The Normal Male - Jesse James Tattooed!

An interesting and cogent commentary by Dr. Rod Berger (The Normal Male) on Jesse James, the moronic dude married (perhaps soon to be "formerly") to Sandra Bullock.

By the way, I totally agree with the good doctor's position on men needing to adapt to more communal, expressive, synthesizing modes of being - we are no longer the "Lone Ranger" and society is no longer dominated by "rugged individualists," no matter what the GOP tells you.

Jesse James Tattooed!

Has Your Marriage Been Tattooed?

Another day…another foolish man! Jesse James didn’t get away this time. He was tattooed by a woman nicknamed “Bombshell.” James’ wife Sandra Bullock has moved out just two weeks after accepting the Oscar and praising her husband publicly.

And, what wouldn’t be a Hollywood scandal without a little reflection from the media outlets. Now we are looking at the curse of the Oscar for winning actresses from Witherspoon, Winslet, to Halle Berry and Hillary Swank, Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Roberts and the list goes on and on…

Some were mere breakups and others divorces. Some were for sex addiction and others sexual perusing. You almost get the sense that these poor poor men were left home alone while their significant other worked. I can see it now… “I am only a star on T.V. (insert Jesse James voice)…I’ll never make it big like Sandra…why don’t I go window shopping to get my fix? Yeah…and then I’ll chase my dog CinnaBun around the Monster Garage compound.” By the way, for those keeping score…yes CinnaBun was found after James reported the little one lost.

Truly pathetic. Sad. And yet none of us should be surprised. Men who cannot handle the success of their female partner have been around for centuries. Maybe this riddle goes back to the cave days. Maybe Fred Flinstone started this whole charade. I am not sure where it began, but its roots seem deep and unweildy.

I would like to think we are getting better as men. I would like to think that we understand the big picture…that if she is successful… “I am successful.” Men need to be more realistic about the *&**^$# match they are in with the other gender. If winning is the ultimate goal then pray pray on ole’ brotha cause you’re going down in flames. If you haven’t noticed guys…corporate America has become a female dominated arena…in the manner or approach business is taking. The current work environment utilizes all the skills that are innate to women…not men.

"Now Wilma, You Stay Home...I Wouldn't Want YOU To Out Shine Me"

I agree with the switch and think that ones’ ability to communicate, to work in groups, and synthesize information is far better then the stuck-in-the-mud, cowboy individualism we have been gifted by previous generations. Out with the old and in with the New (Trumpets trumpeting in the background)!!

Gentlemen, do you really want your female partner to fail? Because that is the message so many are sending when they fail to support their partners. Men are saying that our egos are far too fragile for someone else to demonstrate competence let alone success. We are living in lean times and I don’t know about you, but when I hear that my partner had a great day and is movin up the ole’ ladder…I applaud, make dinner, and encourage her.

Support the one you love and enjoy the spoils of two happy people…life is short enough!

All the Best!

Dr. Rod
Rod Berger, PsyD The Normal Male

Filed in: men, masculinity, relationships, work, maturity, Dr. Rod Berger, The Normal Male, Jesse James, Sandra Bullock, jealousy, curse of the oscar

Johnny Depp's Adventures in Gender-Bending

An interesting and too-brief look at the gender-bending roles of my favorite actor.

Johnny Depp's Adventures in Gender-Bending

Swishy pirates, reclusive bachelors, Victorian dandies, and now a foppish hatter.

By Eric Hynes
Posted Monday, March 8, 2010

See great pictures of other mad hatters from Magnum Photos and people who are late! They're late!

Has an A-list actor ever had a queerer career than Johnny Depp has? The former teen heartthrob and reigning Sexiest Man Alive gets credit for choosing "unconventional" roles, but here unconventional is code for "sexually ambiguous." Though his real-life sexuality has never been much of an issue (after a series of high-profile romances with starlets like Winona Ryder and Kate Moss, he's been with French actress Vanessa Paradis since the late '90s), Depp's big-screen sexual persona has always been remarkably fluid, emphasizing rather than overcoming his fine feminine features and approaching role after role as installments in a serial drag show.

Yet it's not really an issue of playing gay. The main conceit of many of Depp's characters is that they're neither here nor there. From hetero cross-dressers and goth-chic beauticians to swishy pirates, mop-topped reclusive bachelors, and flighty Victorian dandies, Depp's characters accentuate the ambiguous. They mess with Mr. In-Between. Even when a character's sexual status isn't in contention, identity remains complicated and traditional romance is thwarted. In Chocolat he's more object of desire than active lover, more Kim Novak than Cary Grant. As an FBI agent in Donnie Brasco, Depp neglects his wife (portrayed by, um, Anne Heche) to foster a secret life as Al Pacino's admiring protégé; in Dead Man and again in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, he forms deeply symbiotic bonds with male companions.

With more than 50 films to Depp's credit, there are, of course, exceptions, and generalizations only go so far. Last year's Public Enemies, in which he played strident anti-hero John Dillinger and a heat-seeking lover of Marion Cotillard, has perhaps been the straightest role in Depp's two-and-a-half-decade career. His follow-up? Alice in Wonderland, in which he plays the Mad Hatter, already one of the fruitiest characters in the history of Western literature, as an orange-haired, chalk-faced, gap-toothed fop.

Depp has staked his star power on the kinds of parts that other performers either cautiously avoid or opportunistically flaunt. And yet he's more popular than ever, bending popular notions of gender and movie stardom while remaining safe for the likes of Disney. How has he done it?

Click here for a video slide show on Johnny Depp's long run of gender-bending roles.

Tags: film, gender roles, masculinity, culture, Johnny Depp, Adventures in Gender-Bending, Slate, sexually ambiguous, hetero cross-dressers, goth-chic beauticians, swishy pirates, mop-topped reclusive bachelors, flighty Victorian dandies

The Onion - Hot New Relationship Book Warns Women: 'Wake Up! He's A Shapeshifter'

Bestselling author Craig Wheedon stops by Today NOW! to urge ladies to face the truth and dump the shapeshifter.


Hot New Relationship Book Warns Women: 'Wake Up! He's A Shapeshifter'

Filed in: satire, humor, Craig Wheedon, Today NOW!, relationships, men, women, The Onion, Hot New Relationship Book, Warning, Women, 'Wake Up!, He's A Shapeshifter

Why Men Need to Show Emotion

Leave it to Men's Health to try selling men on a healthy human behavior by suggesting it will get us more sex.

The article is pretty long and in-depth for Men's Health, yet as good as that it is, it also perpetuates some stereotypes about men not being as emotionally literate as women, nor as articulate. This is simply a matter of socialization.

Yes, there are brain differences in men and women. But are they inborn, or are they created through the very different ways boys and girls are raised? Research shows that our brains are wired through the attachment experience, what Dan Siegel calls interpersonal neurobiology.

Behaviors and expressions that are rewarded in up-bringing are hard-wired, those networks become more solidified and permanent. Those that are not "rewarded" do not get hard-wired and fade away. I would argue that that there is very littler difference in the brains of infants in terms of potential for emotional intelligence at birth - it's what happens AFTER we are born that creates the brain differences.

In the article, they talk to Simon Baron-Cohen (an autism specialist), who argues that there are in-born differences. I have no doubt this is true, but I suspect that they are less extreme than we are often led to believe.

Anyway, here is the beginning of the article - follow the link at the end of this excerpt to read the whole article.

Men and Their Emotions
Why Men Need to Show Emotion

It's an easy path to love, happiness -- and sex

With a sigh of relief, you pull into your driveway at the end of another 12-hour day. You're ready to unwind. Already, your blood pressure is falling. But inside your house, your personal life is waiting. Maybe you have a girlfriend or wife who craves your companionship, and children who demand your attention. When you walk through that door, you may be thinking in terms of haven and escape. But in these next few hours, you're really undergoing a transition. You're going to make the switch from work to love, from ambition to emotion, from power to intimacy.

This transition is a big job -- and the ramifications are bigger than ever. So you need to handle it well.

What if you don't? Hey, no harm done. You'll simply join the legions of the angry and depressed, with half your money gone to your ex-wife, your kids mad at you, your few friends slowly drifting away, and a vague sense of shame that keeps you from making social connections. Not that I'm speaking from personal experience or anything.

Okay? Now you can loosen your tie. But don't open the car door just yet. I want to talk to you for a while longer.

I'm not that crazy about the word "intimacy." I bet you're not, either. It's a department-store word. (Third floor: Intimate Apparel.) And, come to think of it, I'm never happy to hear the word "emotion." It means that pretty soon I'll be hearing the word "feelings," as in I've hurt her feelings, or I don't seem to have any feelings, unless team X comes from behind to beat team Y. When men hear about "emotion," we're usually about to be scolded.

I'm being more than a little defensive, but you and I both know that our apparent difficulty with the whole feelings thing bothers women. And, further, they grow testy over the fact that it bothers them more than it bothers us. But how's this for an idea? Men should stop being defined by what we lack. Instead, let's take a clear-eyed look at emotions, the unique ways in which we experience them, and their role in who we are today. Wouldn't it be cool if we understood that, and why we are the way we are? Wouldn't it be cool if we could finally explain ourselves to women? If only so they'd stop asking us?

Fortunately for all of us, some serious scientific and psychological discoveries of the past decade can help us do just that. So let's push beyond the gauzy metaphor of Mars and Venus. Yes, men and women are different, but it's no longer enough to categorize men by the words they fail to say.

And let's concede one point straight off: Men are not as emotionally articulate as women are. It's not out of spite; we don't stubbornly refuse to spend hours talking about feelings. We just can't do it. That is, the inner architecture of our brains just can't do it.

New technology, such as functional magnetic-resonance imaging (better known by its abbreviation, fMRI), allows neuroscientists to virtually open up the skull and see what's happening inside. This means you can show people photos of mutilated bodies, for example, and watch their brains react.

It may sound cruel, but that's exactly what a team of Stanford scientists did. They showed brutal images to 12 men and 12 women. In the women, nine different areas of the brain showed higher activity, both when viewing the pictures and when recalling them 3 weeks later. Nine different areas! In the men, only two areas lit up. The comparison says it all.

Thanks to neuroscience, we now know that the amygdala, a small, almond-shaped region deep in the brain, plays a key role in both emotional reactions and emotional memories. And, wouldn't you know it, the female amygdala is far more efficient. That's why women can recall more emotional memories more quickly (have you noticed?), and their memories are richer and more intense. (No wonder she still remembers that hurtful remark you made last Christmas.)

The amygdala may also play a role in women's greater tendency to engage in what scientists call ruminative thinking, the repetitive focus on negative feelings and events. (You've noticed that, as well.) Psychologists now know that a lot of rumination actually confuses people about how they really feel -- but you won't want to tell her that when she's ruminating.

There are other key brain differences. The female brain has a better connection between its left hemisphere, which is involved in speech, and its right hemisphere, which is involved in emotion. (That connective tissue is called the corpus callosum, and females have more of it than we do, in relation to total brain size.) When most women talk, both sides of their brains are activated; men use only their left hemispheres for speech. It's emerging details like this that are leading scientists to theorize that, yes indeed, women seem to have a greater built-in facility for talking about their feelings.

By simply observing little kids' behavior, we get the picture that our differences are innate. A whole slew of psychological studies have gathered data on the habits of preschoolers, and here's a sampling: By age 1, girls make more eye contact than boys do. A couple of years later, the paintings of young girls will almost always contain one or two people; little boys' renderings commonly depict rocket ships, bicycles, and cars. At play, boys were 50 times more competitive over toy sharing, while girls were 20 times more likely to take turns.

Could a horribly sexist culture be to blame for those differences? No -- at least not entirely, says Simon Baron-Cohen, Ph.D., a psychologist at Cambridge University. In multiple studies, he has looked at the amount of testosterone babies are exposed to in the womb, and then looked at them at 12 months, 18 months, 2 years, and 4 years of age.

The results have been startling. The higher the baby's level of fetal testosterone, regardless of gender, the less eye contact the child makes at age 1, and the smaller his or her vocabulary is at 18 months. By age 4, those with the highest fetal-testosterone levels score the lowest on a test of social skills and the highest on a test showing deep interest in a narrow range of topics.

Testosterone in the womb could be the big key to our interests and behavior as adults. "More specifically," Baron-Cohen writes in his latest book, The Essential Difference, "the more you have of this special substance, the more your brain is tuned into systems and the less your brain is tuned into emotional relationships."

There's the taproot of the male condition.

Baron-Cohen has marshaled all this evidence into a grand theory, which he lays out in his book. There are basically two kinds of brains -- the empathizing brain and the systemizing brain. If you have an empathizing brain, you're exquisitely good at understanding how someone else might feel, and furthermore you want to alleviate their distress. You're good at identifying people's inner emotions simply by looking at their facial expressions. (Baron-Cohen and his colleagues have catalogued 412 discrete emotions. Oy.) You're good at relationships, and you maintain those healthy relationships by sharing feelings. And you have a flair for language, so you can express all 412 of those emotions.

If you have a systemizing brain, says Baron-Cohen, you're driven to understand systems -- anything from plumbing fixtures to the NBA rule book, from patent law to the bond market. Systemizers specialize in events with predictable consequences, so that when you act, you can be pretty darn certain of the result. Such systems can take a long time to learn, but if you have a systemizing brain, that doesn't bother you -- you can spend endless hours observing all the details, to the exclusion of everything (and, oops, everybody) else in your life. You're more interested in organizing principles than in the social world. You're good with mechanical things, not people. You cultivate an expertise. And you love sports, because it's a combination of four systems: an organizing system (E-A-G-L-E-S!), a system of rules ("He was nowhere near the end zone!"), a motoric system (" . . . a 43-yard touchdown pass . . . "), and a statistical system (" . . . that keeps their wild-card hopes alive if Green Bay loses, the Falcons win, and the Giants get lost on the way to the Meadowlands!").

In the past, systemizers have been good at tool making, hunting, and trading. Now they're good at engineering, inventing, coaching, computer programming, and leading a corporation along a "critical path" toward "key metrics." In their daily lives, these people tend to be independent, driven, successful individuals who do well in business because of their expertise and their ability to take decisive action. They do well socially not because of their power to empathize, but because they've reduced the pecking order to a system of rules and know how to manipulate their way through it. If they're men, as they often are, they're very attractive to women -- the very same women who, after a few years, wonder why these guys aren't better empathizers.

Sound like anyone you know?

Read the rest of this article.

Tags: masculinity, men, emotions, psychology, Why Men Need to Show Emotion, Men's Health, relationships, women, brain, testosterone, Dan Siegel, autism, boys, neuroscience, amygdala, Simon Baron-Cohen

Omega-3 Boosts Brain Function in Boys

Cool - more evidence that omega-3 fats can improve cognitive function, especially in children. The recommended levels of DHA level are far too low in my opinion, but at least progress is being made in recommending intake of these crucial fats for brain health and development.

Omega-3 Boosts Brain Function in Boys

Posted by Dr. Mercola

The omega-3 fat DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) may alter the function of the brain associated with working memory, according to results of a new study with healthy boys.

Scientists showed, for the first time using neuro-imaging, that supplementation with DHA alters the functional activity in cortical attention networks in humans.

The study follows hot on the heels of backing from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for DHA-related brain and eye health claims for infants. EFSA’s Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA) said DHA levels of 100 mg of per day were appropriate for 7-24 month-old infants, along with 200 mg per day for pregnant and lactating women.

Additionally, supplements of omega-3 fats, vitamins and minerals for prisoners may reduce the number of violent and aggressive episodes, according to another recent study.

Nutritional supplements containing vitamins, minerals, omega-3 and omega-6 fats were associated with a 34 percent reduction in violent incidents, according to findings of a randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled trial with over 200 young adult offenders.

Meanwhile, there was a 14 percent increase in the number of reported violent incidents in participants in a placebo group.

Sources:

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition February 3, 2010 [Epub ahead of print]

Aggressive Behavior March 2010; 36(2):117-26

Tags: boys, brain, health, nutrition, omega-3 fats, DHA, docosahexaenoic acid, education, Dr. Mercola

Shinzen Young - Mature Spirituality

This is a short video from Zen teacher Shinzen Young - toward the end he mentions his conception of mature spirituality - "seeing through the self and world, and improving the self and world" - exactly.

Shinzen talks about working with Feel, Image and Talk from the surface to source, with successive deepenings bringing about insights into no-self as thing, impermanence, and the eventual deepening into the Divine Nothingness, which is talked about in various ways in the contemplative core of all religions. He then shares the "gold standard" of mature spirituality - the complementary nature of "seeing through the self and world, and improving the self and world". Filmed in Nov. 2009 at Mt. Carmel Spiritual Centre in Niagara Falls.

Filed in: maturity, spirituality, compassion, Shinzen Young, Mature Spirituality, gold standard, Divine Nothingness, Zen, Buddhism,

Man Collective - Men Going Beyond Mediocre

Alex Linsley, founder of the Man Collective - Oxford, emailed me and asked for a little exposure here for his cause. Personally, I find it heartening that young men are beginning to take charge of their future and their sense of self. I am happy to give them some exposure here - if there are any American college students reading this blog, contact Alex for how to start your own Man Collective (that's my suggestion, not Alex's).

It seems they have already been getting some attention in England. This article comes from The Guardian - and I'm a little disturbed that they are seen as a problem and not part of the solutiuon.

Rise of male student support groups sparks row at British universities

• Support groups explore masculinity as a concept
• Critics claim societies a front for 'macho activities'

• Caroline Davies
• The Guardian, Monday 23 November 2009

A male student at Oxford University, where he can join MC-O should he wish to explore masculinity with his male peers. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

After decades of feminism, equal rights and "women-only" support networks, a lower, deeper voice is attempting to make itself heard at some of Britain's leading universities.

Male students are "manning-up", setting up men's groups to celebrate and explore the concept of masculinity amid accusations of sexism and gender stereotyping.

Manchester University has created the first official MENS Society – Masculinity Exploring Networking and Support – despite outrage from critics who claim the existence of such a group undermines women's ability to speak out for equality.

Meanwhile, at Oxford University the formation of Man Collective – Oxford (MC-O), launched "as a response to the current state of masculinity" has been branded "reactionary and ridiculous".

Detractors allege they are just a front for macho activities and beer-drinking marathons, but supporters insist they are essential as young men struggle to cope with the pressures of being a man in the modern world.

Alex Linsley, 20, founder of MC-O, said: "There is so much conflicting information for men. There is massive confusion as to what being a man means, and how to be a good man. Should you be the sensitive all-caring, perhaps the 'feminised' man? Or should you be the hard, take no crap from anybody kind of figure?

"Neither of those are particularly useful paradigms. But there's perhaps things we could learn from both perspectives".

Men, who could feel pressured to "man-up" in a mixed gender environment, might feel less vulnerable discussing such issues in a male-only setting.

The Merton college student admits launching his organisation with the testosterone-fuelled invitation – "Have you got balls? Literally. If you have how does that make you feel?" – has drawn stinging criticism.

Given that men already dominate political and economic life, British society didn't need "much more celebration of masculinity," claimed one critic.

Kat Wall, the Oxford University's student union vice president for women, accused him of gender stereotyping but welcomed the debate and hoped he would work with the women's campaign to "facilitate a discussion forum on the issue of masculinity".

But Linsley, an economics and management student who started MC-O after being struck by the number of 18- to 25-year-old males committing suicide in Oxford, has also received positive feedback.

While self-improvement among women was common with magazines bursting with advice, there was little for men, was the message. "Do you expect men to mysteriously find their own way alone?" questioned one supporter on the Cherwell university newspaper website.

"I want to create this forum for men, so men can learn from each other and discuss these issues and make a positive step forward," said Linsley.

In Manchester, the MENS Society, which despite its name has women among its 306 members, claims it highlights not just masculinity issues, but also raises funds and awareness for men's mental health, testicular and prostate cancer as well as male rape and domestic violence issues.

Its campaign for official ratification from the student union's societies committee has provoked furious debate. Originally called the Men's Society, it has now agreed to the MENS compromise. Founder Ben Wild, 21, a politics and modern history student, said he was "relieved that the societies committee has acknowledged the importance and promising benefits of this new society, the first of it's kind in a UK university".

"Why have one? Because so little was being done on raising awareness on issues specific to men, such as male depression, which occurs because they can't live up to this very idealised traditional masculine role," he said.

Such arguments hold little sway with opponents, however.

Olivia Bailey, NUS national women's officer, said: "Discrimination against men on the basis of gender is so unusual as to be non-existent, so what exactly will a men's society do?"

"To suggest that men need a specific space to be 'men' is ludicrous, when everywhere you turn you will find male-dominated spaces," she added.

Caitriona Rylance, chair of Manchester Communist Students, said that while the society now claimed to be about "self-betterment" it's original aims were "Top Gear shows, gadget fairs, beer-drinking marathons and Iron Man competitions".

Wild responded: "There has been so much false information peddled. I'm teetotal, and our first event was a sober pub crawl. And we've compromised on our beard-growing contests to make it more inclusive."

Professor Marilyn Davidson, an expert in diversity and equality at the Manchester Business School said: "It is interesting that this is happening. And there is an obvious need. One of the problems men have is that they don't have the support networks when they are under stress that women do.

"If we were talking about business and all-male clubs, they were the gatekeepers who were stopping women entering. But I don't think these groups are doing that. It's not us against them. It's just about supporting each other."

Patrick Leman, from Royal Holloway University of London, said: "In some senses it is to be welcomed, because it is good that young men reflect on who they are and what they should be doing. That sort of reflected self-awareness is not something that is particularly associated with men. But I went to Oxford, and it could, of course, just turn into another awful drinking society."

However, Martin Daubney, 39, editor of the lads' magazine Loaded, was contemptuous. "I don't think men are remotely confused about what it takes to be a man. They just get on and do it. My generation would not sit round and build a website about being confused. It's complete navel-gazing bullshit."

WOW! I thought men trying to be conscious faced an uphill battle in America - we have it easy compared to the spite and ignorance represented in this article.

I wish women could understand that they are the ones who benefit most from men getting their shit together and creating a balanced masculinity - a masculinity that is manly, but is also in touch with its feelings, that is spiritual and is spending time sweating in the gym.

This is from the Man Collective site (they also have a blog):

We believe guys should go beyond mediocrity and live the lives they dream of. Society has been tolerating mediocrity for too long – we offer guys the opportunity to connect honestly together over what is truly important to them. Through having relationships with other men that are this honest, this significant and this moving, each man involved can go out into the world and unleash his true potential and contribution.

How does that work? Guys getting real with each other and sharing themselves. This is not navel-gazing. This is called “cutting the bullsh*t”. We’ve been well-trained by society to hide ourselves, keep a lid on things, and pretend everything’s “fine”. We’ve also been trained to label this as being manly. Man Collective stands for boldly insightful relationships between men. Whether that’s shouting, joking, teasing, confronting, reasoning or inspiring, these relationships allow new levels of honesty and commitment to each other that is joyous in its own right, and sets guys on fire to go and create what they want in life.

We’re not a support group or a drinking society. We will listen with real empathy and will call a man on the bullshit he has been creating. We stand for profoundly great men making a powerful, loving impact on the world.

We hope you are inspired to join us on this journey. This is not for everyone. But we know there are those of you who are sick of putting on a brave face and keeping quiet about the status quo – in your lives, and in the world. Our planet will be a better place for it.

Our Best,

Alex Linsley & Marc Quinn

Man Collective

P.S. Ladies, yes, this is for men only. We do want to work with you to bring equality between us both. While we recognize we are equal, we do not believe our relationships are the same. We believe men need different spaces to be called into dropping the social mask, and being the best we are capable of.

P.P.S. That said, we do want to develop some co-ed work. We want women to engage in the same practice of getting real. We want you want to create this with us. Alex is actively seeking women who are inspired to be a part of this journey – email him: alex@mancollective.co.uk for more.

If you live in England, they are planning a gathering for men who want to step and make themselves better, and in doing so, make the world a better place.

Discovering, Connecting and Inspiring UK Men’s Work

Where: London (venue tbc)

When: 27th March, 2010

With: The Best You Can Offer (…and a mate!)

The Gathering has been established from our excitement to connect men involved in men’s work across the UK. We welcome any man committed to offering other men greater possibilities in the ways they live – through whatever means. We see great potential arising from understanding what it is we all value and the impact we aim to have. Bring your ideas, inspiration and integrity.

Check out the video below to understand why we’re curious and excited by the potential we’re experiencing.

The Gathering Invitation

Tags: men, masculinity, men's groups, culture, stereotypes, Man Collective, Men Going Beyond Mediocre, Oxford, Alex Linsley, Marc Quinn, spirituality, psychology, personal growth, self knowledge, The Guardian, MC-O, The Gathering

Andrew Peterson - True Manhood . . .

A reader sent me a link to his post at The Next Ten Minutes: Everyday Mindfulness. It is a nice look at the dilemmas of manhood and masculinity, and the struggle to redefine sexuality outside of the cultural stereotypes..

Here is a piece of the article, in which he looks at a series of posts by a man dealing with the aftermath of prostate cancer.

So why should I be so irritated reading a man openly discussing his experience with erectile dysfunction in the aftermath of cancer? I keep telling myself I should be grateful. It’s enough that someone is writing about it at all.

But then I read passages like this:

We founder in a mere surface culture of smirk, snark and innuendo. The greedy objectification of the body — in both women and men — accelerates, speeding so fast that the objections can’t even be heard over the roar of the mass media.

We are told to worship washboard abs and Everest biceps, improbably perky breasts and buns of titanium. It sometimes seems that every image spewed forth by the electronic media resonates with just one unsubtle subtext: sex.

The florid, non-sensical prose is bad enough. But the real mystery is how such truisms can be successfully passed of as insight. Decades ago, when feminist writers described these same phenomenon, it was revolutionary.Today it is received wisdom. Except when a man says it. When a man recites a pat description of the objectification of male sexuality, we stand up and (take a look at the comments following the piece) applaud.

Do we really give ourselves so little credit? Honestly, the cultural objectification of male sexuality pales in comparison to the cultural infantilization of men’s emotional capacity. Men are seen (and we tend to see ourselves) as emotional children. We are so pathetic, so emotionally incapacitated, that stating the obvious is the best we can manage.

As men we discount our own capacity when we buy into this narrative. We sacrifice our legitimate need to tell the harder truths about the pain and loss (and the consequent aggression and violence) that is woven into masculinity. And, inevitably, we retreat back into justifying and reinforcing the very stereotypes of masculinity that are the source of the problems in the first place.

Yes, my erectile function is still a work in progress, but I don’t feel diminished; I don’t feel that I’m less of a man. My voice is still as deep as a well, my eyes a steely blue. I still relish a strong stout, and I can hold forth on the arcane points of the safety blitz. (Though sometimes I am tempted to say, “It’s O.K., ladies, I’m harmless.”)

There is the dilemma of masculinity in a single paragraph.The sexualization and objectification of masculinity that Jennings was complaining about a few sentences earlier are in fact embedded within his defense of his own masculinity. He buys into the very concepts he claims he is trying to shuck off. Either we are John Wayne, dangerous behind our steely eyes, or we are Richard Simmons…emasculated…”harmless.” It’s one or the other.

The hard truth is that we have barely begun to do the work of imagining and creating a model of masculinity that transcends these tremendously damaging categories. Whatever “true manhood” may prove to be, it’s not this nicey-nice and spurious version of male emotional experience.

Libido comes and goes at odd hours, like a child home on a college break. But curiously, I feel that the life my wife, Deb, and I lead is more intimate than ever. I was the one who was sick, but we peered into the bleak chasms of cancer together. As I was buffeted by diagnosis, treatment and the aftermath, she was my advocate, my confidante, my unwavering caregiver. And everything she did was suffused by her love for me.

It was an intimacy beyond words. And believe me, I have a lot to live up to if the time comes for me to care for Deb.

True intimacy isn’t about the hydraulics of the flesh. It’s the smell of a certain shampoo in the hair, a passing touch in the kitchen, the taste of cold blueberry soup on a hot summer day, the gentle nostalgia of “Aja” by Steely Dan, and your heart melting at the sight of your wife of 28 years sound asleep after midnight — the murmur of HGTV having lulled her to slumber.

To start with, Jennings badly mis-defines the word intimacy. Intimacy is shared vulnerability, and that can take many forms. But intimacy is not the smell of a shampoo, it is not a passing touch, it is not a taste or a sound. That is called familiarity. He is right about one thing: true intimacy is not entirely about “the hydraulics of the flesh.” But he uses this point to obscure an equally important corollary point: that the hydraulics of the flesh permit a particular sort of intimacy which cannot be achieved in any other way.

That doesn’t mean that other forms of intimacy can’t be as deep as sexual intimacy. They are simply different.

Read the whole article.

Tags: masculinity, sexuality, manhood, intimacy, relationships, Andrew Peterson, True Manhood, prostate cancer, erectile dysfunction, The Next Ten Minutes, sex, culture, stereotypes

Shawn Phillips - In Defense of a Man’s Life

Nice post from Shawn's Start Strong Monday blog. Shawn knows his stuff, so pay attention - and if you want to really transform your life, get his book, Strength for Life: The Fitness Plan for the Rest of Your Life.

In Defense of a Man’s Life

Tue, Mar 9, 2010

This day, like all days, awaits your best. It’s on your side—pulling for you to show up strong and seize it.

Carpe Diem!

But rather than stoke your body and mind for a day of noble dragon slaying, you rush out the door under assault by a cesspool of stress hormones.

Your day of super-hero like performance is not to be. Rather than a gripping, “Boom, Zap, Kapow…” your day is more, “Fizzle, snizzle, flip, flop.”

Let the follies begin.

This is not some mythic fable, it’s the story of your life. At the start of each day you get choose the story; what will it be today? A tragedy, a comedy or a triumphant story of success?

How Do You Rise Up?

When faced with a fresh, vibrant, limitless day, most people wake up and promptly kick the day square in the nuts.

They disrespect the gift of the day and themselves, shunting their potential, triggering weakness and compromise only to find themselves increasingly frustrated and baffled by the lack of achievement and satisfaction.

This is a common story in people who suffer from the false belief that their mind is the master, their body the servant. One the pilot, the other a passenger—good to the degree that it serves. This belief results in treating your body like it is “The Giving Tree,” (Shel Silverstein’s timeless children’s story) as you mindlessly take, take, take from it what you need to fulfill your desires.

What most don’t see—often until it’s too late—is that your body is actually setting the rules, however silently. And just like The Giving Tree, it has increasingly fewer resources to share until one day it’s all gone. Empty. No matter how deeply we long to continue giving, we’re just a stump—nothing left to give.

The Disease of the Modern Day Warrior

When you disrespect your body this way, your energy evaporates, mind fogs and confidence crashes. You’re not just setting yourself back for the day; you’re hammering your manhood, vitality and life.

This is the perfect formula for the silent epidemic that’s decimating the Strength and vitality of the modern-day warrior, the driven “Type-A” man: Lifestyle Induced Hormone Suppression.

What is Lifestyle Induced Hormone Suppression or “LIHS”? Not to be overly simplistic, but it’s just as it says, a Lifestyle—or “way of living”—that is negatively impacting the positive, life-sustaining hormonal expression of your body and gradually draining your energy, vitality and life.

It’s a lifestyle that regularly includes too much stress, too little sleep, too little intense exercise, and poor nutrition practices like too many sugars and simple carbs, alcohol, too few quality proteins, too little healthy fat. In other words, it’s the most common lifestyle of the American man. Hence, the reason why it’s been estimated that nearly 80% of adult American men suffer varying degrees of LIHS.

Although it does tend to arise with age, aging it is not.

While men in their 20’s are often doing nearly everything possible to suppress their natural testosterone and growth hormone they have a “momentum of youth” that allows them to get away with it. Most are able to resist any serious decline well into their 30’s but come late 30’s to 40+, if your lifestyle is pushing your manliness into the cellar, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.

Are You Feeling It?

If you’re a man in your 30’s, 40’s or beyond, it’s likely happening to you at this very moment. As you read these words your body is quietly stockpiling fat, divesting lean muscle, losing strength and your energy is plummeting like a stock early recession.

Men typically will not even consider the inevitable demise of their body and loss of their prime until they cross the “big 4-0.” By the time the harsh reality sets in, the decline has been gaining momentum for the better part of a decade.

Are You Needlessly Tolerating Any of These Symptoms?

• Gradual weight gain, especially around the midsection
• Drop in energy levels after lunch or late afternoons
• Frequent cravings for snacks, sweets or other junk food
• A disappointing or declining sex life (hoping Viagra can change this)
• A reliance on coffee to get you going and more to keep you going
• Lack of energy to share when you get home from work
• You feel like you’ve aged 3 years in the last 19 months

For millions of guys this daily tragedy and needless suffering has been accepted as the price to get ahead. But you’re paying a high-price: your job performance, your relationships and your physical well-being and energy to enjoy life are all compromised. Precisely what you don’t want when it’s your time to “make it happen.”

Unfortunately, it’s common for a man to confuse these symptoms of LIHS with the natural course of aging. It doesn’t help that your well-meaning doctor is likely to support this mistaken belief. Pharmaceutical propaganda helps condition us all, doctors included, to expect and accept that these symptoms are to be expected—and ideally resolved with a handy-dandy prescription.

In typical reactive thinking “logic,” the type that would “treat” a leaky pipe with bucket to catch the water (rather than fixing the leak), medicine loves symptoms for; A) they seem like the real problem and B) one root cause can—and usually does—produce dozens, to hundreds of symptoms.

The drug makers eagerly await your decline with a myriad of symptom solutions—like the mega-billion dollar business of ED drugs, Viagra and Cialis. Push your hormones down long enough and Viagra is going to be your best friend, but reality is, even when it helps you’re still only treating a symptom, not the source. You may be able to get it up, but there’s something much more important, much deeper that’s missing—your drive, the true sense of your vitality.

The latest way men are getting their “mojo” back is found in the growing business of “after market enhancement” or Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), which includes various methods for getting testosterone, and in some cases growth hormone, back to optimal levels.

Now, I’m all for a man being a man—and there’s an argument to be made for making sure you’re running on a “man scale” but fact is you can’t know if, or what you need, when your lifestyle has artificially suppressed your hormones for years or even decades.

You Don’t Have To Accept This Gradual Emasculation

You’re not one to sit around and let life give you an “ass-whipping,” right? Good, listen up. I’m here to tell you, there’s no reason for you to settle for premature life ejaculation. You can stop the slide and start growing younger, stronger and leaner every day.

A cliché, but true nonetheless: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure—nowhere is this more accurate then when it comes to enjoying a life-enhancing lifestyle that keeps your body, mind and hormones soaring at levels a decade less your age.

You can get your energy back, regain your strength and vitality, and reawaken your drive for life, from the inside out. And you can do this simply, safely and relatively quickly without dangerous drugs or medical intervention.

The solution I’m talking about requires no injections, no testosterone boosters or taking a complex array of nutrients to stimulate growth hormones. Rather, the answer is in working from the top-down—resolving with the source, your body’s “master control switch.” Master it, restore the balance and your body, and your hormones, will naturally begin to restore to full strength.

I’d like to tell you it’s more complex than this—and of course, on a cellular level it is. It’s the way systems work, dealing with symptoms can get complex but the closer you are to source, the leaky pipe, the simpler the solution tends to be—plug the hole.

NEXT ISSUE: Mastering Your Body’s Master Control

In the next issue I’ll reveal your body’s master control switch and how to quickly, efficiently get it working to help you lose fat, gain muscle, and reboot your strength and vitality—to get your hop, skip and leap back and return to Life @ Full Strength!

I’m looking forward to sharing this life-transforming “miracle” with you—even though it’s anything but a miracle. While it may not be a shocking secret, you’ll find the mechanism and results shocking.

Tags: health, body, mind, spirituality, fitness, Shawn Phillips, In Defense of a Man’s Life, Start Strong Monday, Lifestyle Induced Hormone Suppression, hormones, vitality, energy

Revolutionary Man - Men And Rage

Jayson offers an interesting post of the topic of rage. He makes some good points. However, I have a slightly different take, which I'll discuss below.

Men And Rage

Mon, Mar 8, 2010

Photo by F. Montino (creative commons)

When you think of you and rage, what comes to mind? Do you picture yourself smashing cars with a baseball bat like I do? Or do you immediately think “I don’t get angry or enraged, that’s just not me.”

Have you personally ever felt rage? Homicidal rage? Rage at a lover? The world? The “system?” or whatever?

And, when you add the two elements of rage + men, what comes to mind? It is common to think the worst. Criminals, rapists, murderers, war, and extreme forms of violence. Rage often kills, destroys, and damages people and things.

I think that we can agree that most forms of rage are hurtful and beyond hurtful.

However, I want to introduce another slant on rage. This is the rage-reframe that you and the world needs. I need and want your rage.

What is Rage?

First, what is rage exactly and where does it come from?

Without jumping into a thesis on rage and the human brain, here are a few basic aspects of rage. Think of rage as a geyser. Let’s say anger is near the surface, maybe it’s the steam, the boiling water, the heat. Rage on the other hand, comes from deep down within the geyser. Rage is “superheated” and can cause a great deal of damage.

Rage is commonly brought on by fear–a threat to some part of yourself. When you are threatened, your brain instantly reacts with a fight, flight, or freeze response. Rage can also be a reaction to protect deep, deep shame. (Read more about the biochemistry of rage here).

Why is my rage wanted/needed?

As I said before, I need and want your rage. You might be thinking WTF? Rage equals violence, no way. Rage only hurts.

While it is true that rage has caused much of the devastation around the globe since the invention of agriculture, and we can safely assume, largely at the hands of men, a new kind of rage is needed. Call it “conscious rage” or as my friend Christiane Pelmas calls it “rage-in-service-of-life.”

Christiane writes in her ReWilding blog:

Men are responsible for egregious violence against life. It has been this way for at least four millennia. Yet in order for something different to arise men must cultivate a functional relationship with the very emotion responsible for so much of the violence. They must be reacquainted with their rage, allowing it to come out of the shadows and take its place alongside the (only slightly) more accepted emotions of love and grief.

A man’s rage is a powerful portal back to the deepest heart connection he has with the world and with himself. We need masculine rage-in-service-of-life as desperately as we need rain forests, clean oceans, mountaintops, and wild-flowing unobstructed rivers.

I could not agree more. We men must own our rage and use it for the greater good. Otherwise, your stuffed rage, or your buddy’s sloppy rage will cause harm, period. Moreover, if you have not dealt with your own rage, chances are you won’t be that helpful with anyone else’s.

From my experience as a former wilderness therapy counselor and psychotherapist with very enraged teenagers and men, and struggling with my own rage, I learned a few things about this volatile emotion.

The current approach to rage

Because men have little to no training in regards to expression of anger and rage, and because most men are scared of their emotional world, they typically respond to rage in one of two ways:

1. The Nice Guy—This is usually the first tactic men use. Don’t go there. Just bottle it up. You might hurt someone or get hurt. Fake a smile and act like everything’s fine.

2. The Spaz—Once a man realizes he’s tired of being nice, or he can no longer contain such a strong emotion, it bleeds out. Scream, yell, fight, attack, and defend. Largely, because these men have no training, they act like a hurt infant and throw a tantrum.

Both of these approaches have one thing in common–FEAR. Fear is the foundation of unconscious, dissociated rage. So long as fear is on board, you will likely cause harm. See diagram below.

Likewise, the culture responds in one of two ways: 1) by egging rage on, (screaming fans at a fight) or 2) shutting it down with anger management. Conventional anger management essentially means you receive tools to help you further suppress your rage and anger.

To feel rage is to be human. All of us have felt rage at some point from infancy onward. It is human to feel shame, to feel threatened, and to want to defend yourself. The animal part of our brain acts like an animal for a reason–so we can survive. But the neocortex, or front part of our brain, comes in with some form of social conditioning such as “it’s not okay to express rage.” Thus rage becomes compounded and pressurized.

We all know that if feeling rage means you are human, it does not give you the right to uncork it and explode on a stranger, a co-worker, or a lover.

Remember, when you stuff your anger and rage over and over and you then add the stress of a failing marriage, a long day at the office, money issues, and you lack the tools to deal, a mundane event such as a person cutting you off on the highway or driving too slow in “your” lane, can trigger a massive outburst which can lead to real harm.

I personally stuffed my anger and rage for so long that when I would drink too much in college and someone rubbed me the wrong way, I would blow a gasket and go ape shit. My stuffed rage would explode out of me resulting in fights, verbal assaults, and other behavior that had me feeling a great deal of shame the following days and weeks.

But isn’t anger okay for men to express?

On the other hand, men in this culture seem to be “somewhat allowed” to express anger, and even rage. Especially if it’s finger pointing, blame, and fighting. Watch sports, TV reality shows, far-right or far-left politics. Men are often encouraged to “fight it out.” And if you don’t fight, you can be seen as too feminine, or gay.

And if no one ever taught you how to work with your anger/rage, you will likely respond as you did as a young infant boy; kick, scream, throw a tantrum, or shut down. (Sadly, if a woman gets enraged and shows it consciously or unconsciously, she’s labeled a psycho bitch).

Bottom line for men? You are left with a contradictory message. Stuff it and play nice or intimidate and bully by throwing a tantrum. So even while men have more “permission” to show anger/rage, the contradictory message promotes suppression, confusion, and perhaps eventually violence.

What is the alternative?

Since these two choices suck, I suggest a third.

When you step back from most unconscious rage experiences and think with your heart, from a place of compassion, there is another way.

Conscious Rage–The revolutionary approach to rage

Rage sitting on top of love will simply have a different impact.

As Christiane invites, what if your rage was a powerful portal back to your heart connection with yourself and the world? What if you could use your rage as a lightning rod for transformation, peace, justice, and “right-action?” What if you felt safe enough to really go there and express your rage in a conscious way?

I am suggesting we acknowledge that we have anger and/or rage and that we can use that energy for the greater good. In other words, begin to form a conscious relationship to your rage. While you are at it, do this with all of your emotions.

Try it on that it is actually possible to feel your rage fully and not cause any harm to yourself or anyone else. How? By loving.

So, hopefully your brain is confused by now and you are open to doing rage and anger differently.

And, if you are one of those guys who claims, “I just don’t get angry.” Try it on that you are not connected to your own anger or rage and in turn, you are lacking life force. Anger and rage can be a gateway back to your personal power, passion, and the life force that can inspire you and others to make a difference.

Go read the rest of this post at the Revolutionary Man blog to see Jayson's suggestions for how to deal with rage.

OK, my position is that rage is NOT a natural emotion - it is what happens when we spend years and years of our lives stuffing down anger and hurt rather allowing the feelings to move through us and dissipate as they will if we do not stuff them down.

But we have been socialized not to have feelings most of the time, and many of us have been taught not to get angry, even though anger IS a natural and healthy emotion - as long as it not expressed as physical or emotional violence.

When we also stuff down our hurt, it connects with anger over time (because we get angry at some level that we cannot express our hurt) and the result is rage.

Rage feels very different than anger. Anger knows boundaries, and can express itself in words. Rage, on the other hand, does not know boundaries and often is pre-verbal in its expression. Rage is anger + hurt, and it is often beyond our ability to control it when it comes up, which can result in violence.

Although my take is different than Jayson's, I do recommend that interested readers go back to his blog for some good suggestions for how to work with rage.

Tags: men's health, personal development, psychology, self-knowledge, Revolutionary Man, Jayson Gaddis, Men And Rage, men, masculinity, anger, emotions, rage, hurt