Happy International Men’s Day! Here’s a brief shout out to all the men and masculine folk who are working on finding and creating meaning, freedom, love, intimacy, family, and community.
Men’s issues are important! Men are most likely to be the victims of physical violence and assault, and are most likely to be assaulted by other men.
We may not really acknowledge or think much about how much our interactions with each other are permeated by the threat of violence as it’s a scary and embarrassing reality to consider, but I suspect that’s one of many reasons why so many men have difficulty building and sustaining emotionally satisfying relationships with each other.
Men’s intimacy and belonging needs are important! When we struggle to build warm connections, community, and solidarity in our friendships, then we end up needing or expecting all these needs to be met by our partners.
Our needs for emotional support and physical touch become sexualized, because romantic/sexual relationships are the most socially acceptable way to get those needs met.
In other cultures—even in our own culture a century or more ago—it was normal and accepted for men to hold hands, hug, cuddle, and express deep emotional connection to each other. We look back now and assume those were homosexual relationships—and some certainly were!—but they weren’t necessarily!
It’s a lot of pressure to put on finding one person to meet all of those needs, whether we’re looking for straight or queer relationships, monogamous or polyamorous.
I hope we can continue to create more safety, trust, and freedom in giving and receiving affection in many different kinds of relationships for men and all people.
There’s a lot of great writing and thinking I’d recommend, particularly:
Pat Mosley – International Men’s Day in 2018
Angie Speaks – Jordan Peterson
Angie’s video is about the figure Jordan Peterson himself, but also the ways leftists have ceded territory around maleness and masculinity to the right in ways that are unproductive.