Tag: masculinity

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Sexism and Making Love

Real men love women as human beings, not as objects to grope or grab

Fresno Bee, November 3, 2017

Every day there is a new allegation about the lewd behavior of lascivious men. The sorry state of male sexuality is shameful. Real men do not force themselves on women.

These sexual predators give masculinity a bad name. Men need to stand up and repudiate the behavior of these creeps. It is embarrassing and pathetic to imagine grown men running around with their pants down and their tongues hanging out.

Adult men control their sexuality and channel it in morally appropriate ways. We do not behave like naughty children. We keep our hands to ourselves.

In our sexist culture, we need to further empower women. But it is men who need to stop being selfish pigs. We need to teach our sons and brothers to treat women better. We need to celebrate the joy of genuine lovemaking. And we need to understand why predatory sexuality is shameful and subhuman.

REAL MEN DO NOT FORCE THEMSELVES ON WOMEN

Real men love women as persons—not only our sexual partners but also our mothers, sisters and daughters. We value their happiness. We do not view them as pieces of meat to be conquered and consumed, grabbed and groped.

Some might prefer to avoid discussing this. Some adults even want to avoid teaching children the basics of reproductive health. But misogyny is connected to our avoidance of frank discussions of healthy human sexuality. Sexual ethics – and ethics in general – requires honesty and transparency.

The first rule of good sex is that consent is required. We each have a basic right to our own bodily integrity. “No means no” is an obvious rule. And it is “yes” that ought to stimulate desire. A shared “yes” is the ultimate turn-on. Good sex aims at mutual desire and satisfaction.

But our sexist culture warps this. Porn teach men to view women’s bodies as mere objects of male gratification. Masturbation requires no one other than you to consent. But real sex requires consent. And that requires communication and care.

SEXUAL PREDATORS FAIL TO COMPREHEND THE MORAL REALITY OF THE HUMAN PERSONS THEY ABUSE.

A further problem is that sexual predators appear to experience “no” as a turn-on. Instead of a shared experience of mutual pleasure and vulnerability, predatory sexuality treats the other person’s body as a mere tool to be used and discarded.

Sexual predators fail to comprehend the moral reality of the human persons they abuse. This reflects a serious character flaw. It is reasonable to suspect that grabbers and gropers will be rude and obnoxious in other relationships as well.

Sexual predation is as much about power as it is about sex. The predator enjoys manipulating the weak and vulnerable. But this is subhuman. The alpha dog humps the other dogs into submission as a display of power. This has nothing to do with making love or with genuinely human relations.

All animals copulate. But only human beings make love. Human beings are more than our bodies and our reproductive organs. Making love is a spiritual act. It is about shared enjoyment and reciprocal desire. Like conversation and dance, lovemaking is a give and take that enlightens, surprises and inspires. It is much more than bodies rubbing against each other. It is also a mingling of souls.

Sexual relations are – or ought to be – fully human relations. Good human relationships are respectful, kind, generous, honest and loving. They involve reciprocity and trust. This should be true in sex and in the rest of human affairs.

TO LEARN TO MAKE LOVE IS TO LEARN TO BE A BETTER PERSON.

The sexual predator fails to understand this. He takes what is not freely given. He dominates instead of communicating. And he violates trust instead of cultivating it.

Bad sex is one-sided. It is needy, selfish and narcissistic. It approaches sex as something to be done to a body and not as something to be shared with a person. But sex without reciprocity is merely masturbation, a lonely act devoid of human connection.

To learn to make love is to learn to be a better person. Lovemaking teaches us about intimacy, tenderness and care. Those lessons serve us through the whole of life.

The grabby goats of American culture have failed to learn these lessons. They are an embarrassment to masculinity. Real men do not abuse women. We love them. And we understand that making love is a spiritual practice that is degraded by shameless predatory behavior.

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Masculinity, Sex, and Shame

Trump scandal demonstrates men need to grow up

Fresno Bee, October 15, 2016

 

We’ve been through this before with Bill Clinton, Bill Cosby, Anthony Weiner, Roger Ailes and others. Is anyone surprised that Donald Trump is joining the bi-partisan rogue’s gallery of creeps and philanderers?

This is a culture of ubiquitous pornography. Erectile dysfunction commercials flood the airwaves. Date rape is a problem on college campuses.

The dots are easy to connect, and the solution is clear: Men need to grow up and behave themselves.

Mature men build sincere and lasting relationships with women. Moral men don’t brag about sexual misbehavior, cheat on their wives or grab women’s crotches. Moral men have a sense of decorum. They understand the importance of promising fidelity. They know how to control themselves. And they don’t enable other men to do shameful things.

When Donald Trump bragged about grabbing women’s genitals, Billy Bush egged him on. Howard Stern is another enabler. On Stern’s program, Trump bragged about sexual stuff, including walking in on nude women at beauty pageants he ran. Trump’s defenders imply that this is normal “locker room talk” and boys-being-boys behavior.

Maybe it is normal in the locker room at the Playboy mansion. But even then, so what? Bad deeds are not excusable simply because a lot of jerks do it. And in the real world, young men don’t get a free pass on groping girls or gawking at nude beauty queens.

Moral men outgrow naughty sex talk. Mature adults don’t brag about their sexual lives. Sex is fun. But it is a private pleasure of shared intimacy. Adults keep these things to themselves.

It is shameful to brag about something that should remain private. People should feel ashamed to do private things in public. That missing sense of decorum is part of what is troubling about Bill Clinton’s Oval Office escapades and Anthony Weiner’s shameless selfies.

Aristotle suggested that the best people would do nothing to be ashamed of. But since no one is perfect, the next best thing is to feel shame when you do something shameful. The worst possibility is to lack a sense of shame.

ARISTOTLE SUGGESTED THAT THE BEST PEOPLE WOULD DO NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED OF.
BUT SINCE NO ONE IS PERFECT, THE NEXT BEST THING IS TO FEEL SHAME WHEN YOU DO SOMETHING SHAMEFUL. THE WORST POSSIBILITY IS TO LACK A SENSE OF SHAME.

Without shame there is no room for remorse, regret or moral growth. Shameless people don’t feel guilty. They view fidelity and other moral constraints as external impositions. Rather than holding themselves accountable, the shameless blame others when they get caught.

Sometimes shame can be pathological. Some prudish people cannot enjoy sex or the other pleasures of the body. The sexual liberation movement of the Playboy generation broke free of pathological shame. Hurray for birth control, female orgasms and healthy sexuality. But the pendulum has swung too far toward shamelessness.

Like shame, privacy is another value that has been warped by a pornographic culture in which sex is constantly on display. Like shame, privacy can be excessive. Sometimes privacy can be used to hide terrible things. Absurd claims about privacy in the family were once used to shield investigations into domestic abuse.

But a proper sense of privacy is an important moral achievement. The ability to control your body until you find a private place to fulfill its needs is the first step in human development. Privacy provides a refuge in which spiritual development occurs. Privacy allows us the freedom to explore ideas and create intimate relationships.

Our capacity for reflection, choice and control is the source of human liberty, rationality and moral development. Animals excrete and copulate without shame in public. Human beings control our animal urges and do these things in private. Our sense of shame and our sense of privacy provide the key to human dignity.

Shameless behavior and public lewdness expose a significant character flaw. Shameless philanderers lack self-control. They lie, cheat and manipulate. It is difficult to trust a man who can’t keep his pants or his mouth zipped.

At a recent lecture at Fresno State, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin pointed out that past presidents had sexual affairs. Back then, the media respected their privacy. Those were the bad old days, when privacy also protected men who beat their wives.

It is better that misogyny and infidelity are out of the closet. But it would be even better if men respected women, politicians kept their pants on, and everyone kept their hands to themselves.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/andrew-fiala/article108256852.html#storylink=cpy
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The power of tears

Big Boys Do, and Should, Cry

Fresno Bee, January 29, 2016

  • Politicians weigh in on the power of tears
  • Our ideas about crying men have changed
  • Can tears be faked and how would we know?

Male politicians have shed gallons of tears. John Boehner cried more than once, including during the pope’s visit to Congress. Chris Christie recently admitted to crying during Hurricane Sandy and after sharing a hug with Bruce Springsteen.

President Barack Obama cries during a Jan. 5 news conference to announce executive actions intended to expand background checks for some firearm purchases and step up federal enforcement of the nation’s gun laws.

President Barack Obama shed a tear recently while announcing his gun control initiative. Supporters celebrated the depth of Obama’s emotion. Conspiracy theorists claimed he was faking it.

Many men – from Bill Clinton to Justin Bieber – have been accused of faking tears. Women also have been accused. But there is something about a man’s tears that connect to our ideas about sincerity, authenticity and truth.

Masculine tears carry special weight as an exception to the rule that big boys don’t cry. We think that male weeping is a psychological achievement indicating depth of soul.

That’s why phony tears are cynical and opportunistic. Counterfeit crying is disturbing because a man’s tears send a message of spiritual depth.

It is usually callous to doubt the sincerity of those who weep. Tears usually are beyond reproach, as a moist manifestation of emotional life.

Tears can be faked. Parents learn to navigate the swamp of their kids’ crocodile tears. But in order to weigh the salt in someone’s tears we need experience and personal contact. We lack such insight into the emotional lives of celebrities and politicians. It is impossible to plumb the depths of a stranger’s eye water.

That doesn’t stop us from judging. While the cynics doubted Obama’s tears, Donald Trump came to the rescue, declaring that Obama’s tears were sincere. It’s a mystery, of course, how Trump could know this.

Trump is not fond of crying. He recently made fun of Glenn Beck for being a “weird dude” who is “always crying.” Trump claims that he personally hasn’t cried since he was a baby.

Long-held standard

The idea that men shouldn’t cry has deep roots. When Socrates drank the hemlock, he berated his male friends for crying. “Keep quiet and be brave,” he said, suggesting that crying is for women.

Men did cry in the ancient world. Odysseus wailed and sobbed. Even Jesus wept. His tears are celebrated as a sign of his humanity. The ancients understood the force and beauty of tears. The Roman poet Ovid encouraged men to learn to weep – or to fake weeping – as a useful tool in the art of seduction.

Tears are an effective form of communication. They express sincerity and authenticity. Simply saying what we mean is often not enough. Tears communicate emotional commitment that goes beyond language and argument.

Tears also provoke a visceral and empathetic response. Like sneezing and laughter, tears are contagious. We cry when others cry.

We also cry when we put important ideas into words. My students often choke up when discussing ethical and religious topics. When we realize the meaning of deep ideas, our emotional reservoirs swell and overflow.

It’s only human

Crying exposes part of the mystery of being human. Men are not robots. We cry and laugh and sing and make love. And we live in bodies that are often beyond our control. Weeping overwhelms us. The voice cracks. The lip trembles. The eyes fill with water. Tears are a glistening glimmer of spirit breaking through the facade of composed rationality.

Because of their connection with sincerity and depth of spirit, tears are often connected to truth. Tears flow, we think, when the criminal confesses, when a heartfelt apology is given, or when a repressed individual finally lets down his guard. Phony tears betray these expectations, leaving us unable to distinguish truth from trickery.

For most men, these salty gushers of emotion are unpredictable and uncontrollable. Sometimes we cry at the right times. Other times, we cry too much or at the wrong things. Sometimes we don’t cry, when we should. And icy-hearted men occasionally melt.

It is hard enough to control our own emotional lives. It is nearly impossible to judge the sincerity of other men’s tears. And in fact, their tears are usually none of our business.

Sometimes men cry. Sometimes men should cry. But our tears are less important than our ideas, our actions, and the consistency of our character.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/article57273573.html#storylink=cpy