DIGGING THROUGH THE LAYERS

The Roiling Mountain of Male Hormones has left the building! We are no longer subject to his Magic Macho Masculinity. We are bereft. After last night's three hundred plus comment internet conversation, he took his ball and left. No biggie; it wasn't a very nice ball anyway.

Normally, conversations on that page for fellow aficionados of that subject are a text or picture, half a dozen likes or so, and nearly as many comments. Not anywhere near three hundred.

Drama. Thunder and lightening. Plus lots of good gentle sharp biting humour. Don't worry, we were pretty much genteel in our polite responses, almost diplomatic.

But he bailed on us, the angry little puppy.


I feel sad for him.


Glad too, as the developing comment string kept me up past my bedtime, which isn't healthy. As a mature individual, I need my sleep, what with not being college age anymore and no longer capable of operating on too little rest. It also kept one of the admins up far later than usual too -- he's on the East Coast, and a retired man besides, so he needs his beauty sleep lest he look oldish the next day -- but decorum was scrupulously maintained.

Well, except for one comment: a picture of a very butchly muscled gay man with tattoos and scanty leather scraps for covering, chains, and a policeman's hat. As an ironic statement.
My impression was that it was a biker. The apex predator of mucho manly machismo.


Yeah, coming off as stressing masculinity overmuch, or even at all, in a collection of rather well-read educated hobbyists, who cannot see that there is any relevance to the hobby, is, perhaps, the wrong way to go about making friends and influencing people.
But it made quite a splash.



While I do not doubt that one or two members may be into the Tom of Finland gestalt, the overwhelming majority probably are out of the loop entirely on that.
It isn't our raison d'etre.



It's a pipe group. Pipe collectors, pipe craftspeople, and pipe smokers.
Gender doesn't have a significant bearing on the field.
Exaggerations of gender are in iffy taste.



Please do not show us your hairy balls.




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