Speaker: Yeah, I was really excited, uh, when Sybil connected us and it's just nice to hear another guy with the advocacy background to talk [00:01:30] about these things with, like we talked about, I'm, I'm really nervous a little bit to have a public conversation about some of these things without having braced by another guy who cares?

Speaker: Yeah. So it means the world that you're [00:01:40] here.

Speaker 2: Absolutely, man. No, I'm, I'm grateful. And I feel that like, that energetic of like, oh, it's a hard task. And, uh, right. I say to my son all the time, many hands make [00:01:50] light work. And that applies for like emotional struggles too, right? It's like, let's, let's try this together.

Speaker: So anybody who's been listening to the podcast knows a little bit about my background and I have six years of advocacy [00:02:00] working against interpersonal violence in 10 years, working clinically with guys to try to help men be better just in themselves, but also by reducing some of that other violence and other [00:02:10] patterns.

Speaker: And tell us a bit about your background so that people know who was having this conversation.

Speaker 2: My life changed pretty significantly when I was taking a gap year from a [00:02:20] graduate school and I found myself working at a domestic violence shelter. As soon as I started that job, I was facilitating a therapeutic art program for kids [00:02:30] and their moms and my just whole consciousness, god blown, wide open about just sort of like the scope.

Speaker 2: Of the crisis of domestic [00:02:40] abuse in our communities, it really began to immediately kind of wake me up and rearrange my consciousness. And, and I think part of it was, it helped me to understand that the story of men's [00:02:50] violence against women in particular is really like my family's story. While my dad hadn't, you know, used violence against my mom, she had survived [00:03:00] really prolific amounts of violence, normal everyday violence.

Speaker 2: I believe in a lot of ways from men in her community growing up. Uh, her and her [00:03:10] sisters, her mom growing up in Decatur, Georgia, has just experienced a tremendous amount of violence. My sister experienced a lot of violence. And then the truth is right, like [00:03:20] my dad experienced a lot of violence from his dad, and my brothers experienced violence from my dad.

Speaker 2: And so by working at this domestic violence shelter. [00:03:30] All of a sudden these big questions I had about my very own life and identity and pain and why I was addicted and drinking and why I was [00:03:40] miserable and, and repeating like self-destructive habits in, in romantic relationships. All of a sudden by working at the shelter, I was like, oh, [00:03:50] this crisis is the story of my family, but not a member.

Speaker 2: And my family knows that. But it is clear to me as day by just sitting here [00:04:00] working and listening to these women's stories every day.

Speaker: Yeah, I, I'd say that that was a lot of my experience studying behavioral health and then working in that advocacy. It's, it's [00:04:10] impossible not to see the patterns around you.

Speaker: See how it touches your life. Yeah. And what I've found is most guys doing this work see it in their family. And it [00:04:20] starts from a place of, I'm curious, I'm here for somebody else. This is where I see it touch my life. Now I'm passionately engaged in that. And so how long ago was that that that [00:04:30] transition happened for you where this started to be a focus of your work?

Speaker 2: About 2011, I started working at the shelter. And then by I'd say 2012, [00:04:40] 2013, the women that run that shelter came to me and said, Hey Michael, we wanna start an experimental men's education program, which is premised on the [00:04:50] question of what would it take to get men in this community to take responsibility for ending domestic abuse?

Speaker 2: And so I started [00:05:00] doing that program, which way changed my life on a much more profound level. 'cause I found out how implicated I was. [00:05:10] I didn't know that in a lot of the violence, and so that just kind of stepped me off on this whole men's work journey of doing intervention prevention work at a lot of different [00:05:20] levels and scales.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Really Ever since then, so since 2011.

Speaker: Yeah. So I'm coming up on 15 years almost. Yeah. Yeah. I like how [00:05:30] our timing lines up a little bit. My, my start was 2009. Okay. Doing direct service for people that were survivors of sexual assault. Yeah. But then just like you, a few years later, I [00:05:40] got tapped to do the bystander intervention trainings.

Speaker: Yeah. Where, you know, I, I joke a lot about, it was the best job I've ever had convincing a bunch of airmen to punch rapists. It's a great gig. Yeah. But that's where it all [00:05:50] started and then it just kind of, once you're paying attention, it's hard not to see.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, a hundred percent. So for me, I remember when Me Too kicked off right.

Speaker: That [00:06:00] this conversation is kind of bringing forward what's happening with me Too and men now.

Speaker 3: Yeah. But I

Speaker: think it's important to acknowledge where it started. And for me, I remember being [00:06:10] very excited about it. Like I was a little afraid. I think like most men, if they're being honest, were, but it was nice to see a push, people getting, getting their voices out.

Speaker: More men [00:06:20] being made aware. Yeah. More perpetrators being held some kind of accountable.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker: Right. Yeah. How was that for you when you were doing the work?

Speaker 2: So, so for me, [00:06:30] I started going through this program, I don't know, 2013, 14. I'm going through this program. When I started going to do this men's program, I thought the [00:06:40] men who need to be dealt with are out there.

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Like there's bad guys and there's good guys. Yeah. And luckily, I'm a good guy. That was a big story that lived for me, and I really [00:06:50] got that perception busted. I realized like, oh, that's such a false dichotomy that protects the system that allows violence, men's [00:07:00] violence to be sustainable. And so what I learned was like, oh, I've been really abusive to women in relationships.

Speaker 2: I've done it like a college [00:07:10] educated guy. I've done it like a white guy. I've done it like a middle class guy. So in other words, I had never broken the law, you know? And in most of the cases, I felt wronged by the women [00:07:20] in my life, and everybody was on my side. They're like, oh yeah, she was, she was in the wrong, she was mistreating you.

Speaker 2: But the more that I, so you were

Speaker: reaching for that control?

Speaker 2: Yeah. The, the more that I, I really learned [00:07:30] about, for me how I understand it, is like patriarchal violence. The system of systematic sexism, male supremacy for me, structured society. Oh, [00:07:40] I'm, so, I'm getting to me too. You know, for me in that what I learned was like the way I was socialized to relate to sex.

Speaker 2: Intimacy with [00:07:50] women was pre, it is predatory in norms. The norms themselves that structure men's attraction to [00:08:00] courtship with women. For me, I thought I was being normal. Everybody thought I was being normal. I was lifted up. Nobody ever said, oh, that's problematic. I came to understand like they were really predatory.

Speaker 2: And [00:08:10] so I had to go through a big humbling reckoning that I like. I have perpetrated harm in my community. It's not illegal harm, normal everyday [00:08:20] harm that the kind that nobody calls harm. And so I think for me, by the time that Me Too came around for me, I was kind of like this relief because a part of my [00:08:30] mission has been to get with men and say like, yo guys we're being convinced to do bad things and feel fine about it.

Speaker 2: When there became a cultural movement that said, [00:08:40] Hey, tons of guys do bad things and they think it's fine. I was like, come on y'all, let's go. We need this. Yeah. So bad. So for me, there was a lot of relief 'cause it [00:08:50] was fuel onto the movement that was already changing my life.

Speaker: Yeah. So you, your work really got validated in that moment.

Speaker: Yeah,

Speaker 2: I think so.

Speaker: Yeah. I think that's [00:09:00] the, one of the things that, like Richard Reeves talks about in his men's work is the systems that we have built when it comes to men's problems and men's behavior [00:09:10] aren't discussed all of the things that men do or discussed on a personal responsibility level, which that exists too.

Speaker: Right? Absolutely. Like I don't wanna discount a personal accountability in any way, shape, or [00:09:20] form. Yep. But when we're not aware of the systems we're living in, it's like a fish and water. I was just talking with a friend about this last night talking about. You know, learning to date [00:09:30] in the early two thousands as a man.

Speaker: Yeah. Where you were a good guy. If you kept asking where, now that I'm back in kinda the dating pool and dating women in their forties, occasionally there'll be a woman who like pulls [00:09:40] back and gives me physical cues that we're not pursuing intimacy and then gets frustrated that it don't push through those.

Speaker: That totally like lack of consent culture that existed when we were learning how to [00:09:50] date. And I think the consent culture is one of the positive things that I'm seeing come out of me too. Right? People are more aware of enthusiastic consent. People [00:10:00] are more aware of, you know, everybody needs to be on board and everybody needs to be on board continuously for any kind of engagement.

Speaker: Was there ever a point through the process of Me Too and the [00:10:10] way that it got picked up in the, the heat of it that you became uncomfortable?

Speaker 2: This is what I think is uncomfortable. I think it's uncomfortable to understand how much [00:10:20] sexual violence. Is wrapped up into everyday norms in our sense of self. I think it's scary.

Speaker 2: We don't look at sexual violence and what real [00:10:30] sexual violence is, we only look at a caricature of it. We look at a joke of it. Sexual violence isn't a random stranger. It's a pers. It's two [00:10:40] people in a love relationship where their power dynamic is fraught. And what you said, there's so many cultural incentives that are constantly bombarding us as men with messages that like it's [00:10:50] romantic, it's legitimate, it's desirable to be a boundary crusher, to be a boundary overcomer.

Speaker 2: Um, and so I do like what I wanna say is it's [00:11:00] uncomfortable to look at what real sexual violence is. I'm using that word in a generic sense. Like, I don't mean like choking somebody, I mean just sexual violence. I mean like [00:11:10] not me only caring about what I want and the kind of not caring what the other person wants.

Speaker 2: It is uncomfortable to look at how it really happens and to find myself in the mirror. [00:11:20] I do think that that's uncomfortable in terms of, you know, that, so that's work I've had to do. I'm happy to, on this podcast, to talk about my own journey of like learning how to be willing to [00:11:30] see what I didn't wanna see there.

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Um, but I just think, you know, in terms of Me Too, I think the only thing that scared me about [00:11:40] it and made me feel sad was the percentage of men who were not open to having their paradigm [00:11:50] imploded. Because one of, one of the big takeaways for me from some really pivotal moments in Me Too was people saying like, well, if that's sexual abuse, every woman and I know [00:12:00] would've been sexually abused, and I want to say, brother,

Speaker: that's correct.

Speaker 2: Ding, ding, ding, ding. That, that would be the scary news. And so many people, they would get to that point and say like, [00:12:10] so that just proves this whole movement's extreme. I'm like, does it, or do we live in a rape culture? And the data shows me that we live in a rape culture.

Speaker: Yeah. I think, I think for me, I'm [00:12:20] very much in alignment with all of that, the, the rape culture and how the, the, the kindness I give to other guys is the, the idea that the loss of [00:12:30] privilege feels like subjugation.

Speaker: Totally. Right. Having to look at the war you've been swimming in and see it as uncomfortable is terrifying. Yeah. Yeah. And [00:12:40] I think that too many powerful men continue to get away with bad behavior, and the frustration and anger at them [00:12:50] gives out of proportion response to other men's mistakes. And that's what I started to see that that started to [00:13:00] make me uncomfortable was that there, there was never, and it makes a lot of sense, right?

Speaker: That the, the overall push that every [00:13:10] person that's accused of anything, we're gonna treat like a rapist. That made it hard to have a conversation with some guys about it.

Speaker 2: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And, and one thing I feel aware of, so, [00:13:20] so like a part of work I'm interested in is anti-racist work.

Speaker 2: I'm using this by way of a proxy, and one thing I'm always really clear on is in a context of [00:13:30] impunity, the movement for justice will be imbalanced. And so part of what we have to do is we have to deal with the culture of impunity. It's gonna be reactive and [00:13:40] messy in the beginning. 'cause we've been living with you can get away with it has been the norm.

Speaker 2: And so those who are getting impacted by you can get away with it. Yeah. I mean, like, they're gonna, they're [00:13:50] gonna be upset. And so, so I just like, I wanna name where, in a context in which it's been in the last few decades that some states in the United States have for the very [00:14:00] first time, said there's such a thing as a, as a husband raping a wife.

Speaker 2: We're talking about like 1980s, 1990s, that states that were just like, no, there's no such thing [00:14:10] because it's his property.

Speaker: Like some of your parents and many of your grandparents lived under that rule, like it would be foolish. Do me a favor, please define the, uh, impunity for me. For [00:14:20] folks.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: Thank you. When I say impunity, I mean I get to do stuff with no fear of meaningful consequences

Speaker: for, for me, the way that I've framed it [00:14:30] that's gotten through to folks in the way that it was trained to me, which made me feel a little bit better mm-hmm. Is when the normal becomes bad, [00:14:40] there's a point where you have to reckon with you being amoral that this was normal behavior for me.

Speaker: This was normal behavior for all of us. And [00:14:50] now with like this perspective shift, I can see how some that these things were bad. Yeah. Yeah. And like even now I'm trying to say some of these things because I am still uncomfortable [00:15:00] after all this work. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And so fair that norm challenging of it is where I see a lot of the struggle happened.

Speaker: Yeah. [00:15:10] And that paradigm shift of just how different it is.

Speaker 2: I, I, I always think of that quote I love, um, it's no sign of health to be well [00:15:20] adjusted to a sick society. And, you know, like that can be a helpful quote. But here's what I want to acknowledge, like, and that, and this is to me what men's work is all about.

Speaker 2: Like when I talk [00:15:30] about rape culture and when I talk about sexual violence, and when I talk about ultimately the reason we're not even talking about this because we're talking about the movement for healing, the movement for intimacy, the movement for [00:15:40] love, making it possible, creating safety for all sexes, all genders to be in relationship with one another.

Speaker 2: Like, I'm always happy to say like, dude, ground zero, [00:15:50] ground zero, uh, being socialized into a system of harm, ignorantly, reproducing it. I'm not here to point fingers at anybody, but I am here to say, here's the messages I got in high [00:16:00] school about how to be loved and respected as a man about what pleasure was in my life and how women related to it.

Speaker 2: Here's the messages, here's what I went out and. When I had a [00:16:10] chance to sit with women in the right conditions and do deep and profound listening, I realized that I was ground zero part of the problem.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker: I [00:16:20] think that's one of the hardest things about the movement from men's perspective for me, is the understanding that good men's normal [00:16:30] hurt people.

Speaker: That men that were, that are trying to be good men, that in their world I am behaving in a [00:16:40] moral way, are hurting people. And I think that's the, that's the challenge and that's where the work is. That's why the work you do is so important. It's why the work I do is so important and why it's been really, I mean, you've [00:16:50] been at it as long as I have.

Speaker: It's been wonderful seeing more guys show up for the conversation. Yeah. Like back in early 2000 tens, like I was [00:17:00] usually the only guy walking into anything.

Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. And so that's been really wonderful. And so I guess that kind of transitions to, you know, we're talking about the [00:17:10] challenges of this four guys, but one of the things that doesn't really get discussed is how the movement has been good for men, in addition to just guys paying attention [00:17:20] and being better in the world.

Speaker: Right. Which I think is a baseline. There are things that have improved. What, what would you say some of those are?

Speaker 2: So, for a long time, I was running this workshop [00:17:30] down at adult probation twice a month, and the workshop was about how are you raised as a man? What are the beliefs you inherited? How has it impacted how you [00:17:40] related to women in your life?

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. You know, most of these guys, they show up to the work workshop and they're pissed off. They feel victimized by the state. They feel like, well, y'all don't even know what she did. She's getting away with with everything. [00:17:50] They're pissed either. But the workshop was really. Heartfelt. You know, I'm like putting myself on the hook.

Speaker 2: Like, let me tell you what this stuff is for me, how I've caused harm. And it would come along this process. A part of this [00:18:00] conversation we would always have is when society trains us that not only is it okay to take pleasure at someone's [00:18:10] expense, right? Like I don't give a shit if you want to have sex or not.

Speaker 2: I'm gonna try to convince you I don't care. Pardon my French, I probably shouldn't be cursing on the podcast. You're okay. Okay. [00:18:20] You know, I'm trying to have pleasure and, and like your barriers are something that I'm gonna try to skillfully overcome, right? When society socializes [00:18:30] me in that way, like it is spiritually damaging to me as a person, right?

Speaker 2: And so when I can actually gain meta awareness, I didn't know that for a [00:18:40] while, and I was just being a regular guy and I was worse because of it. I caused harm in my community 'cause of it. I had shame, I had guilt. All these things. I had negative relationships. When [00:18:50] the movement, the feminist movement.

Speaker 2: Brought consciousness to me where I saw my behavior in, in a Duke contextual understanding. And I realized [00:19:00] like, oh man, I can have such richer, healthier, and more loving moral, ethical relationships if I let go of this man box [00:19:10] conditioning where I try to get love from other men by having sex with as many women as possible.

Speaker 2: It's, that has brought nothing but richness and positive positivity to [00:19:20] my life. And I think that that's the thing for me too, is like if we lean it into what the message is, it only makes life better.

Speaker: I don't think that would've happened without the movement. I don't think it would've happened [00:19:30] without acknowledging that men can be survivors, that the men that are doing significant consistent harm are doing it to more than women.[00:19:40]

Speaker: And all of a sudden in my practice, I see more and more guys being willing to acknowledge like, this is how I was hurt. Where. 10 years ago, even [00:19:50] a man who came in and said, oh, I lost my virginity when I was 12 to the 17-year-old babysitter, and I didn't really know what was going on, but lucky me as opposed to I was [00:20:00] assaulted and as an adolescent by an older person.

Speaker: Mm-hmm. And I think the movement has done a very like good job of putting that idea forward, that your consent [00:20:10] as a man also matters. Yeah. That every man is not just a walking hard on that's gonna be happy, screwing whatever he's screwing.

Speaker 2: There was a lot of men who said, Hmm, I love the women in [00:20:20] my life.

Speaker 2: And I'm like ready to start valuing their experience and believing them about the things they're going through. So we have a lot more feminist consciousness in men [00:20:30] today, which means we have way better sex. We have way more intimacy, right? We have way richer relationships. And that's what I think about with that statistic.

Speaker 2: Like when we're having sex, we don't [00:20:40] even wanna have, and we don't even realize it 'cause of the man. Like it is very difficult to be in satisfying relationships if that's the case. It's just this idea, [00:20:50] right? That there's a box. And if you identify as a man, if you're raised as a man, then there's a prescription of a handful of characteristics and [00:21:00] traits that if you're a real man, you're gonna have these characteristics inside the box, right?

Speaker 2: Like, don't cry, be decisive, be confident, be willing to fight, be [00:21:10] good as sports, be irrational. Don't be in your feelings all the time and be dominant with women, et cetera, right? And it's like, if I'm doing all these behaviors, I'm a [00:21:20] real man and I get reward and esteem from the, the men in my life. And if I step out of the box, you know, if I cry, if I respect the women's boundaries, if I.[00:21:30]

Speaker 2: Read literature that centers the experiences of women. Then I, I'm no longer a real man.

Speaker: I'm sure we're gonna get some of that commentary from this episode. Yeah. So that, [00:21:40] that box of society prescribes a man is, and the minute you step outside of that society punishes you for stepping outside of it. Yeah.

Speaker: Just the gender norms and the gender enforcement. That's it. [00:21:50] And I, I think it's hard because most guys relate to parts of that box. Mm-hmm. Right? Me too. And so it's really hard to see the parts we don't relate [00:22:00] to and not flinch from them. Yeah. Kind of coming back around to some of the, the good things overall that the movement has done for men.

Speaker: One of the other things I noticed is when it started [00:22:10] happening, I was working with guys. A lot of guys came in and were incredibly distraught because they finally learned about their partner's experiences where, you know, they [00:22:20] hadn't been. Abusive in that relationship in a way they would define abusive, but their partner finally got to come to them and say, this happened to me when, and this is why these things happen [00:22:30] this way for me.

Speaker: And so many guys had no idea and had never had a woman that they were close with. Tell them these things. And so while I think the shock of [00:22:40] that was rough on a lot of guys, I do like exactly what you were saying about the intimacy and the quality of relationship that more men are having with women by being open to hearing those stories and [00:22:50] being willing to see that part of their world has been huge.

Speaker 2: Yeah, a hundred percent. I, I have this, this, uh, I don't know if you call it a project experiment. I do with that sometimes, but you [00:23:00] know the, the Catholic tradition of Lent. Mm-hmm. Right. So it's like once a year I fast something for 40 days Yeah. To [00:23:10] improve my contact with the divine. Elevate my consciousness, et cetera.

Speaker 2: And, uh, in college I had a professor who would prescribe things like, uh, radical [00:23:20] world views for Lent. Like, you don't have to take the radical worldview, don't, but just for lent. Try it on for 40 days. Like, I'm gonna read some books. I'm gonna practice seeing the world through [00:23:30] this lens so that at the end of the 40 days, you set it down like you, nobody's converging you, but you're just like, oh, the world I see is richer and more multicolor, more multi, multi textual at [00:23:40] the end of it.

Speaker 2: So one of my favorite things to prescribe ize is give land 40 days for feminist way of seeing the world. [00:23:50] Like for 40 days. I'm just, just gonna read and, and the reason I'm saying it is so many of us as men, where it's like, man, I would love to have awesome experiences with women. I would have [00:24:00] love to have awesome relationships with women.

Speaker 2: You know, when I have awesome relationships with women in my life is so much better. And yet so many men are absolutely [00:24:10] like averse. Really just trying to, again, I wanna see it exactly how women have been seeing it just for a little bit of time, because that's way outside of the man, right? That's a [00:24:20] deep violation.

Speaker 2: That's gay. It's all the things that's the worst thing you can do, right? As a man. Um, but I love that man, just say, for 40 days, I wanna see [00:24:30] what that side is talking about and, and what I think about exactly what you're saying, right? It's like the connection I have to my girlfriend at the end of that and the woman friends of my life, it's a [00:24:40] lot more like, okay, I might not be a broad burning feminist dude at the end of it, but I see what you're talking about and I want to be a part of the solution.

Speaker: Hearing those stories from the women in their [00:24:50] lives made them more open and available to the kindness for themselves. So one of the things that I end up working with a lot of guys on is that if you don't have empathy for others and you don't [00:25:00] have that perspective of understanding how someone got to where they got to, it's incredibly hard to be kind to yourself in the moments where you're not in alignment.

Speaker 3: Yes. [00:25:10]

Speaker: Which means we just stuff 'em, we avoid 'em. They turn into shadow and all of a sudden when they come out, they come out badly. Yes. And so I think that that growing empathy that a lot of guys have gotten has [00:25:20] been really good. Yeah. So for guys, we're, we're tending to more men's hurts because of the movement.

Speaker: Yes. Men are more [00:25:30] connected with the women in their lives. Yeah. I think young men largely are doing better than we did as a whole.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker: I think we're seeing that. [00:25:40] Am I missing any of the other positive things that we can say kind of broadly? Me too is done for guys.

Speaker 2: The women in our lives need us to hold their pain with them.

Speaker 2: [00:25:50] Here, here, point blank. They need it, man. That's, that's called being a leader. That's called being a dad. That's called being a brother. That's, that is some manly shit is to be in my community and say, gimme some of that pain. [00:26:00] Lemme me hold it with you. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that happened. I had no idea.

Speaker 2: I'm so sorry that that's normal. I'm so sorry. Like, let [00:26:10] me grieve with you. Let me be a part of the community and hold the grief and do my part as a leader in this community. So I just think about that community [00:26:20] work of really for us as men, when we can be in the community and the community trust us with their pain and we know how to hold it and validate it, but that is just some [00:26:30] work that that brings meaning to my life.

Speaker 2: You know what I mean? And it, and it has brought healing to the women in my life. They, they couldn't get that healing if they didn't have some men that would be like, like, I [00:26:40] hear you. I believe you, and I'm so, so sorry. So I just think this just, that is such a gift for all of us that, that has happened.

Speaker: I would push on that a little bit and say that for the [00:26:50] men that have found space to be part of it, that is very true.

Speaker: Mostly what I see from guys though is they're too afraid to show up and be part of it. [00:27:00] That they're, they're willing to listen on an individual level. That like I, if I have someone that I'm intimate with, someone that I know sees me as a good man mm-hmm. I will have that [00:27:10] conversation. I will be there for them.

Speaker: But I think where the, the miss has been is largely speaking, men have not figured out a way to come back to community with it. [00:27:20] At best. They show up and they're silent allies in most cases. Like, they'll go to the women's March, they'll go do these things, but they're certainly not lending their voice to these things.

Speaker: Or they get accused of being white [00:27:30] knighting because most of the time that's what they're doing when they try it the first time. Mm-hmm. Right. And so I think for what I witness, we're still on a transition point on that. I think we're on our way and I'm [00:27:40] really, really happy to hear you're seeing it.

Speaker: That's awesome. I'm just not seeing it very much on the work I'm doing.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think it's all true. I think a [00:27:50] lot of men have showed up legitimately and genuinely and learned how to hold pain and, and had their consciousness expanded and become more useful and trustworthy members of the community because of it.

Speaker 2: And I, and, and [00:28:00] I agree. Like for me, no, the status quo in the United States is to raise men and to have an antagonistic relationship towards women and femininity. And I think that is still the norm. And that leaves us [00:28:10] radically unequipped to do anything about any of this.

Speaker: Yeah. It's been a big push of the podcast is to move away from that kind of polar or idea of either men are in the [00:28:20] box and the box needs to be strong and crush other people.

Speaker: Mm-hmm. Or there is no box. Sure. And I think neither of these things are gonna include men and get them moving towards anything [00:28:30] useful. Right. And so I think it's more a matter of molding and accepting the breadth of masculinity and accepting that there can be a society where [00:28:40] masculinity exists. Without crushing people with masculinity.

Speaker: Yeah. And that's the goal from, for me anyway,

Speaker 2: there, there's a story that, um, Terrence Real [00:28:50] tells in his book, how Do I Get Through To You, which is a book about men and women's relationships of these warriors that they went and visited and he asked the [00:29:00] warriors like an indigenous tribe, and they asked the warriors, you know, like, what makes a great warrior?

Speaker 2: And he said, you know, like, what's a complicated thing to talk about? What makes a great warrior? It's a big warrior [00:29:10] culture, he says. But one of the things is that there are times in life that call for fierceness, for, for brutality, for strength, for aggression. [00:29:20] And there are times in life that call for tenderness and softness and vulnerability and grief, right?

Speaker 2: And he said the great warrior is the one that can do [00:29:30] both of those things. And those which occasions call for which. Absolutely. And for me, you know, like that's when it comes to the masculinity question, which can be so [00:29:40] fraught. But like, what I'd say is like, Hey, I love masculinity. I love masculine energy.

Speaker 2: I just wanna be capable of doing whatever the moment calls for. And I know a lot of brothers [00:29:50] who are deep down the toxic trail of, of echo chamber, about what it means to be a man and they have some deeply important capabilities that they couldn't [00:30:00] do in a high stakes moment if their life depended on it.

Speaker 2: So I'm just like, you know, that's not, that's not trustworthy if you can't access softness when softness is what's called for.

Speaker: The way that I often frame that is the [00:30:10] distinction between being violent and violently capable. To be violent, capable is great. It means that you can contain bad things, you can protect people you care about, and it means you know when to, and [00:30:20] it's not just a matter of exuding power and violence in the world nonstop.

Speaker: That's not sustainable. It's not healthy, and it's isolating as hell because if you're that guy that has to push that in the world [00:30:30] all the time, no one can connect with you. If there's never a moment where you can show up softly, people can't connect with you.

Speaker 2: And, and I wanna be able to like comfort a child [00:30:40] to me like, you know, more

Speaker: than I will beat up the thing that's hurting you.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 2: exactly. I, I wanna know how to literally hold a child and give comfort. And I know a lot of men who are awesome men [00:30:50] and I would petrify them, so I'm like, okay, you need to diversify bro, brother.

Speaker: Mm-hmm. You got, you gotta lean into some things you don't feel good about just yet.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: So I [00:31:00] guess the, it's important to comment on the other side of this where taking on how the movement has hurt men and how it has not done well at [00:31:10] including.

Speaker: I think if we don't give a platform or we talk about these things, we're seeding the negative things to the people that are trying to dismantle the, the movement. And [00:31:20] so for me, the big one that I see outta the gate when I work with young men is I see so many young men who have never asked a woman out and have never figured out how to explore [00:31:30] sexuality in large part because the movement happened and the men that woke up, we didn't know what to teach them the way that [00:31:40] you and I were raised to date without any other than like, don't do it that way.

Speaker: We haven't done a good job of how men see how to show up [00:31:50] connected, how to do that. So these young guys never got mentorship. They just were told that if you show up creepy with your sexuality, [00:32:00] which almost everybody when they first start exploring their sexuality trips into occasionally. That they just need to contain it.

Speaker: And then they did. And now here we are, they're in their early twenties [00:32:10] pushing 30 and have never had a girlfriend, have never dated. And I think that's been part of that overcorrection that's happened. The containment of the behavior didn't [00:32:20] leave room for what to do instead.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, you know, and, and I think what I would say, my, my take on that, it's, it's like, it's the failure of men's work.

Speaker 3: Is [00:32:30] it

Speaker 2: men as a collective need to organize ourselves for what we want? You know, for me, what was Me Too, it was just a group of women, a a mass spontaneous arising of [00:32:40] consciousness where people said, I'm gonna stop lying. Mm-hmm. About my everyday experiences as a victimization. So that's all it was. Just like, I'm not gonna lie anymore.

Speaker 2: You know, I'm gonna like take some steps, steps to tell the truth. But it [00:32:50] did, it had a rush of repercussions, you know, as life does. But I think the work is, is for us as men, and the way I see it, it's like, I'll take [00:33:00] responsibility if Michael's work. I was socialized into a rape culture. I was also a victim of sexual predatory behavior.

Speaker 2: I was socialized [00:33:10] into being a predator, I would say, came to conscientiousness about it. I've had to make the road by locking it. Right. My dad can't teach me some squat on this, you know, 'cause he [00:33:20] can already can teach me is what his dad told him, which is what I inherited. Yeah. And now I've got a son.

Speaker 2: Right. And so I am having to pilot how to do [00:33:30] and teach with my son. But it's true. Like the boys today are growing up in a vacuum between, okay, I found out what I'm not supposed to do. But nobody's ever lived a whole life and written [00:33:40] a book about what you're supposed to do here. You know? At least it's not the men that I know.

Speaker: Well, and the messaging is really chaotic. You know, the toxic masculinity discussion where the [00:33:50] way that we have been doing masculinity is been toxic and masculinity isn't toxic. Like that differentiation never happened. And so all these guys heard, and [00:34:00] all I heard was. Masculinity is toxic if you have these things, stuff them.

Speaker: And I was a grown man when that was happening, and I've done work and had a [00:34:10] really hard time with it. And so then you look at these guys that when all this started, they were adolescents, they were teenagers. And like you said, your father couldn't teach you how to live in the world as it is now, and [00:34:20] how we want it to be because that's not his world.

Speaker: Yep. I feel like these guys, they got kind of abandoned both by us as the men that should have been helping them along [00:34:30] and by the women that should have been, if they could for their sons, for their dear ones, not for men as a whole, but for their dear ones. Give them guidance on how to [00:34:40] be better in those regards as opposed to just what not to do.

Speaker: And I think that would've been an impossible lift when everything got started. There was too much pain and too much like force that needed to come out to get the pain out. [00:34:50]

Speaker 2: Yeah. I, I mean, I think at the end of the day, it's like it's men's work. Like men's healing is men's work. You know, I always say if like, if women could do it, they would've been.

Speaker 2: Done it. There, there's [00:35:00] this proverb that I really like, which is, if the men of the tribe don't wanna initiate a boys, the boys will burn down the village just to feel [00:35:10] the warmth.

Speaker: Yes. And so what we, there's nowhere were more dangerous than a bunch of disenfranchised boys with nobody guiding them.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 2: And, and, and what we got, like, our dads didn't get it. Our [00:35:20] dads weren't initiated, you know, I don't think that their dads were. So what we've really got in our society is uninitiated, boys initiating one [00:35:30] another through like, things that aren't ideal, but at least better than nothing. Right. It's burning down the village, the field, the heat.

Speaker 2: And so I think that's the thing that we have to change is that [00:35:40] intergenerational connection.

Speaker: Yeah. I think that the, the challenge I would put in front of that is we have a rape culture as a country. Women [00:35:50] are part of the culture. Men are part of the culture. And while I think there is men's work to do, there is women's work to do and there is non-binary work to do and we are certainly responsible for our end of [00:36:00] it.

Speaker: I think just handing it back to men saying it's all on you with no guidance isn't useful. Like I think that there are places and times where it's important [00:36:10] for men to get together to do, do men's work. You and I both do that professionally. We've seen the power of it and we need more of it. And I think that women who can [00:36:20] be kind as young men learn in their life is going to give them the courage to try and to try to learn that they need those examples of, I [00:36:30] know there's a woman that if I acted a little creepy and they, and somebody corrupted me and I fixed it, they'd still see me as a good man as opposed to if I screw up, the women in my life are just gonna tell me I'm a screw up and I [00:36:40] might lose them.

Speaker 2: But, you know, I, I feel like, correct me if I'm wrong, I mean like we don't have a lack of gracious women. That's not the crisis on our hands.

Speaker: I think up until very recently [00:36:50] we did. There were literally posts from mothers saying that my boy was roughhousing, and I put a stop to that because that's toxic and I'm not letting that shit happen to my house.

Speaker: Sure, sure. When [00:37:00] boys need roughhousing, right? Sure. Like there, there are masculine things and ways to show up with them, and rather than having guardrails on that, they just stomp

Speaker 2: on it. Sure. No, definitely. And I would [00:37:10] never sit here and say like, like men and women, all of us are socializing into patriarchal culture and we all reproduce it, so there's, nobody's not reproducing it.

Speaker 2: I mean, you know, for me, like the sentence of my [00:37:20] mother's to, to use kind of the metaphor of it, was they minimized patriarch. Mm-hmm. Didn't minimized the ways that our dads were brutal and violent and emotionally [00:37:30] unavailable to us, and addicted and workaholic and neglected their relationships and they, and they just, so, they colluded.

Speaker 2: I mean, to me the sense of of the women [00:37:40] have been. I'm gonna try my best to get along, to go along with patriarch. I'm gonna act like this is fine. Like for me, the problem is not an abundance of women trying [00:37:50] to interrupt it.

Speaker: I think that's the, that's the trick, right? Is when we look at the generational contributions to where we are, there were a lot of good people in a bad [00:38:00] norm.

Speaker: And so like, when I think back to my mother, I know she loved me. I know she prepared me to the best she could, but she also was a woman of her time [00:38:10] that when she would talk about what dating looked like, it was from a pursuit and a commodity, it, it's hard, right? I really, I'm nervous. The reason why I'm [00:38:20] stuttering is because I don't wanna cross into victim blaming, right?

Speaker: Like patriarchy has absolutely ran over and hurt women way more than it has men. [00:38:30] And we need everybody involved in how to do better and how to, how to bridge that gap. I think for me, what I would like to see [00:38:40] is. The guy, the dads I work with are my favorites. Right. They're actively trying to rewrite the book while they raise their kid.

Speaker: Mm-hmm. And the guys that are [00:38:50] engaged and trying, like, they're gonna screw it up just like every generation screws it up. Mm-hmm. But it's beautiful to watch happen. Mm-hmm. Right. It sounds like what you're doing with your son, right? Like, your dad didn't give you a book, you're writing [00:39:00] one, let's, let's give it a shot.

Speaker: Yep. Right. And it's been beautiful seeing more mothers, even when they're estranged with the fathers. But the [00:39:10] father's a good man, acknowledging that that masculine father and the way that he shows up to parent and the ways he's trying to teach his son or daughter, what good men look like. [00:39:20] Yeah. There's room for that again.

Speaker: Whereas before it was no, you just go provide, get the hell away from the kids. Mm-hmm. Men don't need to be around kids. I think that's part of how we ended up here, is by removing men from the [00:39:30] equation of children never in the history of the world. Yeah, that's right. Until like the last 50 years were men not involved with children.

Speaker: It's ridiculous.

Speaker 2: Well, here's the, here's the, at least part how I see it, you know, the [00:39:40] coinciding is the industrial revolution coincides with the loss of rite of passage working in communities

Speaker: a hundred percent.

Speaker 2: When the men got sent to work in factories for the first time ever, they got removed from the [00:39:50] community.

Speaker 2: And that's where, you know, there's a lot of the emergence of patriarchy there because it becomes this totally different organized thing where there's a lot more shared responsibility in crossover [00:40:00] between roles. Doesn't mean there weren't distinct world, but there was more share in crossover. All of a sudden you got this deep polarization.

Speaker 2: It was like a man is only this one thing. A woman is only this one thing. It was sort of [00:40:10] a caricature of the extremes. And then we just all kind have been going with that and I think the consequences have been catastrophic a

Speaker: hundred percent. The division of labor and [00:40:20] gendering of labor like that has been terrible.

Speaker: And this is where patriarchy really hurts. Men that doesn't get acknowledged enough is patriarchy is responsible for making [00:40:30] men what they do. Only what they do. Anybody who's ever been a provider knows that that's a role that's important and it's a worthy role, but it cannot be the whole of who [00:40:40] you are in a connected world.

Speaker 2: No, it's a lot of meaninglessness. I feel like my own, my family, when I, when I'm putting too much energy into that one bucket, like my [00:40:50] will in my vitality, they could go down and it's always a reminder. I'm like, you know what? I need to like, I need to diversify. I need to spread my, my energy out between many different parts of myself.[00:41:00]

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker: And I think that getting those messages out to guys wi within the movement, right, because that's, that's the platform me two still going on and it still needs to be happening. [00:41:10] And one of the things I think that we're doing better and better of within the movement is acknowledging like, Hey, no, no, like to be a good person and to be a good man, you don't wanna hurt people like this.

Speaker: But you also understand that [00:41:20] this hurt you too, right? Like that you've got skin in the game. This isn't just about not hurting women. Exactly. About bettering men.

Speaker 2: That's right. It's exactly right.

Speaker: And I [00:41:30] think that's something that we're just starting to see turn within the movement. Yeah. Like as a whole.

Speaker: And again, that's where like this, this crossover on what the movement's been doing and where it's going [00:41:40] and what we can hope for it. Yeah. That I think that containment of men and men's violence need needs to happen and needed to happen in a strong way when the movement started [00:41:50] and can, will continue.

Speaker: Right. There will always be things that need to be contained and challenged. And it's been really heartening to see more and more conversation around [00:42:00] how men can be empowered within these things by showing up with them whole with their whole selves. That there's room for your masculinity and there's room for your care.

Speaker: And those two things can exist in the same [00:42:10] person.

Speaker 2: A hundred percent. Yeah, I agree. More

Speaker: so within your work where those guys that, that I think about so often that the 20 somethings that. [00:42:20] Have really just shut down or on the other end, the 20 somethings that have just bought into the box entirely and are voraciously hitting it because there's nothing they haven't heard anything else to be.

Speaker: Yeah. [00:42:30] What do you see people do that helps that shift for those guys?

Speaker 2: There's just more of an openness. Like if some folks need to hold their nose 'cause they don't love this. Okay. [00:42:40] I think that we are, and I am the beneficiary of a lot of like feminist labor and sacrifice. Mm-hmm. Like women who got literal violence [00:42:50] perpetrated against them for standing up and saying things about the gendered order that were wildly dysfunctional.

Speaker 2: Like the emperor has no clothes and they did it at great risk themselves. They [00:43:00] experienced a lot of harm, a lot of violence, but it has created cultural shifts that mean, you know. So I started doing this work in the dorms for a while where I was just going in on some [00:43:10] random Friday nights to diff each different dorm here at the University of Arizona and just get together with freshman boys and just facilitate this conversation.

Speaker 2: What did you learn from your dad? [00:43:20] What do you think about gender roles? Like where do you still feel stuck? Where do you feel like you've gained some freedom? And I'm so impressed with these kids today because I think your average [00:43:30] young man today is so much more open to having a more diverse self, to being out of the mail box, at least in some [00:43:40] places, in some ways.

Speaker 2: So I, I do think a lot of this messaging has gone mainstream. And I think the most important thing, and I'm seeing more and more of it every single day, as I'm sure you [00:43:50] are, is for men like us. A little bit older for men with different life experiences to just sit, stand up and validate it and say, yeah, I'm stepping outta the man box too, and I love it.

Speaker 2: My life [00:44:00] is better because of it. Here's, here's the man box parts. I still love that work for me. Here's the way that I totally could care less enough to toss it out the window. Like if it's cringe, let me be cringe. I think what [00:44:10] we give that example, it really validates what the young people are increasingly feeling inclined to do anyways.

Speaker: Yeah. Well, and I think also acknowledging that that was hard to do and modeling that as well. [00:44:20] Like when you change, it's hard. When you change your mind, it's painful. I see a lot of young guys seeking that bigger connection, that broader perspective. I see some guys really locked down with [00:44:30] it, and the answer for both tends to be the same, which is foster friendships with people who aren't like you, like get friends that are [00:44:40] women.

Speaker: And then once you have that, once you have a read and you have empathy, and you can understand what the other person's perspective is. When your sexuality does spark, [00:44:50] when you do have that friend that you feel that pull with and you wanna explore that, you're more confident in your read on whether it's mutual or not.

Speaker: And you're more willing to just ask [00:45:00] like, Hey, you know, we've, we've known each other for however long, whether it's five minutes or whether year I'm feeling this for you. Where you and so many [00:45:10] guys right now, since they don't have female relationships where they are like kind of locked away from women, they don't know how to have that conversation because it's too big [00:45:20] a risk.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. And so I think the, the big way that we support that is by us as guys modeling female friendships. Yes. [00:45:30] Acknowledging that that is the way to more productive and more empowered intimacy. Yep. And also just normalizing the rejection of it. You don't, [00:45:40] you don't engage in dating and asking anybody out with never being rejected.

Speaker: The people that are good at it, the people that connect well that way aren't just batting a thousand. They're just willing to [00:45:50] fail and Okay with this person not being their person.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Which I think, you know, that's a, I love how you're putting that, and that's just a great, for me, that's like, that's a big, [00:46:00] it's a power move out of the man.

Speaker 2: What I mean is to develop the ability where it says, I'm willing to fail at things. I'm willing to do things ly, because [00:46:10] for me, that's a big like man thing. Like I never fail at anything. If I do, I hide it. I never let anybody see it. I try to, I try to only go into scenarios in which failure is not an option.

Speaker: [00:46:20] Right. Or I go into scenarios where I have to fail at this because it's not a masculine task. Right. Like that. Sure. Could that, uh, like weaponized helplessness that we do around cleaning and such boys like.

Speaker 2: [00:46:30] Yep. And, and the other thing I just wanna say too, while we're on it real quick, you know, and, and this is my pet thing, I know it's not for everybody, um, but I think somebody wants to said the [00:46:40] person who does not read has no advantage over for the person who cannot read.

Speaker 2: And that's true. I have seen. So that's a [00:46:50] great thing. It's a great thing. I wanna say it was bark way, way to them. Um, but there are so many awesome books. You know, bell Hooks wrote a [00:47:00] book, feminism is for Everybody, and she like wrote it to your uncle who was a mechanic and it makes sense. She wrote a book, the Will to Change, which you could, you could send it to your [00:47:10] grandpa.

Speaker 2: He could probably like get down and understand what she's saying. Um, books on consent, books on intimacy, books on emotional intelligence. There's so much harf about wonderful literature out here [00:47:20] and I've seen a lot of men. Who I hand up my book and I'm like, check this out. And I'm like, they're probably never gonna repeat it.

Speaker 2: And I check came up them six months later they read it and they did produce [00:47:30] really meaningful shifts. So there are resources out there, right? It's really, on some level it's about willingness.

Speaker: Yeah. I think a lot of the guys are willing to do the self-contained [00:47:40] thing. It's bringing what they learn into the world and accepting that it's gonna be awkward as they do so is because they're nightmare.

Speaker: All the young guys I talk to that are kind of pent up and aren't [00:47:50] engaging is that, well, when I'm creepy, if anybody decides I'm a problem, everything's done for me. Like I'm completely outta the group. I'm [00:48:00] completely shut down. If it goes badly enough, I might be in trouble. Right. And so some of it is just normalizing that being awkward isn't being creepy.[00:48:10]

Speaker: There is definitely a crossover there for sure. Right. We gotta, guys need guard rails and sometimes it's just sometimes just awkward, man. It's okay

Speaker 2: and you're allowed to get it wrong and you're allowed [00:48:20] to fail. Like in everything in life, it's about how you do that. There are ways to way mess up and be accountable and there are ways to way mess up and not be accountable.

Speaker 2: So I just need to make sure I'm [00:48:30] doing the accountable way. But it is like, you know, like you were saying, it's that tolerance for failure and looking bad. And I think the thing about, you know, whether you can call it toxic masculinity, [00:48:40] patriarchal masculinity, the thing about it is it has such a shame mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: Under your belly. It's grandi, ity, shame, shame compared together. Yeah. And, and, and so I think for so [00:48:50] many men, the idea of like messing up in front of others is intolerable. And for me, that is deeply of the man box. We gotta, we gotta get outside of that. [00:49:00]

Speaker: Yeah. I think it's part of us, there's a reeve's work on the traits and status seeking being part of being masculine.

Speaker: When he talks about traits, right. I [00:49:10] really like how he frames it. When we talk about traits, I'm talking about men being taller than women. Everybody gets that. If I walk into A-W-N-B-A reunion and I'm the short guy at six one, right? Right. And so there are plenty of women that are [00:49:20] status seeking, but part of why status seeking is important for guys is because we're built for a time when if you didn't have status, you couldn't procreate.

Speaker: And [00:49:30] now any kind of social status threat feels like a physical response. Most head and half, most men have a visceral emotional response, and the [00:49:40] problem isn't that that exists. The problem is that no one teaches boys and young men how to ride it and what to do with it. It's not that you and I, when we try [00:49:50] something new and fail at it, don't have that happen every now and then.

Speaker: We don't have that emission and hit every so often. Of course, it's that we know what to do with it.

Speaker 2: We can tolerate it. We've learned to tolerate it. I couldn't [00:50:00] always tolerate it. I had to learn.

Speaker: Well, and not only tolerate it, use it. Usually when that's happening, that's important information for me to have as I process what's happening.

Speaker: That's and how I engage.

Speaker 3: Yep. Well, I [00:50:10] I,

Speaker: I wanna be respectful of the time in, I love the work you're doing. I love having somebody else to talk to about this stuff that's on a similar vibe. Man, this has been really, it's been really nice. But I [00:50:20] also wanna bring in more of your story for folks. And I'm really curious about your a to these.

Speaker: I think they're gonna help a lot of guys come up with some answers for themselves. [00:50:30] So what's a truth about masculinity that you learned before you were 12 that's remained true till today?

Speaker 2: One of the ones I love to point to my dad. My dad used to always, [00:50:40] he, he was a preacher, real religious dude. He always used to like, hit me with a lot of like bible verses and stuff.

Speaker 2: But one of the things he used to always say to me is, um, time spent [00:50:50] preparing is never wasted time.

Speaker 3: Hmm.

Speaker 2: Um, and that, that was a lesson that really took me through something important and challenging seasons. [00:51:00] I was like, I want this thing to happen already. And I was like, you know what? Keep preparing. And, and I think the connection I make to masculinity and I, I learned a lot of beautiful masculinity [00:51:10] things from my dad.

Speaker 2: Some others not so beautiful. Yeah. But, but a part of it, it was just about like diligence, preparation, responsibility. And now as I'm a [00:51:20] dad, you know, and I'm raising kids, I'm trying to model and train that stuff of like, okay, like be diligent, be responsible. Keep controlling [00:51:30] what you can control. I'm so grateful that I can bring that energy into my home.

Speaker: Yeah. That a man is prepared. Story has been really, really powerful for you and your masculinity. [00:51:40] I really love that he gave you that. And in a very productive way. I feel like a lot of guys I talk to with that one get stuck in the preparation loop where they never take action. [00:51:50] But it sounds like your father did a very good job of acknowledging the preparation to readiness.

Speaker: That's beautiful. So the next one is, what's a [00:52:00] time when pursuit of your masculinity hurt you?

Speaker 2: You know, so I think when I was 16 years old, I was in a relationship with a girl at my high school. [00:52:10] You know, I think I was really in the man box for myself. I was disconnected to myself and to me, right? All that.

Speaker 2: A lot of that is like, I'm trying to prove that I'm a man. I'm trying to prove myself to others. I want others to see me a [00:52:20] certain kind of way. And I think we've broke up and I was devastated. I was destroyed by it. But instead of being sad, [00:52:30] that's what one ought to do when one sad one ought to be sad.

Speaker 2: That's a big way that, that the sort of superficial masculinity leads us astray. I should have just been sad. I should have cried about it. I should have been [00:52:40] messy, you know, asked for help. Um,

Speaker: yeah, been a little emo kid for a minute. Like, that's what you're supposed to do after a breakfast.

Speaker 2: That's what you're supposed to do.

Speaker 2: But instead, I postured. You know, I was like, [00:52:50] f this BI don't, I acted it out. I tried to like hook up with other people. I was mean and nasty to her. I looked for opportunities to be revengeful, to make her look bad, [00:53:00] to make myself look good. And, and a lot of people supported me. They backed me up. They were like, yeah, she is a B.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Michael is such a good person. Poor Michael. I made myself seem like the victim when I [00:53:10] was not. Um, and so I think, and for me that's all really, you know, that happens every day in the community. I, I did stuff like that a lot because I thought that to be a man [00:53:20] I needed to be more in control and have everyone see me as in control.

Speaker 2: So I, that to me, that naturally leads to revenge. Mm-hmm. Of course. Like the truth is that cause for a lot of [00:53:30] harm and it causes me a lot of harm. So, um, it's something I'm grateful that I learned from

Speaker: the revenge aspect of the containment of sadness is always really destructive [00:53:40] because it almost never is in alignment with our values.

Speaker: And so that lack of processing that so many of us do for our masculinity to be a man. And, and that's [00:53:50] a really, hopefully a lot of guys hearing that can remember a time when they did it. Like it's a pretty common story about how that hurts us.

Speaker 2: Totally.

Speaker: Well, we like to go out on the high note. [00:54:00] Tell us about a time when pursuit of your masculinity empowered you.

Speaker 2: I keep it in that same, I don't know why I'm in high school today, but I'm in high school.

Speaker: People go back to the early memories of this stuff when I ask these [00:54:10] questions,

Speaker 2: you know, and, you know, it's, it's, for a long time in my life, it was like one of my most proud moments. There was a girl in our school raised by her grandparents, a ton of [00:54:20] problems at home, and I couldn't even tell you one of them, but like, people did not wanna sit with her, talk to her in our school.

Speaker 2: You know, she a genuine line outcast. Um, people who were creek, [00:54:30] we were on a trip and it was like a, I think a senior trip. And they did this thing as part of the tradition where one night we were going out to a fancy dinner and everybody had to pair up [00:54:40] and like a dating type scene. And the guys went in and like drew straws and uh, so, you know, everybody basically drew for who you were gonna [00:54:50] go with.

Speaker 2: And the person that got this girl, like, you know, it's all the high school guys in a room was immediately like, oh my God. And everybody immediately [00:55:00] started dragging on him. And just in the moment I was instantly like, everybody is gonna hurt this girl's feeling so bad. And so I was like, Hey, you can, I'll swap it with you.

Speaker 2: You can take [00:55:10] the girl that I chose from the thing, I'm gonna go with her. Because I knew I was gonna like, treat her with respect and care and just like, you know, make sure she had a good experience. You could take the

Speaker: [00:55:20] ribbing. You weren't gonna let the ribbing of the room move you.

Speaker 2: No, and the truth is like everybody was so like.

Speaker 2: Oh, damn, that not a single person rid me. They were like, [00:55:30] oh, oh, respect that.

Speaker 3: Nice

Speaker 2: respect. I guess that's a way we could be in the world. And for me, that was like always one of my proudest moments. And I think for me, that is masculinity. I'm like, yeah, I'm looking out for the women and children in my [00:55:40] life.

Speaker 2: I'm trying to take care of woman and make sure they have a good experience.

Speaker: Well, and it's, to me, that's, that's masculine mentorship, right? I'm seeing a guy do something poorly. It's [00:55:50] something that I can do and I can just show him, like, I'm not shaming him necessarily. I'm not trying to rag on him. I'm like, Hey, that's, you don't wanna deal with it?

Speaker: I got it. Hand it over. [00:56:00] I'm gonna show my confidence here. Yeah, that's great. And

Speaker 2: I was just wrapped of it, and it was, and, and, and like, I, like she deserved to have a good time and not humiliating time. And it was beautiful. [00:56:10]

Speaker: No, that's wonderful, man. I'm so glad. I, I do love all the high school stories that come out during, right?

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It cracks me up. Well, Michael, they, they. [00:56:20] I can't tell you how happy I'm here in the world doing what you're doing, man. How do people find you? Work with you, get your insights.

Speaker 2: Yeah. So, um, you know, I'd love for folks to follow me [00:56:30] at Life Unbound Coaching spelled just like it sounds at Life Unbound Coaching, um, TikTok Instagram.

Speaker 2: Connect with me on LinkedIn if you want to. Michael Caleb [00:56:40] Brasher. Um, and that's my website at uh, ww.life bound coaching.com.

Speaker: Great man. Well help people find your work and hear your voice, man. I'm really glad it's part of the [00:56:50] conversation.

Speaker 2: Thank you, Tim. I feel the same way, man. I'm so grateful for the work that you're doing, that you're hosting this podcast.

Speaker 2: And this is just a beautiful opportunity to come together and throw some fuel [00:57:00] on the movement for men's healing. And we all need to bow.

Speaker: Thanks. Thanks for making it here. These conversations are difficult, but if we don't take on the truth of where we are as a culture, we're not gonna get to where we want to go.[00:57:10]

Speaker: So thanks for being a guy that's sticking it out and trying to do better. I'm trying to do better just like everybody else. So that's why we fact check around here and when I have a guest on, we can't just correct it and post. I gotta tell you here, [00:57:20] so Michael and I are pretty passionate guys about this, but we overstated some numbers in our discussion and it's important to get that accuracy for you.

Speaker: We can be passionate and aware of the topic and give good information. [00:57:30] So let me give you the numbers as they actually are. As far as what we can gather through the CDC one in four women have experienced a sexual assault in their lifetime. 80% of women have experienced some kind of sexual harm [00:57:40] for men.

Speaker: It's one in four men have experienced some kind of sexual harm. The reason why those numbers for men are lower and why they've skyrocketed in recent years compared to where they were is [00:57:50] because it used to be significantly under reported. I still think it's under reported, but this is what the CDC has for us now.

Speaker: We also know that the way that we used to collect this information was such [00:58:00] that a lot of things that were happening to you guys weren't considered sexual misconduct. And so by getting these numbers out there, we're more aware of how prevalent this is. It is correct to say that you [00:58:10] have people in your life that these things are happening too, and it's okay to acknowledge that you might be one of them, but it's important to get it right.

Speaker: We don't wanna make this hyper ball where all of a sudden we're over inflating [00:58:20] numbers and that gives people a chance to discount what's actually happening. And what's actually happening is a lot of people are being hurt and a lot of people are having unwanted sexual contact, and we can do better.[00:58:30]

Speaker: Additionally, the other thing we talked about that's worth addressing, we talked about unwanted consensual sex. And while that is incredibly prevalent for men, it's important to acknowledge that it happens at a [00:58:40] much higher rate for women. And so while the idea that men are having a lot of unwanted sex out of pressures that they don't really want, it's really important to acknowledge that that's happening to women more.

Speaker: And [00:58:50] all of us, we can do better. We can make a consent culture, we can make sex connected and communicative, and if we take these things on and acknowledge the pain that's happening there, they'll get better. I'm sharing the [00:59:00] right numbers because integrity matters, but it's also to help you understand where things are really at.

Speaker: In addition to integrity, it's important to make these corrections to help us do as good as we can when we talk about these [00:59:10] things out in the world. And Michael, and i's passion and truth is accurate. We've hurt a lot of people with the way that we look at intimacy in this country. A lot of good [00:59:20] men have had bad messaging and bad information that have led to them hurting people and themselves.

Speaker: And Me Too has done a great job at making us reexamine how we look at intimacy and [00:59:30] connection in this country. We've just got a very far away to go. Me too hasn't substantially moved the numbers around how often this is happening. People are talking about it and they're starting to be [00:59:40] accountability, but it's still happening, and it's still happening as much as it was.

Speaker: Just because the conversation's happening doesn't mean the ball's moving. That's the next step. And so as you [00:59:50] take this on, as you think about the conversation that we've had, what fit for you and what con part of the conversation made you uncomfortable? What part made you pull back and what made you lean in?

Speaker: That's where the real work is. [01:00:00] Taking a look at where you're at with it and what's happening so that you can be the better man that you wanna be in the world. Ideally, this conversation gave you cultural context and awareness of maybe where your story is. If [01:00:10] you're looking for practical tools on how to engage in these things better, remember part one of the series what to do if you're accused, and part two, how to help survivors without losing yourself.

Speaker: Additionally, if you're a guy that [01:00:20] wants to get involved in a more deep way and start showing up and volunteering, remember our worksheet on how to show up in spaces that don't belong to you. It's really gonna help you walk into those areas with a little bit more confidence and [01:00:30] awareness in how to do it well, all those will be in the description in show notes below.

Speaker: Thanks so much for being the person that's here. Thanks so much for supporting the channel, and I hope you have a really great rest of your [01:00:40] day.