No Plan, No Problem!
Two middle-aged dads have discussions about life, growth, communication and learning. Complete with a generous helping of tangents, stories from lives well-lived and the occasional profanity; real talk and real care from real people who care. Plus, you might laugh. We do.
No Plan, No Problem!
Masculinity, Fatherhood, Toxicity and You!
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In today's world, we're both closer together and further apart than we've ever been. Is there a toxic masculinity issue in our society? What exactly does that look like? And most importantly, how do we respond to it all?
Jorge and Trent throw around some age-old wisdom and some stuff right off the top of their heads.
Enjoy with a couple of cold root beers,
-J & T
I say we got so much so many minutes banked in the I'm just gonna knock over some shit real quick. Okay. We had so many minutes locked in the bank, they say we just hit go and go. Yeah, you like that? That's new. New new cardboard, fresh cardboard. The other cardboard I took off and I put this up. This is to keep it from getting scratched when I wheel the ping pong table in front of the you have to really like I'm designing this like a Japanese garage, I think. It's got a lot of multifaceted parts that expand and contract. Have you seen those like the YouTube uh specials on Japanese apartment living and how yeah how they maximize their little teeny tiny living spaces? Oh, there's it's so ingenious, all of it. Of course, it's also wildly crawl claustrophobic. Yeah, too.
SPEAKER_00That's what I get to feel. Me, I'm like, I can't. When I watch those reality shows, like even the European houses that do that now, too. Like their dining tables have to come out of the wall. Yeah, it's too much. But I'm just like, yeah, I was like, I feel like I would just be claustrophobic. Even when the stuff's not out, I'm like, this place is tiny.
SPEAKER_02The closest thing I can I can relate to that is my grandparents, after their retirement in 1980, uh bought an airstream trailer, a travel trailer, and they traveled around, and I get I used to go and spend time with them during summers, every once in a while. Um and they're like the travel trailers are the same kind of deal. You have to like maximize these the space. So yeah, I've I've spent time in smaller areas like that, but oh man, oof.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I like my space for sure.
SPEAKER_02I like my space. I'm from I'm from rural uh America. And I grew up outdoors, basically. You know, we were I we were essentially raised by wolves. So I don't know. It worked out. Anyway. And the answer is no. That would require a plan.
SPEAKER_00That would be that it's gonna be our preview, you know, how they give previews next to everything.
SPEAKER_02I I like banter at the beginning of podcasts.
SPEAKER_00They're previewing and podcasting is driving me nuts now. Everyone's doing it. There's yeah, there's way too much. They're doing like the coming up, and they just give you the little snippets to get you like to like. I'm like, that's too much. It's too much. The whole thing about a podcast was it was it was naturally flowing. You could just listen to people talk. It was less edited, you know.
SPEAKER_02It's long format.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, I just like it probably don't like all the really popular ones probably don't do much previewing, do they? I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I don't listen to No, a lot of the popular ones are starting to do it. They do like the whole coming up preview, give you like the big soundbite snippets to get you like hooked. And like they're all doing it. Like, um, because every everybody who's like big now, right? Like, even journalists who've like ventured on and they're doing their own shows, like Medi and all that, and like they all have their own thing now, and so then they all do the same thing.
SPEAKER_02Well, you gotta get uh according to the rules of podcasting. You have to get a listen to the I think it's the 40% mark of your of the duration of your show for it to count as a as a listen. Unless somebody has actively downloaded it, and then that counts no matter how much they listen to or don't. Because that's a download, you know what I mean? But um I do I do actually recommend downloading podcasts like your favorites, uh just in case you um don't have signals somewhere. Hold on, I gotta readjust. That's true. Oh, kids, don't ever hurt your back. Uh my back injury was 2004. Yeah. So we're 21 and a half years later. It was September of 20 of 2004. And this feeling that I had this week is exactly the way it felt when I first did it. Wow. And oh, it's misery. But I'm gonna be miserable whether I'm sitting in the side watching television or chatting with you. So I said, Yeah, I'd rather chat with my friend.
SPEAKER_00And I feel that. I mean, back pain is no joke. I've I've had chronic back pain for a lot of years myself since high school, and yeah, sometimes it's like there's there's no there's no relaxing, there's no therapy that fixes it, there's nothing, right? There's just you have to do all this stuff. You have to rest, you have to not lift, you have to get adjusted, you have to do some exercises, some stretching, but it doesn't go away. No, it's just time.
SPEAKER_02My uh Emily's cousin is an anesthesiologist at I don't know, I don't think I want to broadcast where he works. Not that it's a big deal, it's a very prestigious uh hospital.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And he they like they do a lot of athletes and stuff. So uh he he's telling me that 90% of the surgeries that they're doing right now. This was the last time I chatted with him, which was uh Thanksgiving, I think it was. He said 90% of the surgeries they're do that he's doing right now are this spinal, this new spinal uh it's not a fusion, but it's it's like an artificial ballast that they put in to replace damaged uh discs. Basically, they can swap out damaged discs for good ones now. Nice and he says fifty thousand dollars a disc. He says it's the whole process per disc takes about 15 minutes. The incisions are like half half an inch on each side, half an inch on each side of your spine, and it goes that it's it's over before you and it's outpatient. You have the surgery, and you'll go home after the anesthesia wears off. You're like, you're fine. And uh, I was just like, wow, that sounds dope. Can you get me to the front of the line? Yeah. Are you an athlete? And the answer is no. You have health insurance, right? I'm like, yeah, but I don't know what good it is. So I doubt it pays for that. Well, man, it would really change the quality of my life, that's for certain. Uh so I have no more I have no more disc between my L5 and my sacrum, which is the very bottom of my spine connecting to my hip girdle. And uh, yeah, so when that when I grind that together, it's uh it's a painful ordeal.
SPEAKER_00One of my first speeches I did in college um was on robotics. Yeah. On basically on like um re like replacement? Yeah, like ligaments and stuff, but even it wasn't even in depth in terms of like the future of like organs and stuff like that. But like it was mostly focused like on arms and legs and eyes and all that type of stuff, and just like the advancement was actually really neat, right? They could actually replace your entire arm. You could actually move it and feel it. Kind of like that one dude in Logan. Have you ever seen that movie? Oh yeah, Logan's great. Um, where you literally can just control his entire hand and it's all robotic. Um that's actually possible. Uh it's just hell of expensive.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, so there's no real market for it in terms of like getting it to mass amount of people uh to get something insurances want to cover.
SPEAKER_02No, but it's the kind of technology that will continue to be built on until it becomes a you know conceivable you know, affordable technology for you know, like soldiers who've lost limbs and things like that. Uh I mean they'll get there.
SPEAKER_00They'll get there, it'll be cool. Yeah. Yeah, that was the focus, was it supposed to be mostly on you know veterans and stuff who were getting the procedures in and stuff like that. That's uh they were they knew that it was successful.
SPEAKER_02Um I think that 160 years ago we had the Civil War and more amputations than any other uh uh uh injury, and what were you getting replacements with? You know, if you if it was a hand, you got a hook. If it was a leg, you got a you got a wooden stick.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, peg legs. Uh so we've come a long way in the last you know, 160 years, which doesn't which sounds like a lot, but it's yeah, people in like the Paralympics, you know, who are like running.
SPEAKER_00Oh man, yeah, don't have legs, you know.
SPEAKER_02Some of the the we just we saw some in the winter Paralympics, which took place right after the regular Olympics in in uh Milan. And uh some of these technologies that they're using for like skiers and stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, what that is so cool. I think it's five people who complain though, because I remember this one guy who qualified the for the regular Olympics, and then they disqualified him because they said he had an advantage because of his prostheses.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, an unfair advantage.
SPEAKER_00And I'm just like, that's ridiculous. Well, yeah, you can see it. I'm sure in a hundred in a heartbeat, the dude would change out the prosthesis for real legs. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Anyway, we didn't have a topic today. What did you want to talk about? I thought you had one. Well, I've got a couple, I've got a couple options. The the one that's big that keeps coming up, like one of our one of our listeners, Joe, asked us to talk about the war. I don't want to talk about the war. I want I Joe's great guy. I talk about the war on my regular show. Trentexon 2.0, plug plug-plug. Uh but I don't want to talk about the war.
SPEAKER_00By the war, you mean the one between you and me?
SPEAKER_02No, no. Oh, okay. Our war is at a permanent ceasefire. We're all good. Uh no, the war in war in Iran. The Iranian war that we seem to have absolutely no idea what's going on with. Um we're getting it we're getting an address tonight for the record. Yeah. We're getting an address. They're they're gonna explain what's going on in Iran tonight. And I was like, they do they not realize it's April Fool's Day? What is it? What is who is thinking over nobody. Anyway, uh I was I was listening to um Pivot earlier, which is the show with Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher, and Galloway is absolutely um obsessed with modern masculinity. And I thought, you know, we've kind of talked about masculinity or at least f feminism and our role in it as men, yeah, but we really haven't talked about like masculinity for masculinity's sake in depth, yeah. In the 21st century, you know what I mean? Yeah. And um here was the here was the premise masculinity. What we're seeing right now in our society is this wild backlash from young men being told that they are the problem. Uh the problems with society are rooted in in young men, that young men are violent, young men are are uh they're not they're uh risk takers, so they they have a tendency to I mean they're the abusers, they're the abusers, they're the they're the criminals, you know, the the young men are the problem. And so there's this backlash against non-young men, not not young men, and like it's why cruelty is becoming a really like common response to like the anti-woke thing. Like women don't talk about anti women don't think like that because to them having empathy and and caring about others and understanding that others have point of view, that's like I think it's built into the the the female form as part of being a mom. Part of the m the the matriarchy is their ability, women's ability to understand others' points of view and and have sympathy for them. Whereas men, I don't think it's natural for us to be empathic. I think it is more natural for us to be cruel and overbearing and brute forcey and now that's just me just kind of sh shmegging something against the wall there. Gross.
SPEAKER_00You bring an interesting point because it's I want to focus on the point you're bringing up in terms of this backlash. Um what I think the backlash is it's it's being masked with a lot of things. It's what it's truly just trying to do is it's trying to bring down feminism, right? It's it's trying to bring down what what wokism to me is just another it's a synonym for feminism.
SPEAKER_02I would agree with that. I I do want to I don't want to stop before we get too crazy into this, and that this this young men Galloway's theory is that young men today suffer from uh never raising their game, that all all humans are inherently horny, that they they want to have have sexual relations and mate, and these young men are not getting that kind of relationship going be with current with modern women. Because modern women look down on them and go, You all need to grow up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And let's let's face it, women mature faster than or females mature faster than males in our species. That's just the way it is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's nothing new.
SPEAKER_02And they they have to, their bodies force them to mature faster. Um but his theory is that the problem with these men is that they just give up immediately. They're like, well, women aren't into me, so now I'm gonna be a fucking internet troll, and I've got access to unlimited porn on my on my phone, so I could take it to the bathroom when they were. The argument is that they're less aggressive, and then you but men are aggressive still, they're just no longer uh being let's say let's say they're no longer being uh risk risk adverse. It takes a certain amount of gumption to walk up to a stranger who you find attractive and strike up a conversation.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02And in order to do that, you have to either have incredible confidence that you've got the you know the the looks to pull it off, or the personality or the charm or the or the humor, you know, you have to you have to have a game. You have to have a game.
SPEAKER_00And the thick skin to take the rejection.
SPEAKER_02And the thick skin to take rejection out. And and I don't think that modern youth, and you work with them way more than I do, because I don't work with them. All I see are the pre-adolescents. I I mean I see his point, and it does it does make me feel like old man yelling at clouds. Yeah. But what I'm gonna let you spit, because this is your area of expertise, one of them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Oh, there's a lot to unpack, but you know, I I think I can start with you know, understanding what's what. And I think a lot of times what we see in the media is not reality. We know that. Um, and this is one of those things where it's no different. Uh people talk about feminism in ways that isn't really feminism. Um there's mainstream feminism, which I think is toxic, which I think is does no good, which I think people just do it for attention, money, fame, uh, jumping on a bandwagon. There's multiple reasons why people do it, but the mainstream feminism is is basically saying, like, yeah, like uh, you know, m this is bad, men are bad, blah, blah, blah, right? And that's just a selling thing. That's not really like they don't really care. Um Do I believe that there's this like war against young men and like there's this inability for them to be who they want to be? No, absolutely not. Um if you really boil down society and you break it all the elements down and you understand what feminism really is, it's really showing us that the reason why males usually encounter a lot of mental health issues and a lot of the aggressiveness issues and the violent issues is because of masculinity. Uh it's because of the patriarchy, uh, because of what is taught them for many, many, many, many years. Uh it's it's it's in fact quite the opposite, right? So of of what's being told out there.
SPEAKER_02I I think that there's a big difference between survival in the 20th and 21st centuries and survival for the hundreds of years before those. Yeah. I think if anything that there's part of that there, you know, like my grandfather grew up without electricity. Yeah. You know, so his version of, well, you need to get out of the house today would be like, are you why?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02None of this makes sense.
SPEAKER_00And then yeah, there's that element too of technology. I mean, um, if anything, what keeps youth away from each other is technology. Um, you know, they're meeting each other on video games online and chats and stuff like that instead of going out and hanging out and being in person. Although we're seeing a resistance to that now with the with the newest generation to meet the city. It does look like Yeah, it does look like Alpha's more They're more like I don't want to do They want to do both. They want to do both, but they also like they're they're kind of like catching on to the fact of like, wait a minute, like there's this the slightly older generation than us right right above us, right? And we're whatever they're called. Genziers, like late Gen Zers, right? And they're just like they're seeing kind of the the negative effects of it, right? And I think they're kind of being told by them, like, hey, like get out more. Um but I but I think it's we we we're getting to the point where the consumption is so much that it's becoming too overbearing for the human mind. Um because everything is just like online, online media, media, media, media, media, media, media.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I also think that when we talk about the online media, media, media, like the media's kind of spinning of these of these phenomena is that what we're what they're taking into account are the loudest voices. Yeah. And the loudest voices are we we are s really starting to see the pa the pain of paying loud voices. Right. Because these guys, a lot of these guys who are shouting the Manosphere dudes, the you know, a bunch of failed comedians or successful comedians that have decided that they want to, you know, take their success to the next level by going on a podcast and or starting a podcast and being like super edgy. Yeah. And like okay, but what can you be real too? Can we all be real for a second? Like I listen, I've listened to Joe Rogan a few times, and every time I'm struck by how willfully ignorant this man is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, willful ignorance is totally different from stupidity.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Ignorance is choosing to ignore something that doesn't exist. And he's willfully choosing to ignore good arguments, he's willfully choosing to ignore science, he's willfully choosing to ignore things that make you smarter and better and more well-rounded.
SPEAKER_00I don't buy the whole Joe Rogan's just ignorant and he doesn't know any better than how can you be super pro health and an MMA guy?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like, what is less healthy than physically beating and being beaten by another human?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like, are you like just are you immune to hypocrisy?
SPEAKER_00But that's also that's a that's like a cultural thing, too. So, like, because that's become part of the quote unquote fitness world, right? So, you know, because you know, like bodybuilding, um, MMA, boxing, all that was all kind of under the well, it still is under the umbrella of like ath athletics and sports and fitness, and so we still buy into the idea that it's healthy because it's fitness. And w the more documentaries you see, you realize that no, this shit's not healthy at all.
SPEAKER_02The more head injuries you sustain. Right.
SPEAKER_00Um well, and the and what it takes, like uh you know, like the the guys who started it all were were doing steroids, right? And you know, now it's just like consuming a bunch of stuff just to kind of replace the steroids, right?
SPEAKER_02Artificial proteins.
SPEAKER_00And they only do it because they're afraid of the effects of the steroids. If there was no negative effects of the steroids, they'd be doing it, right? Like, why not? Same people who tell you not to take vaccines. Yeah, exactly. And that's the thing, is like, you know, most people want to look a certain way, right? They maybe form a hobby and they get into that hobby and they like they start to enjoy it. But a lot of people go to the gym because of how they want to look, not because of how they want to feel. And and not everybody. You know, some people they they they have a good balance, right? They enjoy what they do, they have a good healthy diet, but they also indulge. It's just it's just a balance. And but the whole masculinity thing, going back to that, I it it's complicated. All that's tied together. Yeah, it's complicated because like, look, I you're you took you called me an expert in it because I've been talking about it for like 20 years.
SPEAKER_02It's part of your area of expertise.
SPEAKER_00I'm an expert now. Um but because I've been studying it for a long time and I've been looking into it and I've been analyzing it, right? And it's very, very hard to have these conversations with someone who hasn't. Um sometimes, right? But it's okay, I'm not taking that as a dig.
SPEAKER_02I'm a pretty smart guy to figure things out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, I wasn't directed at you. I'm my brain is not brain. I needed my caffeine earlier.
SPEAKER_02I was uh super masculine from the time I met California until um until the birth of my 12-year-old, I think. Uh even though I I do feel like I was I was trending in a good way before she was born. When when the mil uh like I didn't want to have kids again, I really didn't. But you know, then I I got into my relationship with Emily and she was like, I really want to have a family, and I was like, okay, well I really had to had to come to grips with do I want to try this or not? And we ended up doing it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And zero regrets. Yeah. Because the instant I held her, it was like it was like Is there anything more masculine though than being handed a second chance and determining you're never gonna screw this up? Like there's nothing more masculine than totally screwing something up and then 18 years later being given a chance to redo it and going, oh yeah, and I'm totally gonna rock this one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean that's that's the whole, you know, like women women eventually go to menopause and they can't have babies anymore. We will basically be able to reproduce until we die.
SPEAKER_02Unless we're surgically altered.
SPEAKER_00Right. Which I am. But just natural biology in of itself says males are always Robert De Niro just had a kid last two years ago. Yeah. Competitions, sperm out there, right? And and women cannot do that most of the time. Females cannot do that most of the time. So there is a biological component to things, and I think that look, we we've seen the transition of the modern man, and I think even most people, even in the mo in the conservative sphere, are comfortable with it, right? Like most people in the conservative atmosphere who are dads and have a daughter, they go to their ballet sessions, they'll practice with them, and they don't feel emasculated by those concepts these days, right? Whereas in like our grandparents or great-grandparents definitely would have, you know? And so I I think that the the thing that I hear people talking about these days, right, is this idea that the that men are no longer as aggressive, and they use that term in terms of like how they chase things, how they chase women, and how women still and this is what drives me nuts sometimes, right? Is because you have feminist women who are saying, No, but I still want the man to be aggressive. I still want him to come in and do all the work, I still want him to do all of these things, right? So I'm like, so then we're not transitioning how we do relationships. So you're saying you want feminism in one element of your life, but not in the other element of your life. And I think that's become the problem, is people are trying to cherry pick where they want feminism and where they want masculinity to stay. And to a degree, I'm like, okay, but human beings don't really work that way. Like, we're not we're not just gonna compartmentalize our masculinity in one area, you know? Like, like I'm not gonna go to my professional work and be this great feminist man and then be come home and be this great masculine man with no feminism there, right? Like, I don't work that way. It's not a switch. Yeah, I can't switch it on and off, right? So, and I think that's what we're seeing, right? So, like, I in my experience, I have a lot of women who they they want their bosses and their colleagues to be feminist men, right? But they want their husbands and their fathers to be very masculine, and there's definitely there are cultural uh sides to that.
SPEAKER_02Uh like I'm from the South. Uh men do all the you know the hunting and the fishing and the killing and uh and the the women folks stay home and they make certain that the kitchen's clean and the laundry's di you know that was me being a jackass, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um but even that's an interesting thing, right? Like dads now take their daughters hunting, dads now take the you know, they they learn how to fish as well. And sure.
SPEAKER_02I um I was unfortunate enough to be the son of a father who didn't want kids and uh was incapable of hiding that. So um I think he he had kids because he it was what was expected, right? Which is apparently pretty common reason to have kids in the 70s. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh but that's that's part of the patriarchy, that's part of the the the masculinity. I guess we you know people would usually coin as toxic masculinity, right? It's this whole thing of like in order to be a man, you eventually have to get married, you have to have kids, you have to be the man of the house, you have to basically breed, and you have to bring those people up so that you can have my dad was born raised poor Oklahoma rural.
SPEAKER_02He was the oldest of five kids. Uh four or five. Drawing a blank now. Um he was basically he was the oldest, therefore he was responsible for everybody else. When they left the left the house, you're responsible for your brothers and sisters, bring them home.
SPEAKER_00And uh there are some families that do that.
SPEAKER_02And he was like uncompromising, I think is a good word for my dad. And so when I was a little, I was a little tyke. My my parents divorced. I was seven, I was eight. I was seven when he when they separated. And uh, but up till then, like playing pee-wee baseball and you know, like the the little sports, the little kid sports, and I was a little tiny little kid. Right. He was I was never good at any of it. I wasn't big enough to be good enough at it, I wasn't coordinated enough to be good at it. So uh it w I felt like I was a real disappointment to death at like age seven, eight. You know, it's just what a shitty way to to go. And then I so I swore off sports for a while after they separated. I was just like, whatever, and then I got back into it later and and I was doing it for me, and it was a totally different beast, let me tell you. Um but I think that there's an expectation that was put on me as a kid that I would never put on my son if I had had a son. I only have girls. But I think do we want them to follow in our footsteps? Do we want them to carve their own path? You know? Um is it how do I phrase this part? Because I do this with my kids. Like I want them to forge their own way, the the way that they feel that they they should. Be the person that you feel you should be.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh as long as you're not hurting anybody, we're gonna be okay. Yeah. Uh and so I try to like just be. I don't force them into stuff. I just try to be um like, hey, you could try this if you really were into it, and watch them go, eh. Okay, well, we won't do that then.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think if anything, well, what I'm worried about younger generation is the the apathy of anything, like the the the interest levels of doing anything new. I I think we grew up in a route of like try everything. Oh yeah. You know, hell yeah. But it but it was kind of the wrong path because it was kind of like try everything so you're good at everything, not try everything, find what you like, and then hone in on it. Yeah, right? Like that's that's the healthier way to do it. We were more like do everything because you need everything, right? And so it was a little too much. And I think we are now parenting our children as in like trying try lots of things, but find the thing that you want to find. You know, and and the the thing that I do with my child is like, look, choose your thing. However, once you make a choice and once you make a commitment, I am going to push you for that. Now, if you change your mind and say I don't want to do this anymore, okay, we're gonna finish off where it makes sense, and then you can go to the next thing, right? But like, like with you know, his his activities, it's like if you're gonna do this, you're gonna do it all the way. You're not gonna half-ass it, you know. Um kid deserves credit, man. He's a black belt. Yeah, yeah. He's gone for second degree right now.
SPEAKER_02Which is like stunningly impressive for a young fellow his uh his age. I mean, that's he's young to be. Uncoordinated young fellow. Well, the the dedication that it takes to to pull that off. I mean, he's also so smart, so you you know, you got a good one going.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, to be honest, I mean the taco no place, I love the tacondo place he made. I think it fits well for him, but uh I'll be honest, it's kind of like uh everybody gets a tropey type of place. Um Well, we want to see them succeed. It's a business, right? Like if you move up, you get paid. So if your kid doesn't move up, sure you might get paid, but people will probably stop going. Good point. Um, I would like to see him challenged a bit more in that arena, but it's been good for him because he's not the athletic type. Um, it does still take a matter of discipline and patience. Without question. You know, and stuff like that. But uh yeah, watching him do a push-up. I'm like, okay, we gotta work on this. Um, you know, when I was like age seven, I knew how to do a push-up, you know, and he's like twice that age almost, and I'm like, okay. Um but again, everyone's different, you know. Um that's that's not gonna be something that I worry about because not everybody's gonna be athletic and coordinated.
SPEAKER_02It's um it's weird how the bigger this world becomes and the the more different everyone is, the more systems and people seem to want to pigeonhole or or treat everyone, paint everybody with the same brush for ease. Yeah. And I just like I don't think it's fair that I think conservatives are um gullible because they claim to like I'm a conservative and I think anything Trump does is the right thing. I'm like, that's not being conservative, that's just being in a cult. Um I I used to have huge respect for conservatives who believed in things like fiscal responsibility, but when you look at the way different political parties have treated fiscal responsibility over the last 25 years, one of them is to attempting to be fiscally responsible, and the other is the Republican Party. And I just I'm like, I but I paint all these conservatives with like, you're a rube to me because you you actively vote against the things that you seem to believe that are important.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but they don't, you know, and it's interesting that you bring that point up because really what it is is it's and we've talked about this, right? It's the phobias, and it's it's the the phobia of of things becoming more feminine. Yeah. It's the phobia of the LGBTQ. Absolutely. I think that's a huge one. The queer community is like Yeah, that's it's and and again it's the ultimate threat to these. It's not understanding it, you know, and and again, I teach this stuff too, and I think for a lot of people in the beginning, right, I always get hit with this, right? Because I I have to explain an element of it. I'm like, hey, look, I'm just explaining this that you understand terminology. I'm not selling you on anything, I'm not telling you what it should be or what it shouldn't be, right? I tell my students, you will never, ever, throughout my this course, hear me use the word should or shouldn't. I won't use it, right? Because that's not what I'm here for. Um and I really, really do my best not to use that word in in the way that, you know, is specific to. Yeah, I might use it because it's a phrase that might that comes out of my mouth, but I don't mean like you should do this, right? Um, or you should not do that. Um But yeah, the the whole concept of gender in of itself, right? And this has been in the political atmosphere, right? The whole the whole there's only two genders, there's only two genders. And I hit this all the time in schools, right? Even with a younger generation, and I'm like, look, gender, I get why it's confusing, right? Like I just filled out another medical form the other day, a medical form, and it asked me for my gender, and the options were male and female. I'm like, this isn't gender, right? And some people have now transitioned to like biological gender, and I'm like, you guys are complicating this way too much, right? So some of it does come from structures and institutions who are doing a terrible job of communicating this shit. It is not that complicated. There is the biology of something, which is something you cannot control, what something is, you can simply refer that to as male or female, or even just by its parts, right? Whether you're talking about genitalia, chromosomes, things of that nature. And even that's not black and white. Even that is not A or B, right? Um, because we know there's intersex, right?
SPEAKER_02There are there are according to human geneticists six quote unquote genders among human beings.
SPEAKER_00Right. And then there's the societal construct of gender, even pronouns. Right. People they go berserk about pronouns. I'm like, guys, read an old book. Yeah. Read an old book. There are no pronouns in that book. There's zero.
SPEAKER_02Or they use the exact same pronoun every time. Yeah. You know.
SPEAKER_00But most people were referred to by a name. Like that's they didn't. Depends on the root root language. When they talked about the third person, there was no such thing. Pronouns weren't invented yet. So we invented it, right? And I think when I paint that picture, people go, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_02This whole the whole pronoun thing is just an English speaker thing, too, by the way. Yeah. Um if you're familiar with Latin, any Latin romance, you you speak Spanish. Yeah. Almost all nouns have a gender of some sort, don't they? Don't they? They do in French. All nouns are gendered in some way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And the Spanish language is very like um masculine-feminine oriented in terms of how you speak. Yeah. Yep. Uh well, here's a here's another Scott Gallowayism.
SPEAKER_02The greatest uh uh pairing in nature is the combination of human, masculine, and feminine energies. That those two things, and keep in mind that a masculine energy doesn't necessarily have to come from a man and a feminine energy doesn't have to come from a woman. Right. Uh it's that the but the pairing of those two can move the world. Right. So it he's very pro it's a very interesting way to think.
SPEAKER_00I do really agree with um was it Galloway you said? Uh-huh. Um, that people are really horny. People are absolutely of course we are. With it's it's part of being human. Yeah, we're meant to reproduce. Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, one of the beauties of teaching about reproductive the reproductive system is the students, you know how they are so curious. Yeah. Because you know, they're basically asking me to answer the question of how does the sun exist? Because they're like, Well, how does the sperm know to go there? I'm like, dude, if I could answer that question, I wouldn't be here teaching you this, right? I'd be writing books and making lots of money. Um have you ever seen Jurassic Park? Yeah, right. Um, but it's fascinating to hear those questions because you really take a step back again and go realize, yeah, we really don't know, you know, how is it that but we we understand what is happening. We don't know where, why, that that we don't we can't go that far back just yet. And it's really fascinating. But the beauty of it is also like you learn and realize no, we we are reproductive species, like basically all life on this planet. It wants to live, it wants to thrive, it wants to spread, wants to find a way, it wants to keep growing and growing and growing and growing, right? And so, you know, then that's what I teach them. You know, like if you have sex, the likelihood of you getting pregnant is incredibly high because that's what it the body wants to do, right? Like it will try to make the sperm survive as long as possible to wait for the egg to ovulate, even if you're days away from it. It it'll it'll try to find a way to do it as much as possible. That's what it's meant to do, you know. Um so it's just it's fascinating, but it's one of the beauties of teaching that is that you realize that like it's normal. The urges you have, the attraction that you have. Um, one of the things that I think we also can't wrap our heads around is uh monogamy. Is we think that that's some just a natural occurrence of of life, and it's not. Well, monogamy is relatively new to the human species. It it is in certain species of bird. Yeah. Uh penguins, for example, made it for a life. Uh yeah. But most species aren't monogamous, and human beings weren't naturally monogamous. Now I'm not preaching that we should not be monogamous anymore, right? I think for our current society, it's working. For many, I think there's more pros to it than cons.
SPEAKER_02Monogamy is a social construct that gives stability to a situation that could spiral out of control very quickly.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. It helps with the diseases a lot.
SPEAKER_02Yes. It certainly helps on a on the health side.
SPEAKER_00Right. And and even mental health, I think it makes it easier too, because we're also very emotional beings. Um, so I think there'd be a lot more issues. But I don't think a lot of people can handle the things that come with with non-monogamous relationships, right?
SPEAKER_02We're not trained for this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But this was not in the handbook.
SPEAKER_00But it's one of those things, though, where it's just like, again, like you have to sometimes step outside from that and realize that that's what it is. It's it's a construct, it's an invention, it's a thing that has evolved over time, whether it was intentional or not, it's what it is.
SPEAKER_02So this uh this toxicity of masculinity and and the flip side of that, there is feminine uh toxic femininity or feminism. Feminism? Yeah. I don't know. You can go too far in and you can go too far too extreme in any any place. So are these are also constructs of for for whatever reason, trauma, um backlash, things like that. Like it could be a response, a defense mechanism.
SPEAKER_00There are any number of things to see. Human beings do this all the time. It's not just like the woke people or feminists that do it. Like human beings do this. We get defensive or we use things as an excuse, right? Like I grew up in a Christian environment, and so whenever it was convenient, there was like, oh, that's not good, that's not very Christian of you, right? I'm like, that's not what Christianity really is, right? So like people misuse Christianity all the time, all the time, and we see the extreme person of that.
SPEAKER_02And it's not just Christianity either. They're like Islamophobia is a is a rampant issue in this country, yeah. And that's because there are extremist Muslims who have taken uh Islam to an unnatural and unhealthy place. You would say the same thing about Christianity, right?
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, the KKK claimed to be Christian, right?
SPEAKER_02So Right. And and and there are arms of Judaism that are like pretty damn extreme. Yeah. And like the guy in charge of Israel right now is pretty damn extreme.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I think you have also Yeah, you can take these things too far. Yeah. And no one likes being policed. So I understand the pushback on that, right? Like when you get called out and corrected for every little thing, no one likes that. And I think that's really what bugs a lot of people. I do too. Is is this whole of like, I mean that's what Bill Maher would tell you. Yeah, exactly. That's that's exactly what came to mind, right? And I'm just like, that's that's their problem, dude. Right. Like if they have if they have to remind you all the time, I get that it's annoying, um, but it's not a real thing. Like it's at the end of the day, it has no real power.
SPEAKER_02The the thing about Bill Maher that I would slap him, like just slap the shit out of him if I met him in person. Dude, many, many did a video on him. Did you see that? Because you are no, I haven't. Oh man. Here's my beef with Bill Maher, Jackass. Um This guy's got the balls to scream about the left going too far and policing speech, and blah, blah, blah, blah. On we should be able to say whatever we want. This is the same guy who made his name on standing and basically in the face of religion and calling those people stupid.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02And telling them to shut up and to quit getting your religion all over me. It's like the the thing that you used to scream about the loudest is now what you do. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like look, Bill Maher is a good one. What a classic hypocritical ass. Why he's getting the Mark Twain Award, I don't know. But here's the thing with Bill Maher. To me, he's so anti-religious that he couldn't be a conservative. Right. And that's the only reason why. Yeah. Everything else about him screams conservatism. Right. Yeah, neoconservatism, specifically. Which is why most of his friends are conservative.
SPEAKER_02He's he is uh he is Islamophobic as people get. Yeah. He is wildly xenophobic. Transphobic. He's transphobic. He's he's he's got a real um what is the he he is not secure in his masculine, in who he is. Yeah. In his identity. Yeah. Um obviously.
SPEAKER_00And that's the thing, right? So I I think at the end of the day, when it comes to masculinity, you know, you can be masculine in many ways, but if you're truly secure in yourself, you can also find the areas where you're feminine, you know, and and and not have that be some marker that tells people that you're less of a man or less attractive, you know. And this doesn't just go for women finding you attractive, but other men, right? So other men, we find other men attractive in different ways, not physically, not sexually necessarily, but in terms of our friends and our peers and it's how we glom onto leaders.
SPEAKER_02Right. You know, great leaders have a have an attraction to them, natural attraction that's not necessarily sexual, right?
SPEAKER_00Although it could be. But the patriarchy has told us that masculine was the way to lead, right? And so now we've seen transitions of like you can do it in feminine ways as well. Where traditionally women, if they wanted to be leaders, they had to follow a very masculine approach, you know, and what we ended up losing was vulnerability. And so I think that what you have is you have myths, you have masks, you have tropes and stereotypes that have existed for a long time. But you spend enough time in circles with men, and we're very close, we're very touchy-feely, we're very um physically touching, right? Like I see kids all the time, they're just physically touching each other all the time. You know?
SPEAKER_02What are sports anyway?
SPEAKER_00But just a way for us to hug and it'd be okay. Right, you know, and we look for the excuses, right? And so, and then I think people who are really insecure, you really see them go for that, right? Like they have to make the gay joke and be like, Oh, I'm touching your bro, and I'm not gay, right? Like it's just screaming insecurity of like you need some sort of physical affection and some capacity from a male, from a masculine energy that you're not getting. And it doesn't mean that you're secretly gay or that you're secretly, it literally means you're missing something. And I've I've sat in rooms with young men, you know, of and they will reveal things that they will never say outside that space, right? That's gotta be crazy, you know, and it's it's it's complete transformation though, because they're they're just being genuine for once and they're being honest because you gave them that space to do so, and they are just like, yeah, I don't I don't wanna do that. I don't want to perform like this, I don't want to have to be that manly man all the time, all that type of stuff, you know, and I don't have to worry about whether I'm gonna sit and cross my legs and someone's gonna say something, you know. I don't the things that they will say to you are just it's very revealing of like, yeah, like it is very performative, and that's not really who we are, you know. But there's also people who are naturally way more masculine.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they have a deeper voice, they're very raspy, they're kind of just like they have physical characteristics, but they also it also comes from the the way that people carry themselves and the way that they order their priorities.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I consider masculine, powerful masculine energy to be protective and instructive.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um but I also like to further distill those and to say that to be protective, we also have to understand our own vulnerabilities. And to be to be uh informative, to be a teacher, you also have to understand that you don't you you have to be a student as well. Right. That we never have all of the answers. Right. And the first step to being a a a true protector, a true instructor in this world is admitting that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And saying that there's way more to it than I can than I can convey.
SPEAKER_00But we need to get away from this, like, you know, men have this rule, and women have this rule, and the masculine does this rule, and the feminine does this rule. Look at the animal kingdom. It does not function that way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00If you have a cub, who's gonna protect that cub more? The mama or the papa? Usually it's the mama. Usually it's the mother, yeah.
SPEAKER_02The mother's the one you have to worry about, usually men have a tendency. Male male creatures have a tendency to bail. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, my work here is done. I'll see you guys later.
SPEAKER_00But there's that front, right? And like you see this if you go to a baseball game for some reason, there's always a fight, you know?
SPEAKER_02Uh I can't, I it doesn't make any sense to me. It's the least violent sport there is. Baseball's just ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00I just think I think what happens in baseball is that it's so easy to get drunk. It's easy to get drunk and and uh yeah. And and the and you're so close, you're so close in proximity to people. Yeah, they're literally like right there, they're at your knees or they're at they're breathing on your neck. The way they make those stadiums.
SPEAKER_02I believe there's a giants fan behind me breathing on my neck. Yeah, there's you know, I'm on I'm knee-deep into my fourth $12 beer.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. The way they design the stadiums is stupid, but I get it, right? They want to make money, but yeah, I but I I think that a lot of that comes from like again, the fighting, the violence, and all that type of stuff. It it really does stem from this inaccurate way in the way we we we depict the expectations of what being a man means, you know. And there are people who have gone on journeys to ask that question, what does that even mean, you know? And I know that this person is no longer really in the spotlight anymore because of the whole thing that happened between him and Blake Lively, and you know, so with Justin Baldoni, you know. Um, he had a whole podcast on this. Um, and he wrote a whole book on this, and he actually went on a journey. And I thought one of the things that he did was interesting was he did an experiment, and he started trying to post videos about these conversations, and he was getting lots of women to follow him, right? No men were actually interacting with him. So then he was like, Well, I'm gonna start posting videos of me working out. Who was responding to those videos was men, almost no women, right? So, you know, then he told his he told his close group of friends, like, hey guys, I really just want to go. Like, he I forget exactly what he did, but he he basically kind of tricked them, didn't tell them the full truth. Um, and then when they finally went on the trip, he's like, No, I just kind of want to get away and I want to spend some time with you guys, and I want to just talk and be vulnerable and do all of these things, right? Um, and he shared about that and how that him and his friends all really enjoyed that trip, right? Uh, and it was a really cool experience, you know. Uh, you know, he had conversations with his dad and all that type of stuff, and it was really, really cool. Um, and they had lots of people who came on his podcast and things of that nature. Um, I thought it was a really cool exploration of things. I I'd invite you to watch some of those older podcast shows um that he did. Um, regardless of what he did was what he did, I don't know yet. No one really knows what happened in that situation. Um, you know, two things can be true, right? You can have done a great and amazing thing and done a horrible thing, right? Yes. Same thing with the whole César Chavez thing right now. I think a lot of people are like, and this again goes, I'm like, are we going too far? Like, are we like we're taking down his statues and taking down his name? And I'm like, uh look, I get it. Like, nothing that came out surprised me about the dude. If you actually read about his works and you read about other people who wrote about him, you kind of already knew this, right? And there's things about MLK, right? And it's probably only a matter of time. Like, are we gonna take down his monument in Washington if this comes out, right? Um, because we don't take down George Washington's monument, we don't take down Thomas Jefferson's monument, and Lord knows those guys did some things, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I think um we're we are still learning. Yeah. And I think in our in our rush to be better than our ancestors, yeah, we may try to we may say, hey, their past, I hate using this phrase, but their past, their deeds were whitewashed, and so they're they're all we focus on is the good and not the bad, and we we need to focus on the whole thing. We're gonna reach a reality where we realize that it's not about the work of these people on the whole, it's about their work on the whole compared to the society as a whole at the time.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02And a lot of people do things bad things that are not necess that weren't necessarily bad at the time. Yeah. That are now like, holy crap, I can't believe we we did that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Weren't considered bad at the time. They of course they were bad at the time, they just were accepted at the time. That's what I was going for there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um it was more common for you to do it and not have to think about it as being the thing that you did that was more societally acceptable.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um we're gonna reach a point where we're gonna understand that yesterday, as important as it is to understand what happened, is in the past.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And there are a lot of things that we just need to let go.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And move. Really focus on the forward.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00I think, yeah, I think you can call out that what happened was bad so that we can make sure going forward. We say, hey, going forward, you should not be doing this.
SPEAKER_02You know, like one of the things that's coming up now is during World War II, as we fought fascism and the uh imperialist march of of Japan, we interred Japanese Americans against their will, without due process in internment camps. Yeah. And we treated them horribly. And afterward, and we did it all under the guise of some sort of legality, yeah, and stripped these Americans of their rights. Right. And then at the end, we released them and then burned all of the information so that nobody could learn about it. Right. We were fighting fascism while acting in a fascistic way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And it's pretty obvious that Stephen Miller and this White House, here we go, political, uh think that it's okay to go back to that and to deprive people of their rights as long as you know they fit into a specific category that you want to get rid of. Yeah. This ridiculous mass deportation plan that they have that really shits on the the the rights of everyone standing on American soil. The whole reason that the Bill of Rights is phrased the way it is is because if you don't know you have to assume that this person is a citizen. That's why all persons are given due process. Not all citizens are given due process, all persons are given due process. Well, why the hell would they phrase it like that? Well, there's this really cool set of letters called the Federalist Papers that were written by the guys who are mostly responsible for writing that document who explained why they did a lot of the shit that they did.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02And John Jay explained you have to have this as a you can't have a qualifier as to who gets due process. It is one of the things that King George did that was the worst crime he could have committed. Right. Stripping a person of their rights just because you feel like it is dehumanizing. There's a lot of other shit that went on. John Jay was not pro-slavery. Right. But he existed in a world where it was an accepted practice to get enough people on board with creating the nation. Anyway, it's just the cruelty is like part of the allure of the modern it's it's not even the Republican Party anymore. It's the Trumpan Party. Or the Trumplican Party, whatever you want to call it. It's a personality, it's a cult of personality built around someone who is narcissistic and cruel to his core. And I think that this is leading to this toxic masculinity being so prevalent and spilling out everywhere. And it's also why there's so much pushback against it. Because it's it's gross. The toxic, cruel masculinity, the the I'm gonna hurt somebody smaller than me because they're smaller than me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, because it's them or us, right? And it's kind of going back to what you were talking about, too, in terms of like how far are we willing to go in terms of like, okay, so there's these horrible people out here who are gonna do bad things to us. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna do a horrible bad thing to other people to try to deter other things in the future. Like it just it's like, what are we doing here? Yeah, you know, and it's but yeah, I mean, and and that probably goes beyond masculinity, right? I think that goes more into just power.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I and I do, but I do think that the power dynamic is part of the allure of the toxic masculine, you know. Yeah, and the ability to exert your will on whoever you want.
SPEAKER_00I mean, but that's been the masculine trait for a long time, and we know that physical features and power and other elements that give you power have control over that. I mean, they've done studies on this, right? They they did they did a study that was interesting. They did this this thing at a bar. They had this uh really big guy. I mean, he was probably like almost seven feet tall, just huge, right? Huge guy. And what they would do is when the bartender would serve the beer to the guy next to him, he would grab it and just start drinking it. Right? And they did this over and over and over and over. How many guys said something to the guy versus how many guys just went and ordered another beer?
SPEAKER_02I would imagine almost everybody just ordered another beer.
SPEAKER_00Every single one just ordered another beer. They didn't even try. Right. And and the guys sitting next to him, some of them were like built guys. They were beefy, they were they weren't like these tiny, scrawny little guys.
SPEAKER_02But the stochastic uh fear that exists when you when you stand up to someone who is that kind of physically imposing.
SPEAKER_00Right, you know, and so it just comes to show it was a very interesting experiment, you know, where like if you could have just said, hey, like, that's my beer. Young me absolutely would have said, That's my beer, bro. You know, but I wouldn't have getting mad though, because I'm sure you didn't notice. Maybe he didn't made a genuine mistake, right? Yeah, because the bartender would intentionally kind of put it slightly in between them, you know. So I'm like, oh no, no, that's that's my beer, you know. And then if he gives me problems, I go, you know what? That's fine. Get another beer, you know. Young me probably would have got punched in the head. It's not worth it's not worth getting in a fight for, but you should be able to assert yourself and say, hey, no, like that's I'm not saying I would fight the guy, I'm saying I'd probably get punched in the head.
SPEAKER_02I'm not gonna fight back, right?
SPEAKER_00But I'm not crazy. No, but see, I I think you can avoid the violence altogether, you know, hopefully, uh if that person's not stable, but how are you supposed to know that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So and and God God forbid me be in a bar and not already be at least too deep.
SPEAKER_00No, I know, but yeah, me if I'm if I'm in a good mood, I'm like, hey man, let me buy you another one, right?
SPEAKER_02Like 50 51-year-old me would look at this guy and go, This is how I make friends.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Would you like another?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02You know? And I would make it a deal, and we would become friends, or we would have problems. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But I would say something. No, but I could wrap up with a story. Um, one of my favorite memories of my dad is uh I was I was really young, and this memory is probably more vague than the way I depict it, but that's how I remember it. And, you know, to describe my dad, I would say traditionally he was fairly masculine, right? Um, the traditional notions of what you would think to be masculine. Most people described him as very sweet. Um that was probably later on in life, though, you know, uh as you get older, you kind of slow down and you're kind of more gentle about things. But you know, he was always very masculine about a lot of things, you know. Sat on his cast, drank his beer, made the you know, jokes about women, all that type of stuff, you know. But overall, great guy, nice guy. Um was always a good dad to me, you know. Um sure he had his problems like anybody else. Um but one of my favorite memories is when I was a little kid, and I remember I was playing in the backyard and and and I hurt my foot. I want to say I twisted my ankle or something, you know. Nothing major. Enough for me to like start crying about it because I was a big crybaby. And uh, you know, not expecting, you know, like my dad would probably be like, alright, like just get up or you know, walk it off or do something like that. No, he comes over to me, he grabs my foot, and he starts like rubbing it. And he's just like looking at me, and I'm like crying, and I'm feeling bad that I'm crying, and I'm expecting him to tell me to stop crying. And I'm like, I'm sorry for crying. He's like, No, it's okay, you can cry. It hurts, right? I'm like, yeah. Then it makes sense that you would cry. Because when it's something hurts, we cry. Right? Um, but eventually it's gonna pass. Eventually the the pain's gonna go away, and then you can stop crying. And I remember feeling instantaneously better. Like the pain went away. Mostly because it was in my head.
SPEAKER_01Right?
SPEAKER_00But the way he chose to deal with it in the moment was not to be like, walk it off, even though I could have. I absolutely could have. But he knew that that approach probably wasn't gonna work for me in the moment. You know, and it was it was healing to see that approach, a more nurturing approach, something that we would probably consider not to be so masculine, to be the thing that allowed me to be me. Right? And to this day, it's it's just it's something that sticks with me. That's a cool story.
SPEAKER_02I do not have those with my dad. Well, damn, Trent, now I so so well so because I don't have those with with my father, I'm I'm making up being a dad as I go along these days because that's how I do things. Yeah, I'm a wing-it kind of fellow. Um, so my I see part of my job is to make sure that when my daughters all get old older, that they'll have that kind of story to share with their friends and and their children.
SPEAKER_00You have different challenges for sure, because you have you know the late females and you have more feminine energy, and for them it's never really gonna be a walk it off type of thing. Um although some dads do raise their daughters that way, and I'm not judging it. Um one of the things I will say, you know, being in the field of sexual violence for so long is one of the best things you can do for your daughters is make sure that you do everything in their power to get their self-esteem really high. Yeah. Because women with high self esteem, men will leave them the fuck alone.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Are are very are much less likely to be the targets of sexual uh violence.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, or even harassment or anything like that, because they just won't put up with that shit, and their energy, their vibe will let that that aura will be known almost immediately, and most men who go and Commit these types of things, they know it, they feel it, and they run away from that. Um, when I taught kids, I'm like, and parents, I'm like, look, if you're worried about your kid being kidnapped or abused or something, um, you gotta teach their brains to fight. Because human beings will fight, flight, or freeze. Most people will freeze. Some people will run away, and that's okay too, but fighting is the best thing you can do. You don't you don't teach them to fight so that they can beat the person up. Chances are they're not gonna be able to. Right. But if they keep fighting and don't give up, eventually that person is going to give up.
SPEAKER_02Especially if you're loud about it because you draw attention, and attention is the last thing that they want.
SPEAKER_00But even more so than that, here's the interesting part. It's the psyche of the person wanting to commit something like that, right? It's about power, it's about control. The minute they realize this isn't gonna be easy and I'm not gonna have power over this situation as easy as I want it, they don't want it anymore. Right? It's not about a sexual urge, right? It's not. They're not trying to fulfill their sexual urge, they're trying to fulfill some sort of power dynamic. Yeah. And if you can just and again, not always. There's exceptions to everything. There's some people who are sadistic, who are psychopaths, true psychopaths. There's just people out there that are really are just out of our control nuts, you know. But most people aren't going to encounter some rando hiding in a bush with a hoodie in the middle of the dark parking lot or something like that, and that's how you get attacked and sexually assaulted. No, that can happen, and it does happen. That's fucking dark, man. That's like 1% of cases, you know? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02What a dark way to end it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I know, right?
SPEAKER_02You're like, you're like, you were talking about not having a dad. I don't know if it was like jag ass. Uh it is it is imperative that I remember, always remember that my kids are watching me. Yeah. You know? And listening. And listening, and they like they get me, I think, because I try to explain when I when I they look confused every once in a while, and I'm like, ah crap, I gotta iron this thing out. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I think they get me, and that's like for me building their self-esteem is important, but also reminding them all the time that we are not designed to go through any of this alone.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02We're designed to to live together, to work together, to build things together, to remedy issues, remedy problems together. And if you can't talk about the things that are bothering you, the things that have happened, then we can't get past them. So we have to be able to communicate. That's the thing. We have to heal together. Yeah, we we can't we don't get better on our own. Right. We heal together, well, all of us. So there you go. We'll we're working on healing together. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, and that's what I see true masculine being, right? Being secure with yourself enough to the point where you can share the things that you need to share with the people that you need to share it with and heal together with those people. Because being a man to me, right, is being able to own where you need help and actually work to get better at it, and you do get better at it. That's growing, that's being a man, right? Hiding it, masking it, trying to posture it, right? Getting drunk and starting a fight or whatever it is that you do isn't being a man.
SPEAKER_02No, you're hiding from yourself, yeah, from your problems and and from from the future that you need to build. For me, being a person, human, man, woman, anything, being good at it means lifting other people up rather than pushing them down. Yeah. And if if you can live by that one, that's your North Star, you are gonna be a successful member of society, you will have friends, you will you will have the thing that even if it's not gonna, you know, you're not gonna make a millions of dollars just being a good person, but you'll be real you'll be wealthy in a way that money doesn't give you, which is fulfillment. And uh so so they say money doesn't buy happiness. It does it really doesn't. It buys cool shit that can bring you temporary happiness, but fulfillment is what brings you happiness. Uh Emily and I had a riveting conversation about that the other day, and it was like these are nice moments. Me and my wife just having a like an in-depth chat. That's nice.
SPEAKER_00Anyway, well, that's why you know fuck Bill Maher in getting the Mark Twain Award because it's Mark Twain who once said that you know you gotta stay away from people who try to belittle you. Yeah. Truly great people, make sure that others too can become great.
SPEAKER_02I I I'll paraphrase it, but he also said, uh, I've never wished death on anybody, but I have read a few obituaries uh with great zeal. Uh you don't have to wish ill on others to be a to be a good person. Twain Twain is a famous dude, uh for a good reason. Very good humorist. And and no, Bill Maher doesn't deserve that award. Was it Jon Stewart got it a couple years ago? Yeah. And uh like he's one of those when you see what he did after leaving the Daily Show, and when he started working with the veterans group to get uh he started working with that first responders group to get their uh federal money flowing, it was a big deal, you know. He wore that on his sleeve, no doubt. And then he started working on burn pits, yeah. Yeah, which was which is a totally different military issue. Anyway, it's like that's a good dude. I don't see Bill Marr. Bill Marr just sits around and smokes weed with people and talks shit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Which, you know, I get it. That's kind of a fun way to spend an afternoon, but you know, use your use your fame and fortune for uh something good, yeah. You slimy bastard.
SPEAKER_00How did this turn into the the bash on Bill Marshall? You know, no, but you know, I I think masculinity is one of those things where you can have different conversations over and over and over again and and go different routes with it. It's not like a one-time thing. Um thank you for bringing that up. I I think that is something that we don't talk about enough. And you'll be surprised what people will have to say about those things when you will give them the the space to to be genuine and be themselves and and how much of it they actually don't enjoy the performative aspects that society puts on us of what it means to be a man, you know. And one of the sad things is I remember being with a group of kids in a school, and I'm like, Do you guys ever feel like you have like the pressures of like what it means to be a man and what does that look like? And even some of the silly things, right? Like, so I usually bring up some sort of silly thing to open it up, and like like sometimes, you know, I've just like you know, we're guys, right? So we we played with certain figurines and we watched certain shows and movies that are t that were marketed and tailored for us, so like every now and again, you know, man, like I I like to envision myself like a Wolverine and I'm just Logan cutting people up, you know, because it that would be fun, right? And they all just stare at you. And they're all just like, I mean, yeah, kind of, but in reality, and this is what they get real, you know. Like for me, it's I just think of like if there's a shooter on campus, am I gonna be the one that goes and jumps in front of that bullet?
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_00You know, I'm like, I'm gonna have to save people. It's sobering. And I'm like, well, why you? Right? Because that's what it means to be a man. To be the hero, to be the protector.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think that's part of the that's part of the masculinity gauze that we've put on it. Yeah. And and there's nothing wrong with protecting other humans. Uh it's it's a great I just think it's a great service. And isn't that what I'm what I really am talking about? Is is a is it a what is it that makes you a good human? Is it being in service to other men? But imagine Religion's been telling us that for a long time, right?
SPEAKER_00But think about what causes the the when you study and look at the causes of why people come and shoot on a campus, it's because of the patriarchy, because of the toxic masculinity, because of the sexism, because of the anti-LGBT, because of all of those things. That the So imagine if being a good person, being masculine, being a man is extending your friendship and your kindness to people who are different than you, so that you never even have to think about that.
SPEAKER_02There you go. That I love that. That's a good place to stop. Yeah. We we had infinite time today, so I was like, whatever.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, let's just go. I had to I can keep going on this.
SPEAKER_02So it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful topic. I'm glad that we have this discussion. I've been using my tens unit this entire time, so in fact, it's like shocked into into nothingness. Which is fine. It's fine, it's fine. I'm fine. I'm it doesn't hurt that bad. But uh, I do appreciate you that I don't believe you, and because I know back pain and back pain sucks. It's it's when I stand up that you'll see it and I'll I'll like I I see the cringes on your face from time to time.
SPEAKER_00I'm like, yeah, I know what's going on there. It's biting.
SPEAKER_02It's biting me. Some bitch. Yeah. But uh we will come back and do another one of these soon, hopefully. Yeah. Uh and and geez, what do we have? No plan, no problem. Get this anywhere, share with a friend. Uh, you can also catch me on Trend Takeson 2.0. And George, well, you got uh anything to sign us out with?
SPEAKER_00Got a big sign out? Right. I don't know. We didn't do anything for April Fools, though. We didn't fool our audience. Oh shit.
SPEAKER_02But that's all right. I'll say we had a special guest in the description. April Fools! Yeah. Somebody really like like a big like a big name, but somebody that just recently died, like Chuck Norris or something. Yeah, because he would kill him. I'm not gonna do that. And that dude was masculine. Yeah. Sure. Anyway, anywho, we're out. Uh button.