In this concluding episode with Emmy, Nick and Ken, the group discusses: Fear, how far men have travelled from their basic essence of the masculine concept of protector; and Ken and Nick describe their experiences with the ManKind Project.
www.sacred-truths.com
In this concluding episode with Emmy, Nick and Ken, the group discusses: Fear, how far men have travelled from their basic essence of the masculine concept of protector; and Ken and Nick describe their experiences with the ManKind Project.
www.sacred-truths.com
Welcome to Episode 5 Part 4 of a new version of “Ask a Dude” where our panel consists of myself and Ken. “Ask a Dude” with Ken: questions from a gay man.
This is Sacred Truths with Emmy Graham.
Emmy: I’d like to talk a little bit about fear. I think I’ve been delving into this theme of misogyny for the past few years. I’ve been aware of misogyny my whole life, but I’ve been really delving into it, and I think one of the things that really struck me is how much fear I carried around my whole life and I never really knew it.
It was just sort of adaptation to the world. And when I think about the fact that everywhere I went and every situation I went into whether it be a classroom or work situation or walking down the street, going into my bank, there was always fear, fear of the male and what he might say and what he might do. And, of course, fear of like walking alone at night, and things like that, fear of being a single woman living in my apartment in the city.
Those are real fears. Fear of what happens on a date. Fear of rejecting a guy who asks me out. But also, just fear. What’s the guy at the bakery going to do or say? Who’s going to stalk me?
Who’s going to get mad at me for asserting myself or just breaking the rules somehow, and so I’m curious, Ken what you might have to say about your life and how you’ve experienced fear somehow if you have.
Ken: Well, I think it’s different because I could always pass if I wanted to, chose to. You know, I’m still a guy, I’m still a (bragging) man. Still the potentially (bragging voice) the power, you know, the top of the heap, whatever. I can still pretend and hate myself for it or whatever or be afraid…
It’s a different fear, different fears.
If I’m walking along the street at night and I’m afraid, I’m probably afraid of a gang of people that might jump out with baseball bats and beat me up, I’m not afraid of getting raped, I’m not afraid of, I’m not afraid of the same things that you would be afraid of. Different fears.
Of course, you fear when you’re walking with my husband, you fear of what would happen if you held hands, you know, or kissed each other or did what (snarky) every other straight person can do any minute of the day and nobody blinks twice.
You know there’s that fear.
That’s all going to be based on the choices that I make in terms of my behavior. That’s not just because of who I am.
Again, I can always act like everybody else if I chose too.
There’s going to be some people would wink, “Yeah, sure, yeah, sure, you’re straight.” (laughs) But, it’s still dramatically different from the fear that you as a woman would experience every day.
I would never pretend to imagine the fear to be the same because that would be really diminishing of what you go through.
It’s a whole set of very different fears. Fear definitely would run through my mind constantly, what would happen if they were parents, grandparents, siblings, best friend, whatever, whoever they are, fill in the blank, what would happen… what would change if I utter these 3 words: I am gay. So there’s that fear! You come out every day. It’s a constant.
It’s a constant to live, to normalize your identity and when I say, “my husband”…..
And we’re looking for a place to live right now and when I call up so and so and such and such and I say, “Looking for a place… my husband and I,” and my gut goes, “what are they going to say?” How are they going to react, are they going to hang up the phone or are they going to go (shocked voice): “oh, oh, oh, oh!” What’s that going to be for them.
It’s very, very interesting, especially once we got married, even using the term “husband” took a while to get used to. So now, I try, I try, I work on it every day. I work on normalizing our relationship at whatever costs. There’s going to be potentially a cost. And part of me doesn’t want to invest too much because I don’t know how that person is going to respond. And that just has to be okay. That has to be okay.
I’m not going to get a divorce because that person doesn’t like me. I’m not going to change into a straight person. (laughs). So ultimately, it’s your problem, it’s your problem if you can’t deal with it.
It’s a constant.
Life never just becomes easy in that sense. I don’t know if life is easy for anybody. I’m just saying that part of my identity is never easy to float through.
Well, I don’t know if they’re going to stop engaging with me, on whatever level or not. And that’s an interesting kind of navigation; I hope that answered your question, I’m not really sure.
Emmy: It did, thank you.
Nick: Yeah, those are all great points, and it gets me thinking about one of the conversations I’m trying to have around this masculine paradigm that is so harmful to everybody involved is to start thinking about what the divine masculine or try to talk and think about what masculinity actually means. If we’re stepping out of this horrible structure, what are we stepping INTO, what are we going to be?
As men we’re not going to sit around and just not do harm, like our definition is just going to be just shut her down (laughs) and go isolate and don’t do anything because you’re bad. Well, we have to be living and taking action.
And one of the top things that comes up in that conversation about what is it that we are inherently as men, or what is the masculine, one of the top things is protectiveness, is this warrior energy of being protective of whoever, the vulnerable, your close family, your tribe, your village, whatever it is. That’s something that really touches a lot of men when they start thinking about what they are.
And it just amazes me that the current manifestation of masculinity is the exact inversion of that.
The #1 threat to human beings on this planet is men. Is male humans. That’s the absolute #1 threat we all face, all the time. By Far. By Far. And that just….Wow!
And it’s like an inversion of what I feel and a lot of men when they talk about their essence as men, that’s what comes up. Being protective.
There’s a leopard in the village and somebody has to get up and get a spear and get down there and deal with it because it’s a threat to everybody. And the idea that men are primarily acting as a threat and are creating fear, in widespread parts of the population. Wow, we’re really far away from our essence I believe as men.
If that’s what’s happening, wow! We have a real serious problem.
Emmy: Yeah, I think of protectiveness and leadership. And one of the things, as I’m older, now I’m almost 60, I feel less fearful in the world. It’s a great relief, to not be as a sexually attractive as I used to be. It’s a great relief, I highly recommend it. (laughs)
But one way that it still happens, for example, I live in Oregon. I noticed it, at least here, there tends to be male drivers, young men I think mostly in big trucks who love to tailgate. So, it’s very intimidating having this big truck right on my back fender when I’m going the speed limit or slightly over the speed limit.
Generally, it’s this demographic, of young male. And I want to just get out of my car and say,
“Why are you making me feel so vulnerable? You’re supposed to be my protector. You’re the young men here in my community. What are you doing?”
How is this rewarding to you to intimidate an old woman, how is this rewarding!?? You should be honoring me, and helping me.
Ken: (laughs) Don’t look at me! I feel the same way when they bear down on my car. I’m constantly being told by my husband, “Ignore them, ignore them, ignore them.” I can’t, I can’t. (Laughs) So, I understand.
Nick: Yeah, I think that’s a lived example of a system that has wandered far, far afield from its essence. Once again, it’s kind of breathtaking in a really awful way how something that feels so essential providing safety feels as core to my awareness of my experience of masculinity, that’s as core as it gets, or as close to the core as you could be -that would be manifesting in a way that’s creating just widespread unsafety. And in that example, by being aggressively intimidating, not something at night, but just something like, “I’m going to put my truck, like, on top of you!”
Yep, it’s far away, far, far away from its essence.
Emmy: Ken, as I recall you have done some work with the ManKind Project or you had an experience with them and it seems to me it was not a situation that you felt comfortable with. I wonder if you just wanted to talk to Nick about that.
Ken: Sure, well the disclaimer at the front, because my friend who lives still in Atlanta is one of the …. he’s very involved in the ManKind Project and I believe was the one who invited me to the Newcomer’s Retreat or whatever it was, it was years and years ago.
This was this 3-day retreat and you show up Friday night, early Friday night. Apparently, they don’t do it this way anymore. But, I showed up.
It was very military. I think in fact the greeter guy was wearing camies, and it was this assaultive kind of like, (imitates a soldier) “State your name!” kind of deal and I was like, “Whaaaa?” And I had to put my stuff in this bunker, or whatever, my clothes and my whatever. I was supposed to go into this room. I guess in those days the whole idea was they wanted to break you down, break all your defenses down and all that. I lasted, I think 30 minutes and I said, “I’m getting the hell out of here.” I didn’t tell anybody, or maybe I told one person and I said, “Nope, I’m going, I’m going.”
I started to cry; I had a very emotional reaction to the whole thing. Whooo! It’s coming back up. I wept on the way to my car and I just tore out of there. Later I told him, “I do not need to be broken down, I’m already broken down, I’m in touch with my feelings of worthlessness or whatever. I’ve done this. I’ve been there, done this!”
I’ve also done the Erotic massage weekends many times where you have intense connections with other men. I didn’t feel like, I’m too good for this at all. I did not need to go there, to the part of breaking down my stuff. Maybe it was just who I was at that moment in time, I don’t know.
So I had a bad taste in my mouth.
He said, “We don’t do that anymore, that’s been pulled out of the process.” I don’t know that’s been my only real experience, except through him about a lot of the work he’s trying to do, he’s been trying to do to include more Gay and Bisexual men in the ManKind project, at least in the Atlanta area, but I think more nationally. Trying to outreach and be more inclusive, and he has lots of great things about it. And I’m actually very proud of the work that they do do through that network. Anyway, that’s been my experience.
Emmy: Is your friend gay or straight, can I ask?
Ken: He’s gay. He’s gay.
Nick: I’m getting a little emotional there, hearing that story. We don’t want to be doing anything like that in the Mankind Project.
I went, did my weekend in 2016, that was bootcamp era.
That was okay for me, for whatever, how I’m wired, how vulnerable I was at that time, whatever the whole set of circumstances there.
It wasn’t a powerful or important part of that for me, there were other parts of it that really helped me. It didn’t hit me.
But the idea that, yeah, just the idea that anyone could have the experience you did is just bad. Sorry that happened.
So, I hope that Mankind Project, or anything else like that, I feel like, the work, there’s lots of way to do that work. Mankind Project has one angle on that, there are many other ways to approach that work that are related. It just feels like that work is so important.
So many men that are damaged and isolated and suffering that it’s really important that
everybody would have access to that work, and then it would be structured in a way, where, sure and it’s okay to be challenging and the work is hard. It isn’t for everybody in every point in their life. And sometimes the time is not right for that work for somebody. But to have it structured in a way that was welcoming, and just didn’t send people off in the first 30 minutes in a crisis. That is not what that should be at all.
Ken: Well, I was glad to, um, find out that that’s not the way they do their retreats anymore. As I’ve told him many times, I support, I so support the work. And there needs to be more of it.
Nick: Yep.
Ken: God knows, places where men can go and feel safe with each other and not just talk about sports and that’s the end of it. And if you don’t know sports then you’re kind of out of the loop and oh well, too bad for you, all those kind of scenarios; where everybody feels welcome, where every single person feels welcome. Peel back the layers, little by little. And I was wanting to do that, but it was a safety factor for me. Whoa! (laughs).
Again, I’m relieved to know that that is not the reality now. And the same time I get it, I get WHY that would be an idea that somebody had, to get at that stuff right off and you know, let it peal back that hard shell. And I know it does work for a lot of people. It just didn’t for me. That was my experience.
Nick: I’m glad that’s not part of it anymore. I know a little bit about the origin story, I was quite involved in it for a while.
That was part of the origin story when that idea of stripping away or whatever. But that wasn’t necessary for me to do the work. There’s certainly hard parts to the work; there are parts that are scary and difficult to get through and challenging. Parts of it are really challenging.
But I think it’s always important for people to feel supported in facing those challenges from the facilitators, they’re challenging just by itself! You don’t have to make it harder. (laughs)
You don’t have to yell at somebody, that’s just retraumatizing people.
Ken: Exactly.
Nick: You can easily reference their trauma; that’s not at all what is needed in that situation. It’s challenging enough just by itself. I’m glad it’s happening in a different way.
Ken: Me too.
Emmy: I’d like to thank both you of you for joining me today. Thanks to our ‘dude’ Nick, thank you.
Nick: Thanks, Emmy, great to be here.
Emmy: And thanks for joining us Ken, thank you.
Ken: Thanks, Emmy and thanks, Nick, good to talk to you today.
Emmy: Thanks, everyone.
Emmy: This is Sacred Truths with Emmy Graham with music by Lemon Music Studio from Pixabay and with special thanks to our dude, Nick Oredson.
This concludes Episode 4, Part 4 of “Ask a Dude” with Ken: Questions from a Gay Man.
Please visit our website www.sacred-truths.com
Thank you for listening.