it's hard to remember this far back but for a very long time "male" was considered by most people less of a gender and more of the LACK OF gender. male was considered the default
male was the lack of gender and female was the precence of gender: the ms. pac man, the minnie mouse- the presence of eyelashes and a bow
in recent years, "male" has become more of a sexualised category- don't know the cause exactly, it could be the trend towards "MAN" branding on products but that's irrelevant
it feels like some of the right-wing backlash against "gender" "pronouns" etc is a case of men lashing out against their being recognised as a gender rather than as the default. hmmm.
similarly, terfs lashing out against transgender people will often talk about how trans women are sexualising themselves, influenced by pornography- horned-up on the idea of going from the unsexualised category to the sexualised one- this is so counter to feminism's foundations!
...what's more sexual about a woman than a man? nothing- but a lot of people are still in that mindset of men having no gender, that they think like this. it's obvious to them. it's impossible to communicate to them the idea men are just as "sexual" as women because they literally cannot wrap their heads around it