Confessions of a Young Therapist

I have been working with clients for about 15 months, and I have been doing so as a Nationally Certified Counselor (NCC) for about 6 months. I am daily reminded how little I know and how much more there is to learn, and I wish I could learn it now, or yesterday.

Some days I actually feel like I might be good at this in a few years, with enough continuing education and openness to allowing my clients to be my best and most crucial supervisors (not literally, of course). I have seriously learned more from my clients than I ever learned in school.

And then there are days when I feel like an imposter, a fraud, and that any minute now someone is going to figure out my secret and make me stop seeing clients.

Because of the work I do, many of my clients are incredibly acute. The sense of being a fraud is even stronger when my clients are experiencing structural dissociation, or derealization, or wondering if not being alive may be a better option than another day of depression, anxiety, and panic attacks.

So as I prepared for my next client between sessions today (generally, this amounts to deep breathing and releasing the "energy" of the previous session), I suddenly wondered what right I had to sit in the "therapist" chair and pretend I have the slightest idea what it feels like to be the survivor of such incredibly wounding incest, rape, and/or molestation.

As much as I know that the real benefits of therapy are in the relational realm, in the intersubjective connection between client and therapist - the research repeatedly demonstrates that technique and knowledge are always secondary to the relationship - I still have that voice in my head that whispers, "Dude, you're a wicked fraud. Better quit now before you get caught."

[Yes, my inner voice sounds like Jeff Spicoli some days.]

It's always easy for me to see this in my clients - the sense of being a fraud, never good enough, always wondering when rejection or condemnation will begin - because I know that voice all too well in my own life.

Perhaps, as we discussed last night in our psychoanalytic study group, part of the reason I became a therapist is to better understand and heal those wounded parts of myself. I think it is often true of psychotherapists, as it is of shamans, that we are the wounded healers. And it is our wounds - my wounds - that allow me to feel such empathy and compassion for my clients, and allow me to connect, even for a few moments, in some small way with their lived experience.

When I was the client, through the end of my 20s and much of my 30s, it was those times when I felt my therapist really got where I was coming from that I began to heal. And when she could see through my defenses and connect with my pain, I would cry so deeply, so abjectly, that I was not even aware of the emotions. All I knew was that for maybe the first time in my life, someone else understood me, and cared about me.

If I can offer that feeling for my clients someday, maybe I will get past that voice in my head that tells me I am fraud . . . my father's voice.

Documentary - Ancient Warriors - Ninja: Warriors of the Night

There is a little kid in me who loves this stuff - Ninjas are so cool. It's good to honor the child in us sometimes, in healthy ways.

A little background on ninjas below the video.

Discovery Channel TV Series: Ancient Warriors
Episode 19: The Ninja - Warriors of the Night

The Ninja, respected for their stealth and cunning manners, were considered the most devious and feared warriors in ancient Japan. Ninjitsu - the way of the Ninja (shinobi) - involved taking any action necessary to achieve their aims, no matter how unethical. For four centuries, Japan was in turmoil, locked in warfare. The most powerful warlords were protected by the Samurai, noble soldiers prepared to die for their masters - but there was another kind of warrior, the Ninja (shinobi), who were cunning and ruthless and worked covertly. In this documentary film we follow their art, their tactics, the manner in which they were taught to move and think, and how they were prepared to die rather than divulge their secrets.

Wikipedia:

A ninja (忍者^?) or shinobi (忍び^?) was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan who specialized in unorthodox warfare. The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, and open combat in certain situations.^[1] Their covert methods of waging war contrasted the ninja with the samurai, who observed strict rules about honor and combat.^[2] The shinobi proper, a specially trained group of spies and mercenaries, appeared in the Sengoku or "warring states" period, in the 15th century,^[3] but antecedents may have existed in the 14th century,^[4] and possibly even in the 12th century (Heian or early Kamakura era).^[5][6]

In the unrest of the Sengoku period (15th–17th centuries), mercenaries and spies for hire became active in the Iga Province and the adjacent area around the village of Kōga, and it is from their ninja clans that much of our knowledge of the ninja is drawn. Following the unification of Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate (17th century), the ninja faded into obscurity, being replaced by the Oniwabanshū body of secret agents.^[7] A number of shinobi manuals, often centered around Chinese military philosophy, were written in the 17th and 18th centuries, most notably the Bansenshukai (1676).^[8]

By the time of the Meiji Restoration (1868), the tradition of the shinobi had become a topic of popular imagination and mystery in Japan. Ninja figured prominently in folklore and legend, and as a result it is often difficult to separate historical fact from myth. Some legendary abilities purported to be in the province of ninja training include invisibility, walking on water, and control over the natural elements. As a consequence, their perception in western popular culture in the 20th century was based more on such legend and folklore than on the historical spies of the Sengoku period.

Not Male? Not Female? Must Be Agender - The Emerging Gender Neutrality

I suspect there have always been people who do not comfortably identify as either male or female, a self-perception that seems to be more common in the asexual community (according to the article, a 2011 study found that 23% of this community feels gender neutral). So now there is a name for this gender identity, or perhaps it's a lack of gender identity (?) - agender, or gender neutrois.

Isn't this simply a rejection of the gender binary? It seems that it may be a little deeper than that. All five of the people the author spoke to had no need for masculinity or femininity, so it's beyond gender fluidity. This is all very interesting to me . . . .

The article is from Rachel White (she of the wonderful Rachel Rabbit White blog) in the NY Magazine's The Cut blog.

Neither Man Nor Woman: Meet the Agender

• By Rachel R. White
• 8/20/2012

"I didn’t really want nipples," Cory said, running a hand through a mop of bleached blond hair. Born female, 23-year-old Cory uses the pronoun co—and asked that we refer to co that way, too—and got elective surgery to remove co's breasts last year. But co is not transgender in the traditional sense, transitioning between female and male. Co wants neither gender. So co joined the ranks of the agender—or, in a more florid recent coinage, the gender neutrois.

"You read stuff on Tumblr about how us nonbinary people just want to be special snowflakes," explained Cory, who is special but made of sturdier stuff than a snowflake. Was Cory's desire to remove co's secondary sexual traits a ploy for attention? A reaction to internalized sexism? The result of sexual repression? "I tackled all that stuff with my therapist. We came to the conclusion that I was not okay with this part of my body. Regardless of where that came from, it was there." Co has neither breasts nor nipples now.

"It is so perfect," Cory said. “For me this is what neutral looks like and feels like.”

I found Cory through the #nonbinary #agender #neutrois tags on Tumblr. The social network has become an unofficial home for the gender neutral. Though most group themselves with the transgender community, they reject the narrative of a person born into the wrong, oppositely-gendered body. All five neutrois individuals I spoke to have no need for masculinity or femininity at all.

L to R: Cory, Micah, Ashton

"You read all these trans youth narratives, the kid insisting he was a boy and going to grow a penis. That was me when I was 3," explained 26-year-old Micah. "I was like the poster trans kid. But then somewhere in there, it shifted."

Skyping from an airy San Francisco apartment shared with a fiancée, Micah has chestnut hair styled like a surfer's, sea-glass eyes, and rose-flecked skin. For Micah, gender neutrality has involved laser hair removal, a double mastectomy, a low dose of hormones, and the pronoun they. Asked about their ideal gender-neutral body (though our subjects' chosen pronouns drive Microsoft Word's Spelling and Grammar Check nuts, I see no reason not to oblige) Micah replied, “This is it.”

Micah came out of the closet twice, first when they entered a relationship with a woman, and again when they transitioned to neutrality last year. Though Micah identifies as both agender and asexual—which they define as "a lack of sexual attraction"—girlfriend Tammy identifies as a sexual female.

"When we started dating I got really confused," Tammy reflected. "Was I now dating a girl? I knew I wanted to be with Micah, but did that mean that I was now a lesbian?" After "six months of confusion," Tammy settled on "queer," and has stuck with her queer relationship with Micah for five and a half years.

When they first started dating, Tammy thought she could "make" Micah desire sex. "Now we've just found so many different ways of expressing love, other than what the usual sexual relationship looks like. Sometimes we feel like being more intimate, and sometimes we don't."

When I spoke to the pair together Tammy mostly deferred to Micah, who was uncomfortable discussing the mechanics of their physical relationship. "Too much focus on genitals," they said, then compared sex to asparagus: "OK when cooked properly, but I never really have a craving for it." A blog post Micah wrote about the relationship emphasizes "cuddling" and "communication."

"There are more ways to express intimacy than just sex," Micah concluded, referencing Asexual Visibility and Education Network founder David Jay. Reached by phone, Jay emphasized that most asexual people have a gender. There is, however, significant overlap between those who lack sexuality and those who lack gender: A 2011 survey of the asexual community found that 23 percent of those surveyed identified as neither male nor female—although most do not go so far as to have their nipples removed.

Why did this iteration of gender and pronouns emerge? There are virtually no studies on people who identify as agender. In 2010 the National Transgender Discrimination Survey Report on Health and Health Care found that 12 percent of self-identifying transgender people surveyed identified as gender nonconforming. And there may be a connection to asexuality: Jay says the asexual community has become a safe space for those questioning gender. Tumblr has become the unofficial support space for agender exploration and, sometimes, fierce debate. (On recent post read, “So there is this guy on Facebook. He’s agender. He’s about fifteen other labels as well.... the thing about this guy though is that he isn’t really agender for any reason other than a political statement.”)

For Micah, “not growing up was always a huge factor, and still is. I idolized Peter Pan,” they told me, noting that they are sometimes mistaken for a young boy. “In San Francisco I am seen as a lesbian," Micah continued. "I hate being called a lesbian, because it means I am a girl. But queer people are visible here and I am visibly queer. But at home in Mexico, queer doesn't exist."

After coming out, Micah lost contact with their Mexican family. They launched an agender blog, Neutrois Nonsense, and built a small online community there. Micah says their website receives over 12,000 pageviews a month, and a related Tumblr account has 2,200 followers.

Ashton, a 21-year-old Kansan, also passed as a lesbian until coming out as agender. Large and square shaped with a pinkish complexion, silvery-blond short hair and wire-frame glasses on a slight nose, Ashton (who also uses the pronoun ‘they’) used to work 50 hours per week in a factory and spends downtime in a transgender support group. (Ashton thinks the internet makes it easier to find one's way to an agender description. "You have Google in a tab next door, to explain things.")

Ashton’s supervisor and two other women at the factory formed a small queer community, which Ashton joined. “Most people who work there are male, so the women there really bond over female-ness. One day I counted 32 times that I was called by a female name--lady, miss, girl.” Ashton recounts a lot of joking around and sometimes going out together after work.

But Ashton was met with silence when they revealed their agender identity at the factory.
Persevering, Ashton wore a Pride shirt to work another day, which showed three boxes: ‘Female’: blank, ‘Male’: blank and ‘Blank’: checked. “I was asked to switch it inside out because it was distracting and offensive,” Ashton told me during a Skype chat in July, noting a fear of getting fired. Two weeks later, it happened. Ashton wrote on Tumblr: “I just lost my job for being a lesbian presenting assumed transguy atheist liberal who knows what else.”

Losing the job was something Ashton couldn't afford, since they are saving up for a double mastectomy. “I bind my chest for 11 or 12 hours a day when I am at work," they said before getting fired. "The recommended limit is 8 to 12 hours with as little strenuous activity as possible. I am doing lots of lifting and am on my feet all day. It is hot, sometimes my back spasms.”

Micah has faced loss in the name of gender neutrality, too. Upon finding out that her one-time daughter would be getting a double mastectomy, Micah's mother disowned her child. To this day she lights candles and talks to angels on Micah's behalf.

"My wife views Micah's actions as an act of terrorism, the fact that we have to have things on Micah’s terms," Micah's father explains. Their family is Mexican and Jewish. "She is worried about social and cultural things: how will Micah connect with Mexico?"

Micah's father supports his child's transition, as well as Micah's relationship with Tammy. The pair would like to marry and have children; Micah's father thinks they shouldn't wait for his wife's approval, because they may never get it.

Micah is actually the third name that they have tried out during transition—first it was Mich then Maddox as an online moniker, but it didn’t feel right ‘in real life.’ But Micah says they're sure that this is it. Micah is working on the legal paperwork to cement this chosen name. I ask, is there anything more to the transformation?

 “I don't remember aspiring to grow up to be a man, but was disgusted by the idea of growing up to be a woman. Physically I don't think I want anything different than what I have today, my own skin.”

All that's left now is aging. Micah imagines growing into a wrinkly, graying little kid, sort of like Benjamin Button, the F. Scott Fitzgerald creation who ages backwards: starting old and becoming younger.

Men - Eat Chocolate, Prevent Strokes

Mmmmm . . . chocolate. Science has been exposing the health benefits of chocolate, especially heart health, for more than a decade, but the assumption has been that it must be real chocolate, not milk chocolate (which only has a small amount of actual cocoa) or white chocolate (which contain no real chocolate at all). However, in this study, about 90% of the chocolate consumed the subjects was milk chocolate.

This study was done in Sweden, where milk chocolate must have at least 10% chocolate liquor and 25% cocoa solids (20% in the UK/Ireland) - in the U.S. there is no requirement for either, and most domestic chocolate contains no real cocoa.

The flavonoids in dark chocolate (35% cocoa solids minimum in the UK, but most domestic gourmet dark chocolate is more than 70% cocoa) have been shown to protect against cardiovascular disease through antioxidant, anti-clotting, and anti-inflammatory properties. Other studies have shown that the flavonoids in chocolate may reduce LDL (bad) cholesterol and reduce blood pressure.

It's unclear, however (at least to me), how milk chocolate can produce these same results - perhaps the small amount of cocoa was enough to produce these results?

Chocolate: A Sweet Method for Stroke Prevention in Men?

ScienceDaily (Aug. 29, 2012) — Eating a moderate amount of chocolate each week may be associated with a lower risk of stroke in men, according to a new study published in the August 29, 2012, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. "While other studies have looked at how chocolate may help cardiovascular health, this is the first of its kind study to find that chocolate, may be beneficial for reducing stroke in men," said study author Susanna C. Larsson, PhD, with the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

For the study, 37,103 Swedish men ages 49 to 75 were given a food questionnaire that assessed how often they consumed various foods and drinks and were asked how often they had chocolate. Researchers then identified stroke cases through a hospital discharge registry. Over 10 years, there were 1,995 cases of first stroke.

Men in the study who ate the largest amount of chocolate, about one-third of a cup of chocolate chips (63 grams) per week, had a lower risk of stroke compared to those who did not consume any chocolate. Those eating the highest amount of chocolate had a 17-percent lower risk of stroke, or 12 fewer strokes per 100,000 person-years compared to those who ate no chocolate. Person-years is the total number of years that each participant was under observation.

In a larger analysis of five studies that included 4,260 stroke cases, the risk of stroke for individuals in the highest category of chocolate consumption was 19 percent lower compared to non-chocolate consumers. For every increase in chocolate consumption of 50 grams per week, or about a quarter cup of chocolate chips, the risk of stroke decreased by about 14 percent.

"The beneficial effect of chocolate consumption on stroke may be related to the flavonoids in chocolate. Flavonoids appear to be protective against cardiovascular disease through antioxidant, anti-clotting and anti-inflammatory properties. It's also possible that flavonoids in chocolate may decrease blood concentrations of bad cholesterol and reduce blood pressure," said Larsson.

"Interestingly, dark chocolate has previously been associated with heart health benefits, but about 90 percent of the chocolate intake in Sweden, including what was consumed during our study, is milk chocolate," Larsson added.

The study was supported by the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research, the Swedish Research Council/Committee for Infrastructure and the Karolinska Institute.

The Highly Sensitive Boy: Dr. Ted Zeff - The Secret Lives of Men

Today's podcast of The Secret Lives of Men, with Chris Blazina, focused on The Highly Sensitive Boy with Dr. Ted Zeff. They discuss Dr. Zeff's 2010 book, The Strong, Sensitive Boy: Help Your Son Become a Happy, Confident Man.

Listen to internet radio with Secret Lives of Men on Blog Talk Radio

The Highly Sensitive Boy: Dr. Ted Zeff

by Secret Lives of Men

Does your son tend to be disturbed by loud noises, violence, and crowds, fearful of new situations, easily hurt by criticism, or hesitant about playing aggressive games? Your son may be one of the 20 percent of all boys with a finely tuned nervous system. Our sensitive boys tend to be creative, kind, and gentle, appreciating beauty and feeling love deeply. Therefore, it’s particularly challenging for sensitive boys to grow up in a culture where boys are taught to act tough, aggressive, and unemotional.

In this groundbreaking book, psychologist Ted Zeff explores the unique challenges of sensitive boys, showing parents, educators, and mentors how to help sensitive boys grow into strong, happy, and confident men. Dr. Zeff offers practical advice on how to help your son increase his self-esteem and thrive in the family, at school, with friends, and in sports.

This book is also important for sensitive men to read to help them heal their childhood wounds, learn how to navigate through our aggressive, overstimulating world, and accept themselves as sensitive men. This book is helpful for sensitive women since how society treats sensitive men deeply affects highly sensitive women—and all women close to sensitive males.

Male eXperience - 10 Powerful Blogs for Men to Learn and Grow From

My friend Graham Phoenix, who hosts the excellent Male eXperience blog, recently offered up a selection of ten blogs he recommends for men who want to grow and evolve. Kindly, he included The Masculine Heart among his ten selections, for which I extend my gratitude.

 It's a cool list that expands beyond purely male issues.

10 Powerful Blogs For Men To Learn and Grow By 

I constantly keep an eye out for other men blogging for men. I don’t often see anything that’s helpful or useful.

I realised that if I have problems finding good sites then I am sure men looking for help will almost find it impossible to find them.

Googling just brings up all the websites for men that skirt round any serious issues or focus on a narrow political point. The problem is that there are so many websites for men that it’s almost impossible to work out what’s useful.

I’ve complained before that what you find is either single issue sites, christian, gay, black, dating, MRA, feminist … commercial sites selling toys, watches, leather bags … or style sites for clothing, shaving …

♦◊♦

I started by wanting compile a list of 20 blogs, but I just couldn’t find them. So I opened out my view and realised that men are far more interested in life in general not just men’s issues.

I have, therefore compiled a list of 10 powerful blogs for men that look at all aspects of a man’s life. Ultimately the core issue in these sites is that they provide learning and growth for men.

Men read them , regularly, and feel their power.

Read the whole post.

Greg Hampikian Thinks Men Are Becoming Obsolete (NY Times Op-Ed)

In his Op-Ed from Friday's New York Times, Greg Hampikian presents some reasonable science about the role of men and our increasing ability to replace some of our functions - which leads him to the unreasonable conclusion that men are now reliant on their entertainment value for any relevance. Thanks to Tom Armstrong for the link.

Hampikian is an idiot.

Warren Farrell has shown that "of the 25 professions ranked the lowest [in the US], 24 of them are 85-100 per cent male. That's things like roofer, welder, garbage collector, sewer maintenance – jobs with very little security, little pay and few people want them." If we don't need men, does that mean women want these jobs?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2010), men account for 92% of on-the-job deaths. What jobs are producing those deaths? They are in primarily male dominated jobs (1995), such as logging, fishers, truck drivers, farm workers, construction, structural metal workers, taxi drivers, and airplane pilots. Are these jobs that women want to assume?

More important than the labor issue is the socialization issue (2007).

• There is considerable evidence that mothers who live with her male partner experience less externalizing behavioral problems (aggression, antisocial behavior, defiance, noncompliance, poor impulse control). 
• Active and regular interaction with the child by the father offers a range of positive outcomes, although it seems that no specific type of engagement is more beneficial than another. 
• Father engagement seems to have differential effects on desirable outcomes by reducing the frequency of behavioral problems in boys and psychological problems in young women, and enhancing cognitive development, while decreasing delinquency and economic disadvantage in low socio-economic status families.

I would argue that it need not be the birth father when that is not a good option. Having a male figure in the home (or as a frequent and consistent presence) who is engaged and supportive is the essential element (in my opinion - and there are some studies that support this). 

I could go on and a few pages, but this will suffice - there are many, many posts on this blog that refute the nonsense Hampikian is spouting.

Men, Who Needs Them?

By GREG HAMPIKIAN
Published: August 24, 2012

Boise, Idaho 

MAMMALS are named after their defining characteristic, the glands capable of sustaining a life for years after birth — glands that are functional only in the female. And yet while the term “mammal” is based on an objective analysis of shared traits, the genus name for human beings, Homo, reflects an 18th-century masculine bias in science. 

That bias, however, is becoming harder to sustain, as men become less relevant to both reproduction and parenting. Women aren’t just becoming men’s equals. It’s increasingly clear that “mankind” itself is a gross misnomer: an uninterrupted, intimate and essential maternal connection defines our species.

The central behaviors of mammals revolve around how we bear and raise our young, and humans are the parenting champions of the class. In the United States, for nearly 20 percent of our life span we are considered the legal responsibility of our parents. 

With expanding reproductive choices, we can expect to see more women choose to reproduce without men entirely. Fortunately, the data for children raised by only females is encouraging. As the Princeton sociologist Sara S. McLanahan has shown, poverty is what hurts children, not the number or gender of parents. 

That’s good, since women are both necessary and sufficient for reproduction, and men are neither. From the production of the first cell (egg) to the development of the fetus and the birth and breast-feeding of the child, fathers can be absent. They can be at work, at home, in prison or at war, living or dead. 

Think about your own history. Your life as an egg actually started in your mother’s developing ovary, before she was born; you were wrapped in your mother’s fetal body as it developed within your grandmother. 

After the two of you left Grandma’s womb, you enjoyed the protection of your mother’s prepubescent ovary. Then, sometime between 12 and 50 years after the two of you left your grandmother, you burst forth and were sucked by her fimbriae into the fallopian tube. You glided along the oviduct, surviving happily on the stored nutrients and genetic messages that Mom packed for you. 

Then, at some point, your father spent a few minutes close by, but then left. A little while later, you encountered some very odd tiny cells that he had shed. They did not merge with you, or give you any cell membranes or nutrients — just an infinitesimally small packet of DNA, less than one-millionth of your mass. 

Over the next nine months, you stole minerals from your mother’s bones and oxygen from her blood, and you received all your nutrition, energy and immune protection from her. By the time you were born your mother had contributed six to eight pounds of your weight. Then as a parting gift, she swathed you in billions of bacteria from her birth canal and groin that continue to protect your skin, digestive system and general health. In contrast, your father’s 3.3 picograms of DNA comes out to less than one pound of male contribution since the beginning of Homo sapiens 107 billion babies ago.

And while birth seems like a separation, for us mammals it’s just a new form of attachment to our female parent. If your mother breast-fed you, as our species has done for nearly our entire existence, then you suckled from her all your water, protein, sugar, fats and even immune protection. She sampled your diseases by holding you close and kissing you, just as your father might have done; but unlike your father, she responded to your infections by making antibodies that she passed to you in breast milk.

I don’t dismiss the years I put in as a doting father, or my year at home as a house husband with two young kids. And I credit my own father as the more influential parent in my life. Fathers are of great benefit. But that is a far cry from “necessary and sufficient” for reproduction. 

If a woman wants to have a baby without a man, she just needs to secure sperm (fresh or frozen) from a donor (living or dead). The only technology the self-impregnating woman needs is a straw or turkey baster, and the basic technique hasn’t changed much since Talmudic scholars debated the religious implications of insemination without sex in the fifth century. If all the men on earth died tonight, the species could continue on frozen sperm. If the women disappear, it’s extinction. 

Ultimately the question is, does “mankind” really need men? With human cloning technology just around the corner and enough frozen sperm in the world to already populate many generations, perhaps we should perform a cost-benefit analysis. 

It’s true that men have traditionally been the breadwinners. But women have been a majority of college graduates since the 1980s, and their numbers are growing. It’s also true that men have, on average, a bit more muscle mass than women. But in the age of ubiquitous weapons, the one with the better firepower (and knowledge of the law) triumphs. 

Meanwhile women live longer, are healthier and are far less likely to commit a violent offense. If men were cars, who would buy the model that doesn’t last as long, is given to lethal incidents and ends up impounded more often? 

Recently, the geneticist J. Craig Venter showed that the entire genetic material of an organism can be synthesized by a machine and then put into what he called an “artificial cell.” This was actually a bit of press-release hyperbole: Mr. Venter started with a fully functional cell, then swapped out its DNA. In doing so, he unwittingly demonstrated that the female component of sexual reproduction, the egg cell, cannot be manufactured, but the male can. 

When I explained this to a female colleague and asked her if she thought that there was yet anything irreplaceable about men, she answered, “They’re entertaining.” 

Gentlemen, let’s hope that’s enough. 

Greg Hampikian is a professor of biology and criminal justice at Boise State University and the director of the Idaho Innocence Project.

I am Convinced that Lance Armstrong Is Guilty - And He Should Keep All of His Titles

About the only story on ESPN radio yesterday was the decision by Lance Armstrong late Thursday night to give up his fight against the US Anti-Doping Agency and the charges that he engaged in multiple anti-doping rule violations, participated in a sophisticated doping scheme and conspiracy, as well as trafficking, administration, and/or attempted administration of a prohibited substance or method - which included, at various times, the use of testosterone, cortisone, HgH, EPO (and other next generation hemacrit boosters), and blood transfusions.

Armstrong's statement did not proclaim his innocence so much as it tried to discredit the investigation, which he called an "unconstitutional witch hunt." It was clear, however, that once he lost the appeal to have the investigation thrown out, he had no choice but to accept the sanctions USADA was ready to impose.

If he had challenged their verdict in arbitration, the USADA would have marched out 10 former teammates (several of whom, like George Hincapie, likely would be hostile witnesses for the USADA) who were involved directly or indirectly in doping with Armstrong and his teams, other witnesses (including former team mechanics, etc.), evidence that the UCI helped to conceal a positive test for EPO at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland (and here), evidence of doping during his 2009 and 2010 comeback attempts, and a pile of additional evidence that has never been made public.

But let's be clear: This is not a witch hunt dreamed up by the USADA.

Let's remember how this started - following a series of allegations by disgraced rider Floyd Landis, a former Armstrong teammate (he made allegations so detailed and unique that the UCI's own biological passport division is using the information to strengthen its doping detection), the United States Food and Drug Administration launched a fraud investigation of US Postal team officials and doctors.

After a two-year investigation, United States Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. stated his office "is closing an investigation into allegations of federal criminal conduct by members and associates of a professional bicycle racing team owned in part by Lance Armstrong." NPR alleged at the time that sources in the FBI, FDA, and US Postal Service were ‘shocked, surprised, and angered’ and that federal authorities only had 30 minutes notice before the United States Attorney's Office released a press release to the media on Friday afternoon.

According the NPR, sources indicated that charges were close to being brought against a number of individuals, which included fraud, witness tampering, mail fraud, and drug distribution. One source, NPR says, said there were ‘no weaknesses in the case’.

[Emphasis added.]

Following the inexplicable decision by Birotte to drop the case, USADA announced that it is "looking forward to obtaining the information" that was gathered through the grand jury investigation.

CEO of USADA, Travis Tygart indicated that today's decision by the US Attorney may help his agency pursue Armstrong on doping violations.

"Unlike the U.S. Attorney, USADA’s job is to protect clean sport rather than enforce specific criminal laws," read the statement from Tygart. "Our investigation into doping in the sport of cycling is continuing and we look forward to obtaining the information developed during the federal investigation."

That information includes the statements of several of Armstrong's former teammates and staff members, including Tyler Hamilton, who later appeared on the television news show "60 Minutes" with details about the doping at US Postal including an eye witness account of Armstrong using EPO.

There are dozens and dozens of other links to relevant stories around this case, and Cycling News is a good place to find most of them. Sports Illustrated also did their investigation in 2011 and published the results.

For all the reasons outlined above - and the fact that beating the doping tests is far too easy, to the point that 500 or more passed tests simply means the testing (as always) lags behind the most sophisticated doping strategies (in fact, it is probable that Bruyneel and Armstrong consulted with top doping lab techs to learn how to beat the tests) - I am convinced Lance Armstrong was doping throughout his career.

More importantly, I am also convinced that every other rider who finished in the top 5 in any of those seven tours was also doping. So we are going to take away Armstrong's titles to give them to other riders who doped? This is the true farce in all of the noise around this decision.

[As an aside, this is where Armstrong's defense becomes silly. We are supposed to believe that he was, seven years in a row, the best rider on the planet - that he was the only clean rider but he could beat a peloton of riders who were all doping? Not likely.] 

From USA Today, here is a list of the riders who stand to now become Tour Winners, including Jan Ulrich, who is currently serving a two-year suspension for doping.

1999 - Alex Zulle
Bio: Zulle admitted to using the performance enhancer Erythropoietin (EPO) while competing with Team Festina.

2000 - Jan Ullrich
Bio: Ullrich had all of his results after May 2005 voided and was suspended for two years for doping in February.

2001 - Ullrich

2002 - Joseba Beloki
Bio: Beloki was held out of the 2006 Tour when Spanish police suspected him of doping. He was later cleared. But still associated so the list continues.

2003 - Ullrich (comment: He almost won a lot of these, didn't he?)

2004 - Andreas Klöden
Bio: The German National Anti Doping Agency is mulling the possibility of investigating Kloden, who was accused of an illegal blood transfusion during the 2006 Tour.

2005 - Ivan Basso
Bio: Basso admitted to blood doping in 2007 and served a two-year suspension.

If this is how things end up, Jan Ulrich will join a very elite group of riders of four Tour wins - and he is banned for doping, to which he has admitted.

Either Armstrong should retain his titles, or ALL results from the 1990s-2009 should be voided.

People like Lance Armstrong have been forced into an untenable position by the doping rules. We want to see riders complete insanely tough 3 week races (the three Grand Tours) with incredibly high average speeds, but we want to see them do it without any chemical assistance. It's simply not possible.

I've advocated for legalized PEDs in sports for years, and this exactly why. Athletes are expected to win, and to do so by being bigger, faster, stronger, or with greater endurance than previous athletes, but they are also expected to not use drugs that can help them do so more effectively, or to recover more quickly.

With financial pressures, performance pressures, and who knows how many other sources of pressure, the athletes find ways (or are told they need to participate in programs) to boost their performance and win races - all the while being forced to proclaim that they win based solely on talent and training. It has to suck to be in that position.

The reality is much different. With all things being equal, the top riders are (or have been doping) and that levels the field - although some riders may dope better or more effectively than others (which is true of training and nutrition as well - they are all technologies) - so Armstrong was, without question, the best rider of his generation, doping or not. As the list of 2nd place finishers shows, Armstrong was competing in a peloton where every one of his rivals was also doping.

The best athlete and most effectively doped rider won - and he should get to keep his titles.

And finally, we need to end the double standard. We should either allow riders to use PEDs without sanction, or we should be willing accept that stages will last 20 minutes longer, average speeds on climbs will be lower, sprinters will be just a bit slower, and the race will not be as exciting.

The same thing is true in other sports - maybe if NFL players had a legitimate testing program that sought to catch those using drugs rather than simply being for show (seriously, the NFL policy is so easy to beat that every player who wants to do so can use testosterone injections to speed healing between games) the players would be 20-50 lbs lighter, a few steps slower, and there would be far fewer concussions.

We need to get real about these issues, for our athletes and for their sports.

Laurie Penny - How Should We Talk to Men about Sexism?

From The Independent (UK), this is an interesting exchange between a male and a female - both bloggers and both self-described feminists - on men and sexism. With that dumbass Missouri Congressman, Todd Akin, who is running for the Senate, making news with his fantasy-based models of reproductive biology (which is a more ignorant form of his unrepentant sexism), this is a relevant topic.

Hell, if guys like him get control of this country (and Paul Ryan is one of them), sexism will be the least our worries . . . it will be all-out war on women (and the men who think women and men should have rights, pay, and responsibilities across the board)..

But I digress . . . .

I think the most revealing thing for me in reading this is identifying just how much sexism shapes my behavior - rather, the fear of being seen as sexist or that my words/actions will be viewed as a form of sexism. Martin mentions changing his route while walking to avoid following a woman down an alley - I've done that, too. And more simply, I have NOT said things for fear of it being taken wrong.

For example, as most readers here know, I am a personal trainer (as well as a psychotherapist), so I spend a lot of time in gyms. I notice when someone, male or female, has made body composition improvements, but if it's a woman and I do not know her very well, I will not say anything (although I will have the impulse to say, "You look great - you must be proud of the changes you are making!"). My fear is that she probably will take my comment as another dumb jock (or old man, if she is young) trying to hit on her while she is working out.

There are probably a million little ways that sexism (as an assumption about men - guilty until proven innocent) shapes my reality - and I had not really thought about that before reading this exchange. However, while feminism can be useful in helping men understand female experience, I don't really see it as the answer to sexism (which is where this article concludes).

How should we talk to men about sexism?

 
By Laurie Penny
Monday, 23 July 2012


 

Laurie Penny and Martin Robbins are both writers, both feminists and both happened to be sitting alone at their computers on a Friday night when the question of ‘how to talk to men about sexism without scaring them off?’ came up on Twitter. Reasoning that the best way to encourage conversation is to start one, they did.

Martin: It’s tough being a male feminist, albeit far less tough than being a female one. Some women argue that, as a man, I shouldn’t be allowed to use the term to describe myself. There are men who say that I only support feminism to get laid.  But the biggest problem I have persuading other men is one word: ‘patriarchy’. I’ve read the manual, I understand what patriarchy is, completely accept that it exists; but as a word it’s a disaster. It frames feminism in opposition to men, and it fails to capture that men too are victims of status quo. Feminists are fighting a centuries-old system of power that benefits nobody but the elite. If they win everyone benefits, and in an ideal world working- and middle-class men would be natural allies in the fight – one of the many reasons the “men’s rights” movement are so tragic. My frustration is that not enough people are getting this message across to them.

Laurie: What you’re talking about is structural violence, and the difficulty people have in understanding that there’s more to sexism than individual men doing individually nasty things to individual woman. In a world where we’re encouraged to see ourselves purely as atomised individuals with no relationship to any sort of broader social context, that’s a tough distinction to make. Ironically, structural violence is just what the word ‘patriarchy’ attempts to describe – but I think one reason men jerk away from the description ‘patriarchy’ is that it’s assumed to imply that you, individual man, have a lot of power, when you don’t.

Martin: Yes, exactly.

Laurie: The trouble is that patriarchy as a structure of violence is set up to produce precisely that reaction. It’s set up to make individual men feel guilty, ashamed and resentful at their place in a system of brutal hierarchy. Feminism is fighting a system of privilege in which class and gender work together so that only a small group of mostly-men – patriarchs – actually have power. Some of these patriarchs now wear skirt-suits, but that doesn’t make the whole thing much better. But let’s get back to that feeling of mistrust around ‘patriarchy’. Why does it hurt to be told you have gender privilege? By the way, let’s stay aware that we’re two internet-based middle-class British white kids talking about this!

Martin: Well, for me when I first encountered feminists using the term, I didn’t feel very privileged, personally. And that’s exacerbated if you’re a middle-class woman (or man) and you’re explaining to a checkout worker at the Co-op that he has privilege, you’re going to get looked at a bit funny. In terms of language it’s almost designed to frame things in terms of men vs. women, where the men are the villains, even if that’s not the intent. So naturally a first instinct is to go on the defensive.

Laurie: Okay. I think it’s important to recognise that privilege isn’t the same as power – and also to acknowledge the effect of shame here. Most if not all men think of themselves as basically decent blokes. They don’t want to be complicit in a system of gendered violence.

Martin: There’s a reflected shame too. It’s not pleasant knowing that women feel vulnerable because of the behaviour of a – substantial – minority of my gender.

Laurie: And that really does suck! It sucks that because of the behaviour of, as you say, a substantial minority of your gender, if we were strangers you couldn’t come up and introduce yourself to me on the Tube without my feeling a bit threatened – just for example.

Martin: Exactly. I’m six foot two, big build, I will literally change my route to avoid, for example, following a woman up an alley.

Laurie: Seriously?

Martin: Absolutely. Or hang back at least, or try and walk past quickly so I’m ahead of them. I do the same with elderly people too. Or basically, anyone I think might be freaked out by a big guy following them up an alley!

Laurie: The thing is that, considerate though that is, it doesn’t actually help much in the long term – because the people we really need to worry about are never going to hang back. But if we can’t talk about structures of violence for fear of putting men on the defensive, then, what can we do? Is there actually any way of talking about feminism that doesn’t make men defensive, and should that be the aim?

Martin: Well, I think there’s a question that’s rarely asked or tackled seriously, and that’s how does patriarchy affect men.

Laurie: That’s true. Feminists often repeat the mantra that it does without properly devoting time to explaining why. I guess some of us feel like we’ve enough of our own problems to sort out, and rightly so. A lot of blokes ask me ‘why do you talk about feminism? Surely it’s about equality! If you said ‘equalism’ then we’d listen!’ But it’s about so much more than equality…

Martin: If you take rape, we’re – rightly – bombarded with statistics on the prevalence of rape, convictions, etc. What I see less discussion of is why so many men are raised to rape in the first place. There’s a very similar discussion to be had around suicide, the biggest killer of my demographic. Why do so many men come out at 18 ill-equipped to deal with civilised society around them?

Laurie: I’ve just read Hanna Rosin’s ‘The End of Men,’ in which she seems to echo a very familiar argument that men are somehow falling behind, not properly equipped or evolved for modern life, whilst women are racing ahead. And it’s absolutely true that a lot of our ideals of masculinity are still based around a social model which largely doesn’t exist anymore, if it ever did: of decently-paid, stable work, industrial jobs – but it doesn’t necessarily follow that life is getting commensurately better for women.

Martin: Well, again I think there’s a danger of framing this as men vs. women in that kind of discussion.

Laurie: And that’s what a lot of people seem keen to do. Phrasing the whole thing as a giant set of scales where there’s a fixed amount of power and the more women have the less men have is absurd, but it’s convincing. It’s an argument that undermines class consciousness. Actually patriarchy isn’t disappearing at all – it’s simply being concentrated amongst fewer and fewer people.

Martin: This is where I think ‘male privilege’, while accurate, can be a distraction – because the privilege really in modern society is that men are held back maybe 10% while women are held back more. Nobody is ‘winning’ any contest aside from a shrinking elite at the top of the pyramid who have an uncanny knack of getting the proles to fight among themselves.

Laurie: So I think this is our point of contention. I don’t think talking about male privilege distracts from class, because the two are related. Capitalism is a system built on the subjugation of women, and that’s still what it runs on. The nature of labour and its distribution are changing, and unfortunately our concept of masculinity is, has always been, so keyed into winning at capitalism or within its confines that if a man doesn’t – as is happening more and more right now – he feels de-gendered, unmanned, unable to cope. That’s always been the case. It’s why unemployment has always been such a huge mental health risk for men. And it’s also why times of high unemployment tend to see an increase in male-on-female domestic violence: gender is a way of dividing and distracting people from their own class condition, but nobody can fully understand class today unless they understand gender and power and how they interact.  I’m trying to think of a word that works better than patriarchy and I just can’t. Personally I love men, but I loathe patriarchs. Margaret Thatcher was a patriarch; you’re not.

Martin: Well, yes and no. I think branding is an issue, but I do struggle with a better word for it. On the other hand, maybe we’re too obsessed with the right word. Maybe just explaining to people how the existing system is fucking them over is a better way to go. Everyone can relate to that.

Laurie: There’s something so grating about being told that men would take feminists seriously if only we’d be nicer about it, make them feel safe and important and not threatened.

Martin: It also removes from men the responsibility to educate themselves and be aware of their surroundings and place in society.

Laurie: So when blokes I like do sexist things, half of me wants to yell and rage and the other half of me wants to sit them down and make them a cup of tea and quietly, calmly explain where they’re going wrong.

Martin: But then that’s an education I think a lot of people could benefit from, it’s something that should be taught in schools.

Laurie: A lot of vile sexist – and homophobic, and racist – behaviour gets learned in schools and goes unchecked, and by the time people leave they have to un-learn it all.

Martin: Completely unchecked, and it’s not just the obvious stuff, by the time you’re 18 as a man you’ve been taught to define yourself by certain values. How hard you are, never crying, and so on. The male suicide rate is linked to jobs, but there’s also a horrible loneliness about being a man in your twenties. You’re not allowed to say you’re lonely and vulnerable; it’s hard to make close friends unless you keep them from university.

Laurie: Oh. Do you think it’s like that for everyone?

Martin: Nothing’s ever like that for everyone, but I think it’s like it for a lot of men. I think generally men without families don’t have the same support structures women do, on average.

Laurie: I’d eyebrow-raise at that, but then I hang out around a lot of touchy-feely, pinko-socialist queers who talk a lot about building communities, so forgive my ignorance. It does seem like it could be lonely, being a bloke.

Martin: And I think that’s a function of how we’re raised. Look at male role models in popular culture – they tend to be lone wolves or alpha males in a group. Loneliness can be hard to define. You can be surrounded by people and be alone. The NHS have some good research on men my age, one of the biggest problems is not being able to discuss their feelings, and an inability to seek help.

Laurie: Yes, although it wasn’t always like that. Again, the model of masculinity changes according to what success and power is supposed to look like. Sixty years ago it was being the head of a household, an important role in your organisation or company or union, a pillar of your community. Now success for men is far more likely to mean lonely entrepreneurism. Seeking help is seen as weak.

Martin: Batman wouldn’t seek help.

Laurie: Batman doesn’t need to seek help, he has a butler.

Martin: And a billion dollars.

Laurie: And an enormous tower with his name on it.

Martin: Yes. No issues there at all.

Laurie: But seriously, what about sex?

Martin: Well, I don’t know you that well.

Laurie: Hah. Seriously, sex is a huge sticking point when it comes to talking to men about sexism. Unfortunately, there are still a significant proportion of men and women whose only real intimate contact with the opposite sex is through dating, and through fucking. So, the misunderstanding, hurt and heartbreak that come with that often color men’s understanding of women, and vice versa – the romantic-industrial complex encourages heterosexual people, particularly men, to see every member of the opposite sex as potentially interchangeable – ‘all women are cruel’; ‘all men are bastards’.

Martin: Well sex and control/power are inextricably bound. If you’re brought up to believe you’re James Bond, and then women refuse to sleep with you, that doesn’t compute very easily. So then you have men who basically resent the power they believe women hold over them, which is dangerous. Look at how people are brought up with this. It’s no fucking wonder that the rates of sexual assault are where they are. On the one hand you have women who are told sexuality is the most important thing they can have/wield. On the other, men raised to cede control to their penises and told their value is measured in their ability to dominate their surroundings.

Laurie: I’ve had men tell me that actually it’s women who have all the power, because they have the power of sexual refusal. Women are also informed that this is the only power we have or are expected to want – and ironically, of course, when we do say ‘no’ we’re rarely believed. Sexual refusal is the battleground, and if that’s women’s main power, it’s a shit power to have – particularly as it mainly works for young, hot women. For a lot of men, though, it seems like ‘women who I want to have sex with’ are the only ones admitted into the category ‘woman’ in the first place. Sexual refusal as a limited, contingent form of control is double bullshit for women and girls, because it means that if we actually happen to like sex and seek it out, as most of us would were we free to do so, we’re judged harshly for it. We like to think we live in a hugely sexually free culture, but we don’t. We don’t.

Martin: Well, that’s another point I wanted to hit. With men’s magazines, say, we’ve developed this weird lad culture that’s almost grown up in opposite to feminism – except it’s counter-productive and infantilising. And in a weird way a lot of examples of ‘rape culture’ – Brendan O’Neil’s “how can I help wolf-whistling at women” for example – are immensely infantilising. It’s like being told you’re a dribbling animal, so weak-willed that you’re guided by your penis. This weird clique of writers at magazines gradually fading out of fashion have an almost hysterical need to define what is and isn’t allowed to be sexy, and it seems not to bear much relationship to what people choose in real life. I remember, growing up,  a lot of pressure on finding the right type of woman attractive – namely FHM’s sexiest 100 women, which as an exercise is like asking all humanity what their favourite foods are and then blending all the results into a sort of bland gruel.

Laurie: I like that. Ever thought about writing for a living?

Martin: Not sure there’s any money in it!

Laurie: Point.

Martin: But seriously, we talk about the objectification of women – on the flip side of that there’s a generation of men being told “these are the women you’re allowed to objectify.” Though I’m not claiming equivalency there in terms of harm done!

Laurie: So what you’re saying is that men are socialised to feel bad if they don’t participate in a culture that hurts and objectifies women?

Martin: Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. They reach adulthood in the 21st century, equipped with a 20th century education. I can’t think of a men’s magazine that covers these issues. I can’t even think of a columnist that covers these issues. In fact when I wrote about the FHM list being insulting to men I think I may have been about the first male journalist to ever do so. Ask me to name outspoken feminist male writers and by golly gosh I’d struggle without spending an evening on Google. Feminism can be a daunting area for men. Feminism has its own language, codes, like any cliquey area of writing. I’m keenly aware of blundering in as a man and saying stupid things, it put me off writing about it for a long time until I had the confidence. I was nervous about this chat. I’m keenly aware that you could probably make mincemeat of me on this topic.

Laurie: Unfortunately, it is true that there’s a small but serious risk of getting painfully jumped on if you get something wrong, particularly with the internet.

Martin: You almost need a sort of training arena where you can say stupid things to feminists and not get shot down in public. When I was struggling to understand patriarchy, I found feminist blogs unhelpful. I was asking questions I now realise were a bit stupid, but out of naivety rather than anything else.

Laurie: I’ve thought about this a lot and unfortunately, I do think female feminists are going to have to be a bit more forgiving and generous in our corrections from time to time, if we can do that without diluting the message – firm but fair. Which of course sucks balls, because we’ve spent our lives being told to be forgiving and generous and make men feel better.

Martin: Well, it’s a balance, because while I agree with that, men also need to…er…man up, and accept that we all have a responsibility to educate ourselves. We do need male feminists, but it’s hard to know where to start, especially as a writer.  Plus, feminism shouldn’t be just for women. I’ve had feminists tell me I’m not allowed to call myself a feminist, and I hate that.

Laurie: Feminists who treat feminism as a special club that only they get to decide membership of can bog off.

Martin: Why are more men not talking about this? Where are the spaces where men can stand up and say – actually, this is fucked up? I wish feminism was seen as a discipline in which we discussed men’s issues as much as women’s.

Laurie: We need some more outspoken male feminists. Maybe you should be one. I’ll train you, we can be like Pai Mei and Beatrix. I’m Pai Mei.

[Insert elaborate training montage where Martin is made to climb an enormous mountain of privilege-comprehension, dodge the tar-pits of in-fighting and finally destroy Rick Santorum in hand-to-hand combat armed only with a copy of The Dialectic of Sex ]

Martin: *gasps* I…I know feminism.

Laurie: Now you’re ready.

LL Cool J Breaks Burglar's Jaw, Detains Thief Until Police Arrive

LL Cool J is a big man, and it appears he's also badass enough to protect his home and family without a gun. According to stories all over the web today, LL Cool J beat the crap out a man who had broken into his San Fernando Valley home last night. The unnamed suspect was still receiving treatment for a broken nose and broken jaw as the story hit the press.

From Huffington Post:

When LL Cool J was surprised by an intruder who had tripped the alarm system at his Studio City home in Los Angeles home around 1 a.m. this morning, he decided the fend off the man himself.

At over 6 feet tall and a hulking 200-pounds plus (of pure muscle, we're guessing), it was no surprise he was able to overcome the burglar and detain him until police could arrive.

The Associated Press reports that police responded to a call to 9-1-1 from a girl who said her father was holding a man who had broken into the home.

When police got to the scene, they found the perpetrator with minor bruises and LL Cool J unharmed. The man reportedly did not take anything but was still arrested on suspicion of burglary, said law enforcement officials.

A spokesperson for the L.A. police originally said that the call came from a home on Blairwood Drive, a street on which LL Cool J's real name, "James Smith," is listed as a resident. It was later confirmed to TMZ that it was indeed the home of the rapper-turned actor.

“As a father, husband and citizen, [LL Cool J] is committed to keeping his family safe and is cooperating with authorities on this private matter," said the spokesperson in a statement to the Daily News.

Very cool - a man who is a musician, an actor, a family man, and can kick ass and take names when necessary.

Cool J told Men's Health Magazine in 2006 that his workout program includes "free-weight bodybuilding exercises, plyometrics, fighters' moves, calisthenics, and endurance training, all designed to build muscle while burning fat." Among the fun things he does are 100 meter sprints, running hills in a weighted vest, and mixes of old school bodybuilding with high-intensity cardio - all done with his trainer, Scooter Honig.

I've always admired Cool J even while not being a rap/hip-hop fan. He chose his own path in the industry - not gangsta and not political - and fused rap/hip-hop with pop music appeal. He has been incredibly successful and has also been labeled a sell-out by some factions of the rap community.

He responded to the worst of it, in 1990, with Mama Said Knock You Out (see below), a huge hit and his hardest music to that point - the best-selling record in his career.

More importantly, he has been married to the same woman since 1995, and they have four children (oldest is 22, youngest is 11). It's rare to see anyone in the music or acting stay married that long, maybe more so for man coming out of the rap community.

On the page devoted to him at AskMen.com, he is quoted:

"Keeping it real ain't about carrying a gun or smoking blunts. It's about being true to yourself and those around you." 

He has been active in politics, supporting both Republican and Democratic candidates - based not on their political party, but on what they do for the community. His support of NY Governor George Pataki (R) grew out of meeting him at an assisted-living project fund-raiser in Cool J's old neighborhood (where his grandparents raised him following his parents' divorce when he was 4 years old).

He has also been active in helping youth, according to Rolling Stone:

He taped a radio commercial for a "Stay in School" literacy campaign and founded the Camp Cool J Foundation and Youth Enterprises, a program for urban youth.

Here is the video for Mama Said Knock You Out, which we can now take a bit more literally.

BBC - Just who are men's rights activists?

This BBC article is from May of this year, but it had slipped under my radar. The story has 939 comments, so I am guessing they touched a nerve or two.

One male commentator raised an issue I have quite a bit from men who embrace some fore of MRA affiliation: "We are supposed to be strong and protective one minute, loving and caring the next, independent here, a family man there." He concludes that, "only women know which version they want at any one time, we aren't allowed to but woe betide us if we get it wrong." His view received a +66 rating, which is pretty good.

I find this perspective, which I see a lot online, very troubling. It suggests two things to me: (1) These guys are taking their cues on how to act from others, not from their own internal sense; and (2) These guys lack a clear sense of when it is appropriate to be strong and independent, and when it is best to be tender and loving.

Perhaps the absence of strong fathers for so many men has left them in this state of confusion. However, blaming women is the wrong approach. If a given woman doesn't groove with who you are, then move on, but don't blame all women, and don't feminism because we lack emotional intelligence - we are certainly capable of it.

Just who are men's rights activists?

By Tom de Castella 
BBC News Magazine
 

An increasingly vocal men's movement argues that anti-male discrimination is rife. Who are the activists and what do they want?

Feminists have spent decades trying to get equal pay and rights for women.

But while, in the West at least, discrimination against women is rigorously challenged, a growing band of men's rights activists say no such protection is afforded to men.

Many of these activists also believe that the media allow women to objectify and ridicule men in a way that would be unthinkable if the gender roles were reversed.

A new book argues that on a whole range of fronts - from government, the courts and schools - men are being discriminated against.

David Benatar, head of philosophy at the University of Cape Town, argues in his polemic The Second Sexism that across the world men are more likely to be conscripted into the military, be victims of violence, lose custody of their children, and take their own lives.

Notable activists

• UK Activist group Fathers 4 Justice campaigns for men's rights for access to their children.
• US organisation National Coalition for Men "raises awareness about the ways sex discrimination affects men and boys".
• Save Indian Family Foundation is a men's rights group in India, engaging "primarily in supporting men trapped in false cases by women".

Custody law is perhaps the best-known area of men's rights activism, with images of divorced fathers scaling buildings in Batman suits familiar in the UK. 

Benatar asserts that in most parts of the world custody rights cases are stacked firmly against men. "When the man is the primary care-giver his chances of winning custody are lower than when the woman is the primary care-giver.

"Even when the case is not contested by the mother, he's still not as likely to get custody as when the woman's claim is uncontested."

Education is another area where men are falling behind, the activists note. Tests in 2009 by the Programme for International Student Assessment showed that boys lagged a year behind girls at reading in every industrialised country. And women now make up the majority of undergraduates, Benatar says.

"When women are underrepresented as CEOs of companies that is deemed discrimination. But when boys are falling behind at school, when 90% of people in prison are male, there's never any thought given to whether men are discriminated against."

 

If sexual equality is to be achieved then male discrimination must be taken as seriously as sexism against women, he argues.

Equal pay is the barometer in developed countries like the UK. According to the Office for National Statistics, the gender pay gap is still pronounced within professions. Women earn on average £8,000 less than a man as lawyers, £14,000 less as a CEO and £9,000 less as a doctor.

But the picture may be changing. Last year the the Universities and Colleges Admission Service discovered that women aged 22-29 have overtaken men on pay for the first time. And a survey for the Chartered Management Institute found that female managers in their 20s were earning 2.1% more than their male counterparts.

Such controversies are feeding a sense that men need to set up their own support structures. The Men's Network, a charity in Brighton, aims to help "every man and boy in our city to fulfil his greatest potential".

Movember, a campaign in which men grow facial hair for a month, taps into a feeling among some men that male diseases like prostate and testicular cancer are not taken as seriously as women's.

 

The popularity of breast cancer campaigns such as Moonwalk 

led to Movember for testicular cancer

As the old certainties break down, a masculinist movement claims men need their own equivalent to feminists.

Aoirthoir An Broc, founder of the International Association of Masculinists, says there are thousands of male activists in India fighting the country's unequal divorce laws.

An Broc, a web designer in Cleveland, Ohio, is planning to set up the first domestic violence shelter in the US for male victims. He says there's an assumption that women are always innocent and men the aggressor. In response he's coined the term "all men are good" to counter the negative perception.

"We say that all men are men, all men are good, all men are worthy of love and respect regardless of race, sexuality, religion. We don't believe in cultural definitions of men."

There's a cultural context, too. Some of the men's rights-type concerns echo those of feminists - male body image is a growing issue.

And there are some who feel that while feminism has addressed discrimination against women, outdated attitudes towards men have not been tackled.

Tom Martin gained attention last year after suing the London School of Economics' gender studies department for sexism.

He says he was radicalised while working as a barman in a club in Soho. "I could see that male customers were being abused at every point," he says.

Men had to queue and often pay while women got in free. They were goaded by bouncers to leave, while women were treated with respect. But worst of all, he believes they were used by women to buy drinks.

But Martin says it is all about sex.

"Since the pill, women have been told they can and should be having orgasms. And because they haven't been, they categorise that as men's fault."

He concludes that "it's women's job to make themselves sexually happy, it's not a man's burden."

The psychologist Oliver James believes men are feeling "sexually threatened".

Where women rule the roost

• In Greek mythology, the Amazons are a race of war-like women
• In the Indian state of Meghalaya, property names and wealth pass from mother to daughter
• Women determine family line and only women have right to inherit in the Mosuo tribe in China
• Minangkabau people in Indonesia are matrilineal - women own key land and property
• The male beauty contest judged by women

Women are no longer reticent about sex or their expectations from a lover. Furthermore they are now more likely to evaluate a man's sexual performance in public and even deride men who "aren't particularly imaginative or clever" in bed, he argues. 

For feminists the men's movement is more straightforward. "It's the same old point that feminism has gone too far," says Mail on Sunday columnist Suzanne Moore.

The continuing gender pay gap and the fact that men dominate senior positions in public life, show up where the real discrimination is, she argues. There are problems with the way boys are educated but "you can't make sweeping statements about all men being discriminated against", she says.

Kat Banyard, author of The Equality Illusion, says men make the mistake of fearing feminism when it offers them liberation from an outdated masculinity. "There's a belief that feminism is a zero sum game and that men are losing."

To argue that men are now the victims of the gender struggle is absurd, she says. "For thousands of years women were subjugated as second class citizens. We've just started to change that in the last two centuries and there's a long way to go. The men's activists are denying history."

Male rights campaigners have struggled to shed their "cranky" image, argues Tim Samuels, presenter of BBC Radio 5 live's Men's Hour.

Most men don't see themselves as part of a movement, Samuels says. But they do want to talk to each other with a greater emotional complexity than previous generations of men - "even if it's not like Oprah".

And whatever one thinks about the spectrum of men's rights activism, there are important issues, like the fact that young men are three times as likely to die by suicide as young women.

"The men's movement tends to be dismissed as blokes scaling buildings dressed as superman. Whereas the women's movement is given credibility," Samuels says.