Is kite-flying emasculating?

I say live your life and enjoy it how you want to, and if that means you flying a kite then that’s awesome. But yeah just ignore what everyone else thinks, you have to judge yourself and care about that more than others judge you.

@applesaucemanny I’m not worried about it, really. I am just curious as to people’s thoughts about the stigmas of flying a kite.

i think it sounds totally awesome. i’ve seen adult dudes flying kites before, and i haven’t seen anyone making fun of them or kicking sand in their eyes, etc.

@tiffyandthewall That was a bit of an exaggeration…

What wrong with kites? I never knew there was a stigma attached.

In China, kite flying is a job for real men. They have kite fights and even embed bits of broken glass in the string to try to cut the strings of competitors’ kites. Kites originated to send urgent messages during war time and to spy on the enemy. Later they also became an art form.

How is kite flying emasculating?

@Darwin I dunno… That’s why I’m asking :)

Very cool stuff! I’ve read about kite fighting and it sounds like a lot of fun (and expensive after losing all those kites).

Near as I can tell, it isn’t, unless you insist on flying a Barbie kite and shrieking like a girl. Kites were designed for war and later for scientific experimentation (as in Benjamin Franklin). Any kid who jeers at a man for flying a kite is an ignoramus and either needs to be educated, ignored, or beaten up.

Not if you pay attention to the string. ;)

It depends. Are you running with streamers while kite flying, or are you sitting with a beer while the kite is tied to the back of your chair lol

@Mtl_zack Kite and beer in hand! It’s the only way to roll.

If I saw a dude sitting in a lawn chair drinking a beer and flying a kite, I think I’d want to talk to him.

Doubly so if he was running with streamers. XD

On the lake there are usually some guys flying kites. Doesn’t seem too emasculating for them.

@boots i know, i know haha. but still! i didn’t think anything negative about the guys flying the kites, and no one i was with seemed to either. (:

@Ivan That’s because they’re just masculine women.

Emasculating? Diminishing or destroying your masculinity? Not unless you use it in a very weird way.

Well, one of the examples given in that Wiki article you link to is kite-surfing – which seems like one of the most badass things a person can do. And Darwin brings up a great point about kite-fighting. But you are wondering about how you’d look in the eyes of your neighborhood, which is a slightly different matter. I think that if I saw someone I knew vaguely from the area sitting around, drinking a beer and flying a kite, it’d make me very happy.

One of my friends actually has a huge interest in flying kites and is a semi-professional rugby player (meaning that when he isn’t violently attacking other men he’s drinking gratuitous amounts of alcohol) so it’s quite difficult for me to deem them as being emasculating in any way.

I don’t know where you hang out, but at the beach where we rent our condo, they provide kites for the tenants, including all the young, single guys who are there for the surfing or boating tournaments. I never heard of any stigma attached.

It’s really funny that you should ask this question today. I just found a brand new kite lying on the floor of the car, which I assume my 21 year old Grandson bought recently.

We fly kites all the time. I always have a couple in the car and when we travel we always amuse ourselves in the evenings flying kites on the beach. It is great fun. My husband is a great kite flyer.

Did you see the movie “Kite Runner?” It was good.

What’s so wrong with sitting in a lawn chair drinking a cold beer and flying a kite? The only problem I see is if you are drinking a lite beer.

lite beer is piss water!

I have never given this a moment’s thought… where on Earth do you live? It must be one tough neighborhood. :P

I’ve never heard of any stigmas attached to flying a kite. It was an activity that I enjoyed when I was younger and one that I would enjoy now if I had a kite. If someone finds it necessary, for some inexplicable and ridiculous reason, to make fun of someone flying a kite, obviously that person needs to be told to ‘go fly a kite’ (a.k.a. – shine them on with a certain degree of disdain) and continue enjoying your flying apparatus.

@boots. That’s a good looking kite that you’ve purchased and I hope you have a totally fun and carefree time out there flying it over the homestead.

no. you can go fly your bad-ass kite without worry.

I just was at a concert on Sunday afternoon where a really hot dude was flying a kite. Alas, he looked a bit young for me to try and chat up. He was doing tricks with it and people were enjoying the show.

Silly boots. No stigma for you! (It’s more fun to fly it on the beach, say in South Carolina… Just a thought.)

Fly your kite and be happy about it. My dad is the manliest man I know and he taught me how to get a kite flying. My husband, my cousin and I bought some kites once and I had to get their kites going because they couldn’t.

Any hobby that engenders “dude” and “awesome” (where is “cool?”) in the same sentence is empowering.

Its not a hello kitty kite so I think you’re good.

seriously?
anyone who’d think that’s emasculating, beer in hand or not, has issues

It is only emasculating to the Charlie Brown types, @Simone_De_Beauvoir