Mark Greene believes that men heckle women about frequency of sex because men key on it as authentic contact in lives otherwise cut off from connection.



—

It is a mandate of American culture that we teach boys to be independent even as we encourage girls to touch, share and connect. Girls talk. Boys win. Girls are cared for. Boys care for them. Girls love. Boys win love. Sometime around kindergarten age, boys are expected to be strong enough to begin soothing their own wounds and winning their own battles in the world. Perhaps this shift takes place when they are six years old. Perhaps when they are eight, but American boys are typically expected to self sooth, stand on their own two feet and “shake it off.” Because otherwise, they might end up weak. And weakness in boys is the night terror of American parents.

It is a mandate of American culture that we teach boys to be independent even as we encourage girls to touch, share and connect.

American parents fear a son who clings; a son who is needy; a fat, confused, unmotivated lump of a man who is parked weeping on the basement couch at age thirty. It is a nightmare that keeps American parents awake nights. And so, we start early with our sons, privileging self reliance and emotional toughness over the encouragement of close physical contact and emotional expression. We gently but firmly wean them off hugs, kisses and talking about their emotions. We subject them to touch isolation because we don’t want them to be momma’s boys. We don’t want them to be cry babies. We hesitate to reach out and hold them when they cry. We hesitate to talk about their sadness or their fears. We push them out into the world, in part to avoid the messy business of helping them navigate emotional complexity. Love me son, but do it over there. Love me from first base. Love me from the front of the class. Love me from the trading floor. Love me from Iraq.

Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free

And the saddest part of this entire equation is the following fact: The need to connect emotionally and the ability to be cared for and comforted is a crucial human capacity, without which we can not live fully connected emotionally intimate lives.

Poor American parents, they’ve got the definition of strength all wrong. They’re so busy insuring independence in their little sons that they are giving birth to generation after generation of men who can’t create community. Who lack empathy and the ability to engage and appreciate difference. Who withdraw into isolated emotional bunkers from which to stand their ground. We have created an alpha obsessed, my-way-or-the highway man club that privileges financial Darwinism and conspicuous consumption on a scale which ultimately shuts down our public institutions and lays economic waste to our disconnected gated communities; casting baby boomer parents into the Dickensonian drudgery of Wal-mart greeters; eventually warehousing dear old mom and dad in bleak old folks’ homes, starving for the human contact they denied their own sons. A real estate bubble here. A shock and awe there. The American cult of independence has unleashed economic and cultural Armageddon against us all while holding itself accountable to no one.

Not surprisingly, we are dealing with a lot of angry and violent boys, who, as an expression of their emotional isolation, lash out over and over again.

The cult of independence tells little boys over and over again to “man up” as if that is the single answer to all the world’s problems. Not surprisingly, we are dealing with a lot of angry and violent boys, who, as an expression of their emotional isolation, lash out over and over again. Man up, indeed.

Bullying is not some simple extension of male energy. It is not biologically inevitable. But, when tough independence is our society’s highest valued personal trait, bullying is socially inevitable. Because bullying is, at its base, an expression of loss, isolation, grief and jealousy. It is the rage of boys, who are wracked with confusion. “What is suddenly wrong with wanting to be held, comforted and kept safe? Yesterday you held me. Today you pushed me away.”

The echo of this litany plays out over and over in the collapse of our adult relationships. “Yesterday you held me, today you pushed me away.” The stress cracks and fractures of male rejection and insecurity run deep in our society. The voices of male anger rant across the internet; the voices of men expressing anger at women. Women who don’t connect. Women who are aloof and unkind. Women who simply aren’t there at all. These are the voices of men who have bottled up such deep seated pain that self reflection is seemingly impossible. You might as well stare into the sun. And so they blame everyone else. Unable to see their own pain in others, because no one saw it in them. And unable to connect emotionally after a lifetime of conditioning to adopt tough male stoicism over warm male emotional connection.

And women are as responsible as men for privileging and perpetuating the American cult of independence. Treading the cartoon catwalks of gender even as they wax disappointed in the very male stoicism they are a party to perpetuating.

American women talk a good game about wanting men to connect emotionally. But it takes a strong women to care for a man in the same way that men are asked to care for women.

American women talk a good game about wanting men to connect emotionally, but it takes a strong women to care for a man in the same way that men are asked to care for women. Because when the tears and insecurity of men are finally teased out, many women say, “You’re not the man I thought I was with. You’re just looking for your mommy.” Indeed we are. But the shock of that dirty little secret is only a challenge if you expect your man to provide emotional care without seeking it in return. Because when you open up the well of suppressed male pain, its a storm that will wreck every convenient macho Hollywood assumption about men you ever had. We are not strong. We are weak. Because we have not faced our own demons. And, in part, this is because when we attempt to do so publicly, we are shamed and rejected, often by our own wives and partners. Immediately. Made to walk the plank all over again.

Over and over men tell me that this is the baseline message they get about sharing their emotions. “Show me what you’re feeling, but don’t show me more than I’m comfortable with.”

Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free

The strength it takes to connect emotionally and to accept care from others is not easy to come by. To express emotion, display grief, show vulnerability and process pain requires a degree of personal integrity and self reliance that far outstrips what is needed to bully or dominate others. The capacity to be vulnerable in American culture is nothing short of super human. It’s the first step toward self reflection. And we Americans don’t do self reflection. Because it smacks of self doubt. And real men always know what they think. They always know what to do. They never doubt themselves. Ever. Never mind the fact that self reflection is a key to finding peace in our lives. The prohibition against self reflection means that men (and women) bottle up self doubt and pain, creating a well spring of anger that makes them defend their point of view like it is God’s own truth.

We are a nation of bullies. Because that’s what bullies are. People who have avoided self reflection for so long that to do so now would be like unleashing a nuclear bomb for them.

We are a nation of bullies. Because that’s what bullies are. People who have avoided self reflection for so long that to do so now would be like unleashing a nuclear bomb inside them them. Better to keep a lid on it all. Better to attack anyone who says otherwise. And in America? Bullies are running the show. The wounded angry little boys are at the wheel and they are weakest of us all.

♦◊♦

Put simply, many of us Americans, men and women alike, are emotionally shell shocked. Nothing more, nothing less. And the strategies we use to try and hide our pain are doing generational damage over and over again. Men, isolated from connection by our emotion-phobic American culture, seek to satisfy a lifetime of need for connection through their romantic partners, a burden which few women (or men), no matter how loving, could realistically be expected to fulfill.

This is the reason that frequency of sex often becomes the single most challenging issue for couples. Men often key on sex as an attempt to bridge our way back to the gentle comforting touch of our distant childhoods, that, long absent, can never quite be recaptured or recalled. The orgasm becomes a surrogate for that lost contact, a moment of male safety and security when the white flare of pleasure leaves loss behind. For ten seconds we know peace. Maybe twenty. But like everything else with a potential emotional component in our lives, we American men are terribly prone to approaching sex mechanically, staring inward at our own flaring confusion instead of looking outward into the mysterious miracle of our partners. And in that moment, sex becomes another exercise in internalizing our experiences instead of surrendering to the interdependence which we have never learned to engage. And surprise? In relationship after relationship, romance withers. Sex falls off. But we men continue to go to the well of cold mechanical sex, long after our lovers have lost their passion for it, because like everything else in our emotional landscapes, we have confused the ghost of contact with really living our lives. Meanwhile, men and women alike are absorbing the generational impact of contentious and angry divorce, shattered relationships and the ongoing war between the sexes, which is typically informed by angry binary dialogues about sex, sex and sex.

Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free

Men heckle women about frequency of sex because we key on it as one of our only authentic moment of contact in lives otherwise starved of connection. Sex becomes the only moment we mark as being truly cared for emotionally.

Men heckle women about frequency of sex because we key on it as one of our only authentic moment of contact in lives otherwise starved of connection. Sex becomes the only moment men mark as being truly cared for emotionally. Sex speaks to the wounded little boy and his endless appetite for me, me, me. And drowned out by our relentless emphasis on sex, every other gesture of caring in all the other parts of our relationships are not marked. Are not valued. Instead the only marker of a good relationship is frequency of sex. Which, because we avoid emotional intimacy, is fueled by the cartoon daydreams of porn instead of the deeper resonance of love.

And regardless of what mirroring issues women have in our culture, until men stop self medicating through a repetitive and mechanical reliance on sexual orgasm, we will never be in a position to demand equal emotional accountability from women. As long as sex remains the proof of our connection and validity, we will always be at risk of reducing our human relationships to that narcotic standard.

It ain’t a pretty picture. And men and women share in what has been created.

When you raise boys and cut them off from comforting touch and connection, you sever their connection to the security they need to develop emotionally. This is what is behind the attachment parenting movement. This is why consistent physical contact; hugs and touch are so central to the healthy development of young children. And this is why we have to make space for physical and emotional connection with our boys in the same way we do with our daughters. Because the fallout of failing to do so can be catastrophic.

♦◊♦

When I was six years old, my parents were in the throws of an impending marital collapse. During that time, they withdrew from my brother and I. I can only guess this was due to depression and emotional turmoil. My brother was a year and a half older than I. He had always picked on me some, but when my father left our lives, he became an animal. He bullied me through extremely close physical contact. Not so much punching, although there was some of that, it was more about breaking down my autonomy. About getting inside my boundaries and proving he could do it whenever he wanted. Early each morning, he would get up and force me out of my bed. Then he would get in it, saying, “this is my bed, now.” Standing there shivering, I had no choice but to get in his bed. I recall how his bed stank of him. His smell is what remains with me to this day.

He would pin me down and dribble long gobs of spit in my face. He would bend my arm behind my back until I submitted to whatever he wanted. He was always a ticking angry time bomb. Always ready to go off and do something. An unending threat that my mother and step father seemed unable or unwilling to curtail. My mother’s solution was to tell us over and over again to “work it out.” How do you work out being attacked?

I can smell him now, forty years later, sitting here typing. What he did has made an imprint on me that I can not shake. And although I have not spoken with him in decades, I need not look very far inside myself to find him there. I can still feel his anger. His rage. His breath on the side of my face. His presence was always too close, too oppressive, too sensory. My arrival must have deprived him of something central in his young life. I’m guessing access to and contact with our mother. Whatever it was, he was my personal bully and he remained so, until I left the house for good.

Independence is the illusion of strength. Our cultural obsession with independence is fracturing our society because it teaches us that we don’t need each other, when, in fact, we do. We are, in fact, hard wired to be interdependent.



I think I understand my brother even as I remain haunted by the terrible luck of the draw that condemned me to grow up with him. He is a huge symbol of loss. He deprived me of something I needed terribly. A big brother I could count on. A male role model I could aspire to. That, coupled with the absence of my father, left me with no model for what it means to be a good man, or, for that matter a man at all. But I still understand. My brother and I both needed comfort and connection. Connection that was stripped out of our lives. Perhaps his physicality with me was his way of getting the human touch he needed. But it was filtered through rage. And so, it exacted a high price from me and from him, setting patterns that have yet to fully play out.

My brother just needed connection.

Connection that we strip out of our young boys lives for far less valid reasons. Because we think they need to be tougher. Because we think independence is a core American value and a viable central philosophy for creating a good life. It is not. Independence is the illusion of strength. Our cultural obsession with independence is fracturing our society because it teaches us that we don’t need each other when, in fact, we do. We are, in fact, hard wired to be INTERdependent. We need each other emotionally, physically and spiritually and the vast majority of men and women are starving for interdependent connection in our lives.

There will always be men who are comfortable with what might be called traditional masculinity. Good for you guys. If that works for you, go with it. But we need to insure there is a much wider cultural space for men who want to perform masculinity differently. We have to break out of what Charlie Glickman calls the Man Box. And as part of breaking out, we need to stop privileging independence over INTERdependence. We need to connect in the full range of ways that make sense for us. And, equally importantly, we need to find partners in our lives who will do the same. To any man or woman out there, if your partner seeks to suppress your emotions and discourages your self reflection, dump them. Because they’re poison, plain and simple.

In its most positive sense, independence isn’t located in the capacity to function without reliance on others. True independence comes from being socially literate and culturally fluent, giving us the ability to engage the widest possible range of communities, contexts and interpersonal options. True independence comes from being fully engaged and connected in the world, so we can choose our path, not based on what we fear as unfamiliar, but instead, what we know from a wide range of diverse experience is right for us. When we live in a web of interconnection, we are no longer at risk for being cast out, economically lost, or spiritually isolated. The human web is too vast. There are always places we can shift to and seek options. The wider the range of connectivity we have in our lives, the wider the range of options for dealing with adversity. This alleviates fear and provides security.

At the heart of connection, is our willingness and capacity to hold and care for each other. This is a central life lesson we can simultaneously learn from and teach our young sons, by keeping them close instead of pushing them away. And a generation of boys who can connect physically and emotionally will help heal the world for us all.

—

Click here to like Mark Greene’s Facebook page.