1/30/2019
“What is Masculinity? My Ten Sessions with a Sex Coach”
What is masculinity? This week I found myself asking this question on more than one occasion and so, I wasn’t surprised when it happened to be the topic of conversation with my coach.
Is masculinity something that can have a generic definition? Is it spectral? Is it completely subjective?
How do we arrive at these definitions? Can we see that our concept of masculinity is informed by our parents, schools, society, culture, and the media? What is masculinity after we’ve sorted through all of that conditioning? Can a man paint his toes?
The dictionary defines masculinity as follows;
masculinity | ˌmaskyəˈlinədē |
noun
qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of men
Alright so, what is a man then?
man | man | (plural men | men | )
noun
1 an adult human male: a small man with mischievous eyes | the men's semi-finals.
• a male worker or employee: more than 700 men were laid off | CNN's man in India.
• a male member of a sports team: Johnson took the ball past three men and scored.
• (men) ordinary members of the armed forces as distinct from the officers: he had a platoon of forty men to prepare for battle.
• a husband, boyfriend, or lover: the two of them lived for a time as man and wife.
• [with modifier] a male person associated with a particular place, activity, or occupation: a Harvard man | I'm a solid union man.
• a person with the qualities associated with males, such as bravery, spirit, or toughness: she was more of a man than any of them.
• a male pursued or sought by another, especially in connection with a crime: Inspector Bull was sure they would find their man.
• dated a manservant or valet: get me a cocktail, my man.
• historical a vassal.
Bravery, spirit, toughness? And the example! Ahahaha! Describing a female possessing these attributes more fully than men! Seems time to update the dictionary! Still, not so clear to me. How about “male”?
male | māl |
adjective
of or denoting the sex that produces small, typically motile gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring: male children.
• relating to or characteristic of men or male animals; masculine: a deep male voice | male unemployment.
• (of a plant or flower) bearing stamens but lacking functional pistils.
• (of parts of machinery, fittings, etc.) designed to enter, fill, or fit inside a corresponding female part. a male person, plant, or animal: the audience consisted of adult males | the male of the species.
Male Unemployment? Moving on...
Ok, so finally, maybe, something…Maybe. Getting to this point kind of circles us back around to where we started, at “masculine”. Unless masculinity is described only as “the ability to produce spermatozoa” the definition is still up for debate. Oh, and I love how the dictionary will describe the physical characteristics of a plant but not of a human being. Completely breezes past that! And then the mechanical reference! WTF!
Here is one of my earlier experiences with masculinity.
“Be a man! Get your hands out of your pockets and stop crying!” My father is yelling, it’s a cold, snowy winter day and he is dragging me outside to chop and stack wood. I’m little more than ten years old. I am not able to control my quivering lip. I guess this is where the expression comes from. A stiff upper lip. I wish I could remember all of the surrounding events of that day, the ones that had nothing to do with me or my manhood. It’s kind of funny to me now, but this scene has stuck with me over the years while most of my childhood is lost.
So, what can we glean from this sort of insightful fatherly advice? A man doesn’t cry. A man doesn’t get cold. A man deals with hardships. A man yells. A man yells at his kids. A man goes outside in the freezing cold even if he hates it. The boy learns that he is not yet a man, that he does not measure up.
Well that’s terrible! I don’t want to be that!
During our coaching session we took a look at many of the things that informed my masculinity. We looked at how my father informed my manhood, our culture and the media.
Side note. To be fair to my father, (I make him sound like a dick) he taught me a lot about masculinity, many respectable and worthy values for which I must credit him. Most notably my dad taught me how to think for myself, he may not have done it intentionally though it is undoubtedly an effect of his influence. That is not to say that I believe that to be a masculine trait, more that, being inquisitive and considerate is my masculinity.
We looked at what culture expects from a man both positively and negatively. Culture sets an ideal and the height of the bar in my opinion is pretty unrealistic. And, in looking at the media; news, TV, magazines, movies and even pornography men are portrayed as anything from trivial proletariats to shameful monsters. Needless to say, there’s not a lot of clarity out there either.
I guess that to answer the question we each have to take a look inside and really consider for ourselves what masculinity is.
Taking all of this into consideration, I am then asked to reflect and describe what masculinity looks like to me. At first all I can see is a softness. I soon realize that it isn’t softness but rather, flexibility. Masculinity to me looks like a huge spectrum of emotion from deep sadness and anger to pure contentment and great joy! The flexibility piece is the acceptance and management of this wide array of emotions. And thus, vulnerability, humility, and presence also constitute masculinity to me. In this way my masculine can also be seen to serve as protector, keeping a safe, calm space. Masculinity is the ability to move forward, roll with the punches all the while keeping balance. All I can think of right now is authenticity. Authenticity, the product of spontaneity!
Wow, I like my masculinity!
Coming back to our conversation. Kristin has me conjure up this inner masculinity and engender these qualities within my body. She asks me to imagine that I am sitting across from myself. She asks what this embodiment of masculinity would say to me. I pause a minute, maybe a few minutes before something comes to me. I want to tell myself, “Good job! You’re doing it right. I know that it has been really challenging and lonely at times and, I am proud and I support you!”.
All of this and I’m feeling like I want to cry! But wait, men don’t cry! I’m remembering the last time I cried, it was seventeen years ago! That’s was half my life ago! There is something not right about that. I’m starting to think that my masculinity may require a box of tissues. Seventeen years is a long time, I mean I’ve squoze (hmm, that’s funny seems squoze is a real word, no spell check! I’m keeping it that way! Ehem.) out a few tears since then, Wall-E makes me cry everytime. Damn robots and their emoting! A real cleansing, cathartic, uncontrollable release though? Not since then.
Kristin asks, “So, what is the truth about your masculinity?” I tell her. “I need help. I need a partnership. I can’t do it alone”. It wasn’t until a week later that I realized what that really meant. You see I thought at the time that what I needed was partnership and, to a degree that is true. What I thought was that I needed some external support when in reality what was missing was my willingness to let femininity in.
Masculinity and femininity are two sides of the same coin. Masculinity wouldn’t be what it is at all without its counter. Femininity is absolutely essential if self-actualization is the desire and to me it is the desire. I’m on a journey, it’s a journey that goes everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I’m reaching up and out while simultaneously condensing. All at once, imploding and exploding. There is no masculinity AND femininity but, one simultaneously afferent and at once efferent energy. A spherical centrifuge. Picture a battery and its two poles. A positive(+) and a negative(-). Two polarities. Picture a magnet, the planet, a galaxy, picture any electromagnetic field! This is the point!
Balance.
What I find interesting is that whether we are conscious of this or not, whether we accept the idea or not it is still the case. None of us can ever stop being perfect beings. My hope is to make that clear to more and more people (and to keep reminding myself). I want for people to wake up to the idea of perfection, to know that there is nowhere to go. There is nothing to do. All there is is to align our knowing to what is and then, as a row of batteries in a circuit, unify and combine our collective energies in a most efficient way! There is such potential here. We’ve been reaching outwardly for such a long time. Masculine energy leading the way. I’m looking forward to the day when, as a species our collective focus is directed inward. I know that that is what is happening now, that we are on the way and, that there will be a moment, a point of balance. What creativity is possible then!
The masculine is nothing without the feminine. Remember these are energies that I am talking about. I am not talking about gender. I hope that I have made myself clear what these concepts mean to me. It can be a challenge these days to start a conversation of this nature without starting an argument too. However, I want to encourage y’all to talk about these topics and I want to stress that a giant part of a conversation is listening! And wouldn’t you know, a feminine quality, one of receptivity. Communicate! In communication there too is a masculine and a feminine energy. Can you see that a conversation can also resemble an electromagnetic field? Outward expression, inward reception and that magic, still point, in the center. The point where when we are able to express ourselves authentically and be received in similar fashion that we can know that we are in fact, one.