Cleansed community, let’s keep the conversation going
Turn-offs: boasting about sex with partners, and men talking about men…
In a previous newsletter, I wrote about a host of taboos: the lack of intimacy in male friendships, and how and why men (don’t) speak about sex - including sex in the context of a stable relationship.
I got a range of reactions, of which five people canceled their subscriptions to the Spanish-language version of this newsletter (offended penises?). This is something which had not yet happened to me in two years of Recalculating’s slow but steady growth (at most, I lost two subscribers in one week, but never five in one go, and much less after one newsletter).
It induced a crippling case of imposter syndrome — what am I doing, writing about what it means to be a man? I also wondered if I had covered the topic wrongly, or whether I had completely missed the point.
It set off some serious insecurity alarms, the ones which activate when you lower your guard and let a certain paranoia in (are they bored of reading me? Should I stop writing the newsletter?)
But then eight new subscribers came along, and it more than evened the balance. Some days later, a friend shared a helpful theory with me: “Your community cleaned itself out”. As they wished, some stayed, some left, and others entered. So, welcome to those of you who are getting this newsletter for the first time.
I suspect those who left did so because they weren’t at ease with the themes I was writing about, on masculinity. What remains interesting though is the messages I have been getting — mainly from women (no surprises there).
Some of those conversations are still ongoing, like from the reader who shared (thanks, C!) this scene from the sketch show Inside Amy Schumer with me. A group of friends are happily boasting about their sex lives — but no one likes it when the topic switches to what one of them liked to do behind closed doors with his wife:
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This reminds me of another video sent to me by another reader (hi, E!).
A few months ago I wrote both about screen addiction and what we do with time in our lives — especially since one billion seconds is equal to 31 years.
The short emotive — and effective — ad spot is called “The Time We Have Left”, and it does exactly that: it makes us think about how best we can use our time — especially when it comes to the relationships we care most about. How much time do we actually have left with our best friends, for example?
The cultural stigma of diabetes in men in Texas
The New York Times reports about diabetes-related amputations in San Antonio, the US: some 52 for every 100,000 hospitalizations, reports Edgar Sandoval. In the daily newsletter, he explains how men are most at risk:
“The problem in San Antonio is even worse than in the rest of Texas, especially for men, who are roughly three times more likely to lose a foot or leg to diabetes than women — possibly because of cultural stigmas that prevent many Latino men from looking closely after their health.”
Sandoval speaks to Julius Hunter, a program coordinator with San Antonio’s Diabetes Prevention and Control program, who brings out the toxic masculinity element which can lead to tragic consequences:
“Males, he said, are programmed from an early age to “tough it out,” and tend to ignore cuts and lesions that may be a telltale sign of serious diabetes problems, even after being told they have the disease. The city’s various diabetes seminars are attended almost exclusively by women, Mr. Hunter said. “‘Are you a man or are you going to cry like a little boy?’ Those messages carry all the way to adulthood, especially for men of color,” Mr. Hunter said.
In my piece about how some men struggle to prioritize their health, I pointed out that this was also related to our education, social expectations and masculine mortality.
This wave of amputations is a reminder that men “arrive late” to the health system. Men also live seven years less due to their gender, as psychoanalyst Débora Tajer has said.
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Rethinking masculinity
“A reframing of masculinity, rooted in empathy” is the title of a TED Talk by Gary Barker, president and executive director of Equimundo, an NGO working to promote gender equality and to create a world free of violence against men and children.
Barker is a proponent of moving away from ideas which perpetuate prejudicial stereotypes about masculinity, and instead to nurture a culture of care, compassion and connection between men.
He adds that talking about masculinity is not a stand-in for conversations about equality and women’s rights, but it is an “urgent, interconnected” conversation that we have to have.
For Barker, masculinity is the connecting thread of violence:
“It is an inconvenient and difficult-to-look-at truth, but the majority of violence in the world is carried out by men”. This includes violence against women and people of other gender identities, but also violence against other men and against ourselves (in the case of suicide).
Around 40 - 50% of men across the world have created a version of ‘manhood’ — one of the thoroughfares of this problem, according to Barker — which claims to need to overcome the other at any cost; which cannot demonstrate vulnerability nor ask for help. Sex is conquest, and it is not about intimacy and connection.
The root of this violence, he says, has something to do with how we were raised as boys, and in how boys and men live their lives: “We tell boys to be “men” and we show them that violence is the best tool to resolve conflicts”.
We know how this works. Men grow up thinking that they have to have a lot of sex (with a lot of women) and experience extreme situations — such as drinking too much alcohol, taking too many drugs, driving too fast — because those are the ways that we show our virility. Barker says this is what is costing men their lives.
The TED Talk considers questions such as what we can do with respect to this reality; how we can convince men that it is important (and manly) to have this conversation; that we can include men, who many times feel confused and are on the defensive about their role in gender equality, in these complex conversations, without feeling attacked.
For Barker, the lack of traditional masculinity means we build a shell around ourselves, shutting off emotions which is equivalent to the shutting of the human connection that we need, he says. “I don’t care”, for example, is a narrative men often spout, and it starts in boyhood.
Hiding behind the shell is the perfect shield, says Barker - because it takes away blame, being questioned or hurt or shamed, because of this “I don’t care” factor.
Watch the 13 minute talk here:
Thank you for making it this far.
I think it is clear that more men need to have more open and honest conversations about ourselves and with other men.
And if you don’t like this conclusion, well, I guess I’m risking losing more subscribers this week (but maybe you could tell me why before you go!)
Thanks to everyone for sharing this newsletter, and welcome again to those who are reading this for the first time (you can find more from Recalculating here).
Let’s be in touch, as usual. You can always reply to this email.
See you in two weeks!
With love,
Nacho
🙏 Many thanks to Worldcrunch for translating and editing this newsletter.
