Premature ejaculation, tradie funk, Barbara Kruger, Chatroulette, and the crisis that never ends. Thisepisode tackles the sweaty aesthetics of masculinity and the violence of straight male desire. From schoolyards to sports fields, from public confrontations to the digital shadows of webcam sex, Melletios and Tim wade through the rituals that shape, perform, and deny straight male identity.
In this unhinged, wandering conversation, we ask why straight men are so obsessed with policing queerness while secretly building homosocial bonds. What’s the function of denial? What’s the cost of repetition? And what does it mean to critique masculinity while still playing in the bleached band? We unpack the gendering of public and private space, the difference between care and protection, and why the so-called "crisis of masculinity" has dragged on for nearly two centuries. With Mogwai as our unofficial soundtrack and the bleached stain of privilege as both costume and curse, we stumblethrough misreadings, microaggressions, aggression, and the awkward joy of getting it wrong.

0:00 Fixing mics and Redfernslang
2:32 Trucks, dinosaurs, and fascist aesthetics
5:01 Tradie funk and “smelling like a man”
8:38 The violent tradie on Enmore Road
11:21 Tradies get the ladies: stereotypes and spectacle
13:13 Cops, soldiers, and homoerotic structures
14:19 Webcam sex, Chatroulette, and male-to-male desire
17:23 Straightness, violence, and denial
22:04 Barbara Kruger and the skin of other men
23:25 Boys’ schools and shared adolescent rituals
26:02 Football, scrums, and the spectacle of straightness
29:01 Mogwai marries Sabrina Carpenter
30:59 Masculinity is the problem
33:27 The fake crisis of masculinity
36:49 Protection vs care: gendered politics and power
38:14 The politician, the family, and unwaged labour
40:58 Being read as brown and living inside violence
44:39 Everyday friction and white presentation
47:32 The joy of getting it wrong
48:50 Podcast form as gendered medium
49:40 Disobedience, discomfort, and speaking from within