In Praise of Cuddling

At the risk of being seen as something less than manly, I want to write in praise of cuddling. This post builds on yesterday's Robert Masters article, but in a more personal way. NOTE: this is going to be a personal article, so if you don't want to know this kind of stuff, go read ESPN.com or something.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert, but I have been working on some of these things for many years. And I know that most men claim that cuddling is a chore, an obligation to get some sex. I call bullshit on that.

Okay, then, Masters said a couple of things I want to repeat:

Connect Before, During, and After Sex

Instead of trying to find connection through sex with your partner, come to sex already connected — that is, already feeling intimate — with your partner. If you don’t feel close to your partner, don’t then go for sex, but rather mutually face and work through whatever’s obstructing your closeness with each other.

If you start to lose connection during sex — as can happen when we slip into fantasy or try to make things go a certain way — interrupt whatever you’re doing sexually, and let your partner know what is going on with you, and stay with it until you are both reconnected, even if this means not resuming your lovemaking. This is not about shaming or blaming, but about simply changing gears.

Staying connected after sex does not mean dutifully trying to be close, but rather making your connection with each other such a priority that you are held in the circle of each other’s loving embrace, even when that circle expands infinitely.

And this . . .

For men, it is crucial that they contact and fully embody their core adult masculinity, reclaiming their balls without losing touch with their heart, so that they are simultaneously capable of great erotic presence and equally great tenderness. As he becomes more fully present, more strongly anchored in love, integrity, and his essential masculinity, he becomes not only more trustworthy to his partner, but also more attractive, so that she can open more fully to him, with the result that their lovemaking becomes much, much more than just a mechanical ritual or exercise.
___

The polarity between being-centered partners can be mind-blowingly great, since it hypervividly highlights (and simultaneously celebrates) the differences between male and female in every dimension — which only increases the longing, the enormously rich longing, for the two to meet as deeply as they possibly can.

Both of these quotes relate to what I want to write about . . . namely, cuddling.

Jami and I cuddle a lot. I like it as much as she does. And unlike many men, I do not see it as a chore, an obligation, or as boring. It's a major part of how we maintain intimacy in our relationship.

The first Masters quote above talks about maintaining intimacy before, during, and after sex. Cuddling is a great way to do that. If we have felt distant during the week because of work, my school work, or whatever, we cuddle before even thinking about having sex.

The second Masters quote is about sexual polarity - and when he talks about this part of our lives, it's a hell of a lot more integral than anything David Deida might write. Masters wants men to embody their full, mature masculinity, and you know what? We can do this when we cuddle with our partner.

When I hold Jami, she surrenders into my body, and she says she can feel my love for her in my touch. When I hold her, I feel protective, embodied, present, and masculine. Rather than making me more feminine, cuddling makes me feel more manly and more masculine. She feels more feminine, more contained, more safe. Our polarity is activated in a profound way, and having that energy contributes to the passion of our sex lives.

The key here, of course, is being present with each other, being in the moment. If we are thinking about work, or sports, or school, or whatever, we are not present and we will not create the intimacy and polarity that is possible. When we are present, we are open and vulnerable and our hearts are tender and warm.

My strength as a man comes from sharing the tenderness and love that is in my heart, while also acting as a container for those shared feelings, and owning my masculine power. When I can do this, it allows Jami to embrace her feminine power, to be contained in our love, to be more open.

So men, my challenge to you is try this in your relationship. Be powerful, be passionate, be present, be tender - and do it while you cuddle, with sex not being on the agenda for a while. The more you can do this, the better your sex life will be when you do go in that direction.

Tags: masculinity, relationships, polarity, sexuality, In Praise of Cuddling, Robert Masters, presence

Robert Augustus Masters - Some Suggestions for Sex in Intimate Relationship

Robert Augustus Masters is perhaps the best and widely unknown integral psychotherapist working. Others talk a great game, but Masters is the real deal. In this article from his most recent newsletter, he talks about sex and intimacy, an issue all of us can be better at in our relationships.

You'll want to pay attention to this - here you get the truth, the "talk" our fathers should have given us. If you can learn these skill, your partner will be begging to have more sex with you.

SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR SEX IN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP

1. Open Your Eyes

Be conscious before sex, during sex, and after sex. Open your eyes to whatever is going on during sex besides the erotic; do not pull away to thus see, but let your looking be as intimate as it is focused. Stay present, stay vital, and stay committed to being fully engaged with each other. If you see or feel yourself and/or your partner getting mechanical, step in, interrupt, and redirect the energetic flow, making your connection with each other more important than any sexual payoff.

Have enough light in the room — a single candle may be enough — to be able to see each other’s eyes. For at least some of the time, keep eye contact with each other, letting your gaze be open, relaxed, and present. Sometimes during orgasm, keep full eye-contact, allowing yourself total vulnerability and freedom of expression. At times when you gaze into each other’s eyes, you will see only personality; other times, you will see far more; and sometimes you will see everything. Let it be.

When sex becomes an ecstatically intimate, wide-awake loving, we will find ourselves in a depth at once familiar and beyond all description, a depth inviting us to walk through it hand in hand, hearts as one, minds but pure space, our flesh but energy fluctuating between electrifyng joy and unshakable peace. Open eyes.

2. Stop Making Orgasm So Important

Orgasm tends to be as overrated as it is misunderstood.

First of all, orgasm is not necessarily equivalent to ecstasy. It is often not anything more than the pleasurable rupturing and dissolution of erotic buildup, having more to do with a craved maximizing of erotic sensation than with genuine sexual intimacy. When orgasm follows sex that was primarily engaged in for the purpose of making us feel better, then it is mostly just pleasurable release, however intense it might be. Orgasm is ecstatic when sex is ecstatic, and sex is only ecstatic when we come to it already loose and happy, already open and unpressured, already unburdened by any craving to have something special occur. (By ecstasy, I mean an intensification and expansion of happiness, not situational happiness — or the kind of happiness that depends on something in particular occurring, like winning a load of money — but the happiness that is inherent to Being.)

We cannot stimulate ourselves into ecstasy, even through the most intensely arousing sexual rituals or practices. The very peak of sexual excitation positions us for the release for which we’ve been aching, the thrilling discharge of whatever tension that we may have sexually generated. Orgasm, the promised payoff, the eruption of the peak, the Big Moment, the little death, the all-too-brief break from mental chatter, the sleeping pill par excellence, and so on — but with whatever we might associate it, orgasm is not necessarily ecstasy. If what precedes orgasm is less than ecstatic, then orgasm is at best but a bolt or flood of intense pleasure, a few waves of delicious thrill, very soon to be but a cul-de-sac of quickly spent excitation.

Ecstasy is not addictive. Only when we have turned away from ecstasy do we get addictive, creating dependency-relationships with whatever promises to deliver to us some relatively convincing semblance of ecstasy. In the absence of ecstasy, eroticism holds immense appeal, with orgasm being its star attraction.

When sex is ecstatically loving, orgasm is not discontinuous with what precedes it, but rather is an explosively felt intensification of full-bodied mutual happiness, an overwhelmingly blissful explosion throughout our entire being, streaming, rushing, and expanding with delicious force and abandon as if from our very core, pouring and flooding up through our heart (sometimes even beginning there), both enveloping and expanding our body from the inside out, until we are but sentient energy in profoundly loving, indescribably intimate communion with our partner. Orgasm as such is inherently rejuvenating.

Typical orgasm, however, is very different. In men, it does not rejuvenate, but rather only drains (and here I’m talking about orgasm which includes ejaculation), regardless of its intensity. Orgasm for men is often no more than a discharge of excess or built-up energy, an emptying of tension, a pleasure-spasm soon followed by enervation and a dulling drowsiness. Orgasm cannot enliven us if love is not present, and nor can it fill the whole body if there is any holding back, physical or emotional or otherwise, anywhere in us. Even at the moment of ejaculation, many men (especially in me-centered relationships) tend to control themselves, repressing their vulnerability, merely emptying themselves of their desire, no longer pumping any energy into a display of apparent intimacy. By not remaining heart-open and emotionally naked, they force the energy of orgasm to dissipate itself in their legs, pelvis, and head, thereby sedating their system.

Typical orgasm drains women in a different way. Its soporific or stress discharging effect may still be present, but is usually not so strong or central as is an underlying dissatisfaction, a suddenly naked sense of emotional and perhaps also spiritual loneliness, which may lead to a longing for either more distraction (sexual and otherwise), or for some real intimacy. The pleasure and relief of orgasm may mask this, but usually not for long.

Don’t try for bigger or better orgasms. Rather, do the necessary work to go into sex already loving, vital, and vulnerable. Make connection with your partner priority. Get naked and stay naked. Allow your sexual times with your partner to be not orgasm-aimed, but rather orgasmic, moment to-moment sensually and sexually lovingly alive. Don’t go for orgasms; let them come to you, and when they do, give yourself wholly over to them, even as you invite your partner into the heart of your joy.

3. Let the Whole Relationship Be Foreplay

In me-centered relationships, foreplay is a job, a preliminary, a warmup, a preparatory ritual, more often than not mechanical. In we-centered relationships, foreplay is still mostly a job, but is delivered with more care, being more of a mutually connected undertaking.

In being-centered relationships, by contrast, foreplay ceases to be a separate or preliminary practice. The whole relationship is foreplay. Each conversation, each touch, each greeting, each challenge, in some way keeps the juices flowing. There is no effort to be erotic, no turn-on strategies, no manipulation — but there is great passion, effortless and often instantaneous arousal, and a deep capacity for mutual ecstasy, unburdened by any pressure to get sexual.

The relationship during sex is the very same relationship outside of sex, lit by the same deep recognition of each other. Such profoundly loving recognition is the foundation for the deepest sex of all.

4. Be Emotionally Naked

Take off more than your clothes. Don’t just settle for bare flesh meeting bare flesh. Get wet, and not just physically. The more open you and your partner are emotionally, the deeper and more life-giving the sex. Be emotionally naked, and show it. Don’t just say “I love you” dutifully or mechanically — say it (assuming that it is natural to say it at the time) from your core, sensing and expressing the essential significance of each word.

Get vulnerable and stay vulnerable. This is especially important for us men; if we do not allow ourselves to be vulnerable, then only part of us — mostly cranial and penile — will be participating. If we truly want depth, then we need to leave the shallow end of the pool, without necessarily knowing what we’ll encounter as we venture forth.

Get your heart into being fully vulnerable; there is not a more powerful aphrodisiac than mutual full-blooded and totally unguarded love. When your heart is open and your belly is loose and your voice unrestricted, the energy that has built up in your genitals can flood upward through your belly into your heart, throat, skull, and beyond. The more emotionally open you are, the deeper your sexual experience will be.

Feeling and expressing an unqualified, emotionally naked yes! for your partner, along with a simultaneously arising gratitude and wild yet love-centered lust, enlivens the whole body and more, so that when sex gets going, its palette is our entire self.

5. Increase the Polarity

Assuming that there’s already a deeply shared intimacy, the more male he is, the more female she will be, and vice versa. It is easy (and not uncommon!) to get more androgynous as we journey more fully into our spirituality; this may be fine when we’re doing solitary practice or are in professional mode at work, but not so fine when it comes to our intimate relationship.

For men, it is crucial that they contact and fully embody their core adult masculinity, reclaiming their balls without losing touch with their heart, so that they are simultaneously capable of great erotic presence and equally great tenderness. As he becomes more fully present, more strongly anchored in love, integrity, and his essential masculinity, he becomes not only more trustworthy to his partner, but also more attractive, so that she can open more fully to him, with the result that their lovemaking becomes much, much more than just a mechanical ritual or exercise.

As women contact and embody their core adult femininity, bringing a deeply centered power to their heartfulness, they become more capable of opening fully; and at the same time, their inner radar will be so clear that any shift in their partner will be immediately obvious to them. If he, for example, loses some presence or gets a bit mechanical or goal-oriented during sex, she will call this to his attention without hesitation, giving him the gift of her compassion, however strongly she might deliver it.

There can be great polarity between immature lovers, but it is mostly just a polarity of sensation (as well as being poorly grounded). Upping the stimulation can produce enough erotic tension to set off some powerful orgasms — but so what? A juicy fire — lots of heat, but usually not much light or genuine closeness. Intense sensation, however pleasurable, is not really all that satisfying, for it leaves out too much of us.

The polarity between being-centered partners can be mind-blowingly great, since it hypervividly highlights (and simultaneously celebrates) the differences between male and female in every dimension — which only increases the longing, the enormously rich longing, for the two to meet as deeply as they possibly can.

There’s an indescribably sweet aching in this, for both lovers are keenly aware of how short their time is together, and the more intensely vivid the polarity between them, the more powerful and satisfying and illuminating their encounter.

6. Don’t Separate Sex from the Rest of Your Relationship

What we do sexually may seem very different from what we do in the rest of our relationship, but it is in fact simply a reflection, however energetically magnified, of our overall relationship. What is not working in our relationship will show up in our sex life, no matter how much our sex life may seem to be a “solution” to or escape from the rest of our relationship. Once we stop trying to isolate our sexual relationship from the rest of our relationship — and deal skillfully with whatever’s not working there — we become more conscious during sex, so that it becomes not only a time of deeply felt connection, erotic and otherwise, but also a time of discovering, uncovering, and recovering.

7. Connect Before, During, and After Sex

Instead of trying to find connection through sex with your partner, come to sex already connected — that is, already feeling intimate — with your partner. If you don’t feel close to your partner, don’t then go for sex, but rather mutually face and work through whatever’s obstructing your closeness with each other.

If you start to lose connection during sex — as can happen when we slip into fantasy or try to make things go a certain way — interrupt whatever you’re doing sexually, and let your partner know what is going on with you, and stay with it until you are both reconnected, even if this means not resuming your lovemaking. This is not about shaming or blaming, but about simply changing gears.

Staying connected after sex does not mean dutifully trying to be close, but rather making your connection with each other such a priority that you are held in the circle of each other’s loving embrace, even when that circle expands infinitely.

Tags: masculinity, sexuality, relationships, intimacy, Robert Augustus Masters, Some Suggestions for Sex in Intimate Relationship, Crucible of Awakening, psychology, spirituality, integral psychotherapy

Revolutionary Man Leadership Training

Here's your chance to work with Jayson and other dedicated men in defining and achieving your highest purpose.

The Revolutionary Man Leadership training is a program that will put you on your “edge,” where all true learning takes place out of your comfort zone. You’ll be challenged, confronted, celebrated and seen. Prepare to live: really live. Without risk – the guts, there is no reward – the glory. Jayson helps you get there. ----Jeffrey Wolfe, 45, College professor/Oriental medical doctor

Attention: Smart, motivated, evolving guys who are ready to truly explore what is possible…

Revolutionary Man Leadership
Training

Get On It & Apply!! 16 Spots Now Open
Price Goes Up November 1, 2009

“Are You Ready To Man Up
And Take Your Life To The Next Level
By Going Through An Intense Rite of Passage
That Will Push You, Wake You Up, And Inspire You
To Live Into Your Full Potential As a Man?”

More details and sign up at the Revolutionary Man site.

Tags: men's groups, masculinity, leadership, Jayson Gaddis, Revolutionary Man Leadership Training

Salvo - Girly Men: The Media's Attack on Masculinity

I find it interesting that the only people who seem to be concerned with the "war on masculinity" are those on the political right. I don't quite want to use the same terms they use, since I think the notion of war only applies to the most radical of radical feminists - those who think that men are a waste of oxygen.

There is however, a less direct and therefore more troublesome assault being waged on masculinity from a variety of sources - industrial (xenoestrogens, as discussed here recently), media (most men are portrayed on TV as idiots or brutes), and political (women still have more power in legal disputes than men).

Even education is biased against boys in many ways - if boys are too boyish, they much have ADHD. We want our young men to be more like young women in many ways, rather than teaching them a more evolved masculinity, we rob them of being masculine at all.

The political left is often complicit in this, even if its unintentional. So that leaves the political right, as is evident in this post from Salvo Magazine. They are biased, but they are more than a little correct in their positions.

Girly Men:

The Media's Attack on Masculinity

by S. T. Karnick

The tendency of the nation’s schools to suppress boys’ natural way of seeing and doing things, brilliantly documented by Christina Hoff-Sommers in her 2001 book The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men, is becoming increasingly evident in the culture.

According to Hoff-Sommers, programs in America’s public schools are set up to obliterate all that is masculine and establish femininity as the human norm:

This book tells the story of how it has become fashionable to attribute pathology to millions of healthy male children. It is a story of how we are turning against boys and forgetting a simple truth: that the energy, competitiveness, and corporal daring of normal, decent males is responsible for much of what is right in the world. No one denies that boys’ aggressive tendencies must be checked and channeled in constructive ways. Boys need discipline, respect, and moral guidance. Boys need love and tolerant understanding. They do not need to be pathologized.

Hoff-Sommers goes on to note that "it’s a bad time to be a boy in America. . . . Routinely regarded as protosexists, potential harassers and perpetuators of gender inequity, boys live under a cloud of censure." The school curricula, she observes, are skewed toward girls’ strengths and away from those of boys. That’s why classes emphasize word problems in math class and writing essays in science class, for example.

Boys mistreated by our educational system must advance into society and try to become men, having been taught to disrespect masculinity and suppress it in themselves. One obvious coping mechanism is for males to act more sensitively, making a determined effort to "share their feelings" and be less aggressive and competitive.

Read the whole article.

Tags: masculinity, boys, education, culture, Salvo, Girly Men, The Media's Attack on Masculinity, S. T. Karnick, Christina Hoff-Sommers, The War Against Boys

More and More Boys Born With Deformed Genitals -- What's to Blame?

I'm pretty sure I have ranted here before on the evils of xenoestrogens, those synthetic estrogens produced in the petroleum products, plastics, pesticides, cleansers, air fresheners, auto exhaust, and a million other sources. These things screw up the hormonal balance of the body (endocrine system) and seem to be most dangerous during pregnancy, especially for male fetuses.

This is from Wikipedia.

Xenoestrogens have been implicated in a variety of medical problems, and while there has been little hard evidence of damage, the potential for adverse effects is considered real.^[2]

Foremost is the concern that xenoestrogens as false messengers disrupt the process of reproduction. Xenoestrogens have an effect similar to that of naturally produced estrogen and can increase growth of the endometrium, so treatments for endometriosis include avoidance of products which contain them. Likewise, they are avoided in order to prevent the onset or aggravation of adenomyosis. Studies have implicated observations of disturbances in wildlife with estrogenic exposure; for example, in some areas of the southeast United States, up to 90% of fish were found to be intersex.^[3] Reproductive issues which are of concerns in humans are fetal exposure (perhaps leading to hypospadias) and decreased reproductive ability in men (i.e. decrease in sperm numbers).

Another issue is the potential effect of xenoestrogens on oncogenes, specifically in relation to breast cancer. Some scientists doubt that xenoestrogens have any significant biological effect, in the concentrations found in the environment.^[4] However, there is significant proof in a variety of recent studies to indicate that xenoestrogens are a serious factor in breast cancer occurrence ^{[5][6][7] [8][9][10][11] [12]}

Even very low levels of a xenoestrogen, in this case Bisphenol A, could affect fetal neural signalling more than higher levels, indicating that classical models where dose equals response may not be applicable in susceptible tissue.^[13] As this study involved intra-cerebellar injections, its relevance to environmental exposures is unclear.

Believers that environmental estrogen disruption is a major health hazard are opposed by detractors who argue that observed effects are spurious and inconsistent, or that the quantities of the agents are too low to have any effect.^[14] A 1997 survey of scientists in fields pertinent to evaluating estrogens found that 13 percent regarded the health threats from xenoestrogens as "major," 62 percent as "minor" or "none," and 25 percent were unsure. ^[15]

The incidence of falling sperm counts in males may be due to increased oestrogen exposure in utero.^[16] Sharpe in a 2005 review indicated that external estrogenic substances are too weak in their cumulative effects to alter male reproductive functioning, but indicates that the situation appears to be more complex as external chemicals may affect the internal testosterone-estrogen balance.^[17]

This new article from AlterNet suggests that the fears we have had about the impact of xenoestrogens is becoming a very real problem for children, especially boys, who are most vulnerable to the effects of these chemicals.

More and More Boys Born With Deformed Genitals -- What's to Blame?

By Joan Melcher, Miller-McCune.com. Posted October 23, 2009.

Scientists are casting a wide net in search of chemicals seen as likely suspects in feminization and reproductive anomalies being spotted worldwide.

The term "endocrine disruptor" had not been coined when Rachel Carson was alive, but she was onto them.

Carson's groundbreaking 1962 book on the dangers of synthetic pesticides, Silent Spring, was prescient in many ways. She wrote about what she termed "insecticide storage:" "There are indications that these chemicals lodge in tissues concerned with the manufacture of germ cells as well as in the cells themselves. Accumulations of insecticides have been discovered in the sex organs of a variety of birds and mammals. ... Probably as an effect of such storage in the sex organs, atrophy of the testes has been observed in experimental mammals. Young rats exposed to methoxychlor had extraordinarily small testes."

Al Gore, who wrote in the forward to zoologist Theo Colborn's book on endocrine-disrupting compounds, Our Stolen Future, noted that Carson warned in one of her last speeches: "We are subjecting whole populations to exposure to chemicals, which animal experiments have proved to be extremely poisonous and, in many cases, cumulative in their effects. These exposures now begin at or before birth and — unless we change our methods — will continue through the lifetime of those now living. No one knows what the results will be because we have no previous experience to guide us."

Endocrine Disruptors

Earlier this month Miller-McCune discussed the observations and practical science of a woman, Judy Hoy, sounding an alarm in western Montana. A wildlife rehabilitator, Hoy has documented malformations of genitalia of local white-tailed deer over a 13-year period in the Bitterroot Valley. She suspects the changes are caused by endocrine-disrupting compounds (or EDCs), possibly from pesticides applied to potato fields just over the border in Idaho.

Montana officials so far have discounted her hypothesis, but scientific research around the world has made similar findings - undescended and abnormally small penises and testicles, low sperm counts, genitals placed forward on the body, confused gender - in test animals and in wild populations of birds, reptiles and wildlife.

What causes these changes remains contentious. Many scientists and public health advocates point to pesticides and other environmental pollutants while others, including industry, some government agencies and more scientists, say more study is needed.

While debating mutations in deer populations is one thing, finding those changes in boy babies takes the discussion to a new level.

Results of a study released in May 2009 by the British nongovernmental organization CHEMTrust show:

• as many as 1 in 17 boys in the United Kingdom have undescended testicles, a congenital birth defect;

• malformation of the penis (where the opening is not at the end) has increased in recent decades in several European countries, the United States, Australia and China;

• U.K. and French data show a decline in sperm count in young men as compared to their fathers; in some European countries, 1 in 5 young men has sperm counts so low that it is likely to affect their ability to father a child; and

• Testicular cancer is the most common cancer of young men, doubling in incidence in many Western countries every 25 years over the past 60 years.

The author of the report, Richard Sharpe, of the U.K.'s Medical Research Council wrote that many scientists are tying a lack of testosterone at critical times of fetal development to "testicular dysgenesis syndrome," encompassing defects of boys' genitals, low sperm counts and testicular cancer. He sees a link between hormone-disrupting chemicals and TDS, saying animal studies "have established beyond a doubt that certain hormone-disrupting chemicals, in particular testosterone-disrupting chemicals, can cause TDS-like disorders."

His meta-study might be one that Rick Becker, senior toxicologist with the American Chemical Council, would caution against. Becker asks that people not leap to conclusions after reading individual reports, but look to the World Health Organization for its synthesis of studies. However, the most recent WHO report on EDCs, "Global Assessment of the State of the Science of Endocrine Disruptors," was published in 2002.

After a lengthy review of scientific findings on the effects of the chemicals on human reproduction, the WHO report makes no firm conclusions. The authors note in a conclusions and recommendations section that "exposure data are very limited, if available at all, and in many studies exposure has only been inferred and not actually measured." Another problem cited is that sample sizes are often small, resulting in a finding that "the currently available human data are inadequate to support a conclusion that human reproductive health has been adversely affected by exposure to EDCs."

Still, the section concludes, "Despite these drawbacks, the biological plausibility of possible damage to human reproduction from exposure to EDCs seems strong when viewed against 1) the background of known influences of endogenous and exogenous hormones on many of the processes involved, and 2) the evidence of adverse reproductive outcomes in wildlife and laboratory animals exposed to EDCs."

Many studies on EDCs have been published since 2002. Sharpe's paper references 159 papers and information sources, 101 written after the WHO report was prepared.

In June, the Endocrine Society, a nearly century-old international association of endocrinologists, issued a statement in which its position was clear. In a 50-page paper, the first scientific statement issued by the society, authors wrote: "We present evidence that endocrine disruptors have effects on male and female reproduction, breast development and cancer, prostrate cancer, neuroendocrinology, thyroid, metabolism and obesity and cardiovascular endocrinology. Results from animal models, human clinical observations and epidemiology studies converge to implicate EDCs as a significant concern to public health." (Breast Cancer UK recently produced a video linking EDCs to breast cancer that can be seen on YouTube.)

There has been controversy regarding various studies of sperm count decreases in men; data has varied with study and locale of men tested. One U.S. scientist known for her work in reproductive epidemiology, Shanna Swan, authored a report that appeared in Environmental Health Perspectives in 1997 that analyzed sperm-count studies and concluded that "further analysis of these studies supports a significant decline in sperm density in the United States and Europe but not in non-Western countries." She found the studies showed that there are "large inter-area differences in sperm density."

Swan has been studying the effects of environmental pollutants for nearly 30 years, including the effects of contaminants on various aspects of human reproduction (including fetal loss, fertility, low birth weight, birth defects, semen quality and sex hormones). She began in 1981 by studying the possible contamination of a public water supply by a toxic release from a semiconductor plant for the California Department of Health Services in 1981. Today, she is associate chair for research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, and director of the Center for Reproductive Epidemiology.

In 2005, she and other colleagues published a paper in Environmental Health Perspectives that was the first research to link human male birth defects to a known EDC, phthalates. It showed that boys born to mothers exposed to phthalates during pregnancy were likely to have smaller genitals and incomplete testicular descent. Previous studies had shown similar outcomes in rodents.

The federally financed study used levels of phthalates that are found in one-quarter of the female population in the country. Researchers also found that in the 25 percent of mothers with the highest levels of phthalate exposure, the odds were 10 times higher that their sons would have a shorter-than-expected distance between the anus and the base of the penis (the anogenital distance), which is an indicator of impacts on the reproductive system.

Those involved in the discussion of EDCs agree more studies are needed - to conclude the chemical compounds are as dangerous as some believe or to put the controversy to rest by discounting the role they play in the endocrine system.

Research of potential EDC effects is not particularly easy for many different reasons. Wildlife, obviously, are difficult to study and research, and studies of EDCs are particularly difficult to conduct on human populations (e.g., pregnant women). Sharpe noted in his report that it is not easy to find mothers who haven't been exposed to chemicals, making it difficult to find "controls" for experiments.

Read the rest of the article.

Tags: environment, xenoestrogens, boys, masculinity, More and More Boys Born With Deformed Genitals -- What's to Blame?, Alternet, Joan Melcher, Miller-McCune.com, endocrine disruptor, endocrine-disrupting compounds, EDCs, Judy Hoy, Shanna Swan

Jayson Gaddis - Why Finding a Man Mentor Is So Essential

Over at his Revolutionary Man blog, Jayson has put up a great post on why men need mentors. This is good stuff for thought.

Why Finding a Man Mentor Is So Essential

Mon, Feb 23, 2009

Men's Spirituality, personal development, purpose, relationships

Commitment 9

I commit to finding a mentor ASAP and not doing life “alone.” I commit to always having a mentor in my life–someone I trust, respect, and want to learn from in areas where I need guidance. Then, I commit to becoming a mentor to other men (read the other 8 commitments here).

It boggles my mind how many guys still go it alone in life. In my eyes this attitude is bankrupt. Not only that, it is dangerous.

If you are a guy who “goes it alone,” try it on that you could double your impact and accelerate your growth if you found a great mentor. If you still believe you have to suck it up and that asking for help is a sign of weakness, you are asleep or stuck. It’s 2009. We are not living in 1955 anymore.

In my own life, I “went it alone” for years. “I don’t need anyone’s help” was one of my mantras. Even though I had great friends and guys I could probably lean on, I never did. Not only that, when I felt challenged in my life, most guys tried to fix it or make me feel better. It took me years to realize that’s not what I needed.

What I needed was someone to hear me, understand me, call BS on me, and then help me move forward and find solutions to my own challenges. I needed someone to teach me how to trust myself, how to love myself and how to have more successful relationships. However, that said, I just wasn’t ready.

A lot of you walk around with the complaint, “nobody understands me.” My question for you is “Do you let anyone try?”

Let’s face it, we men have a lot of unconscious blocks that keep us from the things we want–deeply satisfying relationships, money, the right job, and happiness. Men tend to blame the outside, not knowing that it’s coming from the inside.

Now, if you had a mentor, you would begin to realize that YOU are the issue in your life. YOU are the person that needs a big fat course correction. YOU are the one who could use some feedback, love, guidance, and support.

So, remember, if you know that you may benefit from a mentor, the first rule of thumb is that you have to want one. It doesn’t do a lot of good if you are not open or “coachable.”

When I was younger, I had no real mentor. Now I have several.

What exactly is a mentor? Here’s how Dictionary.com defines it:

men⋅tor

[men-tawr, -ter] Show IPA –noun

1. a wise and trusted counselor or teacher.

2. an influential senior sponsor or supporter.

Let’s look a few types of mentors and you will get a sense of what kind of mentorship might benefit you.

Types of mentors:

1. The Mentor
2. The relationship mentor
3. The spiritual mentor
4. The professional mentor
5. The Coach

Let’s look at all five in detail and then determine how to find one.

Go read the whole post.

Tags: Jayson Gaddis, Revolutionary Man, Why Finding a Man Mentor Is So Essential, masculinity, mentors, personal growth, Spirituality

Mike Treder - Women, Men, Logic, and Emotion

Here is an article that builds on (sort of) my recent post about women outperforming men at identifying emotions. This article examines the predominance of males in the transhumanist and technology/scientific communities.

This article comes from the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies site - a great if slightly biased resource on transhumanist and singularity thinking.

Women, Men, Logic, and Emotion

Mike Treder

Mike Treder

Ethical Technology

Posted: Oct 22, 2009

How different are men from women? And how much could those differences affect your future?

It’s been noted before that there is a significant gender imbalance among those who subscribe to transhumanist and/or technoprogressive ideas. The most recent Singularity Summit came in for quite a bit of criticism when their initial speaker list included no women at all. As it turned out, only one of the 25 speakers was female.

But it’s not only the singularity crowd that is dominated by men. Among the IEET’s nearly one thousand Facebook fans, for example, 71% are male and 27% female (as for the remaining 2%, well, who knows). The IEET has 12 interns, and four are female. Of our 15 IEET Fellows, four are women. And this is, unfortunately, a typical pattern. Attend nearly any gathering of futurists or science fiction enthusiasts and you’ll see a lot more male faces than female.

So, is this disparity mainly a result of societal conditioning? Or is there an evolutionary explanation for the differences between how men and women perceive the world and in what areas they take the most interest?

It’s been conclusively shown, of course, that girls are every bit as capable as boys in learning science and math. Some people are even starting to worry now about a reverse disadvantage, as it’s discovered that girls today are outperforming boys at every level in education.

For some reason, though, in the field of engineering the disparity remains especially prominent:

Among U.S. engineers there is an indisputable gender gap—fewer than 20% of engineering graduates are women, according to the National Science Foundation. . . Women have succeeded in larger numbers in fields such as physiology, biology, and social sciences, and they are having increasing success in starting small businesses. Increasingly, engineers and technologists have an advantage in reaching the top, yet in these fields women constitute the smallest minority.

And the difference is also acute when it comes to computer science:

If the attitudes of high school students are a good predictor of eventual career choices, the future will continue to see computer science fields dominated by males. According to new research released by ACM and the WGBH Educational Foundation, compared with girls, more than twice as many boys see computer science as a “good” or “very good” choice as a college major. What’s more, four times as many boys cited computer science as a “very good” career choice.

Perhaps part of the explanation can be found in the results of a recent study done in Canada:

Next time your wife or girlfriend accuses you of not being attuned to her feelings or those of the people around you, just smile and nod.

A study by researchers from the Université de Montréal Centre de recherche en neuropsychologie et cognition (CERNEC), published in the journal Neuropsychologia, says that women are better than men at picking up emotional clues in people’s facial expressions.

The team, headed by Olivier Collignon, set out to examine the long-held belief that women generally do a better job than men in understanding what a person’s expressions, statements and body language says about how they feel.

Collignon, who also works as a researcher at the Université catholique de Louvain’s Institute of Neuroscience in Belgium, says “the aim of such a study isn’t to prove the superiority of men or women. . . These gender studies are necessary for researchers to better understand mental diseases which have a strong gender component. That means they affect men and women differently. Autism is a good example, because it affects more men than women and one of its features is the difficulty in recognizing emotions.”

Could the different levels of interest between men and women in engineering and computer science be related to this? And could this difference also manifest itself in the futurist gender gap? Perhaps so. Consider this description of Asperger syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder fairly common among high achievers in certain areas:

In the social world there is no great benefit to a precise eye for detail, but in the worlds of math, computing, cataloguing, music, linguistics, engineering, and science, such an eye for detail can lead to success rather than failure.

It’s all well for these people, predominantly males, to succeed and become accomplished in their areas of focus. But maybe we should be concerned about a possible deficiency among some transhumanist leaders in understanding and appreciating emotional states. I, for one, would certainly not relish living in a post-Singularity world designed by such men.

---

Mike Treder is the Managing Director of the IEET, and former Executive Director of the non-profit Center for Responsible Nanotechnology.

Tags: men, women, technology, transhumanism, IEET, Women Men Logic and Emotion, Mike Treder, Ethical Technology, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, technoprogressive

Dalai Lama Quote of the Week - The Self at Which We Grasp

There are many teachings in many faiths about the emptiness of the self at which we grasp - maybe emptiness isn't the word used, maybe its imperfect, or wounded, or some other metaphor. One need not be Buddhist to get that much of what we consider "self" is unreal at best.

The following teaching comes from one my favorite books by the Dalai Lama.

ESSENCE OF THE HEART SUTRA:
The Dalai Lama's
Heart of Wisdom Teachings
by H.H. the Dalai Lama
trans. & ed. by Geshe Thupten Jinpa
more...

Dalai Lama Quote of the Week

By understanding emptiness, by clearly perceiving the empty nature of all phenomena, including ourselves, we can liberate ourselves from negative emotions, and thus from the creation of unwholesome karma and the power of the internal enemy. Through this process, we can begin to undo the harm we've caused by our grasping, and the derivative strong emotions to which it gives rise. The moment we begin to develop insight into the empty nature of self and all reality, the process of releasing our deluded grasp begins. At the moment of our first insight into the empty nature of self and reality, we start to break free of the enslavement of ignorance and the attack of the internal enemy. By reducing our grasping, we start to undo the causal chain of unenlightened existence. By undermining self-grasping ignorance, the first link of dependent origination, you prevent the arising of the second link, and ultimately become free of the endless cycle of suffering lifetimes.

But what does all this mean exactly? If we arrive at the knowledge that the self at which we grasp is empty, we may imagine this means that we as individuals with personal identities do not exist. But of course this is not the case--our own personal experiences demonstrate that as subjects and agents of our own lives, we certainly exist. So how, then, do we understand the content of this insight into absence of self? What follows from this insight? We must be very clear that only the self that is being grasped as intrinsically real needs to be negated. The self as a conventional phenomenon is not rejected. This is a crucial aspect of the Buddha's teachings on emptiness.

--from Essence of the Heart Sutra: The Dalai Lama's Heart of Wisdom Teachings by H.H. the Dalai Lama, translated & edited by Geshe Thupten Jinpa

When we, as men and as human beings, begin to relinquish our grasp on the false self, and stop wasting energy grasping at that illusion, we break the chain of being as His Holiness suggests in the quote above.

But we also have so much more energy that was once invested in grasping to use for compassion and caring about others. And we become more free to live a more integrated life. We can live from integrity.

We need not be Buddhist, as I have mentioned many times (although I think Buddhism has the best technology for working on these issues), to engage in opening ourselves and becoming more compassionate. Most of the world's religious traditions offer some path toward this goal.

For those who would like a little guidance, I highly recommend Roger Walsh's Essential Spirituality: The 7 Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind.

Based on over twenty years of research and spiritual practice, this is a groundbreaking and life-changing book. In his decades of study, Dr. Roger Walsh has discovered that each of the great spiritual traditions has both a common goal and seven common practices to reach that goal: recognizing the sacred and divine that exist both within and around us. Filled with stories, exercises, meditations, myths, prayers, and practical advice, Essential Spirituality shows how you can integrate these seven principles into one truly rewarding way of life in which kindness, love, joy, peace, vision, wisdom, and generosity become an ever-growing part of everything you do.

Tags: Dalai Lama, Quote of the Week, The Self at Which We Grasp, psychology, Buddhism, spirituality, Roger Walsh, Essential Spirituality, The 7 Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind, Self, grasping

Women Outperform Men When Identifying Emotions

It's generally assumed that women are better with emotions than are men. A big part of this is socialization, of course, in that women are encouraged to know and feel emotions while men are almost never encouraged to feel their feelings.

While many older studies have used photos, this study used actors to demonstrate emotions, which is more like real world situations, including visual and auditory stimuli. Women were better overall than men at identifying fear and disgust.

I remain convinced that men can be just as proficient as women with identifying emotions - we just need to overcome our socialization. There is certainly some biological aspect, since women seem to be more interpersonally oriented than men, but biology is not destiny.

Women Outperform Men When Identifying Emotions

ScienceDaily (Oct. 21, 2009) — Women are better than men at distinguishing between emotions, especially fear and disgust, according to a new study published in the online version of the journal Neuropsychologia. As part of the investigation, Olivier Collignon and a team from the Université de Montréal Centre de recherche en neuropsychologie et cognition (CERNEC) demonstrated that women are better than men at processing auditory, visual and audiovisual emotions.

Women are better than men at distinguishing between emotions,
especially fear and disgust, according to a new study.
(Credit: iStockphoto/Donald Macalister)

While women have long been thought to outperform men in neuropsychological tests, until now, these findings were inconsistent. To obtain more conclusive evidence, the Université de Montréal researchers did not use photographs to analyze the reaction of subjects. Instead, the scientists hired actors and actresses to simulate fear and disgust. "Facial movements have been shown to play an important role in the perception of an emotion's intensity as well as stimulate different parts of the brain used in the treatment of such information," says Collignon, who also works as a researcher at the Université catholique de Louvain's Institute of Neuroscience in Belgium.

Categorizing emotions

As part of their study, the research team exposed subjects to bimodal stimuli or the facial expressions of live actors combined with recordings of human emotions. Twenty-three men and 23 women, aged 18 to 43, were tested and none had any recorded history of neurological or psychiatric problems.

Participants were asked to quickly categorize emotions they identified as fear or disgust. Emotions were based on auditory stimuli, visual stimuli, followed by compatible audio-visual stimuli and contradictory audio-visual stimuli (i.e. a face that expressed fear with a voice that expressed disgust).

The study found that women were superior in completing assessments and responded quicker when emotions were portrayed by a female rather than a male actor. Compared to men, women were faster at processing facial and multisensory expressions.

Why fear and disgust?

The research team studied fear and disgust because both emotions have a protective, evolutionary history. Simply put, these emotions are more important for survival of the species than other emotions such as joy.

"The aim of such a study isn't to prove the superiority of men or women -- contrarily to what some people believe," says Collignon. "These gender studies are necessary for researchers to better understand mental diseases which have a strong gender component. That means they affect men and women differently. Autism is a good example, because it affects more men than women and one of its features is the difficulty in recognizing emotions."

Autism and emotions

In 2002, researchers Baron and Cohen put forth a controversial theory stipulating that autism and Asperger's syndrome are an extreme in male interpersonal behavior that's characterized by impaired empathy and enhanced systematizing. "Seeing as our results show that men identify and express emotions less efficiently than women, it supports this theory to a certain extent," says Collignon.

Differences between men and women

Are women natured or nurtured to be different? Biology may play a role, since there are few opportunities for socialization to shape such gender differences. Evolutionary psychologists have suggested that females, because of their role as primary caretakers, are wired to quickly and accurately decode or detect distress in preverbal infants or threatening signals from other adults to enhance their chances at survival.

"However, these studies should not rule out the fact that culture and socialization do play a powerful role in determining gender differences in the processing of emotional expressions," says Collignon.

The study was financed by the Fonds de recherche en santé du Québec, the Canada Research Chairs program, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Study co-researchers are Simon Girard, Frédéric Gosselin, Dave Saint-Amour, Franco Lepore and Maryse Lassonde.

---

Adapted from materials provided by University of Montreal.

Tags: men, women, emotions, research, psychology, Women Outperform Men When Identifying Emotions, Science Daily, fear, disgust

Modern man a wimp says anthropologist

Evolutionarily speaking, modern Homo sapiens males are the sorriest examples of the specimens in history. Any trip to a Walmart will verify that conclusion, but not ALL of us are so pathetic. Are we?

On the up side, I'll accept my current strength and speed and offset of my much larger cerebral cortex.

Modern man a wimp says anthropologist

Wed Oct 14, 2009 10:24am EDT

By John Mehaffey

LONDON (Reuters) - Many prehistoric Australian aboriginals could have outrun world 100 and 200 meters record holder Usain Bolt in modern conditions.

Some Tutsi men in Rwanda exceeded the current world high jump record of 2.45 meters during initiation ceremonies in which they had to jump at least their own height to progress to manhood.

Any Neanderthal woman could have beaten former bodybuilder and current California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in an arm wrestle.

These and other eye-catching claims are detailed in a book by Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister entitled "Manthropology" and provocatively sub-titled "The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male."

McAllister sets out his stall in the opening sentence of the prologue.

"If you're reading this then you -- or the male you have bought it for -- are the worst man in history.

"No ifs, no buts -- the worst man, period...As a class we are in fact the sorriest cohort of masculine Homo sapiens to ever walk the planet."

Delving into a wide range of source material McAllister finds evidence he believes proves that modern man is inferior to his predecessors in, among other fields, the basic Olympic athletics disciplines of running and jumping.

His conclusions about the speed of Australian aboriginals 20,000 years ago are based on a set of footprints, preserved in a fossilized claypan lake bed, of six men chasing prey.

FLEET-FOOTED ABORIGINALS

An analysis of the footsteps of one of the men, dubbed T8, shows he reached speeds of 37 kph on a soft, muddy lake edge. Bolt, by comparison, reached a top speed of 42 kph during his then world 100 meters record of 9.69 seconds at last year's Beijing Olympics.

In an interview in the English university town of Cambridge where he was temporarily resident, McAllister said that, with modern training, spiked shoes and rubberized tracks, aboriginal hunters might have reached speeds of 45 kph.

"We can assume they are running close to their maximum if they are chasing an animal," he said.

"But if they can do that speed of 37 kph on very soft ground I suspect there is a strong chance they would have outdone Usain Bolt if they had all the advantages that he does.

"We can tell that T8 is accelerating toward the end of his tracks."

McAllister said it was probable that any number of T8's contemporaries could have run as fast.

"We have to remember too how incredibly rare these fossilizations are," he said. "What are the odds that you would get the fastest runner in Australia at that particular time in that particular place in such a way that was going to be preserved?"

Turning to the high jump, McAllister said photographs taken by a German anthropologist showed young men jumping heights of up to 2.52 meters in the early years of last century.

STARK DECLINE

"It was an initiation ritual, everybody had to do it. They had to be able to jump their own height to progress to manhood," he said.

"It was something they did all the time and they lived very active lives from a very early age. They developed very phenomenal abilities in jumping. They were jumping from boyhood onwards to prove themselves."

McAllister said a Neanderthal woman had 10 percent more muscle bulk than modern European man. Trained to capacity she would have reached 90 percent of Schwarzenegger's bulk at his peak in the 1970s.

"But because of the quirk of her physiology, with a much shorter lower arm, she would slam him to the table without a problem," he said.

Manthropology abounds with other examples:

* Roman legions completed more than one-and-a-half marathons a day carrying more than half their body weight in equipment.

* Athens employed 30,000 rowers who could all exceed the achievements of modern oarsmen.

* Australian aboriginals threw a hardwood spear 110 meters or more (the current world javelin record is 98.48).

McAllister said it was difficult to equate the ancient spear with the modern javelin but added: "Given other evidence of Aboriginal man's superb athleticism you'd have to wonder whether they couldn't have taken out every modern javelin event they entered."

Why the decline?

"We are so inactive these days and have been since the industrial revolution really kicked into gear," McAllister replied. "These people were much more robust than we were.

"We don't see that because we convert to what things were like about 30 years ago. There's been such a stark improvement in times, technique has improved out of sight, times and heights have all improved vastly since then but if you go back further it's a different story.

"At the start of the industrial revolution there are statistics about how much harder people worked then.

"The human body is very plastic and it responds to stress. We have lost 40 percent of the shafts of our long bones because we have much less of a muscular load placed upon them these days.

"We are simply not exposed to the same loads or challenges that people were in the ancient past and even in the recent past so our bodies haven't developed. Even the level of training that we do, our elite athletes, doesn't come close to replicating that.

"We wouldn't want to go back to the brutality of those days but there are some things we would do well to profit from."

(Editing by Clare Fallon; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)

Tags: Modern man a wimp says anthropologist, John Mehaffey, Reuters, aboriginal, men, masculinity, fitness, strength, evolution, Homo Sapiens

Words Men Should Never Say . . .

. . . According to Esquire.

The Language of Men

An illustrative (and illustrated) guide to the way we talk now. Navigate the euphemisms, the idioms, the quotations, and the curses that represent us with the tabs below.

19 Things a Man Should Never Say

We would herewith like to place a ban on the following words, phrases, and expressions, for reasons of overuse, offensiveness, or just because. Plus: Profanity alternatives!

Photo credit: Jim Jurica/istock

Reach out (unless you're talking about actually reaching out... with your arm)

Panties ("underwear" does the trick)

Über-

Mixed bag

Tummy

Veggie

Vino (unless you're an Italian. In Italy.)

Natch (as opposed to "naturally")

Wingin' it ("wing it" is fine)

Nippy

The first name of any female celebrity when you don't follow it with her last name, "Miley," for instance

Pee

Belly button ("navel" is just fine)

C---

Derring-do

Going forward (pure corporate cant)

It is what it is ("The financial collapse--it is what it is.")

Boobs

Folks ("had to lay off some of our folks")

Teens

Slacks ("pants" or "trousers")

Gen (as in "gen-X," "gen-Y," "next-gen")

Expresso

Willy-nilly

Make love

Yell-o (the phone greeting)

Mommy

Cool

Bye-bye

Profanity Alternatives

* = suggested

frig

frick

fark *

feck

farg

eff

futz

---

shoot

shite *

shiyut

stuff

---

darn *

dang

durn

dadgum

---

heck *

Hades

hey

hello!

---

son of a gun

somanabatch*

Tags: men, language, culture, manliness, Esquire, pop culture, 19 Things a Man Should Never Say

Poem - Rag and Bone Man (David Biespiel)

Found at Poetry Daily.

Rag and Bone Man

When he's grown old and removed the gothic armor,
Groomed his macho cogs into a moth's whisker,
He'll become less fictional and more fat—like a droopy
Canto with poor prosody—
A prudent endomorph, deposited and arch.
How many loved the cupid's dart he torched,
Caught between arc and circle, like a riderless tiger?
In truth, few loved—he was a prig and a jerk and a rake.
And all his corpus juris got bent to smack.
That business suit he wore—it was a subset
For bondage, efficient as a bunt,
Something he stubbed into himself, like a tune,
A crisp huh, an all-star rule, an autumn lust.
Neither prizefighter nor pig, seldom jealous
Or aled-up—he didn't know a spliff from a jailhouse.
His launch pad began with mea culpa—
Unpaunchy, glad-handed, marinated in aloe
And cups of lemon water. Therefore, he burrowed
Into dogma, bonded with orange dreams, and wooed.
If he could hop scotch through the epochs, bend
Toward echo and hope and prophecy,
He'd embargo the gnomes along with the grannies,
Plant a garden of blue weed, spritz his warts,
And think ugly about the girl from the launderette.

David Biespiel

The Book of Men and Women
University of Washington Press

Tags: poetry, masculinity, Poem, Rag and Bone Man, David Biespiel, Poetry Daily

Paul Raeburn - What does your father mean to you?

Not all of us had good fathers. No matter what our relationship was to our fathers, these men have a tremendous impact on our lives. Paul Raeburn, who does the About Fathers blog at Psychology Today, is asking for your memories/impressions about what your father meant to you - follow the links to send him your thoughts.

What does your father mean to you?

For an upcoming post: What does your father mean to you?

When I look down at my hands typing, I see my father's hands. When I repair a leaky faucet or a flickering lamp, I see my father doing the same thing as I stand by his side, waist-high, holding a flashlight and passing him a wrench or screwdriver. These memories make me wonder about what other aspects of my father-his character, his intelligence, his kindness, humor and artistic talent-are also part of me.

I'm especially interested in this now because I'm writing a book about why fathers matter, about what they contribute to their children, and why we so often seem to undervalue them. And while I'm turning over these questions myself, I'd like your thoughts, too.

What does your father mean to you? How did he shape you? What do fathers mean to our society, our culture, our nation? What would you change about the way we think about fathers?

Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below, or email me at paulraeburn@ymail.com. If you're willing to discuss this further, send me your email or phone number. Or message me on my Facebook page, facebook.com/paulraeburn.

Thanks so much for your help. I'll share the results in future posts. (And I will, of course, protect your privacy.)

Tags: fathers, sons, manhood, Paul Raeburn, What does your father mean to you?, Psychology Today

The New Man - Episode 81: Derek Sivers - Capitalism with Heart and The Tao of Business

An interesting episode of the New Man Podcast - it is possible to have integrity and soul in the business world, but you have to create the situation that works for you.

Episode 81: Derek Sivers - Capitalism with Heart and The Tao of Business

Are you one of those guys who seems to get paralyzed in the process of starting something new?

Do you think you need a bunch of training or preparation before you can take action?

And what is the one single practice that will change how you experience everything in your life?

This week, we’ve got Derek Sivers on the show to talk about The Tao of Business and how any situation in your life can become a positive one.

In this day and age of corrupt capitalists, CDBaby founder Derek Sivers shows us how you can build a multimillion dollar company just by focusing on helping others. In this episode, Derek reveals the Tao of Business and how just trying to make money usually delivers the opposite.

In this show:

• What is the Tao of Business and how can it help you even if you don’t own a business?
• Do you need an MBA or a bunch of training to run a business?
• How can learning too much be harmful?
• How does personal development influence how you earn a living?
• What is the practice Derek uses to turn *everything* into a positive experience?
• If you’re prone to take things seriously, how can you learn to be more playful and creative with your life?
• What’s the simplest way to build a solid business in a very short period of time?
• How did the Segway inventor screw up royally and what can you learn from this?
• Visit Derek Sivers online: http://sivers.org

Related Links:

• Subscribe to The New Man by Email
• Trusted ID Coupon Code
• Tripp Lanier, host of The New Man
• Derek Sivers
• Derek Sivers

Tags: The New Man, Episode 81, Derek Sivers, Capitalism with Heart, The Tao of Business, Tripp Lanier, masculinity, business, integrity, culture