Continuation of Episode 1, Part 2:
Here Nick tackles the question of why men talk about their sexual exploits and discusses the main themes.
Books mentioned: "Down Girl: the Logic of Misogyny" by Kate Manne
and "For the Love of Men" by Liz Plank
www.sacred-truths.com
Continuation of Episode 1, Part 2:
Here Nick tackles the question of why men talk about their sexual exploits and discusses the main themes.
Books mentioned: "Down Girl: the Logic of Misogyny" by Kate Manne
and "For the Love of Men" by Liz Plank
www.sacred-truths.com
Episode 1, Part 2: ASK A DUDE
Emmy Graham: In 2020, I met Nick Oredson, a skilled facilitator who specializes in working with trauma and abuse. I started talking to him about the abuse, harm and harassment I’ve encountered throughout my life at the hands of men, specifically, and the damaging impact it’s had on me. To my surprise, he didn’t flinch – he just took in what I had to say and validated my experience. This was astonishing to me because in my experience, whenever I attempted to speak to men about abuse or demeaning behavior, their response has typically been to diminish my feelings or its impact, shout out in some kind of strange rage, or clam up completely and retreat to silence. I’d never had the experience of a man simply listening and taking in my perspective, until Nick.
In time, I began to ask him questions about why men behave in certain ways in certain circumstances. No topic was off limits. He would access what he referred to as the collective male consciousness of shadow masculinity that all men are taught to adhere to, in order to answer my questions as best as he could. We jokingly referred to it as our ‘Ask a Dude’ sessions and I found them so helpful that I suggested he should set up a table on a street corner somewhere with a sign reading “Ask me anything about men” so women could come to him with their baffling questions about men.
That’s how this podcast started. We are a group of three women and we come together with a list of questions for Nick to address. This is not rehearsed. He has no idea what we will ask.
Ask A Dude - three women, one guy – where we get real answers on subjects most men aren’t willing to talk about.
This is Sacred Truths with Emmy Graham.
Emmy: I’m going to switch gears here, Nick. I’d like to know why do men talk about their sexual exploits, and I’m referring to not just teenagers, grown men do this. Whether it be a one-night stand, or a genuine falling in love, it’s been my experience that a relationship of trust is unfolding, intimacy with a woman is unfolding and it has been my experience that many times men go out and cheapen this intimacy by reporting about it and talking about it to other guys. I’d like to know what you have to say about this.
Nick: Well, when I’ve been in that space and heard what men are saying in that space (It’s not all men) but when I’ve witnessed that and has a certain kind of energy to it, it’s a component of misogyny which is they don’t want to appear to other men as vulnerable to an experience with a woman. So regardless of what experience they actually had, and whether that experience was profound or amazing or powerful, or impacted them greatly, it’s common for that someone to feel the necessity to show to other men that they don’t care, that they’re not vulnerable to that kind of experience.
So they will talk about it in a way that is untrue or degrading or what we would say, the word you used is, ‘cheapen’ that experience. And so, certainly not to excuse it, but when I’ve seen that happen, at first, it’s so jarring and weird and just arghh and something I just want to push away and just not be in that space at all.
But in some locker room thing, where there’s just a bunch of some random dudes and you just over hear something happening and I’ve been in those situations where there’s not really a way to escape or I just get out of there as fast as I can.
So I get these snippets of things. But for a long time I just thought ugggh…
But I think after reading the Kate Manne experience (Kate Manne: “Down Girl: the Logic of Misogyny” or the “For the Love of Men”, especially Kate Manne where it’s talking about this as a system. Misogyny is a system where it has a specific social purpose and I think it helped me frame that experience and look at it that way.
That this hyper masculine culture is self-enforcing when men are together; they’re feeling like they need to enforce that system so that they don’t get banished or get kicked out of the group, so they have to maintain this certain hypermasculine thing and one of the aspects of that is that they need to appear invulnerable to that experience with a women, that they’re not vulnerable to that, they’re not vulnerable to be touched or moved, or anything and so they’ll have a tendency to talk about experiences like that in a way that’s very…I don’t know what their actual experience was, but in a way that sounds very crude and cheap.
Emmy: So, I can’t help but ask: why do some men act this way and others don’t?
Nick: That’s tricky, wow, gosh, yeah, I don’t know, that’s a tough one; I don’t have an answer for that. That’s a tough one. I don’t have an answer for that. I wish I did. Maybe we can circle back.
Emmy: Followed up to that is that you and I have talked about the way a woman can be perceived and I felt this way growing up, I could easily be a prude or a slut. Those are my two choices, so the follow up question to all this is it seems to be dictated by the man, whether the woman is a prude or a slut based on the night of intimacy and, it’s a no-win situation for a woman, and it’s extremely damaging and beyond damaging, it’s terrifying for the woman how she’s going to appear in the eyes of his peers.
Deborah: I’m wondering if it’s similar to, there are men who brag about sports. “You should have seen that homerun, bases loaded.” Whatever. Men, who, there’s that running joke that men lie about the size of the fish they caught as though anybody cared. I wonder if it’s just part of that sort of system of controlling one’s narrative and insuring that one sounds as impressive to the other men as possible based on that unspoken standard of how to be…on how to be that kind of impressive man.
“I caught a really big fish, I hit a homerun. I….” I can’t even insert the sexual option. Was it you, Nick, who once said, well, Shakespeare said, “All men are liars.”
But, somebody in my life, when I said, “What do you all talk about?” And they said, “Lies, women and lies. That’s what we talk about.” That may be true for some men.
Nick: So, yes. There are several important things in there, all in there. So in that culture, I don’t know what we’re calling it, I would call it the hyper masculine culture and maybe we’ll change that later based on what we’re doing.
There’s like a set of rules it’s almost like a, like a gut check where everyone goes around and makes sure that everyone is up to the standard. And there are a set of things that have to be maintained.
And everyone is, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep,” and one of those things is what we talked about in the previous question is:
“I’m not vulnerable to women”: (Imitates the group of men) “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep”.. go around the circle. “Good, we’re good, we’re all in.”
Another one would be, “I have tremendous sexual prowess.” “Yeah, yeah, Oh my god, yeah, yeah, YEAH!” Dunk, Dunk, Dunk. Oh Yeah, right? And there’s kind of that:
Dunk, dunk, dunk, all around, okay.
Heather (giggles): There’s no fact checking here.
Nick: Like zero, like 0.0 ever. Right. That’s where we’re getting to the lies thing. And the other one is conquest: high numbers, just numbers on the board. “Yeah? Oh, Yeah! Oh my God, dunk, dunk, dunk” and go around checking on that. And so that’s just what I’ve seen in that space. And that’s happening, those are these things that needs to be maintained in that space. So yes, yes, that’s happening and that’s what needs to be done.
Deborah: My friend Terry who said, when I said, “What do men talk about that?” and he said, “Lies, we just tell lies, all day long.”
Nick: I’ve said that too.
Deborah: Maybe a number have said that.
Nick: It’s comes up. It’s a theme.
Deborah: Okay, self-knowledge that perhaps you’re not telling the truth. Men, not you, necessarily.
Emmy: Men know they’re not telling the truth; they’re all playing a game with each other.
Heather: Do they tell each other they’re lies, like is it an open secret among them?
Deborah: The classic phrase, “the pissing contest” and I’ve seen actual pissing….my brothers once, totally inebriated and standing on the balcony seeing literally who could pee the farthest and my older brother was really dismayed that my younger brother was winning. And I thought, Wow, this is a thing you’re competitive about?
Nick: So, this is subjective, and the question is, and we’ll get back to your question too before we move on, but that in my experience, no, there’s not even a wink of “Oh, yeah, this is all bullshit.”
In what I’ve observed. And this is a subjective thing, who knows, this is me speculating about what is going on in the minds of, of whoever. But one of the things that does come up, is, if I’m in a situation that happens many times, where there’s a sense of this thing being maintained and someone.. an adult man will be talking about some wildly unrealistic expectation that they’ve carried their whole life about their sexual reality, like prowess, numbers, being not vulnerable to an experience with a woman. Something like that, and they’re going, “Yeah, it’s just not really that way for me, you know and it’s just…” And they’re terrified, they’re terrified that they’re going to die or get expelled or get shot out of a cannon. Something very bad is going to happen because they’re not…that is not their experience. This set of expectations, is not what their lived reality is.
And they’re coming to that realization, whatever it is, however, and they’re realizing that’s not what’s true for them and they’re scared and I’ll say, and have said in that situation, many times, well, this starts in early teens, this system starts happening: 11, 12, 13-year-old boys start standing around talking about these kinds of things. And that’s when this starts to happen this set of expectations starts to get re-enforced because those social connections are so important.
Without the tribe of adolescent boys, you’re dead, so he has to fight, he’s got to fit into this scheme.
And I’ll just say, “Well, you know, everything told to you, what those 13 year old peers said, was a lie.” And that’s a surprise. That’s a surprise, every time!
When I’ve gotten to that point in the conversation and shared that with somebody, they’ve gone, “Oh, really?”
“Yeah, that’s the most unreliable source of information on the planet earth is a 13- year-old adolescent boy talking about anything to do with sex. Just forget it. No. None of that happened, ever. That’s just one…
That’s very subjective, that’s based on limited experience but that has happened every time. So that tells me there’s no winking going on there, there’s no wink going on there. There’s full buy-in.
Heather: I have a quick clarifying question on that. When you were saying the experience of terror when someone is saying the numbers aren’t true, the prowess isn’t true. Were you saying when they’re saying that to themselves, when they are sharing that in a one-on-one situation?
Nick: One on one.
Heather: …in a group of men or all of it?
Nick: That’s just one on one.
Heather: One on one. Okay. Does it ever happen in a situation where you described there’s a situation where’s there more than one man saying, you know, like ‘Check, check, check,’ you know that? In that situation is it ever like, ‘check, check, check’ and (someone says,) “No, guys that’s not real for me.” Does that ever happen?
Nick: I’ve never seen that happen.
Heather: Okay.
Deborah: You may choose not to answer this question. But you’re talking about discovering that all 13-year-old boys, I’ll generalize, tend to fib and the realization that what, that the tribe to which you signed your life isn’t healthy, or doing accurate things, truthful things, authentic things. Are you willing to tell us when and if that happened to you?
When did you personally understand that your junior high friends might have just made stuff up?
Nick: I think I was 48. And it was overhearing conversations like that was unavoidable in junior high and high school, like, it was just everywhere. I was very suspicious of that whole thing, and so participating in that never really happened for me directly, but I believed it, and so I still absorbed it and I very much had the experience of being an outlier, in junior high and high school and I never as a participant but I still believed it.
It was in my late 40’s before I had that moment.
Deborah: What happened? Was it a sudden realization, was it an observation, was it you read three articles and your mind went, “Wait, a minute!”
Nick: “Wow, what happened?!” That was a men’s group for sure. Early on, early on, men’s group. And other people were talking about their experience of that not being true, and I went, “Oh!” and then there, that was explained to me by the facilitator and they said, “So, you know, right, that everyone was lying all the time?” and I had to process that, and I went, “OH!”.
Deborah: So, that’s hopeful, there are men on this planet, probably many, many, many who, the scales have fallen from their eyes, they realized what’s true and what’s isn’t. They’re helping other men to realize what’s true and what isn’t. So, it’s not that, Nick’s not the only one of, of enlightened men who think about things like these.
I’m encouraged that there are many, and that there were facilitators, leaders, mentors who did the opposite of what has been explained to me that fathers and uncles and big brothers and male teachers might have done. So if that group, fathers and brothers and male teachers helped with the indoctrination,
I’m heartened that there are people who are doing the unspooling.
Nick: Yeah. I don’t know how I could have ever sorted through this and got any kind of clarity without the help other men who had done the work before me. Absolutely not. I don’t know how I could have done that by myself. Other men who had done the work before me, that was essential to having any clarity out of this.
Emmy: Well, I’m actually dis-enheartened, because I feel like whatever happens at age 13, a lot of men stay there developmentally, at least in this category.
And so, I find that very disturbing.
I once had an experience when I worked in this restaurant for nine months of witnessing the male waiters who were in their 30’s. It was like a social experiment; I was able to hear their conversations when they met in a little group when they were not waiting on table because of my location as a cashier and I think they also were happy to have me listen in, about all their sexual exploits and just how horrendously awful it was, and how exactly like you said, “Are you in, are you in?” “Oh, yep, yeah, yeah,” and I watched this whole dynamic day after day for nine months, and one of the guys was threatened with being kicked out of the group because he wasn’t keeping up. I witnessed that too!
I found it very fascinating, but that’s just an aside.
I think what I’m trying to get at is how damaging that is to women, how it is associated with sexual assault, how it is associated with our fear. And how…
A girl can get a certain reputation either as a prude or a slut depending on what happened at a party or on a date and it can ruin her either way and she might be sexual assaulted or there’s the threat of sexual assault.
And in my experience, for example, some of those waiters I, in some weird way, befriended some of them and grew quite fond of them over those nine months.
And there’s this sense of like, no man wants to hear it from your perspective, no man wants to hear how frightening or damaging this is or how it’s nobody’s business what the two of you, the intimacy the two of you had one night. Anyway, I guess, I think, in some way, those men that I kind of befriended, it kind of started to sink in a little bit with them maybe.
But I just want to talk about how damaging it is to women if you have any comments about that. I mean, it’s not just damaging. It is life threatening actually.
Nick: So, I want to make sure I’m getting to the question the right way. I think the prude/slut question is really important because that, from what I’ve seen, that presents, what you said, which is a no winnable, a no-win scenario for the woman and both outcomes are bad and, right, the man controls that narrative in whatever this space is. And that’s the default, is that the man controls the narrative and both outcomes are bad. And it’s really dark and really terrible because that’s not an accident. It’s not some by-product and go, “Ooops!” and it’s really damaging to the woman.
That’s the plan.
I mean this is a system of subjugation, so the well-being of a woman in the situation, it’s not like it’s not a consideration, the intention is to be damaging.
That’s dark. That’s a dark reality and that’s how I see that mechanism working and that’s a big part of why it has to be stopped. Somehow, some way this whole thing has to get (‘click’) taken apart and stopped because it’s like a harm machine.
Harm isn’t the by-product; harm is the objective. So that’s how I see that and that, the prude/slut thing, is a perfect example of that because it’s unwinnable. It’s unwinnable and out of control and there’s no, there isn’t anything in between these things: it’s either one or the other.
It leads to tremendously bad outcomes.
Emmy: Do you think men are aware, of how harmful this is to women, and do you think they actually consciously get that they are potentially setting this woman up to be stalked and raped because of what they’re saying about her?
Nick: What I’ve seen is an intensely powerful ingrained culture of denial around that question because the narrative is: this is the social order that is necessary for us to survive as a species, and it’s really that big. This is the world order of everything. This world order has to be maintained or we’re all going down; well then, even if there is an acknowledgement of harm, which in my experience is very rare, there’s just a just a skip over it. “Nope, it’s fine. No, no.”
There’s a wall of denial around that anybody’s impacted by it.
But even if there’s an acknowledgement that maybe there is some harm, compared to the alternative which is a disintegration of the social order, just chaos, then that’s acceptable. So, that’s, that’s dark stuff and it’s hard to, hard to talk about even from a distance. Even from someone who is not participating in that and is very aware of that as being something going on that I’ve seen and experienced but don’t participate in, it’s that is just UGHH. That’s gnarly, that’s rough, but that’s, that’s how I see it.
Emmy: This is Sacred Truths with Emmy Graham with music by Lemon Music Studio at Pixabay and with special thanks to our ‘dude’, Nick Oredson.
This concludes Part 2 of Episode 1 of “Ask a Dude”.
Please join us for Part 3.
Please visit our website at www.sacred-truths.com.
Thank you for listening.