Guyside: An honorable man
If I needed proof I was getting older, it came when I started into a level of crankiness that gradually built to the point where all I needed was a pair of reading glasses on the end of my nose and a walking stick to shake while inveighing against “those kids.”
Whether it’s bad luck, the randomness of the universe, or some sign of an actual trend, I’ve been seeing a lot of things lately about sexual assault in online or “geek” culture recently, and it’s getting me angry. There seems a predictable pattern to it: first, a woman writes or says something about … well, it could be almost anything. One example is Janelle Asselin’s critique of a comic book called Teen Titans. Then, a dense cloud of misogyny and ad feminem attacks follows like a cloud of gnats around a hiker. In this case, here’s an essay about what happened to Asselin after she wrote the critique.What happens after that? Usually, we all (we being neither the woman it’s happening to, nor her friends, nor the misogynists who are being misogynist) forget about it.
This hasn’t come out of nowhere. I remember when one of my favorite bloggers went underground after truly horrifying threats and comments were rained down upon her. But as the years go by, I’m finding it more and more difficult to forget about this stuff, to “get past it.” The words and threats that pop up online exist in the “real world.” There’s no shortage of men who seem to hate and fear women. But when you combine these attitudes with the anonymity that can be offered up by the online world, it can be utterly heinous.
So what is to be done? A few things, I think. The first is to not propagate these attitudes. To think about the way in which you as a man interact with women, how you agree, how you disagree, and how you debate. I disagree with women all the time, and I have a remarkable range of ways I can do that without reducing them to their genitalia or threatening them with sexual assault.
The second thing you can do is support women in your life who are subjected to this behavior. At the very least, those of us who are not trolls need to be there for our friends when they are being threatened and harassed.
The third step is the one that seems more difficult for many people: speak out. When you see this happening, tell the person that what they’re doing is wrong. If a woman is being threatened with rape for having the temerity to voice an opinion — that’s wrong. Say so. Publicly.
There are lots of attitudes that I would prefer didn’t exist at all in this world. But that can’t happen with the snap of a finger. If our society is going to become more egalitarian, laws won’t do it; changing minds will. One step in that is telling the trolls that we see them and we won’t tolerate their behavior. Edmund Burke wrote “When bad men combine, the good must associate.”
When I was a younger man, I suspect I was a bit more reticent about my views. But now? I give much less of a shit. I plan on being as vocal as I can when I see women being silenced by threats of rape and violence. I hope you will too.
Read MoreAging parents, aging us
Do different generations stay different? Do we replicate the patterns of our parents, or do we make different choices?
Like many people my age, I have aging parents. In my case, that’s a mom approaching her 90s with some medical challenges and the difficult adjustment of living alone for the first time in her adult life. It’s a struggle, and I think it has forced her and her two sons to face up to some uncomfortable truths over the last few years, particularly since my dad died in the summer of 2012.
One of those: how I will confront the inevitabilities of old age (if I am fortunate enough to get there). For my parents’ generation, it was common for parents to be taken care of by one or more of their children, either in the family home or by moving into a child’s home. There was (is?) a stigma about nursing homes and retirement homes. My mother has chosen to stick it out as long as is possible in her home, the home she was born in. But unlike her parents, she doesn’t have a child who will “take care of her.” I live a 90-minute flight away, my brother is six hours away by car. Thanks to my father’s service in the Second World War, she receives a number of services that have allowed her to stay in her house — the house her grandfather bought and had moved onto the property before the Great Depression — despite the encroachments of age on her body.
For people in my generation, the rules are a bit different. I have no children to rely on. I expect that any support that my partner or I will need as we age won’t be provided by family members, but by paying people from our retirement savings and investments. While I love our house, I think that when the time comes for us to retire I’ll be able to sell it and leave with no great emotional wrench; including our house, I’ve lived in about seven different places in my adult life, and I think I’ll be able to move again.
But things have been different for my generation for a while. Here I am, typing this in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with a graphic representation of Stephen King’s “Dark Tower” series. I never saw my dad with a pair jeans (what he would call dungarees) on or a t-shirt in my lifetime. My partner doesn’t wear housecoats like my mom does, or consider the maintenance of an immaculate home a key goal, as her mom and mine do. She works outside the home, while my mom gave up her job as a nurse in ’53, when she married, and never collected another paycheque.
We are — or at least I think we seem — “younger” than our parents at the same age. We go to concerts by loud bands, we dress differently, we participate in different recreational and sporting activities, we expect that our lives will be characterized by being and acting young for a long, long time. Thinking of Shakespeare’s seven ages, we’re unwilling to enter the fifth age, of justice and solemnity. We want to be lovers and soldiers forever.
So when we age, will we really be different from our parents? Will our expectations be different; will we make different choices? Or am I flattering myself by thinking that I’ll make other choices, better choices?
It’s easy to tell yourself that you know better than the “old folks.” But those better decisions and more logical choices are much easier to make in the world of the distant future than in the world of the cold present.
It seems to me that the real challenge for us all is to strike the constantly shifting balance between independence and dependence, between insulating our elders from danger and allowing them to live as they choose, between being determined and being bullheaded, between giving in and denying reality, between taking responsibility for our health and accepting support when offered. There’s no magic formula, no easy answer.
(photo: cc-licenced by Flickr user Lars Ploughmann)
Read MoreCosmetic surgery for guys?!
Last week, I talked about how men’s self-perception changes over time, as they age. After the column, I was amused and touched to have one friend contact me and ask if I was okay. The answer, for the record, was and is yes.
I’m pretty comfortable with my physical self. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t ecstatic to be on my bike last Sunday for my first outside ride of the season, or looking forward to dropping a few pounds from around the waist as I ride more and more frequently.
I am in not even in the ballpark where I might consider getting a surgical procedure done to enhance my looks. But apparently, more and more of my counterparts are in that ballpark. According to a Business Insider article, men are the new growth area for cosmetic surgery. The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery reported that cosmetic procedures carried out on men more than doubled between 1997 and 2012.
According to this New York cosmetic surgeon, there are four types of guys who get cosmetic surgery: the “male model”, the “bodybuilder”, the “CEO”, and the “athletic dad.” I don’t fit any of those, so perhaps that’s why cosmetic surgery is not on my radar. He also associates certain types of procedures with each of those types.
So what do guys get done? The top five procedures (in the US at least) are: liposuction, rhinoplasty, eyelid surgery, breast reduction to treat enlarged male breast, and ear shaping. While you might associate cosmetic surgery with hair replacement, that procedure on its own is almost as big as all cosmetic surgery in terms of numbers of procedures.
I don’t want to judge. If someone wants to get one or more of these procedures, that’s up to them. For me, I think of it like spending megabucks on hotsy-totsy carbon wheels for my bike. Yes, I might save up to a pound. But of course, if I ate better and exercised more, I could probably lose way MORE than a pound.
Like most choices we face, cosmetic surgery has benefits, risks, costs and opportunities attached to it. For me, I can’t make the calculation work out in favour. But where do you draw the line? Are contacts a cosmetic procedure? What about manscaping? What about men who wear cosmetics?
What decisions have you made? How far are you willing to go to keep or enhance your looks? Tell me about it in the comments.
Read MoreGuyside: Do You Want to Be a Better Person, Truly?
When I was younger, I did some horrible things. Some, I didn’t know better because of age.
At least, I’d like to think so. For example, when I was four years old, I threw a tantrum fit while shopping with my pregnant mother. As she told me off, I punched her in the stomach.
Now, I’d like to think a four year old kid doesn’t throw a mean punch, and my mum didn’t flinch or give the impression that I’d hurt her. But every time I think of that moment, I think what an idiot thing to do.
Four months later, my sister was born. Early in her childhood, she developed kidney problems. One of them failed to work properly, so she had to take medication for a good chunk of her early years.
The doctors and my mum assured me it wasn’t the result of my punch during pregnancy – but then, they would say that to a little boy, right? So, I always feel I attributed to my sister’s health issues early on.
Skip forward a few years, to when I was maybe 11 or 12 years old, and I was a parent’s nightmare.
Early Trials
I lied. Often. I blamed my sister. Often. I stole from my mother’s purse, even though we were so poor our daily diet for about five years was nothing but Corn Flakes.
It got so bad that my mum and her boyfriend at the time – soon to be step-dad – sat me down at the kitchen table and threw about £6.50 in loose change – pennies, two pence pieces, ten pence pieces (UK money) – onto a plate in front of me.
He said, “Go on – eat that. That’s all we have left for a week because you keep taking everything else. We can’t buy food, but we don’t want you to starve, so take that.” My mum was in tears, and so was I. Had I really become this person?
Clearly, I had – because less than a week later, I stole from my mum’s purse again. This time, it was my mum who took action, and marched me down to the local police station and had the desk sergeant talk to me.
That worked. It scared the shit out of me, on two levels – first, jail scared me. Just being near the cells made me a quivering wreck. Second, it was my mum who marched me down. The woman who always forgave me, and saw no wrong in me despite the fact there was.
That jolted me more than anything, and made me realize something had to give.
Thankfully, something did give.
The Finding of Respect
One of my school friends told me about the Army Cadets – an institution for kids 13-18 to learn about army life, go on expeditions and (best of all) fire real guns! As a 12 year old needing something to keep him busy, I was sold.
Little did I know just how much the idea of “being in the army” would change my life.
I found people that wanted to help you. I found a sense of belonging. Of loyalty. Of wanting to do right. I found discipline, and honour, and respect for both peers and elders.
Simply put, I found what it’s like to be a real member of society.
It took my life on a completely different path than the one I know I would have been on otherwise. From my time in the cadets, I took away what it means to be a member of the community. Of how to stand up for your friends and protect the vulnerable.
That led to me taking up martial arts, and the discipline of karate. Again, I loved the loyalty and peer respect that discipline brings. I studied up until my brown belt, which is one below the black belt, before life events took precedent and I had to stop training for the next belt.
What karate taught me is that everyone is equal; the concept of “I’m more skilled than you” doesn’t exist, because there is always the moment someone less experienced can take you by surprise.
Karate also taught me to be a more patient and receptive person, and accept that situations are never truly in your control – it’s how you react that makes the difference.
It also showed me – finally – why we need to continuously strive to be a better person.
The Family is Everything
I truly believe that had I not made the decisions at that turning point when my mum took me down to the police station, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
I wouldn’t be the kind of husband I want to be for my wife Jacki; nor the father I want to be for my kids Ewan and Salem; nor the kind of friend I want to be for those that are kind enough to take me on as a friend.
For me, true friends are family and I want to be able to act if I need to to protect them, and help them when they need help.
I don’t always get it right. I still make some crap decisions, and I know it hurts people. But that’s the thing with trying to be better than you are – you do make mistakes and you will continue to do so. The hope is, you learn from them.
Being a good person is not a given – you can say all the stuff in the world about how good you are, and how you’ll look out for those around you.
But if your actions don’t back up your words, you’ll never be anything other than the person that said so much and delivered little.
We don’t have to be that person. We shouldn’t be that person. Whether we are or not, though, comes down to one simple question:
Do you want to be a better person, truly?
The rest is up to you.
image: Leon Rice-Whetton
Read MoreGuyside: Welcoming Danny Brown to the Roster
Bet you thought that we were going all hip hop on you, right?!
Well, while that might add an interesting twist to Flashfree, our Danny is not the rapper. But we are excited to have our Danny Brown join the evolving roster of writers for Guyside.
If you don’t know Danny, he’s co-author of Influence Marketing, described as “the book that will change the way we do business today” and rated Top 100 Business Books in U.S. by Nielsen Bookscan. His blog, dannybrown.me, is recognized as the #1 marketing blog in world by HubSpot.
Danny describes himself as follows: “Husband. Father. Optimist. Pragmatist. Sometimes in that order. Never says no to a good single malt.” (Which makes him tops in my book, btw)!
His post is in the queue and will appear on tomorrow’s Guyside. Don’t miss it; it’s a good one!
Read MoreMirror, mirror, on Guyside’s wall…
I recently came upon a photo of me that was about 10 years old or so. I didn’t think much of it, but then I took a closer look to see if I could spot the telltale signs of aging in it. It was hard. I’m a little heavier now than I was then (about 192 compared to about 185); there are more than a few gray hairs in my facial hair, but not much on top; I couldn’t see the advance of wrinkles.
Trust me. I am not Dorian Gray. But I think that guys are able to see exactly what they want to see in mirrors or photographs. A classic Canadian folk song called “Lies” is about a woman confronting her face in the mirror, with one couplet: “She shakes off the bitter web she wove / Gently puts the mirror face down by the stove.” From the outside, at least, I think women look at themselves and see flaws, while men look at themselves and see an idealized version of themselves.
I don’t think I have to argue that for many women, body image is a big problem. But I want to argue that the male tendency to ignore reality isn’t an asset. If we “can’t see” the toll that time and our choices take on our body, then men could be opening ourselves up to health issues.
I was recently part of an online discussion where a mother was talking about how quickly her daughter would look at herself and wonder if she was too fat (this in elementary school!), while the girl’s quite-average-shaped younger brother would come to his mother and demand she demonstrate awe at his huge biceps and muscles! While I suspect that everyone in adolescence is hypersensitive to body issues (why don’t my boobs look like hers, why can’t I get rid of these pimples, why am I 6’1″ and weigh under 140 — that last one was me, by the way), it’s disconcerting to think that even in early childhood, there are already seeds of dissatisfaction with who we are, and the willingness to rely on our fantasy vision of ourselves rather than to simply acknowledge reality.
Since the 1980s, when I was thin enough, as my dad used to say, “to have to run around in the shower to get wet,” I’ve put on about 55 pounds. I needed some of that. But maybe not all of that. Even my idealized eyes can see that. I’ll never be a bodybuilder, never be “musclebound.” Given the raw material, I would have to either become an utter gym rat, or I’d end up using dangerous methods like steroids to achieve some level of muscularity. And I’m not willing to risk my health for an image. I like feeling fit, I like feeling toned. But for me, the “Men’s Health” six-pack or the arms of a pro wrestler aren’t worth it.
But the question then becomes: if you recognize the need for change, then how to make that change. Next week, I’ll be talking about cosmetic surgery for men.
(photo CC-licenced by Flickr user Michele di Trani)
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