaning between lines, predict their emotions and so on and on. We have enough shit in our lives already, no need to add more.
Its frustrating and tiring experience for all men, thus the need to vent out somewhere else where these dynamics dont play out semi constantly.
I am pretty sure women see it similarly in reverse although details in dynamics are very different.
As a man I don't recognize that game playing as something all women do. It's just not something I've experienced in my relationships platonic or otherwise with women. Maybe it's a Europe vs. America thing (edit: from your other comments, you seem to be in Europe so not that) or something personal to you and your experience but it sounds very 'incel-adjacent'.
Yep, there's always a strong element of "what opinions, motherfucker" goose comic in these discussions. And we always end up at "tell me you're an incel without telling me you're an incel"
What I've learned is that as an outsider, a group is less likely to be a threat to me (I'm male) if there's at least one women there. Maybe that's because attention is then directed inwards, and that, in turn, might cause the relaxed feeling at the inside to diminish.
>I cannot be the only person who has noticed this
The US marine corps noticed this and it was a huge point of contention (kind of still is).
So you are automatically assuming men are the offenders. This is very much a constructed prejudice. Did you ever consider that men want men-only spaces to avoid being accused and talked down to? While I never visited a mens only place, I totally understand why that would be the rule at some of them.
They don't, and no one is stopping you from opening a gender neutral club.
> offensive to others
Sound like you have issues. It's a club. They meet up to play board games. Maybe you could start a club of people who are offended by everything.
> Why can't men socialize in public spaces in a way that isn't offensive to others?
They can, and thats not the point of having men’s groups and men’s spacing. This only reveals your assumptions and biases.
Sometimes men just want to hang out with other men. I’m a straight man who usually gets along better with women than men, but I still also like spending time with just other men as well. It’s just different. I have no doubt that my presence in a group of women changes the dynamic.
There needs to be some place men can just spend time with other men. Yes, it’s a problem if those men only places become important to business or politics such that it disadvantages women, but there’s got to be something else instead, then.
Women should also have places where they can be together without men.
And there should be a majority of places where men and women can spend time equally.
> There needs to be some place men can just spend time with other men.
This is literally anytime, anywhere though. Do just not meet up with their friends? You can go to dinner, get drinks, go hiking, play sports, bike, ski, sunbathe, play videogames and many more things in single-sex groups without raising an eyebrow. The real classic for men of a certain persuasion from a western cultural POV is golf right?
I think there's some strange cultural hangup I'm missing where the entire place needs to be single-sex.
> Do just not meet up with their friends?
What friends?
Well that's a different issue. Are we really saying men can only make friends in single-sex environments because I think that is trivially untrue?
Why can’t there be some semi-public place where only men, or only women, or only whomever you choose, is allowed? Why can’t that exist?
What you described is unrelated. Yes, people can and do go out and do stuff.
Then just don't go? I personally prefer mixed gender spaces but I can understand why some people might prefer single gender spaces. It doesn't mean they necessarily have "an issue".
Because men and women are different and have mixed and single sex spaces have radically different norms and interaction styles. Given that all respectable mixed institutions default to female interaction styles this is profoundly alienating for men.
If one has never spent any time in all male spaces or has and thinks that men are defective women, like the average male therapist or counsellor this may not be obvious.
Spot on. This is immediately evident at Primary School level, whereby normative female behaviour for that age is seen as the ideal. As psychologist Michael Thompson puts it “Girl behavior is the gold standard in schools. Boys are treated like defective girls".
In the US by the 8th grade, 48 percent of girls receive a mix of A and B grades compared to 31 percent of boys. More tellingly, Boys account for 71 percent of all school suspensions. The gap remains through high school and in college, with females representing nearly 60 percent of all college graduates.
“If you treat girls as the gold standards and boys as defective girls, that’s going to be demoralizing,” Thompson says. “What do elementary and junior high girls always say about boys their age? ‘You are so immature.’ If that’s the norm, then this system is just rigged against the boys.”
There's a wonderful bit in a 2013 Time article which illustrates that this predominant viewpoint is often indelibly coded on the (majority female) teaching staff, to the grave detriment of the male students:
https://ideas.time.com/2013/10/28/what-schools-can-do-to-hel...
//Peg Tyre’s The Trouble With Boys illustrates the point. She tells the story of a third-grader in Southern California named Justin who loved Star Wars, pirates, wars and weapons. An alarmed teacher summoned his parents to school to discuss a picture the 8-year-old had drawn of a sword fight — which included several decapitated heads. The teacher expressed “concern” about Justin’s “values.” The father, astonished by the teacher’s repugnance for a typical boy drawing, wondered if his son could ever win the approval of someone who had so little sympathy for the child’s imagination. ... If boys are constantly subject to disapproval for their interests and enthusiasms, they are likely to become disengaged and lag further behind//
Have you ever seen teenage boys? A lot of them are basically quasi-feral owing to the newly elevated levels of testosterone unleashed on their brains which are still a long way from being fully baked.
I don't know that "girls" remains the gold standard so much as girls are more able to conform to broader behavioral expectations. This is not to say teenage girls are immune from hormonal-driven behavior issues, but it manifests in different ways. I have a 13-yo daughter and let me tell you it's no walk in the park. But it's absolutely not a surprise to me that boys account for the majority of problematic behavior.
This sounds right. It's not like girls are being deemed "the gold standard." Instead, there's an existing set of behavioral expectations, as you put it, and girls (for whatever reasons) just happen to have an easier time conforming to these expectations.
If societal expectations are things like: kindness, respect, agreeableness, calmness, paying attention, not talking back, not fighting, and so on... and girls tend to conform to these while boys tend not to, that doesn't necessarily indicate a conspiracy against boys.
Same reason why women like having women spaces. There certain experiences exclusive to being a male.
There are no women only spaces where I live. Nor were and no one complained. Unless you talk about monastery of toilette.
Example?
Talking about your feelings without fear of a woman getting the ick.
And so what? Given the display of men's feelings w.r.t. to "mixed groups", I (heterosexual male) get the ick about some people here... For me most of it is about the space/relationship where certain things should happen, but I guess scientific misogyny is a thing too.
Why so toxic without understanding (and caring to understand) the other side of the discussion?
Plenty of full explanations in this thread.
Cigar smoking.
I know of an older woman (has grandkids) who smokes cigars at the cigar shop I smoke at. The discussions with "The Boys" are different when she's around.
I'll have to let my HR manager know women can't smoke cigars. She clearly doesn't know, went through a bunch at our last company meeting.
As a general rule men with money can’t behave well around women or at least don’t want to
Men who show off their money. Not all do. But then, some women like men who obviously have money; that was true back when money was invented.
I recommend everyone watch the series Lodge 49. It's free to watch with ads now.
Not only is a great show that touches on relationships and loneliness and modern alienation with a touch of magical realism and esoterica and alchemy but it focuses on a fraternal (in name only, women are members) order that your grandfather might have been a member of but have disappeared due to rising individualism, rising rents and displacement.
But there's no reason we couldn't start building them again. Not high end exclusive clubs like Soho House but just a place with books and a reasonable membership fee and a bar with cheap drinks for added revenue and occasional "open to the public" events.
There could be ones for software devs, ones focused on philosophy or great literature, ones for musicians or artists.
I've run the back-of-a-napkin numbers and even in expensive cities it doesn't seem impossible if your goal is to just break even and foster a community.
Think the main reason is because real estate is incredibly expensive now. To run some kind of social space and make it financially viable you need to be collecting a significant amount to pay rent and wages.
Only way I can see it working is if the government pays for social spaces. An extension of the library system but more focused on events and socialising rather than being a quiet space for reading.
>Only way I can see it working is if the government pays for social spaces.
The government effectively does financially support social clubs by exempting them from taxes: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/...
Actively providing money to clubs would be a tough sell. Grant writing is hard, grant reviewing and auditing is expensive, and there could be a PR nightmare if the government provided money to an "immoral" club or didn't provide money to certain classes of clubs.
I don’t think it would be terribly controversial for councils and local government to just have a building somewhat like a community hall and just let people rent it out for very cheap for whatever social or club events they want.
Freemasonry is hit or miss depending on who you meet and who you hangout with. Liberal freemasonry is even better IMHO because you actively work on yourself. You can choose to stay with men, be in a mixed group, and there are female only Lodges for the women who don't want to be with us stupid men.
I live in a big city where every member ends up knowing other member (male or female) even if your own Lodge is restricted to one sex. It's a lot of fun and I do believe it could be beneficial for a lot of incels.
There’s even an episode with a shout-out to Huell Howser! Can recommend.
Also, do check out the interactive map at the Huell Howser Archive, if you haven’t seen it [^0].
I loved lodge 49. It inspired me to attend a welcome dinner at my local freemason lodge.
Sadly I discovered first hand why membership is declining (this lodge was a magnet for socially inept conspiracy theorists).
Soho House is pretty much the opposite of a high end exclusive club these days.
$3000 a year and expensive menu items is too much for most Americans. Those are not the price points that can address social alienation.
These still exist in the US but the membership has plummeted. Some examples:
- Freemasons
- Odd Fellows
- Fraternal Order of Eagles
- Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks
- Loyal Order of Moose
A billion dollar company started with this idea.
Schultz envisioned Starbucks as a “third place” between home and work, fostering community and connection.
https://mulcahyconsultants.com/2023/12/14/howard-schultz-and...
My local one removed all its seats and is now take out only.
There is just too much liability, both legal and public relations wise, with operating cheap third places.
https://apnews.com/article/starbucks-racism-philadelphia-man...
In the U.K. there were lots of their places before American style capitalism invaded. Coffee houses predate America as a whole - on both sides of the Atlantic.
There's the Mechanics Institute Library in San Francisco. I used to be a member. If you want to see people sitting around in wing-backed chairs, half asleep, that's the place to go. It's quite a good library, too.
You're not supposed to talk in a library, so it's explicitly not a social space.
My local library has both quiet areas and social areas, including meeting spaces. There are weekly social events for knitting, second-language practice, seniors, and more.
High school kids go there to work on class projects together, just like I did at the library when I was a teenager.
Of course you are. The stereotype of the librarian saying “which” is decades out of date.
Back in the day I would just go to Noisebridge and see what others were working on. Is that place still worth going to today?
they had to move off mission around the corner to a backstreet, so there are less mission vagrant rogues trying to sneak in now, and still the hardcore of interesting people.
when i first moved back to the city from overseas, noisebridge was an awesome third place to hang out and hack on stuff while meeting regulars.
> mission vagrant rogues
I mean, I am a decent person, but somehow I ended up with a key that worked for the the building and the 2nd floor of the old Mission location of Noisebridge by my second or third visit, despite never having been a member or paying dues etc. I got it from someone else who had also gotten it from someone else if I remember correctly. Only members were supposed to have keys, I think? I wasn't shy about the fact I wasn't one, but I didn't flash the key around either. Hopefully they have tightened up on that if it's a recurring issue.
Stuff like getting the key was just part of the scene in SF that you could randomly encounter, like the time I was working security for the American Psychiatric Association trade show at the Moscone Center and the Church of Scientology protested against the conference right outside, then a flash mob counter-protest of anons in Guy Fawkes masks appeared. SF is just weird like that for some people I guess. Maybe it's just me?
> Hopefully they have tightened up on that if it's a recurring issue.
It was a huge issue. Noisebridge has had to do a "reboot" three times now, 2014, 2017, and 2024. The whole place was closed for some time, everything was cleaned out, and members were re-authorized.
Those clubs still exist in London but they're just for the elite to make shady backroom deals with their rich buddies :)
They're really exclusive and they always have been. You and I would not get in, not now and not in the Victorian days. Even 'new money' is usually not ok. You really have to have gone to the right school and have the right family.
Just to challenge that slightly. There is a range of clubs, some are honestly very easy to get into if you end up there for some work event and talk to at least two people. It's the ability to socialize, and lack of clubs focused on new industries that's made them elusive to the new-money (There isn't a National Software Club for example). I'll also knowledge most would run about £1-2k a quarter which is restrictive (by design) cost.
The working class used to have working men’s clubs, but they no longer serve the same purpose.
Which new purpose do you allude to?
Only a guess but they all dropped the "working" and "men" requirements.
The latest incarnation was "Men in Sheds" which eventually got the traditional treatment - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg5qd9l3094o
Hmm yes I've seen men's sheds but they weren't actually men exclusive and very topical to making stuff. A bit like a makerspace but less focused on tech and more on woodworking.
Cognitive habit problems aside, this is one of the primary provisions of churches/temples/et cetera. Frequently featuring gender divided activities.
I realize that it is silly to tell non-believers to go to church to fix their problems but it’s funny how often people talk about place or group or organization that seems to be missing in society that was fulfilled by houses of worship in the past.
I co-ran a co-working space that focused on relationships, it's really powerful to have spaces that allow introverts a zero effort socializing experience.
We also threw open to the public art shows and parties with drink sponsorships and everything.
What's better than a church environment? A "city gates" environment.
I am not part of the church any longer, a properly run co-working space, not one that tried to emulate soul less corporate America, gives space for the wealthy tech bro and the poor artist to have multi round interaction that both build trust and provide implicit (and sometimes explicit) accountability. Most of us operate in environments where, outside of family and work there is nothing of value to lose, and churches and other places that exhibit ideological ratchet effects aren't great.
The city gates, that's really the best place to be, we far outpunched our startup weight in the city we were in because we built trust more than anything.
I come from a missionary family that has probably planted more churches by number than any other group, one family far outstripping many mission agencies. That experience and family knowledge was absolutely critical to making what we did work.
But in the U.S. I don't think anyone is interested in funding a 3rd places startup, it's sad that the same people who will talk about the power of 100 true fans don't get the power of 100 people in true community and the way that opens up thousands of paths for people to try things they otherwise wouldn't be able to.
That's true, but pretty much every religion beyond certain size focuses on growth and power at all costs, and treats the social function as a sidequest. I hate religion exactly because I see what it does to people's brains. Parents abandon their children "because priest told me to do so".
These places exist but are usually financially prohibitive for most people, and that’s even if they meet whatever requirements they have to join
To be fair to our modern world this is how the Victorian gentleman's clubs were too—it's even in the name. If you weren't a gentleman you had the pub.
There are also Working men's clubs and varieties thereof:
They exist at either end of the class spectrum. Working Men's Clubs used to be very common around the UK and many still exist. The one near my childhood home is Victorian-era and was recently refurbished. As long as I can remember it had frosted windows. That's now gone and it's been rebranded it as a family-friendly event space. It's basically a member subsidized pub and your drinks should cost less.
Start one! I personally love this concept:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kkryT4nOwA - Michigan Automotive Relic Society
You don't have to wish - these literally exist today, both in the US (see link below) and elsewhere. The problem is that they are expensive and hard to get in to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gentlemen%27s_clubs_in...
NYC and London are both having a bit of a renaissance of new clubs being founded, although most of them are coed.
Hacker spaces are sort of like that, it seems to me.
I am very sad that my local hackerspace seems to eschew any of the social aspects and focuses (at least outwardly from what I can see) solely on entrepreneurship.
I’ve often wondered what a contemporary free mason movement could be. I know they’re still around but their whole system is wildly arcane.
Freemasonry cannot be modern by definition, but the closest would be liberal Freemasonry where the main rules are 1. Work on yourself with the help of your brothers and sisters (a bit like zen Buddhism), and 2. Apply the rules of Freemasonry in the outside world (mainly don't be an asshole).
the closest thing we have to that where i am are run clubs but they are now dangerously close to dating clubs
That’s what country clubs have mostly been for decades. Makes me want to find the time to take up golf.
I feel like our culture has a strong anti-golf bias. Now that I'm older, any reason to spend a couple hours outside with my friends sounds amazing.
> I feel like our culture has a strong anti-golf bias
Golf, generally, is pretty expensive. It's like minimum $50 for an outing, you need equipment, correct clothes, etc. Some places require membership, often priced intentionally exclusively. It's pretty natural for something exclusionary to get a negative cultural bias.
Oh, and it is a terrible resource hog. You can't fit many people on a golf course at any given time without disrupting gameplay, and all that grass requires a lot of water and maintenance.
> any reason to spend a couple hours outside with my friends sounds amazing
This is, of course, available in many forms that don't involve hitting balls with sticks, but also there are many varieties of ball+stick that satisfy this.
Golfing is an artificial competitive activity that exists in an artificial and manicured version of nature. There is nothing wrong with it if you like the activity, but you can just go for a hike or stroll in a park if you want to be with friends outside.
Japanese tea gardens are pretty artificial and manicured, and they’re awesome. It’s great to have undespoiled natural beauty, and it’s also cool to see what people can do with a landscape.
For me those were always local role playing associations, I was a member of 3 during my youth.
Me and my brother would go there after school to play some board games or dungeons and dragons during the weekends.
Whats the difference of your definition to a pub? Also they may be limited and there may exist rules on behavior.
At least you can/could play cards, converse with your fellows or some randoms.
> Whats the difference of your definition to a pub?
CAMRA's definition includes "Is open to the public without membership or residency" and a bunch more that amount to "does not necessarily serve food" to distinguish from restaurants.
Those still exist but often have very high membership fees. Thousands per year plus minimum spend amounts
https://eastindiaclub.co.uk/ is a famous one that exists to this date with some of the antiquated rules. Been a few times with a friend who is a member.
That is the exact long-term vision. Isn't that the absolute dream? Have to start a bit decentralized but I would love to eventually get a physical location to have that important third-space.
Remember watching the Lyon episode of Parts Unknown where Bourdain goes to a men's luncheon club. Looked real fun. Wish we had more of those.
How about just more third-spaces without the classist gatekeeping?
You can but then you need some other way to gatekeep because a community of trust has to have an inside and an outside. Someone needs to keep people who don’t belong out, for whatever value of “don’t belong” you want to build a community around.
What's classist about having behavioral rules?
What sort of behaviors are you referring to?
I wasn’t the one referring to behaviors.
But I bet a social club that rigorously enforced the rules of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood would be more popular than anything goes.
I think any modern version would need to be way more inclusive and not just in terms of gender, but also class and background. The old-school gentlemen's clubs had a pretty narrow membership by design
I agree. It doesn't take much to topple this idea. A few lawsuits over discrimination that the club is bankrupt.
They sort of exist and do have women in them - but there are tons of tons of men you can meet with.
Sports clubs are full of friends you can make. I'm close with alot of guys that I train with.
Try tennis, or lifting, or running, or golf. Do NOT go to DnD meetups and other low effort stuff. Exertion is what forms bonds.