I was very moved by reading that. That's tragic for any child. Comment below is from the perspective of a woman, and one who loves men and see their vulnerability and loneliness and wish it not...
I was very moved by reading that.
“I was under the covers at night, praying to God to send someone to love me,” he said.
That's tragic for any child.
Comment below is from the perspective of a woman, and one who loves men and see their vulnerability and loneliness and wish it not so. Not trying to derail viewpoints from other men but wanting to chime in with how mens healing should not and is not in contention with feminism. Both should aim for Humanism and against patriarchy and I think this group accomplishes that successfully.
It seems to me that men in particular have even less access to love and care and emotional health and safety than women being oppressed under the patriarchy. Sometimes they need healing from women, but I think they also lack a special kind of healing that can only come from men in a patriarchy, where from birth theyve been indoctrinated that care from women is perhaps sexual in nature or else of an inferior quality: a resource in the sense of points and exploits, rather than a resource in the sense of fountain of nourishment. That they're in some kind of competition with other men for resources (closeness and kindness from women), rather than being able to bond and have companions on their journeys.
I think helping men heal by and among fellow men is definitely an important part of reducing misogyny, in addition to the main goal of better men's mental health.
Honestly that quote you pulled is way too close to my childhood, so I'm going to avoid reading this article for my mental health. There are many places in the greater society that I know where...
Honestly that quote you pulled is way too close to my childhood, so I'm going to avoid reading this article for my mental health.
There are many places in the greater society that I know where it's taboo for a man to talk about how they are lonely and feel unloveable. The reason why I have such distaste for masculinity as a concept is that the ideas associated with it do so much harm to men. One relevant related stereotype of masculinity comes to mind; the idea that men are sex maniacs. It leads to men who try to use sex to get intimacy, but when a person has sex looking for intimacy and doesn't get it, it feels absolutely horrible. You feel like you got treated like a piece of meat - like you're something subhuman that isn't even capable of feeling love.
I was really lucky in that I not only have loving parents, but they also weren't afraid to show how men don't need to conform to the rules of masculinity. I still make people uncomfortable...
I was really lucky in that I not only have loving parents, but they also weren't afraid to show how men don't need to conform to the rules of masculinity. I still make people uncomfortable sometimes when I talk about feelings they don't expect men to talk about. But I'm especially good at disregarding opinions that aren't helpful to me. So I keep plowing forward on my path.
Ahh, I'm ....I have mixed feelings about my quote choice in that case. I'm glad you got a heads up and were able to make an informed choice about your health and I think that knowing that about...
Ahh, I'm ....I have mixed feelings about my quote choice in that case. I'm glad you got a heads up and were able to make an informed choice about your health and I think that knowing that about yourself is fantastic. But i also wish I could Magical Girl my way into being there for all boys and girls across space time who wanted that and didn't receive love when they most needed it.
And yeah absolutely, it's terrible when they lie and tell everyone that what men want is only sex, and that it's weak of them to want what is behind the sex: understanding, acceptance, warmth, desire, respect, safety, no need or provide/protect/perform....all those good things. Even worse when they teach older women to withhold these from young boys lest they grow into something undesirable, namely, women. Patriarchy hurts all of us.
I'm happy to report the article isnt about that. I hope this type of positive community/communication school for men spreads like wildfire and become a balm to the old and a dew to the young.
I'm actually in a pretty good place in my life, but the past two weeks have seen a bit too much tragedy for me to go and seek out more, if you get what I mean. It was less that the quote you...
I'm actually in a pretty good place in my life, but the past two weeks have seen a bit too much tragedy for me to go and seek out more, if you get what I mean. It was less that the quote you pulled was a trigger for me, and more of an "I can't deal with sad stories right now" thing.
A brief and candid look into a secretive men's work program named All Kings. These modern takes on men's rights of passage in a nature setting bring men of all different backgrounds together to...
A brief and candid look into a secretive men's work program named All Kings. These modern takes on men's rights of passage in a nature setting bring men of all different backgrounds together to bond and bare their souls, the hope being that what emerges is a healthier role in society that is still firmly grounded in masculinity. Some detractors have doubts but data shows decreased criminal recidivism rates for participants and the author's spouse's subjective feelings of heightened presence in their relationship raises questions about what modern men need and can gain from a form of masculinity that is at once ancient and yet a breath of fresh air in the modern context.
As someone with a decade of therapy under his belt, I think I can say relatively safely that men, at least Gen X and older, were not taught to feel emotions in a narrow spectrum: anger/rage, lust,...
As someone with a decade of therapy under his belt, I think I can say relatively safely that men, at least Gen X and older, were not taught to feel emotions in a narrow spectrum: anger/rage, lust, jealousy, fear (though this is practically a curse word among men), excitement.
Most of us weren't taught how to feel, give, or receive love, joy, or gratitude. We weren't taught to find peace except when alone. We were taught to keep other men at a distance because they are all competition or potentially so. Because of this, we were taught to never show fear; fear is seen as weakness and weakness invites competition and attack.
We were taught to fight to protect our territory and not to invite in and welcome guests. Those occasions when we did the latter, it often had to contain an element of condescension: let me show you that I am stronger because I can afford to share of my wealth.
We're most always, on some level, jockeying for status. Status is survival.
As a cis het white man, because of all of the above, I have most always and continue to find most cis het white men exhausting to be around.
Competition is tiresome and lonely. And that, in a nutshell, is the essence of American het cis male culture.
Those men who have found healthy ways to check out of that way of being are fortunate indeed. I've made a lot of progress with this myself yet it creates other existential crises: if I'm not these things, who am I?
Peoples' experiences vary so much that it's hard to generalize. I think it's safer to say "here's a common pattern I saw when growing up" than "all older men are like this." I don't see "seeing...
Peoples' experiences vary so much that it's hard to generalize. I think it's safer to say "here's a common pattern I saw when growing up" than "all older men are like this."
I don't see "seeing all men as competition" as being anywhere close to universal. Of course there are situations that actually are competitions, like sports. It's true that informal competitions are common, and sometimes guys will just expect other guys to participate in some silly game in a social situation. Sometimes this can be pretty annoying. I guess that's an alternate way of seeing other men as competition -- that is, as other people you can play competitive games with, assuming they find it fun too?
More generally, there are other situations that will sometimes be perceived as competitive, like in school with grades. But it doesn't seems like a gender thing?
But maybe you could expand on what patterns you see there?
I also think it's true that being calm and constructive in sticky situations is valued, not exclusively of men but as a bravery and good leadership sort of thing. And that many men do try to live up to that, maybe a little too hard? You can reframe that as "never show fear" I guess, although it can be reframed as caution pretty easily?
There are virtues that can be reframed as vices, and vice-versa. It all seems rather situation-specific.
Coming in with my perspective as a Haudenosaunee woman - we see how much the isolation and exhaustion hurts men. As women, we've had to do a lot of work to keep ourselves safe and create...
Coming in with my perspective as a Haudenosaunee woman - we see how much the isolation and exhaustion hurts men. As women, we've had to do a lot of work to keep ourselves safe and create opportunities for ourselves, but what we always need to remember is that the patriarchy hurts everyone, not just cis women. Men are hurt because of exactly what you list here - men are told to toughen up, to be the best, to not have feelings, to not care. But men need to feel loved, cared for, accepted, valued, and men need to be able to have, feel, and express their feelings; they need to be able to care; they need to be able to process loss, grief, and pain.
"If I'm not these things, who am I?" - my dude, you are whoever you make yourself to be. You are your gifts, your hobbies, your interests, your responsibilities in your home/family/community; you are your knowledge and your work, you are the culmination of the things you have learned throughout your life; you are the things you make and the things you give and the things you do for others; you are your truth and you're the only one of you there is. In my culture, we're taught that everyone has a role, everyone has a purpose, everyone has gifts. We have to recognize the gifts in ourselves the same way we recognize the gifts others possess, and it's in our gifts we find our purpose. Hopefully that gets folks thinking about identity a bit differently; we don't need to be defined by a society that was not built to accept us for who we are.
I don’t know I feel like everything I learned about being a man came from a combination of my parents and books. Specifically The Mahabharata, The Lord of the Rings, and The Iliad. Most of these...
I don’t know I feel like everything I learned about being a man came from a combination of my parents and books. Specifically The Mahabharata, The Lord of the Rings, and The Iliad. Most of these notions put me somewhat at odds with a lot my peers, particularly the clade of guys who tended to be really focused on status and material success (which usually also involved viewing women as sort of decorative prizes that let them prove their worth and value).
The stuff I read mostly didn’t involve women that heavily, but insofar as men relate to them the idealized relation is as a loyal and devoted husband, son, or father. The occasions where the men give in to relating to women primarily as objects of physical desire it generally doesn’t end well for them.
Though in most of the adaptations of these works these more prosaic day-to-day life lessons are rarely translated. LOTR is the most well known direct adaptation, but the films turned it into an action story while reducing the, actually quite deep and intimate, bonds between the members of the fellowship into kind of just a “buddies on a road trip” sort of thing. Feelings in general seem kind of hokey, and now that I’m a family man myself I notice just how hokey it feels to actually talk about my family in any sort of admiring way.
I'm happy to learn that there are programs like this that exist separate from the evangelical church. This type of men's retreat is becoming more and more common and the church has largely been...
I'm happy to learn that there are programs like this that exist separate from the evangelical church. This type of men's retreat is becoming more and more common and the church has largely been the sole supplier for gatherings intended for men's personal growth (Not that they've all been healthy by any means).
But the church is always shoehorning in the gospel where it's not necessary and doesn't focus enough on mental health and learning new tools to solve your problems.
When I was in college, I read a book by Tom Perrotta called The Abstinence Teacher. Minor spoilers relevant to this discussion In it, the main character is struggling with his relationship with...
When I was in college, I read a book by Tom Perrotta called The Abstinence Teacher.
Minor spoilers relevant to this discussion
In it, the main character is struggling with his relationship with his wife and not really getting helpful support from his church. He goes to a mens' rally (it's not called Promise Keepers in the book, but if you're familiar with PK, it's that kind of thing). One of the speakers tells everyone to write their greatest fear on a piece of paper, then to come down to throw it in a fire, symbolically surrendering that fear to Jesus. The main character writes, "My biggest fear is that I'm not a part of this any more" before running away from the event.
It took me years to unravel my complex feelings, but that moment in the story resonated with me so strongly. It was definitely a turning point in making my way out of evangelical Christianity. I'm also glad there are alternatives available.
Somewhat of a tangent, but I was listening to a podcast interviewing Sheila Wray Gregoire where she is talking about her book called The Great Sex Rescue. As part of it, they examined the 13 top selling marriage and sex books against peer reviewed scientific findings. One thing that stuck out to me was that not one of them includes the word consent. There was one that introduced the idea using other terminology, but zippo from the other 12. There's a lot more crazy info in the podcast (and probably her books), but it reinforces my sense that people shouldn't really be looking to evangelical sources for any relationship guidance, even if they are religious.
I just have to ask the question, with no malice intended, because your comment seems so off the mark but did you read the article? What I found most interesting about this form of men's therapy...
I just have to ask the question, with no malice intended, because your comment seems so off the mark but did you read the article? What I found most interesting about this form of men's therapy was that it was not about telling men how to be a man but rather about helping men heal their trauma to become better versions of themselves. Practices such as participants finding their own, specific, inner power or connecting them with masculine role models who they would like to be more like. I don't understand your allusion to sociopolitical wings or where you get the idea that the article discusses what being a man means.
I was very moved by reading that.
That's tragic for any child.
Comment below is from the perspective of a woman, and one who loves men and see their vulnerability and loneliness and wish it not so. Not trying to derail viewpoints from other men but wanting to chime in with how mens healing should not and is not in contention with feminism. Both should aim for Humanism and against patriarchy and I think this group accomplishes that successfully.
It seems to me that men in particular have even less access to love and care and emotional health and safety than women being oppressed under the patriarchy. Sometimes they need healing from women, but I think they also lack a special kind of healing that can only come from men in a patriarchy, where from birth theyve been indoctrinated that care from women is perhaps sexual in nature or else of an inferior quality: a resource in the sense of points and exploits, rather than a resource in the sense of fountain of nourishment. That they're in some kind of competition with other men for resources (closeness and kindness from women), rather than being able to bond and have companions on their journeys.
I think helping men heal by and among fellow men is definitely an important part of reducing misogyny, in addition to the main goal of better men's mental health.
Honestly that quote you pulled is way too close to my childhood, so I'm going to avoid reading this article for my mental health.
There are many places in the greater society that I know where it's taboo for a man to talk about how they are lonely and feel unloveable. The reason why I have such distaste for masculinity as a concept is that the ideas associated with it do so much harm to men. One relevant related stereotype of masculinity comes to mind; the idea that men are sex maniacs. It leads to men who try to use sex to get intimacy, but when a person has sex looking for intimacy and doesn't get it, it feels absolutely horrible. You feel like you got treated like a piece of meat - like you're something subhuman that isn't even capable of feeling love.
I was really lucky in that I not only have loving parents, but they also weren't afraid to show how men don't need to conform to the rules of masculinity. I still make people uncomfortable sometimes when I talk about feelings they don't expect men to talk about. But I'm especially good at disregarding opinions that aren't helpful to me. So I keep plowing forward on my path.
Ahh, I'm ....I have mixed feelings about my quote choice in that case. I'm glad you got a heads up and were able to make an informed choice about your health and I think that knowing that about yourself is fantastic. But i also wish I could Magical Girl my way into being there for all boys and girls across space time who wanted that and didn't receive love when they most needed it.
And yeah absolutely, it's terrible when they lie and tell everyone that what men want is only sex, and that it's weak of them to want what is behind the sex: understanding, acceptance, warmth, desire, respect, safety, no need or provide/protect/perform....all those good things. Even worse when they teach older women to withhold these from young boys lest they grow into something undesirable, namely, women. Patriarchy hurts all of us.
I'm happy to report the article isnt about that. I hope this type of positive community/communication school for men spreads like wildfire and become a balm to the old and a dew to the young.
I'm actually in a pretty good place in my life, but the past two weeks have seen a bit too much tragedy for me to go and seek out more, if you get what I mean. It was less that the quote you pulled was a trigger for me, and more of an "I can't deal with sad stories right now" thing.
A brief and candid look into a secretive men's work program named All Kings. These modern takes on men's rights of passage in a nature setting bring men of all different backgrounds together to bond and bare their souls, the hope being that what emerges is a healthier role in society that is still firmly grounded in masculinity. Some detractors have doubts but data shows decreased criminal recidivism rates for participants and the author's spouse's subjective feelings of heightened presence in their relationship raises questions about what modern men need and can gain from a form of masculinity that is at once ancient and yet a breath of fresh air in the modern context.
As someone with a decade of therapy under his belt, I think I can say relatively safely that men, at least Gen X and older, were not taught to feel emotions in a narrow spectrum: anger/rage, lust, jealousy, fear (though this is practically a curse word among men), excitement.
Most of us weren't taught how to feel, give, or receive love, joy, or gratitude. We weren't taught to find peace except when alone. We were taught to keep other men at a distance because they are all competition or potentially so. Because of this, we were taught to never show fear; fear is seen as weakness and weakness invites competition and attack.
We were taught to fight to protect our territory and not to invite in and welcome guests. Those occasions when we did the latter, it often had to contain an element of condescension: let me show you that I am stronger because I can afford to share of my wealth.
We're most always, on some level, jockeying for status. Status is survival.
As a cis het white man, because of all of the above, I have most always and continue to find most cis het white men exhausting to be around.
Competition is tiresome and lonely. And that, in a nutshell, is the essence of American het cis male culture.
Those men who have found healthy ways to check out of that way of being are fortunate indeed. I've made a lot of progress with this myself yet it creates other existential crises: if I'm not these things, who am I?
Peoples' experiences vary so much that it's hard to generalize. I think it's safer to say "here's a common pattern I saw when growing up" than "all older men are like this."
I don't see "seeing all men as competition" as being anywhere close to universal. Of course there are situations that actually are competitions, like sports. It's true that informal competitions are common, and sometimes guys will just expect other guys to participate in some silly game in a social situation. Sometimes this can be pretty annoying. I guess that's an alternate way of seeing other men as competition -- that is, as other people you can play competitive games with, assuming they find it fun too?
More generally, there are other situations that will sometimes be perceived as competitive, like in school with grades. But it doesn't seems like a gender thing?
But maybe you could expand on what patterns you see there?
I also think it's true that being calm and constructive in sticky situations is valued, not exclusively of men but as a bravery and good leadership sort of thing. And that many men do try to live up to that, maybe a little too hard? You can reframe that as "never show fear" I guess, although it can be reframed as caution pretty easily?
There are virtues that can be reframed as vices, and vice-versa. It all seems rather situation-specific.
Coming in with my perspective as a Haudenosaunee woman - we see how much the isolation and exhaustion hurts men. As women, we've had to do a lot of work to keep ourselves safe and create opportunities for ourselves, but what we always need to remember is that the patriarchy hurts everyone, not just cis women. Men are hurt because of exactly what you list here - men are told to toughen up, to be the best, to not have feelings, to not care. But men need to feel loved, cared for, accepted, valued, and men need to be able to have, feel, and express their feelings; they need to be able to care; they need to be able to process loss, grief, and pain.
"If I'm not these things, who am I?" - my dude, you are whoever you make yourself to be. You are your gifts, your hobbies, your interests, your responsibilities in your home/family/community; you are your knowledge and your work, you are the culmination of the things you have learned throughout your life; you are the things you make and the things you give and the things you do for others; you are your truth and you're the only one of you there is. In my culture, we're taught that everyone has a role, everyone has a purpose, everyone has gifts. We have to recognize the gifts in ourselves the same way we recognize the gifts others possess, and it's in our gifts we find our purpose. Hopefully that gets folks thinking about identity a bit differently; we don't need to be defined by a society that was not built to accept us for who we are.
I don’t know I feel like everything I learned about being a man came from a combination of my parents and books. Specifically The Mahabharata, The Lord of the Rings, and The Iliad. Most of these notions put me somewhat at odds with a lot my peers, particularly the clade of guys who tended to be really focused on status and material success (which usually also involved viewing women as sort of decorative prizes that let them prove their worth and value).
The stuff I read mostly didn’t involve women that heavily, but insofar as men relate to them the idealized relation is as a loyal and devoted husband, son, or father. The occasions where the men give in to relating to women primarily as objects of physical desire it generally doesn’t end well for them.
Though in most of the adaptations of these works these more prosaic day-to-day life lessons are rarely translated. LOTR is the most well known direct adaptation, but the films turned it into an action story while reducing the, actually quite deep and intimate, bonds between the members of the fellowship into kind of just a “buddies on a road trip” sort of thing. Feelings in general seem kind of hokey, and now that I’m a family man myself I notice just how hokey it feels to actually talk about my family in any sort of admiring way.
I'm happy to learn that there are programs like this that exist separate from the evangelical church. This type of men's retreat is becoming more and more common and the church has largely been the sole supplier for gatherings intended for men's personal growth (Not that they've all been healthy by any means).
But the church is always shoehorning in the gospel where it's not necessary and doesn't focus enough on mental health and learning new tools to solve your problems.
When I was in college, I read a book by Tom Perrotta called The Abstinence Teacher.
Minor spoilers relevant to this discussion
In it, the main character is struggling with his relationship with his wife and not really getting helpful support from his church. He goes to a mens' rally (it's not called Promise Keepers in the book, but if you're familiar with PK, it's that kind of thing). One of the speakers tells everyone to write their greatest fear on a piece of paper, then to come down to throw it in a fire, symbolically surrendering that fear to Jesus. The main character writes, "My biggest fear is that I'm not a part of this any more" before running away from the event.
It took me years to unravel my complex feelings, but that moment in the story resonated with me so strongly. It was definitely a turning point in making my way out of evangelical Christianity. I'm also glad there are alternatives available.
Somewhat of a tangent, but I was listening to a podcast interviewing Sheila Wray Gregoire where she is talking about her book called The Great Sex Rescue. As part of it, they examined the 13 top selling marriage and sex books against peer reviewed scientific findings. One thing that stuck out to me was that not one of them includes the word consent. There was one that introduced the idea using other terminology, but zippo from the other 12. There's a lot more crazy info in the podcast (and probably her books), but it reinforces my sense that people shouldn't really be looking to evangelical sources for any relationship guidance, even if they are religious.
I just have to ask the question, with no malice intended, because your comment seems so off the mark but did you read the article? What I found most interesting about this form of men's therapy was that it was not about telling men how to be a man but rather about helping men heal their trauma to become better versions of themselves. Practices such as participants finding their own, specific, inner power or connecting them with masculine role models who they would like to be more like. I don't understand your allusion to sociopolitical wings or where you get the idea that the article discusses what being a man means.