Omnivore - Men's Issues

From Bookforum's Omnivore blog, this collection of links on men's issues should give you plenty to read for a Sunday afternoon.

Men's Issues

Jul 24 2014
3:00PM

• Sam de Boise (York): Learning to Be Affected: Masculinities, Music and Social Embodiment. 
• Stephen Burrell (Tampere): The Invisibility of Men's Practices: A Discourse Analysis of Gender in Domestic Violence Policy. 
• Joanna Schroeder on violence in the everyday lives of our boys. 
• Why are boys so lonely and violent? Niobe Way on the friendship crisis. 
• With a sequel to Fight Club on the way, are men still suffering the same anxieties and frustrations which inspired the original story two decades ago? 
• Americans think they’re smarter than the average American — rich white guys think this most of all. 
• The Louis C.K. Effect: Jesse Singal on why overweight men have higher status than overweight women. 
• John Burnside on why men avoid growing up.  
• How to Pick Up Girls!, the PUA community's foundational text, is a deeply disturbing portrait of male entitlement. 
• “Feminism is a sexual strategy”: Inside the angry online men’s rights group. 
• At what was billed as the first annual international conference on men’s issues, feminists were ruining everything (and more). 
• Men’s rights conference host Paul Elam says women who drink and dance are “begging” for rape. 
• Meet Marilyn D. York, female men’s rights attorney. 
• In praise of the “beta male”: Tracy Clark-Flory on how sensitive, nurturing, conflict-averse communicators make great partners. 
• Yes, men, you can be feminists — but it’s actually really hard work. 
• Noah Berlatsky on a short history of male feminism: From Frederick Douglass and John Stuart Mill to today's scholars, there are plenty of men who, despite their flaws, have helped advance women's liberation. 
• Men as feminist allies: 35 practical tools for men to further feminist revolution. 
• “It's not a contradiction for men to discriminate against other men”: An interview with Adam Jones, author of Gender Inclusive: Essays on Violence, Men, and Feminist International Relations.

Scott Sonnon - Rules of Engagement for Becoming a Man

Scott Sonnon offers a compassionate and flexible roadmap for his 9 year old son, a guide to growing up, masculinity, and being a good man. This comes, as one might guess, from the Good Men Project.

Rules of Engagement for Becoming a Man

January 12, 2014 by Scott Sonnon

Scott Sonnon writes a letter to his son on how to go it alone as a man.

—

Honestly, every day feels like it could be my last. I look at my wife and my children, and I feel as if it could all end at any moment. In reality, this may indeed be very true. But psychologically, I know this feeling of imminent finality originates from having my parents violent divorce when I was only 4 years old. Having had no father in my life, I feel that as a father now myself, I could quite suddenly just… disappear. If I did, will I have said everything that I wanted to say, everything that I could, to my children?

I had published a letter to my daughter last month, that I shared with her as a conversation started. It had brought her and I together in a way I hadn’t imagined. We’re a very strong team. But my son is still quite young, unable to avoid the “SQUIRREL!” distractions in life, so I wrote to him a letter that we will read and discuss in a lucid moment, but it is more of a roadmap for the future, left to him in case these were indeed my final words to him as his Dad,

My “Rules of Engagement for Becoming a Man”

♦◊♦

Little man,

You’re only turning 9 years old, but you asked me to write you a letter, like I had written your sister. Here it is.

Some people say 8 is too young to worry about manhood, but I believe if you don’t know where you’re headed, you’ll have trouble getting there. You won’t be able to spend all your years as a boy, and then suddenly know how to be a man. On your 18th birthday, you may be told be in your identification that you’re an adult, but it won’t magically be in your identity that you’re a man. You’re already trying to put on a man’s shoes in certain circumstances, so if you know which direction to walk, perhaps you’ll have an easier time figuring out how to walk in them… and be okay when you trip.

I did not. I’m not afraid to be honest with you. My father was gone when I was only 4, which means it’s been years since I’ve been your Dad that I’ve had an example of exactly what to do as a father. I don’t have a specific plan to tell you what you’ll need to become a man. I have had to figure it out by myself, and through the father figures in my life as my coaches.

So, I can begin by telling you what I’ve learned a man is not. It’s not an age. No matter how others make it seem, there isn’t a magical age: not 18, 21, not even 45. As you grow older, you don’t automatically become more of a man. When you grow taller in your shoes, deeper in your voice, or hairy on your face, you won’t be any closer to becoming a man. I wish, Son, it was that simple.

A boy thinks and behaves as if he’s the center of the universe. This isn’t about age, but about behavior, action and thought. Even at my age, we can behave and think like boys; including like your Dad does when I make mistakes and behave childishly. I am still practicing the difference between being a boy and being a man. I can still choose to act like a boy, even though I’m 5 times older than you. Behaving like a boy means putting your own interests first (your hunger, thirst, sleepiness, pleasure, happiness, cravings, sadness, anger and so on) and getting those desires met before considering the needs of others.

A boy takes (because he’s learning) but a man gives (because he’s learning more). To become a man, you have to place others’ interests before your own. It’s not easy, because you have to think about how your behavior impacts others, and then imagine what the world looks like from their perspective, and how what you do, think and say makes them feel. Just because you feel you’re right, doesn’t mean you should do it, say it or even think it. That’s a hard one. To do this, you can’t be at the center of your own little world.

You can’t even only think about what a man would do, you have to act upon it. When big challenges come, you don’t even have time to think. You only have time to act; often when you don’t know what you should do. How you act then, tells you if you’re a boy or a man. I think about these challenges a lot, even as a “grown-up.” When they come, I think, will I have the courage to be a man, or will I allow fear to overcome me, and act only as a boy, concerned only about my own needs. Even your Dad won’t know until it happens, what he’ll do. You can only practice becoming a man in the small, daily, simple, normal things, so that when the big, scary, difficult things come, you have had enough practice to act as a man. This is what people mean when they talk about your “character.”

Throughout your life, you’re going to have these opportunities, and just like your Dad, you won’t be great at them all right away. You’ll make mistakes. You’ll fail to live up to your own expectations. You’ll be too afraid to remember your courage, and you’ll act like a boy, rather than remember to practice becoming a man. That happens to us for the rest of our lives, Son. I am still practicing even – and maybe especially – as I write these words to you. You have to find a balance between being firm with yourself, and pulling yourself off the ground, turning toward your fears, and the mistakes you’ve made, owning them and pushing through even when it hurts; with being forgiving and gentle with yourself when you repeatedly get knocked down, get overwhelmed, make huge blunders, and shrink away from them because you’ve hurt yourself from pushing too hard for too long. I haven’t mastered it myself, but I keep practicing.

♦◊♦

I didn’t have my Dad around when I was your age, so I looked to my coaches to act as my father figures. And they did. I grew from their lessons. You will find teachers everywhere when you need them, and even when you don’t, because you need to practice and learn from a teacher before the big challenges come, and after they knock you down, and when you get back up again and again.

Be ready for disappointment. Don’t think it is you. Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn. When you feel disappointed, remember this letter, and read it again, please. Because when you’re disappointed, and hard on yourself, that’s when you’re growing, and being given the chance to become more of a man. At the same time, you’re going to have plenty of happy times, and lots of laughs, victories and achievements. Don’t get too attached to these once they’re over. Celebrate them, and let 'em go. A boy collects them, but a man moves on.

You’re going to experience weakness, failure, vulnerability, worry, surprise and even terror. I can’t protect you from these feelings, but I can help you get prepared for when you feel them. It’s wonderful to feel strong, invulnerable, confident, certain and brave. But sometimes, those feelings seem to disappear for awhile. They’ll come back, but only when you do one thing: get up anyway. Get up when you know you’ve failed a hundred times, when you know it’ll hurt and you feel completely exposed and unprotected, when you know that people will be upset for you when you own up to a mistake you’ve made, when you don’t know at all what to do. You get up, and do the right thing anyway… even if you fail again. That is the difference between behaving like a boy and like a man.

Sometimes I just want to curl up with your Mom and have her hold me, because even at my age, I get overwhelmed; I feel out-gunned and under-prepared, hurt and angry, alone and tired. It’s okay to do that, Son. It’s okay to take a breath, to feel comforted. And then, you’ll know that it’s not yet time, that you could stay within that warm embrace longer and feel safe, but you get up anyway to face it. That Son, is becoming more of a man.

The things you’re going to go through will be different than what I did, Thank God. What you’ll face will be unique to you. I won’t know all the answers, even if you feel like your Dad could face any challenge. I know I don’t know. But I know that I have to do something even when I don’t know what to do. So, I can’t tell you what’s going to happen. But I can tell you for absolute certain, that you will be given exactly what you need to become a man: you’ll either do a great job at it, or you’ll learn how to do it better the next time. I’ve learned a lot, which means I’ve made a lot of mistakes. And I still am. A man never stops learning and practicing.

♦◊♦

You’ll have your own challenges, but you should always know that your Mom and I are behind you, until you’re man enough to go it alone. And then, we’ll still be with you, in one Way or Another. You get to choose how to live your life. You get to choose how you want to face a challenge, how many times you must repeat that challenge until you overcome it. Or if you choose to do nothing about it at all and hope to escape it. That’s your choice. I want the best for you, so I’m going to do my best to always provide you with support and love, but you can choose to not heed my advice. That is your choice, as you become a man.

Being a man sounds like a lot of work, like it’s very hard, and there aren’t many benefits. But let me tell you, Son, being a man is “good.” We get to feel tough and choose to be gentle. We get to feel strong, and choose to be compassionate. We get to feel freedom, but choose to be responsible. Remember what I wrote about “character.” It’s what you decide to do when the pressure is on. There’s no better feeling than that, really: to feel like everything is pushing and pulling you in so many directions, and yet you stand your ground and speak the truth, and act righteously.

When we behave like boys, we can lie, cheat, steal; even hurt others. When we act like men, we keep our word, even when it’s easy not to. We remain reliable, when someone needs us, yet spontaneous and unpredictable. You can be hard on yourself, fair with others, and compassionate with everyone. When you feel pressure from others to do what might seem “fun” but could be hurtful, deceitful or in any way “wrong”, even though it makes you “unpopular” you’ll find the courage to do the “right” thing anyway.

You may think you’ll be able to get away with it, because no one is looking, but there’s always someone watching: the boy inside you who’s becoming a man. He’s always watching. Help him grow; don’t hurt him and keep him small. You’ll hear that voice cautioning you, and sometimes, you’ll ignore it, and make a mistake. It’s okay, your Dad screws up, too. But becoming a man, means owning up to those mistakes, facing an even harder crowd of peer pressure afterward, and doing the right thing eventually. The more you run from it, the harder it will be when you do, but you can ALWAYS clean the slate and start over. Just remember, that the longer you wait to own up and come clean, the more other people will be hurt by your choices, and the harder it will be to face. But you CAN face it. A man should.

♦◊♦

Be proud of who you are, and where you came from. Your name means something. It is a bank account, and you’ve inherited a huge savings. Put more into that account for your sons and daughters. Protect it, honor it, and then pass it to them. Put more into it throughout your life than you take out. Take care of it, because you don’t own your name. You carry it to the next generation.

Your family is the most important; this one with me, your Mom and your Sister, and then one you will create when you become a man. Protect them before yourself. Provide for them above your own desires. Put them first and foremost in your thoughts, actions and behaviors. LOVE THEM AS BIG AS YOU CAN! All of our lessons as a boy prepare us for that privilege as a man. Live as an example to your children. And pass on these lessons I’m sharing with you, with them.

Stay humble for your gifts are God given. Be grateful for your fruits are delicate blessings which come and go. Work hard but be smart about it. Don’t waste a second; invest it in your growth. You’re told to “be happy,” but remember that you won’t always feel happy and that’s okay. Being a man means doing hard things that won’t make you immediately happy, but they’ll make you eventually happy. Often instant pleasure is the worst thing you could feel, because of what it will cost you to stay a boy, and not become more of a man.

Breathe. Take it all in. Let it all go quiet sometimes. Sit. Smile. This is your domain where you get to help as many people as you can. That is an honor. The worries will come; and when an army of them swarm around you, sometimes you start with the biggest guy and knock him down first; other times, you start with the closest and easiest just to get rolling. A lot of times, you’ll feel like you can’t breathe, and you’re never resting. That, too, is what it means to be a man; so when you knock out a few of your responsibilities, remember: sit, breathe, let it go, relax and smile. You’re doing it.

Believe in the nobility in becoming a man. You are learning how to become a King. Even when we act like precocious, pampered, spoiled little Princes, we are all still learning. Sometimes we need to shake off the boyish behavior, stop accepting mediocrity and charge toward our dreams… My mother once told me that she wanted a better life for me than she had; and I do want that for you. But to have a better life, you’ll need to make different decisions than I made. I promise you that I will continue to practicing becoming more of a man, when you come to me as a man, and tell me that you’re choosing to not heed my advice and go a new direction. Together, as two men, we will support each other, as you head off in that uncharted path. (But try your best to consider the counsel of your elders before you make that choice, please. Sometimes, men do know what we’re talking about.)

Most of the time, just like your Dad, you’ll be making it all up as you go along. Be ready to improvise, adapt and overcome. Expect that you will not know how to do something, that no one else can or is willing to do it, and that you’ll have to just figure it out on your own while doing it. There are a lot of different ways to solve a problem. Even if you don’t figure out the fastest or most efficient way, keep going, because you will figure out a way eventually, even if no one else has done it that way before. Just don’t stop going. Fail and fail and fail and fail and one day, you’ll be doing something completely unrelated and the solution will come to you (so remember to step away from a task for a moment if you can, to take a chance for it to come to you.) You’re so much smarter than you can imagine, because that brain of yours comes from God. Those ideas are divine gifts. Treat them as sacred as a church and bring them to life as piously as a prayer.

♦◊♦

You’ll feel tempted to try and figure everything out, and fix all problems you see. Remember that it’s a mystery to be appreciated, so stay curious. Watch how others create solutions. Listen to how they came to their conclusions. Look to understand rather than only to “fix.” Ask as many questions as appropriate when time permits, because you can always at least learn a different perspective on the same problem.

What you say and what you feel aren’t always perceived the same way by others, so you’re going to need to practice being better at communicating all of your life. That’s one of the reasons that you never finish becoming a man. Sometimes you have to say something in order to realize how you really feel, sometimes you have to correct what you’ve said because it came out the wrong way, and most times, you’re going to need to remember that it’s that way for everyone else too; so be patient, ask questions to confirm what they meant in words you understand. Ask them to do the same when they don’t understand you.

Here’s the hard one. No matter how much it will feel like you’re exposing yourself, share how you really feel with those you love. This is the most important type of sharing as a man. You can share things, and tasks, and tools, and thoughts, but sharing feelings is a very hard one because we are told to just “man up” and get over it. Listen, Son, when it comes to those you love, “manning up” IS sharing how you really feel. So, remember that you also need to really listen and hear when loved ones share with you. It’s how you will really connect with them and understand the WHY in their life; and how they can understand the WHY in your life; why we do, behave and think in the peculiar ways we do…

No matter how firm and disciplined you must become in your challenges, remember to love yourself, accept who you are, and always remain true to that man you’re becoming. Others will try to control you, and dictate what you should do in life. Remember to love and honor yourself. Try to be compassionate with them, and acknowledge that sometimes the most compassionate thing you can say to people trying to control your life is, “No.” I will stand behind those, “No,” responses with you, even if you feel totally alone, even if my body isn’t right next to you when you do it.

Truly mean it when saying you’re sorry; because you’ll be saying it a LOT. Expect to do a lot for others without recognition; in fact, although it’s hard for us to realize when we think like boys, but that’s the best kind of thing to do. So, pick your friends carefully, as many people will try to exploit your generosity. Don’t prejudice them but consider their values; will they help you become a better man, and will you help them become better men and women? Do they make others feel bad, and do they honor that you’re becoming a man of character, and hope for them to practice the same? Commit to your word, and you’ll find that your friends are able to do the same more often. It takes time, sometimes years, but how you behave, think and act is like a rock dropped into a lake: the ripples move outward affecting everyone around you.

Honor this body you’ve been given like you would protect and help your own son grow. Be honest with your growth so you can keep healthy. And when your strength wanes, and your health diminishes, remember to respect your Spirit which cannot die ever, and will always be strong no matter how big, scary and difficult the challenge.

Like I said, Son, sometimes you’re going to win; and other times you’re going to learn. It won’t seem fair when we think like a boy, but as you become a man, you’ll see that you create fairness: you equal things out for others, when what they’ve experienced has been unfair to them, you will be the one to extend an anonymous helping hand. It’ll keep you humble, and keep you busy.

So, remember to laugh… and cry. These are two of your best tools as a man. Laugh at yourself, and cry for others hardships. Being more human means you’re becoming more of a man.

Things in life may come and go, but your character is yours for life. Appreciate things while they’re here, and help others when they’re not. Because that “character” of yours is the only real thing that makes you a man.

You have everything you need to “make up” this life for yourself. You can do it. Whatever you need will be there for you when you need it, once you commit to improvising and taking action even when you don’t know what to do…. especially so.

Whatever happens, no matter today or 70 years from now when I’m gone, know that I am always proud of you, and the man you are becoming.

I love you so much, Son.

Dad

—————————————————

Very Respectfully,
ScottSonnon


Photo credit: author’s own

About Scott Sonnon
Scott Sonnon is a martial art expert, fitness coach, and wellness speaker. He overcame childhood obesity, learning disabilities, and joint disease, to be named by Men’s Fitness Magazine, one of the top trainers in the world. He came out of retirement at the age of 40, for the 2010 World Martial Art Games, and won 5 gold medals, against fighters half his age and 100 lbs heavier.
 
Visit him at: rmaxinternational.com/flowcoach & See his Tedx Talk on Suppressed Genius

Ethan Hawke Grows Up . . . and Becomes a Good Man

Nice interview with an actor, a human being, who has grown as a man while under the spotlight of being a star. But it feels as though he does not take any of that seriously. This could be an interview with any man his age, we are only reading this because there is a new move to promote and the studio is pimping him for ticket sales - and he gets that:

I love to talk all the time, except when I have something to sell. And then I feel like a whore. You're interviewing me because a studio has a giant movie they want to release, and they want the world to go see it. And you're not necessarily interested in me, but you want people to buy your magazine. So the actor is just serving as the tip of the spear. I might as well be standing on the street corner, juggling one of those cardboard arrow signs.

It's a good article.

Ethan Hawke: What I've Learned

Actor, 43, New York City
By Mike Sager on December 17, 2013 

PUBLISHED IN THE JANUARY 2014 ISSUE: The Meaning of Life

Interviewed by Mike Sager, October 29, 2013

The morning of this interview, his refrigerator fell through the kitchen floor. Still, he showed up early, wearing a nice sweater, and ready to talk.

When I was sixteen, I remember telling my high school sweetheart I was pretty sure I knew everything. There were some dates of wars and Latin terms I didn't know, but I felt I knew everything that was important. Now I'm forty-two and I'm pretty sure I don't know anything.

Everything about my life is different than I thought it would be. I don't remember what I thought it would be, but everything about being an adult is so much subtler, and grayer, and so mysterious, and so profound…and a lot more irritating than I ever imagined.

Being a parent dilutes your narcissism.

The father has a very particular role, which involves cutting the umbilical cord, not just as a literal thing but as a metaphor. The father is the guardian of that first step away from the real safety of the nest. Our job is to usher our children into the world.

Every perceived failure turns out to have a secret success, and every perceived success has some secret failing in it.

In Macbeth, it's fascinating to see the moment when the witches actually come to Macbeth—it's after the biggest triumph of his life. The play opens and he's won two battles and he's the hero of both. Everybody loves him more than ever. And that's the moment the witches come. That's what Shakespeare shows: You're not your most vulnerable when you're broke and destitute and hungry. I mean, it's a tough moment, sure. But it's even tougher when the world gives you everything you want. That's when you're really in danger of becoming a prick.

I love to talk all the time, except when I have something to sell. And then I feel like a whore. You're interviewing me because a studio has a giant movie they want to release, and they want the world to go see it. And you're not necessarily interested in me, but you want people to buy your magazine. So the actor is just serving as the tip of the spear. I might as well be standing on the street corner, juggling one of those cardboard arrow signs.

I remember saying to my son, "Who's the best father you ever saw?" And he said, "Dad, you just want me to say you. I don't know any other fathers."

One of the great advantages of not going to college is you're not taught a right and a wrong way to do things. So many young people have stopped freethinking for themselves. I never went to acting school; I learned from Peter Weir, Sidney Lumet, Denzel Washington. I kind of see myself as a perpetual student.

What we communicate—our magazines, movies, books, plays, and all that—are our collective consciousness.

My grandfather was a general manager of the Abilene Blue Sox of Abilene, Texas. He was also the head sportswriter for The Abilene Reporter-News. He would cover his own games, which I thought was kind of fascinating.

I can't imagine that there's a person in this world who doesn't have something better to do than tell people that they can't love each other forever, no matter what their sex.

What I've learned about divorce? Not to speak about it publicly. Hopefully that will make somebody laugh.

Flip through the channels sometime and count how many times you see a woman taking her top off under duress, like being attacked physically, or how many times you see a woman dead, a body or a cadaver. Now flip through and notice how many times we see a man taking his clothes off, a man dead, a man being physically attacked. It's like nine to one.

I'm always dubious about talking politics; I don't have anything to say about that. To some degree, I think performers should stick to performing, you know what I mean?

A long time ago, I had to give up on the dream of being a professional athlete. Now I have to give up the dream of even playing a professional athlete. But here's the perfect metaphor for aging: I'm starting to look for coach roles.

Daughters are easier because I don't project myself onto them. Like, if my daughter doesn't like the Yankees, I'm not offended. But if my son says he likes the Orioles, I'm like, "What is wrong with you?"

Following this year's Before Midnight, the third film of a trilogy by director Richard Linklater, Hawke is now appearing in Macbeth at Lincoln Center in New York.

Jackson Bliss - A Scarcity of Affection Among Men

This is one of the unfortunate truisms for men in this culture - we are raised to see affection as foreplay, as sexual, and not as a vital human need. Over at the Good Men Project, Jackson Bliss shares his experience of waking up to this reality and his process of understanding it.

A Scarcity of Affection Among Men

October 7, 2013 by Jackson Bliss

Jackson Bliss sees how men have grown up seeing affection as sexual behavior, not social behavior. And that is one of the tragedies of our times.

—

Once, just as I was about to step inside Union Station in New Haven, an old black guy with fuzzy grey hair and glasses stopped me on the sidewalk and asked me if I had a light. Though technically I’d stopped smoking when I’d started grad school, my bad habit resurfaced at the end of every semester because of the stress. It was reading period, so I pulled out my lighter with a little guilt and tried lighting his cigarette. The wind was strong and erratic though, extinguishing the flame every time I rolled the flint. As I became impatient, I finally grabbed his soft, wilted old hand and cupped it with mine, lighting his cigarette undisturbed. He took a big puff and exhaled. Then he nodded his head, smiled at me and said: Thank you, son. By the time I was inside the train station, I was bawling.

At first, I didn’t understand where the tears were coming from. Maybe, I wondered, it was the anxiety of having to write three thirty-page essays in the next ten days or my secret dread of seeing my on-again-off-again girlfriend in New York who I fought with every weekend like a professional scrapper trying to dodge the first inevitable blow. Maybe it was the dreary Connecticut weather finally getting to me, weather that reminded me of Dante’s description of purgatory. Maybe I was sad because I was a poor grad student from Chicago who sometimes felt lost and out of place in New England. And maybe I was just really vulnerable that day. Whatever the ultimate reason, the tears poured out of me inside the station, on the escalator and even on the train where I looked out the window to avoid the sharp looks of commuters. The real issue buried underneath my grief was the fact that I rarely got the male affection I’d wanted as a kid. And the sad thing is, I’m not the exception either. 

♦◊♦

My pops is a good guy, but he’s old school (which means he’s not very good at expressing himself). While he’s slowly learned to respect me as a man, we’ve never been very close. When we hang out in Chicago, for example, I’m almost always the one to initiate things. Because we’re different politically and professionally, we’ve had to strain to understand each other for most of our lives. When I was a kid, we never played in the backyard together (I played catch or soccer with my spunky obāsan). Because I was a latchkey kid, I only saw my parents for four hours a day max, most of our time spent in the kitchen and the TV room.

To be honest, I can’t remember my dad hugging me as boy nor do I remember him being proud of me growing up (except when I graduated from high school, which was really important to him). Even when I gave my MFA reading six years ago in nearby South Bend, I remember not being surprised that my dad didn’t show up. Now, I don’t point these things out an indictment because my dad is a good and hard-working person (and god knows I could be a rambunctious, argumentative, and exasperating little punk). My dad helped me a little bit with my college tuition, paid for my final year of high school at my Jesuit prep school and remained emotionally devoted to my obāsan his entire life, even after my parents split up. He was a dad in the only way he knew how to be with me, slowly evolving once he remarried his second wife and had a third son (who he has a much more proactive and affectionate relationship with). It’s only recently that I’ve truly felt he’s proud of me for the man I’ve become, and maybe this is related to my stubborn professional aspirations as a fiction writer, to finishing my PhD, and to marrying the love of my life. Maybe his recent respect for me has nothing to do with any of those things. As I’ve grown up and become comfortable with my self, I’ve learned to overcome the big issues I had with him, but I point out the scarcity of affection in my relationship with him because I think it partially explains why male approval was always so important to me growing up, why I still have a soft spot for male affection, why I still find myself seeking the respect of older men. 

♦◊♦

One of the pernicious consequences of living in a country still struggling with homophobia, social verticality, and patriarchy, is not just the rigid gender roles this system imposes on men (and obviously women), but also the way it prevents grown men from expressing love, gratitude and affection to each other (and often to their sons). Because of this, many boys grow up seeing affection as inherently unmasculine because their fathers never modeled affection and unconditional love as a constituent part of their own masculinity.

Just as tragic, our system still punishes boys for expressing love and affection to each other (except in the case of sports) by subjecting them to social and sexual taboo, which means boys will grow up seeing affection as (hetero)sexual behavior and not social behavior, which is troubling. For many straight boys, affection will become gendered, the unique behavior of girlfriends, moms and female friends. While girls are victims of the system just as much as boys are, the system victimizes them in different ways at different stages (through slut-shaming, income inequality, domestic relegation, sexual objectification and ownership, for example). But one of the major systemic tragedies for boys is the ongoing poverty of male affection in their lives. As psychoanalytically unsatisfying as it is, for many grown men, there is a void inside us that was earmarked for our fathers’ attention and approval (which can often feel like signifiers of love). It’s a void we carry with us into adulthood, a void that only disappears (if it disappears at all) with friendships that are deeply communicative, supportive and unconditional. This void only disappears (if it disappears at all) with a lifetime of self-forgiveness for the emptiness we feel inside. This emptiness is not our fault, but if we deny its existence or pretend we’ve moved beyond the scene of our childhood trauma, we become victims of our own pathology, innocent bystanders in the crossfire of denial, unlovability and self-reproach.

Men only heal when we surround ourselves with others who are engines of deep and uncontrollable love, people who are compassionate, affectionate, forgiving and open with their emotions. For me, the most recent source of affection, kindness and love has been my wife, who I love more deeply than any person I’ve ever known. In high school, it was my religion and English teachers. In college, it was my brother and my friends. Someday, it will be my own fatherhood, which will give me new emotional space for repairing the tiny broken parts of me and for expressing my endless devotion, explicit love and continuous affection for my baby. Even though he doesn’t exist yet, even though she hasn’t even been conceived, my love for him is already enormous, already bigger than myself.

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Photo: lenny montana / flickr

Documentary - School Boys to Soldiers

From Documentary Heaven, this is a short Documentary, following an 18 year old Soldier: Charlie Morris – Cook. As he is home for Christmas with his family before he gets deployed to Afghanistan for the first time.

I wonder what connection there is between the tattoos and his choice to join the military - are both some form of "mark" of his masculinity, a visible symbol of his transition into manhood? Perhaps for this young man, and many others like him, these act as initiation rites, transitional rituals as he enters the world of men?

School Boys to Soldiers

Frankie: Best Short Film, 2008 Berlinale Film Festival

Cool little short film . . . . Being a dad is harder than it looks.

Frankie

Frankie — he’s only 15 and already getting ready for fatherhood. He has the best of intentions, that’s for sure. But everything around him — the lack of a father in his own life, institutions that shut him out, the gravitational pull of wayward friends, the folly of youth — make it unlikely that this story turns out well. Directed by Irish filmmaker Darren Thornton, Frankie was named Best Short film at the Berlinale Film Festival in 2008. A big thanks to Daniel B. for sending this our way….