I am not a "fellow" man but I just want to say that it sucks that men are ridiculed for crying. It is wrong and it needs to change.

Okay, not a man, but going to respond anyway.
I think that the "taboo" on males showing emotion is just another stupid societal construct. It promotes suppression of natural responses to stimuli, whether it's
physical or emotional.
It also leads to many males not being able to deal with their own feelings.
It promotes the bullshit mindset of "machismo", too.
Yeah, okay, it's best if I stay single. You don't have to tell me.

It ain't bad and if it bothers some emotional constipate: fuck em.

I cry all the time. The memories bring tears

I see enough men express the opinion that crying should not be ridiculed. I say start doing it when you feel like it and gradually the norm will change. It takes courage to cry!

Hmmm... I cried when my mom died. Everygood thought I ever had hit me and the emotion hit me. I use to go to the nursing home and tuck her in at night after dad died. They shared a room together. She was like a child as I tucked her in. ....damn. i thought i was a tough guy when i was younger. It caught up to me when it was people i loved. Funny thing... didnt cry for the old man....

I fell in love with my ex partly because he was so in touch with his feelings. But as our relationship continued, he developed the idea that he should "be a man" and he stopped not just telling me his feelings, but admitting he had them at all. This devolved into crippling depression, hoarding, and, eventually, four years of unemployment before I had had enough.

Cry if you have a good reason. Cry if you don't. Cry if you feel like crying. Cry because it's human. Cry because tears are made for washing away the ugly things we carry around with us.

Being vulnerable with the ones you love allows them to really see and accept you for who you are. And having that and being loved anyway... That is a reason to cry just from the sheer joy of it.

Not a thing is wrong with it intrinsically. Very cathartic to let it out as deeply as possible and I can’t imagine holding it in is good for anything other than permanently storing emotional trauma in your muscle tension. However I feel it’ll turn off most women if you cry in front of them whether they intellectually would judge you for it or not. It’s just an instinctual desire to feel like a man is level headed and capable of protection that it sorta messes with. Everyone says you shouldn’t be afraid to do it, but at the same time no one necessarily wants to see it. And that’s fine. I regard it as a sneeze for the proverbial soul. Little messy n try to keep it off peoples clothes but if an irritant gets agitated it’s gotta be expelled, no healthy way around it.

Good question. Crying is part of being human - like laughing.

Not a damn thing is wrong with crying. That sort of macho bullshit should have died in a fire long ago. Men have feelings, just like everyone else. The only people without feelings are psychopaths.

There's nothing wrong with it. I think the way many men are socialized places a stigma on crying.

Even though I heard "big boys don't cry" a lot growing up, it had little to no effect on me. I sort of view crying - both for happy and sad reasons - to be as valid an emotion as all the others.

Nothing

Babies and women do it . Then add a bit of mysoginy and there's a myth of weakness made

It's a natural function, and I think it's unhealthy to suppress it.

The taboos seem to be breaking down in Europe, at least. It is becoming more common to see men expressing their emotions with both happy and sad tears - both footballers and members of the crowd at football matches, is one example.

I too have been socialized (though not as overtly as some) to disassociate enough from feelings of sadness, disappointment and betrayal to not cry, which is to say, I'm mostly unaware when I'm sad, disappointed, or hurt. So it manifests in some other way, like irritability, irascibility, impatience, and a lot of "you've got to be fucking kidding me" self-talk.

While at least intellectually I know I have to work myself out of this, I'm not sure where to go with it. In my virtually universal experience, no one, including my immediate family, wants to know my feelings and considers them a burden and a wet blanket. So everything points to continuing to stuff it all.

And it's not just me. My current wife reached some tipping point around the time we met where she became disassociated from her feelings, mainly because of emotional overload. Her prior marriage was abusive, and involved both substance abuse on her spouse's part, and a grinding fatal illness capped by a fatal car accident. At the same time, there was a shit-ton of unwanted drama coming from her father, monster-in-law, both siblings, and one of her children. So her brain just said "no more" and shut it all down. At first it felt weird, but after awhile it felt protective (which it doubtless is). I am also widowed with a similar laundry list of personal grief / loss / tragedy / disappointment culminating in my adult son's death a couple of years ago and now I am in the same boat.

In theory we both probably need therapy but it's difficult and expensive to find effective therapy and to fit it into our work / life balance in hopes of an uncertain outcome while simultaneously keeping up all our other obligations. Right now for example her son is living with us during the time between college and grad school and needs mentoring and help with his own issues; his need for non-conflict and serenity precludes us banging around in our mental closets looking for answers that may or may not ever come.

I do get tired of simplistic notions like crying = weakness or even that weakness = despicable, but that is how the world turns. Beat people down and then kick them for BEING down. Offer them a lick and a promise rather than real answers, rinse and repeat.

It's made worse by living in 'Murica, where it's all your fault somehow if you're on any sort of hard times. Reminds me of a saying I once saw posted on a factory foreman's board many years ago:

When you feel like crying
And want to quit
Don't run to me ...
I don't give a shit!

Showing vulnerability can have serious negative consequences, but being unable to have a release can have them too.
I'd say cry if you need to, but not at the drop of a hat. Just as I trust you'd repress your rage before making a decision to hit someone, don't be consumed with sadness before assessing the whole situation.

Nothing. I often shed a tear with my clients (i'm a psychotherapist).

Well I cry enough for you...I've cried all my life despite family shunning me for it...I cry if I'm happy, angry, sad...snotty nose and all .I don't apologize for either. Its liberating for me and cleansing...I think if I didn't relieve myself emotionally when I got angry I'd be writing this post from sing-sing...crying is good for me...After the rain the Sun comes....hallelujah!??????

Nothing is wrong with it. It's all perception though. I don't have a problem with men crying as long as you're not crying because a lone snowflake came out of the sky and melted on the ground to never know life outside of the time it went from the sky to the ground. Actually, I would look at you weird if you were a male or a female and you did that lol

Somehow it got twisted with men showing emotion and it turning into them being wimps.

It indicates your emotions are out of control.

First it's important to say crying isn't bad, though our Society judges those who cried very harshly. The basic idea is that as men we are meant to display strength that all time because we have the job of being protectors. We are expected to overcome pain and weakness. Crying is an acknowledgement of our pain in our weakness it is an admission to those things which we are not permitted to display. It's all an extension of that Macho caveman idea of what a man should be. Thankfully the eras are changing and it's becoming slightly more tolerable for men to cry at least among those they trust.
I feel comfortable crying in front of those I have a personal relationship with, though I would not feel comfortable doing it in the workplace or in public. Chances are if I absolutely had to I would go to a bathroom or such.
I honestly believe that would be more socially acceptable for a man to destroy someone else's property in public then it is for him to cry in public; in fact it would even raise less question as to the mental stability of the man.