To have formed these early impressions of MN?

[EachVentureIsANewBeginning]

I've been on MN about a week now and am enjoying it enormously. These are my early, fairly random impressions, based on a fair bit of reading (and a small amount of posting) in Mumsnet Talk, largely but not exclusively in AIBU, Relationships, and Mumsnet Classics. I suppose it may be relevant to say that I'm male and quite old.

I've found that:

Lots of threads are extraordinarily funny. Things I read don't generally make me laugh out loud but I have done several times here, for example when reading 'Pointless and soul destroying ongoing fights with inanimate objects'.

Lots of threads are extraordinarily sad, and yes, I've had tears in my eyes reading some of them.

Overall, the quality of writing is of a very high standard. (I was an English teacher a long time ago and I like being impressed by really good writing. I've found that here more than in any other online forum I can think of.)

The kind of support that people give others is tremendous - really heartwarming and moving. There's a wonderful feeling of community - the sort of caring that restores your faith in human nature, particularly when feeling ashamed at the dreadful things some men do to women.

There does seem to be (in some quarters) a bias towards advocating 'leave the bastard' at a stage which seems to me possibly premature. (But there generally seem to be people offering the opposite view too.)

I do feel slightly uneasy about the way I've got caught up in some threads as if they were TV soaps (e.g. refreshing the screen to see if the OP has had THAT conversation with DH yet and what the result was). I have to remind myself that these are people's real lives.

I've learned a number of rather basic but fascinating facts about things bodies do/people do with their bodies. Just one example: that people wipe their bottoms standing up as well as sitting down. (And the shock people obviously experienced at finding people did it the other way from them was funny!)

There's a lot of 'bad language' which I generally enjoy. However, as a man who's long resisted the use by other men of 'cunt' as a term of abuse (because I think the word should be used just for the beautiful part of the anatomy to which it properly refers) I was a bit surprised at the number of women here who use it precisely as a term of abuse. Which is entirely a matter for them, of course, and I'm not saying I think they shouldn't - just that I was surprised.

I think that's quite enough for now. Hope it's of some interest.

Sounds like MN! I'm curious, what brought you here?

Venture, think of "cunt" like the n-word. We can use it, you can't.

So? What do you want? A medal?

HouseOnLane No need for that sort of response

Welcome aboard OP.

Would you have congratulated a male dominated forum on the quality of their writing?

You sound surprised.

House, this does feel slightly like head-patting mansplaining. "I approve of your site! Well done, ladies! But gosh, you do swear a bit about the beautiful parts of your anatomy and that makes me uncomfortable."

Your totally wrong hun, were a nest of viper's

Nice post OP ! :)
Hope you stick around and carry on enjoying it.

Why on earth could you not just join threads and talk?

Why take the trouble to grace the site with your report from on high?

Sorry OP, goodnightdarthvader makes a good point.

On a side note, if anyone referred to my vagina as a 'beautiful cunt' I might vomit. Each to their own and all.

Gruach, and this is why women get annoyed with men. They can't just get on with it, they have to assume their detailed opinion is required.

OP you sound nice and IMO your description captures a lot of what MN is.

Just a word of advice though. Mansplaining is not really welcomed here by a lot of posters. Just be a bit careful.

Magpie - I first discovered MN some years ago when I was a civil servant and we'd sometimes get our ministers agreeing to do live chats. I remember particularly one (female) minister who thought she'd get a very easy ride and me thinking (rightly) that it would end in tears! I was Googling recently and found a link to MN which was interesting - so I kept reading ...
goodnight - yes, the 'n-word' comparison did occur to me. I assume you're saying I can't use it as a term of abuse but could if my DW and I used it in relation to her body (although neither of us does that, there being nicer words.)
TheHouse - I was just interested in whether people shared or disagreed with my impressions. I'm sorry if my post irritated you.

House, this does feel slightly like head-patting mansplaining. "I approve of your site! Well done, ladies! But gosh, you do swear a bit about the beautiful parts of your anatomy and that makes me uncomfortable."

This was the "good point" I meant just to be clear.

Venture, you can use it in relation to your DW's vagina if she says "I approve of you calling my vagina a cunt." Otherwise, no.

Thank you monty.

Thanks for all the comments. Just a couple of general responses (if I dare!)

The most recent online forum I've been looking at is one on Facebook that's local to where I live. Both men and women post to it and most give the impression of being functionally illiterate. So the quality of the writing on MN was a joy. I certainly didn't mean to be patronising. And I hadn't come across 'mansplaining' before. Perhaps I shouldn't have said I was a man.

If people find my post really annoying, please report it and get it deleted.

A lovely post OP. I don't see it as 'mansplaining' at all - what he's saying is that the quality of writing here is good considering it's an online forum. Not that the quality of writing is surprising because it's written by women

And he's not disapproving of people swearing - he's saying that he's surprised that it's generally considered not OK to call someone a Cunt, yet on here it is.

I completely agree with all of what you have written OP and those are the reasons I'm here too. Although the laugh out loud moments get a bit fewer and further in between when you realise that people tend to repeat the same 'hilarious' phrases over and over and actually there's less originality on here than you may first have thought I just spat wine all over my keyboard are you on Glue? go to the far side of fuck... blah blah

Welcome OP. I too love the good grammar and punctuation here, being a massive unapologetic stickler for it. Facebook-style misspellings get my goat.

MN is great (especially Classics - I recommend the elderly Korean lady thread if you haven't already found it). It will teach you many things you didn't realise you needed to know about - like mansplaining

Behold!

I don't think 'annoying' breaks any Talk Guidelines. If it did about half of threads on here would be deleted.

Nice post OP.

Something you missed though - some people like to have a go just for the sake of it.

You might have picked up on that one now though

Cunt is a fabulous word, but not for abusing people with. I much prefer cunt to vagina or vulva, and I appreciate that MN is one of the few places I can say cunt with the joy it deserves.

Thanks, Ungoogleable. Exactly right. I don't know which would be dafter: to believe that women can't write as well as men, or to say that on a forum where women outnumber men!

As well as what Gnome says about grammar etc., I had the humour particularly in mind - there are some extremely funny contributors here (in a nice way). You may be right and I'll find MN a bit less amusing over time but I think that'll take a while.

Apologies again to anyone offended by my original post.