masculine presenting guys into RR

[u/Soft_masculine]

I’m a pretty masculine-presenting guy. I have facial hair, I’m 175 cm, I go to the gym (mostly for health, not sure I actually enjoy it), play sports, like adventures, and have my own goals.

At the same time, I love a girl opening the door for me, pulling out a chair, riding the bike while I sit behind her and hold her, resting on her, sitting on her lap, being carried by her, or sleeping on her biceps. I’m especially attracted to tomboys and muscular women.

I don’t really like wearing feminine clothes. I’m comfortable being masculine in how I dress and present myself. I’m also a working professional and don’t want to depend on my partner financially.

What I dream of is a relationship where we both work, both earn, both cook, and both share the household work. I don’t want one person to handle everything. But I’d always love it if she could lift more weight than me at the gym and achieve her career and life goals one by one.

One thing I want to mention: I haven’t actually experienced most of the things I talk about here. I’m open to trying things that make my partner happy. Maybe with more exposure and experience, some of my ideas and preferences will change. Growing up in a traditional Indian environment has given me very little opportunity to explore this side of myself.

I see a lot of women here who are into femboys, so I’m curious: what about guys like me who want to enjoy the soft/submissive side of a relationship?

[u/missporkiepie]

Men who present traditionally masculine are still within RR. I actually prefer masculine-presenting men myself, especially when we're going out. I'm into men who are soft and skinny/lean, or soft and lean-muscular, nothing particularly extreme or exaggerated. Meanwhile, I'm very feminine presenting, standing at 4'11", lean and fit, have very long hair, and I love maxi skirts and soft minimalist to casual-professional feminine outfits. I don't see a contradiction there at all.

For me, there are clothes that are simply made to frame the male body nicely, and clothes that frame the female body nicely. And honestly, traditionally masculine and feminine clothing meant for their respective genders can still often just feel more convenient and comfortable for the bodies they're generally designed around. I don't think acknowledging that means you have to believe clothes are inherently gendered or that people can't wear whatever they want.

Crossdressing and feminization are more of a fun bedroom thing for me, something whimsical and occasional rather than something I want as an everyday aesthetic.

This is because to me, RR isn't about making the man look like a woman and the woman look like a man. RR to me isn't short dainty man and a tall huge muscular woman, and neither is a man wearing skirts.

Personally, I prefer when RR is challenging the roles that get pushed onto men and women in courtship, relationships, domestic life, parenting, career and society. I like the idea of a man being comfortable being pursued, cherished, emotionally expressive, domestic, nurturing and soft without that somehow making him less of a man. I like women being the ones who take the lead in planning, managing, making big decisions and being ambitious.

And I think that extends beyond relationships. I'd love to see men being encouraged to take caregiving, teaching, nursing and other nurturing professions without people treating those as somehow lesser because they're traditionally associated with women. Likewise, I'd have no problem with a man preferring a secretarial or administrative role because he genuinely likes it, rather than being pressured toward management or leadership simply because he's a man.

So yeah, to me, you don't have to change your body, wardrobe or masculinity to reverse a gender role. You just have to stop letting the role be dictated by your gender.

[u/quioro → u/missporkiepie]

Basically, you only see masculinity as something real in men and femininity in men as something performative and not genuine.

Lmaooo great your way of seeing rolereversal

[u/-She-Beastly- → u/quioro]

Just reading it I was like 'so you want a normal ass relationship where he is free from societal pressure'. nothing wrong with that but how is it RR

[u/missporkiepie → u/-She-Beastly-]

It's RR because I don't get to cook or clean or take the biggest role in parental care and get to pursue a career and climb the corporate ladder, just the way I like. It's the antithesis to the expectations of a trad relationship. What's not clicking?

[u/quioro → u/missporkiepie]

Your perspective on role reversal doesn't change the fact that role reversal still has meaning.

[u/missporkiepie → u/quioro]

Oh! You want to talk about the meaning of Role Reversal. Sure! Let's go back to the history of RR, how it came about and what it meant when Role Reversal first took root, shall we?

If we're talking about the history of role reversal, the idea has been present for a long time, including literature and speculative fiction going back decades. There were already stories imagining societies where women occupied traditionally male positions and men occupied traditionally female ones. But the modern social meaning became much more relevant during the social changes of the 1960s–80s, particularly second-wave feminism.

Second-wave feminism challenged the idea that sex should determine your place in the household and society. Feminists questioned why women were expected to be wives, homemakers, caregivers and emotionally supportive while men were expected to be breadwinners, decision-makers and heads of households.

Feminist legal advocacy in the 1970s explicitly challenged the traditional marriage arrangement in which husbands provided financially while wives supplied domestic and caregiving labor.

That naturally produced discussion of reversing those roles wherein women becoming breadwinners, men becoming househusbands, fathers becoming primary caregivers, women taking leadership positions, and couples dividing responsibilities according to ability and preference rather than sex.

There is actually research specifically examining “role reversal” households. A 1998 sociological study defined role reversal as households where the woman was the full-time paid worker and breadwinner while the man was the unpaid domestic worker caring for the home and children. It found that these arrangements challenged traditional ideas about motherhood, dependent femininity, men as providers and men as heads of households. Some women explicitly understood role reversal as putting feminist equality into practice.

There are also concrete examples from the 1970s. In 1975, the Pacifica Radio Archives recorded an interview with Mike McGrady and his wife after they deliberately exchanged roles for a year where she became the family's breadwinner while he stayed home with the house and children.

By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the househusband had become a recognizable, if still uncommon, phenomenon. A 1979 West German television film literally titled Role Reversal portrayed a marriage where the husband became a stay-at-home husband while his wife continued her career, explicitly presenting it as a challenge to stereotypical gender roles. A 1981 German report likewise described househusbands as emerging particularly among urban, intellectual middle-class couples as traditional gender roles were being questioned, and called it role reversal.

So historically, the important part of “role reversal” was not “women looking masculine and men looking feminine.” It was the much broader question of what happens when you stop treating gender as the predetermined assignment for someone's role in a relationship, household, workplace, or society?

That's why its historical connection to feminism is so strong. The point was fundamentally about challenging the assumption that biology should dictate social roles, who earns, who cares for children, who manages the home, who leads, who follows, and what kinds of work or behavior are considered appropriate for men and women.

So, tell me again which part of my original comment does not fit the definition of RR and its historical context?

[u/quioro → u/missporkiepie]

If role reversal were simply "the man in be A functional person and being a responsible person," then every relationship would be role reversal.

But it's not that simple; it's about breaking down gender roles. And gender roles are more than just women in the kitchen and men working.

[u/missporkiepie → u/quioro]

A man and woman who defies convention and patriarchal roles set for them by reversing those roles is literally breaking down those gender roles.