Jordan Hardin on “Sacred Masculinity”

If you haven’t yet read my introduction to this series, please do. It provides a foundation for these interviews, and defines “sacred masculinity” as we’re using it here.

Jordan Hardin is the sort of person who reminds you what true authenticity feels like. He’s present and grounded, genuinely interested in just about everything, and delightfully prone to whimsy. His honesty and openness calls upon those around him to show up authentically in return, which makes him really great to be around and a needed presence in the world.

Jordan serves as Food and Beverage Director for Alfred Inc. which includes Alfred Tea Room and multiple locations of Alfred Coffee in Los Angeles. Here his creativity and passion for gustatory delights gets to shine.

If you’ve been a reader of mine for some time, you may know him from the beautiful interview he and Nick Westbrook gave on male friendship. He also generously donated the use of his voice for one of my guided mindfulness meditation recordings. He’s just an awfully swell creature, so I keep wanting more people to know him, and I’m quite honored that he agreed to be part of this interview series.

What would you say are the characteristics of sacred masculinity?

I would say balance. The forces of masculine and feminine need harmony in order to mean anything at all. Masculinity is sacred because of its relationship with the feminine. It’s not all-encompassing being, but a persuasion, based on inherited and learned traits. If that persuasion isn’t balanced but rather forced into a feedback loop, then masculinity becomes toxic. The sacred is reserved for the eternal and for all intents and purposes, the shared experience of being a man (or a woman) is that sacredness.

Who are your archetypes of masculinity?

My grandfather, to be sure. If I had to point to a person who taught me what it meant to be a man, with male characteristics from an older time, while at the same time respecting, protecting, and working together with women, it was him. He was masculine in the way you might think a farmer is (which I actually find humorous since farming tended to be seen as a feminine spirit in ancient times), somebody who worked for a living and expected everyone around him to do the same, my grandmother, mother, and me included. He was also a gentleman and taught me how I should treat women, that is, with kindness, gentleness, and love. He has an anecdote or wise phrase for everything, like, “Jordan, if you raise your voice in an argument, then you’ve already lost it,” and, “Jordan, I never hit nobody who didn’t deserve to be hit. But you never hit a woman. Not in the least because some of them hit back.” He was not without his flaws (who is?), but he also never talked down or around his spouse. They complimented each other. He had two daughters and from what I can tell, he treated them as he would’ve anyone, teaching them self-respect and self-reliance, something that was passed on to me in whatever ways it could be.

What do you think is needed for more of us to understand and embody these traits?

Shared experience, conversation, and equal duties and roles. If a boy lives with, works with, and communicates with girls and women on an equal level, then I have no doubt he will see them as equals, even if he’s told not to. To help with this, we need more female voices to be heard, to be channeled into men’s brains so that empathy and compassion have no course but to spring to life within. Through media, through the workplace, through the close relationships men have. And I believe men need to talk a hard look at themselves and contemplate the reasons they act the way they do. Why do they get angry? Why do they become sexually aroused? Why do they feel the need to dominate situations, or not? The answer inevitably connects to what they think it is to be a man and when they can identify that, they can try to balance it with the conceptual experience of women (supported by the female voices they will have hopefully heard).

What role(s) do you believe the masculine has in regards to the feminine? What do you see as a balanced dynamic there?

The answer for me is that the masculine is a trait of strength and the feminine the trait of protection. What gets extremely problematic in regards to the dynamic between the masculine and feminine is when a culture starts pretending the roles are more separate than they are. There is a great deal of cohesion between masculine and feminine spheres, but for reasons far too complex to get into, they’ve historically been relegated to separate spheres. I’m not arguing that they are entirely the same, of course, but that the shared experience is much more similar. Much more similar than yin and yang might suggest. Balance is the key. Both masculine and feminine are capable of completing the journey, whatever it may be, but sometimes one is needed more than the other. All humans embody both traits, and they should embrace that.

What is the role of vulnerability in strength?

I’d say that typically, true strength comes directly from vulnerability. To be vulnerable is to be open to attack. Not allowing those attacks to destroy you is an element of strength. Strength isn’t beating opposing ideas into submission, it’s allowing ideas to be torn apart and to try and understand why they were torn apart, and to keep thinking. Strength isn’t taking everything on yourself, it’s realizing that the group has more strength than the individual and asking for help. And strength isn’t being emotionless, it’s learning to understand and deal with your emotions so that you can live a good and productive life.

How would you re-define the phrase, “be a man?”

I’ve been told this many many times in my life. Mostly by men (occasionally by women) and mostly as a call to reject my emotions, which I feel is counterproductive. This is typically a reprimand, but I’d reinterpret it to be an empowering statement. This could only work if the idea of manhood is redefined, but I’d love to see it as a course of action that drives men to be strong but in a supportive way, and to be emotional but in a thoughtful way. To be resilient and resourceful while also acknowledging you don’t know everything. I could easily see this being an inspirational statement to many young boys, rather than an excuse to make them stop crying.

What do you think we’ve been getting wrong about masculinity?

That being masculine means that you aren’t emotional, scared, or vulnerable. We have to remember our common traits of humanity and see masculinity as a shade of those traits, rather than a cover.

What’s your favorite thing about being a man?

Wow! What a question… I’ve had to think about this question much longer than the others and come back to it. I think it’s almost easier to say what I dislike most about being a man. I mean, many of the things that have made my life much easier, as the result of being a man, come at great personal cost to others, so I don’t feel right saying that I like those things. But I’d rather be positive here, and this probably isn’t the answer you’re looking for and I’m sorry for that, but I’d have to say the fact that I can gain muscle and loose fat very quickly. I mean, this is just pure genetics, but it’s a benefit!

What do you believe might be the future of masculinity?

I believe that masculinity needs to have balance, and will be forced to reckon with that. However, I also think that culture cannot control instinct 100%, and the instinct for aggression and dominance will never be stamped out (down a rabbit hole here, but perhaps they shouldn’t be either?). For what we can make of it, masculinity will evolve in equanimity with femininity and hopefully that balance will come for the majority of peoples.

You can follow Jordan on Twitter and Instagram, and find his poetic writing about tea and coffee culture at worldoftea.org.

Ty Volante on “Sacred Masculinity”

If you haven’t yet read my introduction to this series, please do. It provides a foundation for these interviews, and defines “sacred masculinity” as we’re using it here.

Ty Volante is a tender spirit with a gentle strength. My partner once called him the kind of guy you’d want to have in a repopulating-the-earth sort of situation, and I absolutely agree. He looks for growth, understanding, and enjoyment in most everything he does, and he especially enjoys when any of this happens outdoors. He can often be found enjoying the company of others, philosophizing, talking politics, or engaged in what ever sport the weather will allow.

Ty is an especially delightful interviewee for me to have the honor of including, because he was my first male best friend and also the first guy I met who didn’t play by gender “rules.” When we met at the sweet age of thirteen, he had rainbow hair and painted nails. I thought that was the coolest, and there has certainly been no shortage of coolness to witness in him in the twenty-two years that we’ve been friends since.

What would you say are the characteristics of sacred masculinity?

Certainly, strength is one that immediately comes to mind. Courage seems like another that transcends time and cultural influences. Toughness. Adventurousness…

In starting to answer this, I found myself a bit stumped on the most essential characteristics beyond the ones above that immediately popped into my mind, so I turned to the global repository of human knowledge for inspiration. Surprisingly, the first link I clicked on gave me what I was looking for. Despite the cringe-worthy décor and title, this website and this article in particular did, I thought, a nice job at distilling a response to this question. It doesn’t hurt that it confirmed some of my already-written responses. Though I don’t agree with all of it, I thought it was interesting. Below are a couple of notable passages, though I’d encourage reading the whole thing.

“These were the factors that our forbearers weighed on the scale in making the decision to assign the protector role to men. It wasn’t a matter of plain sexism, and trying to keep women down, but a basic biological calculation. In a harsh environment that was rife with perils both natural and human, it was a strategic decision designed to increase a tribe’s chances of survival and keep the most people alive. Individual desires and differences were trumped by group needs.

Thus, an innate attraction to and greater comfort with violence likely naturally drew men to the way of the warrior and made them well-suited for being tasked with the role of protector.

Donovan argues that understanding the dynamics of these ancient honor groups is the key to understanding the essence of male psychology and how men relate to, interact, and judge each other even up through the modern day. What men respect in other men (and women find attractive), is rooted in what men wanted in the men to the left and the right of them as they stood together side-by-side on the perimeter.

Strength, courage, mastery, and honor are virtues that obviously aren’t exclusive to men, and it’s not that there haven’t been women who have embodied these traits in every age (as we shall see next time, the idea of a soft, fragile femininity is a modern conception). It isn’t that women shouldn’t seek these attributes either. Rather, the tactical virtues comprise the defining traits of masculinity. If a woman isn’t strong or acts afraid in the face of danger, no one thinks of her as less womanly because of it. Yet such shortcomings will be seen as emasculating in a man, even today.”

I also liked this quote I found on a very different site that sort of reaches the same conclusion, with different terms: “Rather than defining strength as ‘power over,’ feminist masculinity defines strength as one’s capacity to be responsible for self and others.”

Who are your archetypes of masculinity?

Growing up, they were mostly those I was exposed to through popular culture. Tom Cruise in Top Gun. Harrison Ford as Han Solo. Clint Eastwood in everything. Superman, Batman and other male superheros in comic books. Today, I would say mostly athletes, especially the ones that exist amongst environments rife with toxic masculinity (professional sports) but avoid the negative expressions of their gender that are so ubiquitous there. Interestingly, one could argue that athletics are modern displays of all of the things that make people good warriors and protectors. Strength (really all physical attributes, but the more ‘manly’ games emphasize strength), teamwork, quick-thinking and strategy, passion, fearlessness/courage. In the way that the author of the post in the last question defined the most essential traits of masculinity as the traits you’d look for in who you’d want to stand with you in war, the modern analog is, what are the traits you’d select in a teammate? In so far as the athlete is the modern archetype of masculinity, he is all of those things, but constrained by honor, respect and sportsmanship. President Obama is, to me, an archetype of the modern expression of masculinity – mentally fit, articulate, strategic, loving, virtuous and kind. He seems like a good man who is also good at being a man, to use a turn of phrase from the article above. And maybe more fundamentally, like I think most people who grew up with a [healthy] father in their lives, he is an archetype that teaches us what it is to “be a man.”

What do you think is needed for more of us to understand and embody these traits?

First, I think we need to spend more time as a society asking ourselves what our archetypes should look like, and what makes up the ideals and traits of our conception of masculinity. As much as these ideals are shaped by our cultural lenses, we need to understand our roles in creating them and how we have the ability to encourage or discourage a healthier view of masculinity. And then, we need more leadership from men that will demonstrate (live) these traits in highly visible ways that inspire and compel others to do so too as well as establish them as the ideals.

What role(s) do you believe the masculine has in regards to the feminine? What do you see as a balanced dynamic there?

Yin and Yang. Both equal and essential parts of a whole. Without one, the other is not complete. Just as men need women to continue our species, and vice versa, masculine energy needs its aggressive and violent tendencies softened and smoothed out by feminine energy. In fact, I think most of the problems we see in modern society are due to an imbalance in the way that masculine energy has an out-sized influence in what is predominantly a global patriarchal structure.

What is the role of vulnerability in strength?

Someone smarter than me once said, “Strength is not having no weaknesses, but it is the ability to recognize one’s weaknesses and to address them.” I’m not sure if that relates to vulnerability exactly, nor was it meant to, but I think admitting weaknesses or shortcomings can be viewed as a form of vulnerability. Furthermore, asking for help in addressing weakness is a form of vulnerability because it requires saying to another, “I’m not perfect, and I need your help.” Any time we rely on someone or ask them for help, that requires a level of vulnerability, and so far as we all have flaws, we all should learn to rely on others.

How would you re-define the phrase, “be a man?”

I would like to redefine it “be a good man” in the way that the following passage explains the difference between being a ‘good man’ and ‘being good at being a man.’

“Strength, courage, mastery, and honor are the attributes needed in a team of Navy SEALs just as much as a family of Mafioso. If you’ve ever wondered why we are fascinated by gangsters, pirates, bank robbers, and outlaws of all stripes, and can’t help but think of them as pretty manly despite their thuggery and extralegal activities, now you know; they’re not good men, but they’ve mastered the core fundamentals of being good at being men.”

That is, I’d like it to mean not only ‘be manly,’ as if that was something valuable or good in and of itself, which it isn’t really, but ‘be a better person.’

What do you think we’ve been getting wrong about masculinity?

That it just means power and that it is the antonym of weakness. And that being good at being a man means the same thing as being a good man. See above. Finally, that there is no room in masculinity for emotion.

What’s your favorite thing about being a man?

Other than the convenience of standing peeing, I don’t know if I have one. I joke, but seriously, most of the things that are enjoyable about being a man come from the power and privilege bestowed by a partriarchical society that is fundamentally unjust and that I’d like to see become more egalitarian. I suppose one thing that I enjoy is that I don’t have as much societal (and/or biological) pressure to have children younger than I have felt ready.

What do you believe might be the future of masculinity?

I think it will look more like femininity or at least a less pronounced version of what it is now, as more people come to see the virtues of both and the need for balance and the fact that we all possess both types of energy, if only we were not culturally bound by the need to express only one and conform to the mold. The future I see, both men and women are more balanced beings, exhibiting the gender traits that feel more comfortable or natural to them, with no pressure from society to conform to one or the other, but blend the best parts of both and celebrate that, free from social stigma.

Get a little more Ty on Instagram.

Dr. Nigel Stepp on “Sacred Masculinity”

If you haven’t yet read my introduction to this series, please do. It provides a foundation for these interviews, and defines “sacred masculinity” as we’re using it here.

Nigel Stepp is a natural born scientist- one who became a career scientist not because of a desire to possess knowledge, but simply to enjoy it. His doctorate is in experimental psychology and he works in the Information and Systems Sciences Laboratory at HRL. His work steeps him in abstraction, which affords the ability to look at things from multiple angles and clarify their forms. This intimate way of approaching knowledge permeates much of his life, and it’s palpable when you’re in his presence. His dedicated curiosity and eloquence is very inspiring. And his particular flavor of appreciation for truth is a reminder that intimate understanding is rarely disappointing, and that awareness yields possibility.

I was hoping this interview series would go the direction that Nigel takes it through the complexity and depth of his answers. The concept of masculinity really is multi-layered, and as he demonstrates, understanding it more intimately is a provocative and important experience.

What would you say are the characteristics of sacred masculinity?

This one is tough, since I consider that term to be yours, so I feel like I would not be able to add anything more than my understanding of what you mean by sacred masculinity. I could, however, say something about the characteristics of masculinity that should be preserved, appreciated, or acknowledged. The rest of these questions seem to address just that.

Who are your archetypes of masculinity?

For me it’s telling that nothing comes to mind immediately. Instead, I have an awareness of what sorts of archetypes are out there. There’s the gritty and martial Rambo-Norris; the suave, but pickled Bogart-Draper; the differently violent Bond-Brando. I would not identify any of these as my own, but using them as counter-examples helps to narrow the field. The goal in calling these counter-examples is not to be contrary, or say there’s anything wrong with any of them, but to reflect and investigate a lack of connection that I personally have with some of these more common masculine traits.

Each has some lack of dimensionality, even taking into account the inherent flatness of an archetype. For these, flatness is baked in as part of the archetype itself. And so perhaps I should look towards complexity of character.

Further, the counter-examples often rest upon or celebrate a flaw of character. This leaves masculinity painting itself as the underdog that has overcome something, through physical dominance, social position, cunning, or even sleight of hand. This suggests a true masculine trait of introspection, with which one’s character flaw is that thing overcome.

Finally, most male archetypes seem to be defined in terms of an other. The vanquished foe, the arch enemy, the ex-lover, the needful family.

Picking up the pieces, I am left with a complex character who overcomes his own weaknesses to act authentically in the moment. So who is that?

What do you think is needed for more of us to understand and embody these traits?

Time enough in our thoughts and reactions to follow those threads of complexity. What is needed to make that happen is a much harder question, since it really is an adjustment to what ends up being a reaction, or even a reflex.

The breaking down of the surface shell of masculinity and femininity may help, since it can cover up the depths underneath.

What role(s) do you believe the masculine has in regards to the feminine?/ What do you see as a balanced dynamic there?

It’s hard not to immediately go with a Yin/Yang approach — as far as I can tell it maps perfectly, at least as far as the mixing of two components go. But the question is more specific than that.

The role of the masculine is to be counterpoint (as is the feminine). In all self-organizing systems there is an interplay of opposing forces. If the forces are both balanced, and defined in terms of the other, then complex patterns emerge. Order may rise out of disorder.

Getting more specific, what are the masculine elements of those opposing forces? How many dimensions do we want to look at? How many dimensions are there? We could talk about different kinds of strength, which seems to be the most obvious (cliché?), but as they sometimes say in academia, that feels like stamp-collecting. An enumeration of things without regard to the encompassing theory.

Taking self-organization all the way, we can guess that the roles are context dependent. In fact there’s already an answer above: in a given context, the masculine role is to overcome a weaknesses to act authentically.

What is the role of vulnerability in strength?

Strength without vulnerability amounts to luck, or at least happenstance. It also works against adaptation, which is the road to increased future strength.

For me, this comes from an image of an armored chariot rider, with plates of steel scaled around him and his horse, speeding through ranks of infantry. Each groundling is cast off without regard as he passes. Surely this chariot rider is exhibiting great strength, but what will happen when he gets to where he is going? What happens if he should have noticed a shifting pattern in ground or fodder. Why is he difficult to admire for his effort?

How would you re-define the phrase, “be a man?”

To re-define, we must agree on a definition. To me, this phrase usually means to stop worrying about pain or consequences and do the thing that must be done. To that I would add a flavor of selflessness, and will re-invoke my male archetype: a complex character who overcomes his own weaknesses to act authentically in the moment.

What do you think we’ve been getting wrong about masculinity?

This question is more complex than it appears. Who is we and what is wrong? So I won’t pretend to answer the whole question, but will choose a few points and maybe answer a smaller question. Something that is wrong about some views of masculinity is that it is vulnerable. I don’t mean that it contains vulnerability, which it does, but that masculinity itself is under attack and in danger of being wiped out. Rather it looks like masculinity is getting bigger, even more durable by being more flexible.

What do you believe might be the future of masculinity?

Taking the Yin/Yang approach again, it looks like masculinity might be headed towards identifying with the big curvy bit that folds together with femininity, rather than just the insular dot. Of course it’s both, but maybe it’s been a little one-sided lately.

Jay on “Sacred Masculinity”

If you haven’t yet read my introduction to this series, please do. It provides a foundation for these interviews, and defines “sacred masculinity” as we’re using it here.

Jay is a queer, androgynous, and genderqueer human who loves poetry, books, and getting lost inside libraries. She was one of the first people I met when I moved to Los Angeles, and I was very drawn to her open honesty and her dry, absurdist sense of humor. After working together for several years, she’s become one of my closest confidants. Her curiosity about the world and dedication to growth makes her a well of insights, and it is for that reason that I was eager to interview her for this series. If you’ve ever heard me share wisdom from “a friend of mine,” I’m almost always talking about Jay.

What would you say are the characteristics of sacred masculinity?

I had to think a great deal about this question before answering! When I think about sacred masculinity, first I think about its opposite, toxic masculinity. This type of masculinity believes it has something to prove, is easily wounded, and is built upon maintaining ego and pride at the expense of everything else. It is a masculinity that hurts the people embodying this kind of expression, and the people around them. I think of sacred masculinity, in the simplest terms, as a kind of masculinity that has nothing to prove. Stable, confident, gentle, authentic. A person who embodies this kind of masculinity is comfortable in their own skin and also puts others at ease. They do not have anything to prove in terms of their strength or prowess or skill. They are living their truth and also seek to help others express their most authentic selves. It is a type of masculinity that recognizes that showing vulnerability is not a sign of weakness or failure, but instead a sign of tremendous strength and courage.

What do you think is needed for more of us to understand and embody these traits?

I think a great start would be to eliminate the incredibly divisive way in which we talk about gender. I feel like so much discourse I see around gender starts with sweeping generalizations like “Women do this, this and this” and “Men don’t understand this this and this,” and these dialogues only continue to drive people further apart. I do believe that men and women have unique and very different ways of being socialized that most certainly have a huge effect on how they move through the world and are perceived by society. However, if we could approach one another from a more open heart and mind when engaging in dialogue instead of immediately operating from a place of assumptions and stereotypes, I believe that could help us start to see one another’s humanity a little bit more and allow some of those preconceived notions to fall away. In doing so, I hope that could give way to more authentic expressions of masculinity (and femininity) that aren’t tied up in how people think they “should” or should not behave. I think so much toxic masculinity is rooted in fear of being seen as weak or inadequate, and sacred masculinity is the undoing of that fear and expressing one’s masculinity from a place of ease and grace and dignity.

Who are your archetypes of masculinity?

When I was growing up, the men I looked up to the most were the fathers of some of my friends who I wished could be my father. These men were kind to their children, always showed up when they said they would, were gentle but firm with discipline, had a strong presence without being intimidating. They coached me in little league. They helped me with my homework. They drove me home from school. They made bad jokes and made a whole group full of kids laugh and cringe simultaneously. They were comfortably themselves.

As someone assigned female at birth and raised and socialized as a girl, the concept of having any kind of archetypes of masculinity beyond a father figure is a very new thing for me. I was raised by several strong women and had many ideas of what it meant to be a woman growing up, but I also based a lot of what I thought a girl “should” be around what I thought it meant to be heterosexual and attractive to men. I had absolutely no LGBTQ role models growing up, nor any concept that being a masculine-presenting female was something to strive for or be empowered by. Instead, it was the opposite. Any traces of masculinity might lead people to think I was a lesbian, or even worse, a dyke. Beyond a somewhat ‘boyish’ aesthetic in my clothing choices, I didn’t want anything to do with masculinity in young adulthood. In my eyes, it would give me away as queer, and it would make me an ugly woman.

Fortunately, I’ve been able to unpack all of that shame from my past and I am very proud of being queer today. But still, I am learning and growing, and at the time of this interview, masculine archetypes are a novel concept for me. When I read up on masculine archetypes for this interview, the main four I saw were: King, Warrior, Magician and Lover. Regardless of my upbringing, I find it difficult to resonate with any of the traditional masculine archetypes because they feature men and their archetypal female counterparts who are women. From an archetypal stand point, this doesn’t bother me, because archetypes are meant to be very traditional representations of a certain idea or object or person. But pretty much every article about masculine archetypes I read had language like “As every man knows…” or “Taking the journey from boy to man” or “How to become the best man possible.”  As a queer person who doesn’t really fit into the gender binary and is not a man, I don’t feel these archetypes are particularly representative of my experience.

Now, beyond the father figures of my childhood, I will say that the place from which I derive the most strength and inspiration are other queer people assigned female at birth like me and who have been socialized female, who are gender non conforming in some way and navigating masculinity and queerness in a heteronormative world as best they can. One of my all time inspirations is queer and non-binary poet Andrea Gibson (who also sometimes goes by Andrew). Their poetry is prolific and covers a range of topics like queer relationships, politics, how to better navigate white privilege, gendered violence, gender ambiguity, hope, love, sex, and just the wild experience of being human, regardless of our background.

How would you re-define the phrase, “be a man?”

When I was about 9 or 10 years old, my grandmother was taking care of me. At one point I did something rude and acted out and yelled at her, to which she responded, “That is not very ladylike.” My response? “I’m not a lady!” There is no doubt that my rudeness towards my grandmother needed to be disciplined, but instead of being told why my behavior was wrong from a human stand point, it was filtered through a gendered lens. According to what I was told by my grandmother, I shouldn’t have acted out not because it was rude, or because I could have expressed my feelings more calmly, but because it wasn’t ladylike. My behavior signaled I was doing my gender wrong. Even then, I knew this was bullshit. I knew at 10 years old I was certainly not a “lady” or what a lady was expected to be. But I definitely knew better than to yell at my grandma, too. And had she left gender out of it, she certainly could have helped me own up to my behavior and apologize to her the way I should have, instead of fighting her even further over not being a “lady.”

So how would I re-define the phrase “be a man?” I wouldn’t. I would get rid of this phrase completely. I strongly oppose language or phrases that encourage or reinforce behaviors based on one’s gender (or perceived gender.) I think in its purest form, the phrase “be a man” means to step up, to do the right thing, and be mature. And those are all great things to strive for. So why can’t we just use this kind of language to encourage men AND women to be grown adults and act in the most mature way possible? “Be a man” also has a lot of negative connotations as well, like “don’t be a wimp,” “give into peer pressure,”  “take a potentially dangerous risk,” or “be aggressive/fight/take what’s ‘yours.’” So again, because of all the negative connotations associated with this phrase, I’d completely eliminate the phrase, and just start encouraging men and women to listen to their instincts, be mature, and make healthy and honorable choices.

What do you think we’ve been getting wrong about masculinity?

For starters, that it belongs to men, that men are obligated to be masculine, and only certain types of masculinity are “right” or “valid.” Once, when I was trying to talk about what my masculinity meant to me with a family member, she responded, “But you’re so pretty, how can you possibly think of yourself as masculine?” There was so much contained in that statement. First of all, there was this underlying idea that prettiness and masculinity are somehow mutually exclusive. There was also this underlying idea that masculinity in women or those assigned female must be ugly or unattractive if I was in fact “so pretty”, and therefore, based on that logic, unable to be masculine. I felt fairly defeated in that moment, because I wondered if that’s how everyone was seeing me, as just a pretty girl, and not as the masculine and androgynous individual who I know myself to be. But that experience also gave me more determination to define for myself what exactly masculinity is and isn’t, and to continue living my truth, regardless of what others may think of me.

What is your favorite thing about navigating and expressing your masculinity while moving through the world being perceived as a woman?

From the time I was a child, I always felt like one of the girls and one of the boys, and moved very easily and happily between the two groups. I was a girl scout and a baseball player on an all boys team. I really do feel that I had a girlhood as well as a boyhood in a way that is sometimes difficult to articulate. As an adult, my experience is still very similar. I am often treated like one of the guys around men. I am included in groups of women and assumed to be one of them, and am treated with the same respect as any other woman. I feel neither distinctly woman nor man but more a hybrid of both. I believe my androgyny is part of what allows me to interact with others from a place of openness and curiosity, because I don’t carry as many preconceived notions about gender as I used to, nor do I feel I have to “perform” my gender (or my sexuality) in a certain way anymore.

What do you believe might be the future of masculinity?

I truly don’t know at this moment, but I hope that it is one in which we see toxic masculinity dying a blazing, fiery death, and out of that ash and destruction, we hopefully see more loving, wholesome and authentic expressions of masculinity rising up to take its place.

Tom Rogers on “Sacred Masculinity”

If you haven’t yet read my introduction to this series, please do. It provides a foundation for these interviews, and defines “sacred masculinity” as we’re using it here.

I’m beyond delighted to share with you the words of someone who had a powerful influence on my career-  my high school homeroom and sex ed teacher, Mr. Tom Rogers. It’s a sweet homecoming for me to have the opportunity to interview him at all, but even better is that his response is a shining example of his signature positive influence.

Tom spent a solid portion of his life as a teacher, having focused in college on biblical studies. I imagine there were several challenges to effectively teaching sex ed in a Catholic high school, so I’m all the more impressed and grateful that he approached the subject comfortably, candidly, and with plenty of humor.

He now works at what he jokes is Rogers’ Desert Rest. I follow him on social media, and this man is clearly doing retirement right. It’s no surprise to me. He always struck me as having boatloads of emotional intelligence, and I do believe you’re about to see what I mean.

I remember being told I was a boy. I do not think I have ever been certain, man or boy, what that truly meant. Life does not give us a chance to wait to be sure. It lives and so must we, full of doubt, and endeavor of faith.

Comparison and contrast seem to me the two feet of living. So I remember watching men and older boys to find a model to copy. From as long as I can remember I had an intuition to spot the phonies. It was as if I had a built in bullshit detector. It sounded most loudly at evidence of exaggeration. The overblown, the overly insistent, the demanding. Bullies and braggarts repelled me with what I would later learn was called inauthenticity. So I decided to be a truth-teller and as much as possible a person who lives his truth.

I remember how fascinated I was with what then I thought was my opposite. I was told that they were girls. I liked them from the very start! As I look back now I am realizing that I think I thought they were more real, confident in who they were. I wanted to be friends with girls, get closer to them to see them up close maybe this was because I felt closer to my mother’s way of being than my father’s distant busy-ness with the things of manhood. So the contrast I sought (can I figure out how to be a boy by not being a girl?) was a path I rejected early. Instead I searched for friends, like-minded peers who shared my disdain for the caricatured machos and the silly flirts.

My first masculine role models were the religious brothers who taught the boys from 6-8th grade. My favorites were the really smart ones who captured my interest by their passion for whatever stories they were telling. Their vitality in the classroom as well as the athletic field resonated with the person I was becoming. They displayed a kind of powerful humility. No boasting, just real knowledge and real action. I admired how they always had time for us. We were their work, their project and I realize now that I felt so proud that they never seemed bored with us. I felt relevant, meaningful.

An incident occurred with one of these brothers that helped me define myself to my surprise. He asked me to stay after school to talk about something. He got right to the point. Did I ever think about becoming a brother? I answered immediately. “I like girls too much!” He looked disappointed. I think I too felt a loss of connection to one of my heroes. Pursuing the truth of this statement became an important quest for me.

The sexual desire that drove me out of myself, this great gift of relating, proved very challenging and engaged me in a most difficult struggle with myself and my desire for sexual pleasure. My ideal of honesty at times seemed at stake, as dishonesty proved a better way to navigate the way into a girl’s arms. Whether it was my Catholic guilt or a more profound loyalty to my truth, I never became comfortable with deception.

Fortunately for me, I found an honest erotic love at a young age. It may not sound romantic but I feel like responsibility was one of the strongest ways I experienced my role in this life changing relationship. Caring translated into taking care of another person. This became our path as we served each other with heartfelt passion in every room in our many apartments.

We became parents and partners in what we still experience as the mystery of our life together. As a father of four boys, I sometimes felt as if I knew what each of these boys needed by tapping into the unmet needs of my own father-son relationship. Freedom to be themselves as their own gifts emerged was the gift I wanted to give them and yet I know I placed strong demands on them when I feared that my shaping hand was failing.

As a teacher I feel like I found the best vocation to give to others as they strove to grow and mature. Though my sex education classes came about quite accidentally, I found there a natural way to help lead young people out of shame and confusion but also affirm their erotic awakenings. I believe together we discovered a sensual path to healthy and healthful sexual development with lots of laughter along the way.

Later in my life after retirement I found myself, like Dante, in a dark wood. My journey through a most unexpected depression proved an encounter with the vulnerability I had fought against in all of the expressions of my masculinity. A sober realism provided the tempering influence to an idealism and high energy generativity that I thought wholly defined me. I learned in a therapeutic dialogue that an acceptance of the real was necessary to keep hold of my self as a powerful yet far from omnipotent creature.

As I look toward the future I take comfort in the many young fathers I know who proudly nurture their children and welcome a balanced partnership with their beloved.

Mo Beasley on “Sacred Masculinity”

If you haven’t yet read my introduction to this series, please do. It provides a foundation for these interviews, and defines “sacred masculinity” as we’re using it here.

Mo Beasley is an award-winning performance artist, author, educator, and community organizer. He’s the founder of Urban Erotika, a performance series celebrating erotic love through poetry, spoken word, music, dance, and theatre.

I had the very great honor of meeting him at the Catalyst Conference a few years ago, and he’s been an inspirational force in my life ever since. He’s sharp, passionate, and has a clarity about life that regularly amazes me.  Whenever we talk or I get to hear him speak, I’m left both calm and energized. I hope you’ll have a similar experience here in reading his reflections on sacred masculinity and his experience of being a man.

What would you say are the characteristics of sacred masculinity?

  • Respect, Reverence, and Love for the natural world, seen and unseen.
  • A secure and serene disposition; open and unafraid of the different, uncommon, unusual, normal, non-traditional, and traditional aspects of masculinity.
  • A melding of perennially positive and emerging aspects of ever-evolving masculinity.
  • The use of “Sankofa” as a guiding light.  “Sankofa” [of the Akan people of West Africa] teaches us that we must go back to our roots in order to move forward. That is, we should reach back and gather the best of what our past has to teach us, so that we can achieve our full potential as we move forward. Whatever we have lost, forgotten, forgone, or been stripped of can be reclaimed, revived, preserved, and perpetuated.

Who are your archetypes of masculinity?

  • My maternal uncles and older cousins [blues men who made something from nothing with their lives, careers, and families; on terms beyond mainstream standards].
  • Jesus Christ
  • Malcolm X
  • Prince
  • Buddha
  • Obatala
  • James Baldwin

What do you think is needed for more of us to understand and embody these traits?

Valuing “Emotional Intelligence” and a sincere pursuit of holistic growth that finds us consistently reaching to be physically, psychologically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually balanced. Doesn’t matter if we ever reach full balance. “The Joy is The Journey.” A spiritual foundation, of some form, that grounds you in a belief system that challenges you to grow.

What role(s) do you believe the masculine has in regards to the feminine? What do you see as a balanced dynamic there?

The masculine and feminine complement each other within all of us. Those two energies are two halves of the whole that makes us who we are. Just as we’re all children of our mothers and fathers we are products of feminine and masculine forces. Each instant, moment, challenge, opportunity…in life requires us to access one or both of those energies. If one of those forces are given more attention in our lives we approach everything from one perspective, whether it is productive or not, thus living an imbalanced life. If a hammer is your only tool for every choice in life the path you leave behind will be dented even in places where a flowers were meant to grow. The masculine is the yin to the feminine’s yang; and vice versa.

What is the role of vulnerability in strength?

Vulnerability tempers steels and allows it to be pliable, firm, soft [which doesn’t mean “weak”], stern, flexible, or solid when necessary.

How would you re-define the phrase, “be a man?”

  • “Act Like An Adult”
  • “Stand your ground/on your own convictions”
  • “Be Strong”
  • “Be Smart”
  • “Be Wise”

What do you think we’ve been getting wrong about masculinity?

Believing that it should dominant femininity; that it’s greater, better, more valuable than femininity.

What’s your favorite thing about being a man?

  • Having a penis is fantastic. [It was my knee jerk response. I was about to edit it myself with something more…”elevated.” But, the first thought is the honest answer.]
  • An objective perspective on women.
  • Physical prowess.
  • My male mind. I do like the default aggression and logical disposition of being male.  It may seem stereotypical to say that men are innately aggressive and logically orientated, but there is some truth in that perspective.  I do believe men are more sensitive creations, thus our often explosive reactions when our feelings are hurt or egos bruised. And, I also believe my male instinct to assess situations and collect data before reacting emotionally is pretty cool. It shows up especially in my role as father.  I have 3 daughters, and a grand-daughter. [My Baboloa aka, my spiritual coach, says I have some Karma to work out with women…FOR SURE!] My daughters are 33, 11, and 9, and my grand-daughter is 14. When my eldest calls in an uproar about personal and/or family issues she’s calling for her daddy to be the calm in her storm. To let her rage and then give her thought-filled food for thought, fueled by the emotion of love, and guided by reason. My “male mind” is always trying to find the solution or the fix.  I’ve learned the hard way that my ‘”male minded” approach isn’t always whats needed. Especially when it comes to the women in my life. Often, an ear or shoulder is what is needed. I get that and still dig my knee jerk analysis of situations and desire to “cut to the bone” of the matter and decide on a course of action.

What do you believe might be the future of masculinity?

A re-definition beyond what our fathers have passed on to us.

Follow Mo and Urban Erotika on Twitter. You can also hear us talk about the intersection of somatics, sex-positivity, and activism at the upcoming Catalyst Conference this May.

Dr. Joel Schwartz on “Sacred Masculinity”

If you haven’t yet read my introduction to this series, please do. It provides a foundation for these interviews, and defines “sacred masculinity” as we’re using it here.

Joel Schwartz is a clinical psychologist with a beautifully broad range of clinical experience. He works from a relational psychodynamic perspective, and his practice is largely focused on adults with childhood trauma and neurologically diverse children and adults. He also works with psychosis, where I find that his fiercely humanistic stance on psychotherapy really shines through. He is better than perhaps anyone else I know at meeting someone exactly where they are.

We met when we found ourselves to be the only sex-positive voices in an online conversation with several colleagues. I promptly reached out so that we could meet in person, and he’s been a good friend and favorite colleague ever since.

Joel was an easy choice for kicking off this series, because he majorly gets it and is a very active part of creating a world in which masculinity can be embodied in a safe and valuable way.

Foreword from Joel:

I know it is no fun to start out something like this with a bunch of disclaimers and pre-emptive explanations, but based on how things like this seem to be powder kegs these days, I feel I must. It is difficult to even talk about the term masculinity, since what is culturally deemed as masculine and feminine traits are inherently tied to somewhat sexist understanding of these. We know unequivocally that there is much more variance among the sexes than between them, so there is something inherently difficult in talking about masculine and feminine without falling prey to gender essentialism. The language we use, and the language I will use, are inherently tied to culturally defined gender expectations. What I am saying is that the terms themselves, masculine and feminine, are tied to cultural constructions based of perceived sex differences. Yet these embodied energies are not literal and exist in all of us.

And now the powder keg: although I am a feminist, I don’t fully subscribe to the post-modern feminist idea that all sex differences are culturally constructed. Although any person of any gender may embody various degrees of masculinity and femininity, and sex differences ought not determine status, behavior, etc., if we ignore the very real sexual dimorphism in our species, we miss something crucial about our species. (Sexual dimorphism is the term evolutionary biologists use to describe the differences in appearance between males and females of the same species, such as in colour, shape, size, and structure; in general, the greater the sexual dimorphism in a species, the more “specialized” the male/female behavior.)

So if we take as a given that what has been culturally defined by the word masculinity, or masculine traits come from what is prototypically male, and cultural ideas of femininity and feminine traits come from what is prototypically female, I have to ask, what are the true differences between males and females? What I have come to is this: obviously, females are uniquely able to carry and birth children, whereas males are uniquely able to build muscle and yield destructive power. I think that’s really the only differences. Now how these differences manifest as behavior is still a matter of culture. So from that, I have come to this conclusion: femininity is intimately tied to the power to create, and masculinity to the power to destroy.

I want to emphasize that there is, in my mind, no judgment or moral dimension to the inherent destructiveness of masculinity or the inherent creativity of femininity that I speak of. As any honest artist will tell you, there is something profoundly selfish about the creative process. One must be obsessive and myopic to birth something of worth. Conversely, there can be something wonderfully freeing and good about destruction. I imagine a toddler breaking a Duplo tower, looking menacingly at their parents, and all three sharing in a diabolical laugh. There is nothing inherently bad about destruction, or inherently good about creation. These are energies that can be put to nefarious or positive means.

But this idea of creativity and destruction is a yin/yang – it’s a dialectic – not so disparate. We must create in order to destroy, and we must destroy in order to create. The feminine power of creation can create terrible things and terrible people. And the power to destroy can be used in a beneficent manner. We create an atomic bomb to kill millions. We destroy a tree to create a canvas, then destroy the canvas to create a painting. We murder to keep our children safe from horrific people. We kill animals to feed ourselves and our children. We burn the fields to make them fertile for new life. We thrash the wilderness to discover new vistas. And this yin/yang exists in all of us. We are all capable of great feats of creativity, and great feats of destruction.

So what is sacred masculinity? I think it is owning the power to destroy, the urge to destroy, the primordial part of us that wants to hurt, kill, maim. It is acknowledging that shadow is there, and then using it in a way that serves the greater good. Another thought comes to mind – it is clear that so many horrors in the world are perpetuated by men who think they are acting for the greater good. So part of this entails taking time to truly understand all perspectives, to be wise, to incorporate the elements of the sacred feminine. Toxic masculinity is forcing one’s masculinity on others. Sacred masculinity is offering up masculinity as a tool to protect and aid in creation while listening to the feedback of others.

Who are your archetypes of masculinity?

I’ve always been attracted to the reluctant hero. I am a big sci/fi horror geek. I particularly love John Carpenter’s movies from the 80s and early 90s. In almost all his films, from the serious to the zany, there is a reluctant hero. Even the bumbling characters are reluctant heroes. People find themselves in circumstances well beyond their control and rise to the calling. They are not looking for trouble, they are not going out to conquer. But they are called to be heroes, to protect, to overcome any fear they may have in order to fight and protect. Men and women alike – Laurie Strode in “Halloween” and Stevie Wayne in “The Fog” are just as heroic and bad ass as Snake Plissken in “Escape from New York” and R.J. MacReady in “The Thing.” Sometimes their motives are selfish. Sometimes they are simply ignorant of what is going on around them. Sometimes they aren’t the smartest character. But as Egg Shen says in “Big Trouble in Little China,” “You leave Jack Burton alone! He showed great bravery.” (All of these male characters are played by Kurt Russel by the way, whom I have a bit of a man-crush on. He seems to me to embody these traits in real life as well in the way he has been a father to Kate Hudson, a partner to Goldie Hawn, and in some of his philanthropy efforts. Also despite his fame, he doesn’t flaunt it.)

Of course I also admire heroes who willingly put themselves in harm’s way – our service people, fire fighters, etc. These individuals embody many aspects of sacred masculinity. But there is something special in the story of the person who looks around, and says, “I may not be the best, the strongest, the smartest, but I can do this, so I will.”

What do you think is needed for more of us to understand and embody these traits?

We live in a culture right now that has pathologically dissociated the masculine. When children rough house or a boy kisses a girl on the playground, the adults are up in arms. These normal ways of playing, that yes, are sometimes violent and sometimes based in non-consensual behavior, are part of growing up. We need to play with our shadows to get to know them. We need to have that experience of hitting someone, seeing them recoil, hearing them say “ouch!” and stop being our friend to truly understand the power we yield and learn to master it. Kids aren’t allowed to play, to explore, to get hurt, to get in to get in trouble without the specter of shame constantly invalidating them.

This is not to say, “boys will be boys.” Somewhere between shaming and complete permissiveness is empathetic correction and social learning. Psychoanalyst Donald W. Winnicott wrote a really fascinating thought exercise. He sets up a situation where a baby hits their mother, and the mother says, “Ouch!” and gently holds the baby’s arm. But in the first scenario, the “ouch” is filled with fear, shame, and judgment. It communicates that the child’s power in unacceptable, their aggression necessarily an impediment to being loved. In the second scenario, the “ouch” communicates appreciation at power as if to say, “What strength you have!” In both cases, the mother’s reaction serves as a corrective. It teaches the child not to hit. But in the latter scenario, there is no shame. In the same way, we need to appreciate how that playground kiss or rough-housing is about connection, bonding, and needs being met. Adults can appreciate and validate this, while emphatically guiding children toward more acceptable behavior that is consensual.

All of these experiences are tantamount to get to know and master our darker selves. Our culture needs to better integrate our destructive qualities. Instead we dissociate them, and create dangerous pockets of destructiveness – from football games to war. Destructiveness is only allowed in an arena of violence and death, not in the everyday yin/yang of existence.

What is the role of vulnerability in strength?

Oooh great question! I think it harkens back to what I said above about forcing one’s masculinity versus offering it. When you offer something, you chance getting rejected. You chance being rendered useless (at least in that moment). So to cautiously offer one’s power takes vulnerability. I remember one formative experience I had with a former supervisor (a woman), with whom I also co-taught a class. We had had many important discussions about masculinity, feminism, power, etc. The class ended at night, and I had the thought that I ought to walk her to her car. I wanted to be the hero- “I’ll keep you safe, ma’am!” But I somehow I recognized that this was subtly forcing her. Maybe she didn’t want accompaniment. Maybe, despite our familiarity, it would be uncomfortable for her to be alone in the the dark with a 6’3” man. So instead, I asked. I said, “If you’d like, I am happy to wait and walk you to your car. Would you like that?” She hesitated for a second, then said yes. Our eyes met and there was this wonderful moment of love, affection, and appreciation for one another. I remember distinctly thinking, “So that’s how you do it.”

I think another part of it is willing to be wrong – to take in others’ opinions and feedback without becoming defensive or double-downing on your initial thought. Captain Picard (my favorite Star Trek captain and perhaps another great archetypal character) comes to mind. Unlike the impetuous and often violent Kirk, Picard always asked his crew their thoughts. Even if he disagreed, he gave them a voice and considered others’ wisdom. And then he’d make a decision and take full responsibility as Captain.

How would you re-define the phrase, “be a man?”

An ugly phrase, always meant to shame and hurt. I’d prefer it struck completely than redefined. When I work with young males in therapy, I have them identify their own favorite characters and real people they admire. In times of ambiguity I ask them how the character/person would act. So maybe instead of “Be a man!” we can say, “What would a hero do?”

What do you think we’ve been getting wrong about masculinity?

Along the lines of what I said earlier – we don’t understand that the it is the same force that creates toxic and sacred masculinity. We see the toxic and wish to completely do away with it, to hide it, to punish it, to shame it. And as a result, it just becomes more toxic.

What’s your favorite thing about being a man?

It’s hard to say. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown to love being able to wield my power in a way that does good. I’m a tall, white male. I have a doctorate in psychology. It would not be difficult to wield that power in a selfish, fraudulent, and destructive way. Our airwaves are filled with exploitative, handsome, male doctors selling hope and bullshit to inflate their pocketbooks. I am aware of inherent power and influence I hold. I am getting more and more pleasure in using that in a way that betters everyone. For example, when I’m in a group and I notice all eyes on me, I will purposefully defer to the more quiet and timid members who I know are just as smart and capable (if not more so). I think this is an example of owning and using the shadow. I am aware that there is a part of me that loves and thrives on that kind of attention. I know I can get that kind of attention. When I was younger, I may not have given it up so easily. And so now I use it in service of others, and I get great pangs of pleasure having paved the way for someone else to have a voice when they otherwise would not have.

I also love my male relationships. There is a banter, a wit, a loving challenge in way we rib each other. It challenges us to be more creative in the moment. Another example of the yin/yang I just realized! We yield our destructive power in way that builds grit, confidence, quick thinking, and camaraderie.

Finally, I love being a father and husband. I love when I get to show up in these capacities and either do something that helps my wife relax or challenges my son to be better.

What do you believe might be the future of masculinity?

I struggle between optimism and despair in this. All indications point to terrible things happening in the name of masculinity. Politics, school shootings, rewarded narcissism in pop-culture. But this may too be part of the yin/yang. These destructive parts need to make themselves known before we can embrace and change them into better forms.

Isn’t he swell? Please feel free to chime in with your thoughts or questions below.
Learn more about or contact Joel via his blog, Twitter, or through PsychToday.

New Series: Sacred Masculinity Interviews

In the autumn of 2016, I had the very moving experience of looking around and becoming aware of how many men around me are safe, aware, and helping. I’m sure that a good portion of this has to do with my age and my growing ability to surround myself with healthy people, but it also seems quite clear that something about masculinity is happening at a rapid rate.

After the election results came in later that year, it was so painfully clear how much toxicity still exists in our culture. The article I wrote about it at the time focused on toxic masculinity, and this series is focused on addressing that. But allow me to make a couple of things very clear: the toxicity within male gender socialization is definitely not the only kind that exists, and when I speak about masculinity, I am not talking about men. I use the term “sacred masculinity” to refer to a concept of qualities. One of the greatest gifts of this generation is the burgeoning awareness of intersectionality, and the concept of masculinity is just one section. I’m choosing to focus on it because I see a shift happening in society at large, and it’s showing up in my practice. As a therapist, I have the honor and privilege of getting to understand why and how people come to be as they are. As an activist, I feel compelled to share my insights, especially now.

A few months ago, I met with Meredith Redding to talk about the parallels we were seeing between the therapeutic process and what’s happening in our country. She’s one of my favorite colleagues and she really knows her shit when it comes to Depth Psychology, so I was extra excited to talk to her. We began by talking about shadow selves, and very quickly got onto the topic of masculinity. She said something that really stayed with me, because it was a succinct articulation of what I’d been seeing in my practice, too. “Something different is happening with the men,” she said.

We have a president who is such a clear embodiment of toxic masculinity that it has thrown us into a full-blown crisis. Yet there are a whole bunch of people who feel resonance with this man. When you get to talk to them in an honest and nonjudgmental setting, it becomes quite clear how much that has to do with concepts of masculinity that attempt to address the experience of desperation. In particular, the desperate desire to feel ok with oneself and to have some sense of command over one’s life. That is not how it can appear from the outside, and I am not for one second excusing any of the horrendous behavior that has led to and resulted from this. But if we want it to stop, we have to get to the heart of it. This is the case for every therapeutic process.

Blessedly, you can see already that we’re doing a whole lot of processing, and that it has the power to bring tremendous healing. The #MeToo Movement, the #BlackMenSmiling Movement, the unrelenting push for trans rights, and the incredible activist demonstrations by the children of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are shining examples.

How does this address the heart of the problem? If we look at this through the illuminating power of myth, we can think of this time as the return of the goddess to her natural position of power. That calls upon the god not to step down or retract his positive influence, but to act as a supportive counterpart. Goddess and god balance each other, each with an equal and opposite attribute with which to meet the other’s. We have been clear for some time on what does not bring balance: violence, superiority, and indifference. We need more examples of healthy masculinity and healthy men to be right in our faces more often. So let’s discuss with some emotionally intelligent people the qualities that they believe masculinity, in its pure and sacred form, has to offer.

Find the beautiful and ever-growing collection of interviews here.

On Male Friendship

When I first met these guys, I was instantly struck by their magnetism. They were cheerful, handsome, and they both make great eye contact- a trifecta of appeal. I felt at once welcome in their presence, and energized to be on my game, for these two beckon to really see you. They are on a select list of people to whom I reacted with, “ohmygod I wanna be friends with you.”

As we became friends, I thought for a while that they might be a couple. When I realized that they weren’t, I was blown away in a thoroughly delightful way. If their epic level of closeness wasn’t due to romance, this meant that I had before me an astounding example of healthy male friendship. These guys adore each other, and they aren’t afraid to show it.

Because of them, I hold the capabilities of all friendships to a much higher standard. And believe me when I say that I always thought deep intimacy was possible between male friends. I’d just never really seen it until I met Jordan Huxley and Nick Westbrook.

Nearly all of my male clients, regardless of orientation, have expressed to me a desire to have more fulfilling friendships with other men. Often what is sited as the barrier is all the other men. Way too many of them believe that they are practically alone in wanting this. And the insistence of their female therapist that this isn’t the case makes only so big a dent in this belief. So Nick and Jordan graciously agreed to shed some light on how and why they have gotten so close, and how the other menfolk can do the same.

 

So tell us about how you met. What did you each think of the other?

Jordan: This is a story we love to tell, mainly because it seems so iconic that we’re the best of friends and initially didn’t like each other. I was going to school in New York and living in a dorm in Brooklyn. I liked to hang out by the side of the building, chatting with friends, sometimes playing music. I had made a lot of friends that way, simply being around and meeting new people. A mutual friend of ours, whom Nick had grown up with, introduced him to me one day, when I was outside playing a little music. The way he likes to tell it, I was this hip socialite, completely surrounded by adoring friends, but for me, it was more akin to enjoying a crowd. He, on the other hand, looked like the epitome of cool. A spitting image of James Dean you might say, with his collar popped up and a cigarette and earrings and this look on his face like he didn’t need to prove anything to anyone. So again, we both thought that the other person thought they were hot shit, but it turns out that we were both just attracted to the energy of the other person.

Nick: Haha! We love telling this story. The last time we told it we were a little tipsy—maybe a lot tipsy— and we acted it out with an exaggerated performance of when we first met. The extra drama of us telling the story together is that we both have completely different perspectives on it. I thought Jordan was too cool for school and it made me anxious, and he felt the same way about me… It was a fall afternoon at the Brooklyn dorms for the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts (or something like that), where Jordan was going to school. A former friend of mine from Georgia had just started there, too, and he was showing me around the neighborhood. My first impression of Jordan was of seeing him sitting up against the exterior wall of the dorms with a half circle of college students around him, and I swear I’m not exaggerating here, the dude was basically glowing. He was pretty clearly the center of attention, and he was pretty clearly settled into the role. He was smiling and he seemed very charming and confident, two things that I tried to embody, myself, but when I saw them in other people I could easily distrust or feel threatened by — at least in those days. I was only twenty. Anyway, I thought he looked like a really cool guy and in my young silly way I immediately took that to mean that he was probably a stuck up jerk, like the other popular guys I’d met during my one, mostly unpleasant semester in college. Sometime that day or that week I heard he was screening one of my favorite movies, Jaws, on a… ahem… projector in his dorm room for his … ahem… many adoring friends. What a jerk! Of course, I just saw him as an alternate reality version of myself… the one who had prospered in college and even ended up with a projector and a bunch of friends… and I guess I just couldn’t deal with it! Honestly, I’ve never even realized that much about it until now. We usually stop the story short with “I thought he was too cool! I thought he was too, cool, too!” and then fast forward to the important part… the fateful second meeting. I’ll just put that part below, since it goes with the next question.

When did it become clear to you that your friendship was on an epic level of awesomeness?

J: I would have to say that it was clear to me that our friendship was something genuinely special and interesting when we had our first legendary Tuesday. We had already been hanging out for some time, since we had decided to write a screenplay together. But as we got to know each other and our enthusiasm began to grow mutually, we could tell that we were going somewhere. And one day, a Tuesday, Nick invited me out to a place called Fabulous Fannys. It’s a vintage and antique eye and headwear boutique and I was immediately enamored. I love classic style, and he knew. There was a classic fedora he had his eye on, a brown Stetson, and he looked at me and told me that we needed to get matching ones. It was expensive, one of the more expensive articles of clothing I’ve ever bought, but I knew that it was worth it. Sometimes you gotta take the leap. We walked out with our new hats and new confidence. It called for a special occasion, so we caught a 2-for-1 martini happy hour and proceeded to laugh and talk about everything. The city faded into the background and I felt very much at home. But what was more amazing was that the people passing by kept commenting on our hats and how great we looked! Even a cabbie rolled down his window to let us know how stylish we were! It seemed like the world was proverbially our oyster. I just had never really felt so adult, and confident, and at home with a single other person like I did that day.

N: Like, immediately. Not even kidding. It was in the air. The stars and planets were aligned. We knew we had stumbled into something grand and life changing. We had seen each other a couple of times after that first meeting and gotten along fine, but following a falling out with our mutual friend at Jordan’s school, I stopped coming around and we didn’t see each other for a year or so. Then, one fateful fall evening, when I had little to do but put on my long coat and walk around rolling cigarettes and hoping to look cool, I took the train over to Brooklyn heights for a nostalgic kick and went in for a drink at the Pub where all the underage kids from the dorms used to drink every night. The bartender might remember me, at least. I didn’t really expect to see anyone I knew, and I especially didn’t hope to run into my former friend from Georgia, but I was surprisingly, pleasantly, surprised (read it again, it works!) to see Jordan sitting at a booth in the back. Something about his energy that night just put me in a great mood, and this was the first time we realized how contagious and exponentially self-perpetuating our energies could be together, because we started drinking together with his other friends and we were telling stories and talking about movies and more or less hanging on each other’s every word. And we had a couple whiskeys and went for a couple smokes and by the end of the night we were out there by ourselves and I felt compelled to go out on a mighty limb, but I wasn’t scared and I know it wasn’t the whiskey that gave me the courage, it was something deeper and more substantial.

Our beliefs are such a guiding force in how we live our lives. What did you learn growing up about male friendship?

J: I think initially, from school at least, I learned how male friendship is very much about the things you are both interested in. And discussing, debating, and detailing the differences in your opinions about those things. I observed as well, that many other male friendships were very rough, kind of braggartly, a lot about showing the other one up. I never felt comfortable with that, and I knew that there was a fundamental part missing. As a consequence, I had maybe two or three good male friends, but lots of female friends. My female friends seemed to want to talk about more things, like emotions for instance, that my male friends never seemed to want to get into. In my family I also felt a kind of resistance to discussing any feelings that weren’t in the norm. A kind of unflappable personality was recommended. But I knew there had to be someone with whom you can discuss and share all these things. It just seemed as if close male friendships were innately hostile and unforgiving.

N: Everything I feel about male friendship starts with my dad. He and my mom divorced when I was too young to remember much, so all of my early memories of he and I are of a very close, affectionate, and exclusive dynamic. We would spend time with my grandparents and aunts and uncles and his friends, too, but many of my most vivid and favorite memories are of us by ourselves in this house in north Georgia, out in a very rural part of the county, where we lived on five acres of forest and field. There was about six months where my mom was living in South Carolina and she was also recovering from a bad wreck so it was just me and dad at home, and he was single then, too. We did everything together, and everything we did was fun and intimate— we built campfires in the woods several nights a week, we went on long night rides on his Harley Davidson, we took the ford bronco four-wheeling off roads, through creeks and large pools of mud, we took a vacation to Florida in the mustang with the top down, we went to biker bars and went across state lines for fireworks. He treated me like we were best friends and father and son at the same time. And that’s what we were. My grandmother died when I was only five, after which I spent a lot of time with grandfather at his house, and it would be just the two of us while my dad was at work. So I was spending a lot of quality time with the two most important male figures in my life and they both made me feel that way, like a great companion. I slept in my grandfather’s bed with him after my grandmother passed, and we were never lonely. I remember my mom’s third husband being really strict and telling me to call him sir. I got in the habit of it and the first time I called my dad “sir” he looked at me like I’d said a bad word! He knelt down to me and he said, “You don’t have to call me, sir. We’re friends. Buddies don’t call each other “sir”.” I look back and I think it’s miraculous, now, because he had a very bad relationship with his dad, but he was going to break the chain at all costs. He was going to make sure that we had a great relationship, one of mutual respect and trust and love. And he never forgot to be stern when he needed to be, and I wanted to be good because I loved him so much, instead of because I was scared of making him mad. Sorry, I’m getting a lot out, here. But I know that having the concepts of friendship and close love between men fused together… of being each other’s world entire, even if briefly… is what eventually allowed me to recognize and believe in the potential of my friendship with Jordan. It’s hard enough to embrace something and not be scared about it… but the next step, the one I think that’s the hardest to find, is to go past that and just know it. Jordan and I have always just known that we were destined to be friends indefinitely, and to try to do great things together. I’m lucky that I got to know that kind of certain love at such an early age.

Are you breaking any of these “rules?”

J: Absolutely. I’ve learned through being friends with Nick that although it’s okay to keep a confident positive air, you need to be willing to discuss what’s actually going on with you. The more you keep under the surface, the more you bottle it up, the more it will express itself negatively. I also know now that it’s okay to be inquisitive about how someone is feeling. And that you need someone to talk to about the deeper questions of your existence. And that aggression and hostility are never the correct answer to any frustrations you may have. And that the more you cut under the bravado, the more you know yourself and your friends.

N: No, I don’t think so. Jordan and I are pretty much operating at what I see as the full potential of friendship, at least with this number of years under our belt.

What is it like for you when people mistake you for a couple? How often does it happen? How do you react to them?

J: Oh I don’t care if people mistake us for a couple. It happens occasionally, to be sure, but I for one, am flattered that we are close enough that people either think we are a couple or, more often, brothers. It doesn’t occur to them that people can be as close as we are without being one of the two. I also genuinely love surprising people and breaking down their expectations. When people find that their assumptions are wrong, that is usually a positive thing, in whatever small way.

N: It doesn’t bother us at all. We sort of welcome it in a very self aware and comical way. It might be hard to believe but I think it makes us proud. Again, that’s possible because we have the confidence of absolute knowledge. We don’t think we’re great friends. We know it. When you know something completely it doesn’t matter what anyone else perceives, and I think it’s the nature of our combined spirit to not only not let it bother us, but to let it be something fun and a source of pride for us. If people can see us interacting and only assume that we’re something different than incredibly close friends, then that makes me feel like our friendship is progressive. I don’t know if I’d say it’s cynical to dismiss it as rare or not normal, but I’d say that’s selling it short, and it’s selling all friendship short! To say that ours is weird is selling short the potential that’s actually there that no one’s thinking about or choosing to see. Does that make sense? I guess that’s why I see it as progressive instead, because I like to believe that in the future more friendships could be like ours. For now, it just makes me proud!

Have you ever been discouraged from being so close or showing each other so much affection?

J: Yeah, but really only out of the jealousy of others. I won’t get specific, but there has been a time or two when another person grew resentful or jealous of our closeness and tried to cause dissent between us. It didn’t work, to say the least.

N: Um… Not really directly. We’ve encountered negative reactions to it, but those always seem to be projections of insecurities that arise from within people outside looking in at us. No one’s ever tried to discourage us in a direct way, like telling us we’re being impertinent or making people uncomfortable. But people have felt jealous of our friendship before and we’ve seen it bum people out. We’ve also seen people view it as an unfair advantage in social situations, like where a group discussion is happening, because we tend to agree on most things, not all things, by any means, but most things. And so we can each present an opinion in a group with the confidence of knowing that we won’t be left to fend for ourselves if there’s opposition. That’s great for us, and it comes from a place of love and support but sometimes, you know, people are again threatened by it. It doesn’t happen often though.

What are your fights like? How do you resolve disagreements?

J: I would say, of the few fights we’ve had, the root was a genuine misunderstanding (aren’t almost all fights?). Situations arise where one of us might think we knew what the other felt about something, only to be surprised by the answer. And as soon as you can take a step back and realize that the other person, whom you know so well and hold dear, isn’t purposefully trying to make you feel bad, then you can talk about why you felt a certain way and make peace.

N: Our fights are always very sudden, very intense and emotional, and resolved relatively quickly. If we are fighting the reason is almost always that one or both of us is compromised by something external or internal, but separate from our dynamic. Sometimes it is too much whiskey. Sometimes it is tequila. Sometimes we are stressed, and we take on extra guilt from not being able to immediately make the other one feel better, and that guilt becomes more stress, and that leads to tension. So when that happens it’s still stemming from the seed of love and support, but we’re both human and we need to feel our emotions in our own way. And sometimes we can cheer each other up and sometimes we need to work through our stuff but this expectation to cheer each other up is still hanging in the room and it deflates and feels awkward and heavy and that can be a sort of tension. Sometimes a tension builds up because one or both of us isn’t willing or ready to talk about what is going on inside. Like a pebble in your shoe, something tiny can become something very upsetting. Sometimes I am not being honest with myself about how I’m really feeling and I’ll have myself convinced that i’m feeling great and then Jordan sees me and I know he knows I’m not alright and part of me resents him for breaking down my illusion. But he just knows me that well. That goes both ways sometimes and it’s very hard to be in that situation. In that situation, someone asks you if you’re alright and it sounds like an accusation when it’s really not. But we both have the tell tale response that shows we’re hiding something and usually we talk it out and feel better. We always talk things out after we’ve gotten mad at each other in a very sweet and constructive way, because we both really want to rush back to that feeling of harmony and oneness. Now that i think about it, it’s really when I’m not feeling harmonious with my inner self that i start to feel the disconnect with the people around me, even Jordan. It’s like I have to go through the thing I’m feeling with myself with him too in order to reset everything and work on feeling better. He helps me in ways he doesn’t even know, I swear.

What was one of your favorite moments together?

J: Wow, I have no idea where to start. Okay, actually I’d have to say that the most memorable and amazing experiences I’ve ever had at any time, was a road trip we took from his home in Georgia to my home in Idaho and then down here to LA. It was a long journey, but it proved to me not only the kind of deep friends we are, but that life can be simply amazing. The simplicity of how we lived on the trip and the vastness of the land we were traveling across gave me a glowing feeling inside that I still yearn for again. And I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to feel that way again, in the same way as I did on that road trip. But there’s been so many! I’m just gonna name off a whole bunch: When we used to sit in his car and record our late-night drinking conversations; when we go up north to the hot springs and talk about life; when we ran an under-ground restaurant out of our apartment; when we used to sit in his apartment stairwell eating pizza and reading each other our original writings; the epic Tuesdays.

N: Man, that is tough. There was that famous Tuesday in New York… but thinking of where we’ve been at these last couple years, the moment I’m thinking of was one night when we decided to drive up state for the night, just to get out of the city for a day and a half, and we did a few wine tastings in Solvang and got a good little buzz on, then we had a cocktail at a little Chinese restaurant and met some nice people- maybe they thought we were a couple now that I think about it, who knows- but we had to make it to this spa hotel by 11pm so we get an outdoor mineral spring jacuzzi tub and a bottle of wine (we actually called it our “gay-cation, so I guess we’re okay with it!). anyway, driving north up the windy road from Solvang with a buzz on and rushing toward our jacuzzi we started talking about how good it felt to get out of town together and to be free to just be ourselves and just be our pure, complete selves, like we only are when we’re together, and we got so excited about how good it was and how lucky we are that we just started shouting things in the car. It was cathartic and funny at the same time and it felt amazing to just have someone i knew and cared about that much just shouting in a car with me about how good life felt at that moment. My throat was sore the next day but it was worth it. And we had a nice time in the jacuzzi. We smoked a joint in the car and wandered around the grounds and gardens waxing existential about space and history and aliens and creatures and everything else.

A lot of hetero men tend to make their romantic partner their sole source of emotional support. Does your friendship change when one or both of you are coupled?

J: We certainly have less time to spend together. But not much changes in way of our relationship, simply that when we do see each other, we have more to talk about and feel the need to make that time count a little bit more. And frankly, I don’t feel as if I can have complete 100% emotional support if Nick isn’t there. It’s about balance; I don’t think one person should be your entire support structure.

N: No, as a matter of fact I think if anything it’s changed for the better, because when we’re in relationships we appreciate the others support more than ever. And we get more distance and sometimes that’s a good thing, because we’re prone to missing each other and that’s very lucky when you live and work with someone, isn’t it?

I’d call you both very comfortable with expressing emotions. Will you speak to the topic of crying?

J: Well, crying is damn good for you every once and a while. Obviously, because of societal norms, we both felt self-conscious about the fact that, say, if we went to see a powerful movie and it effected us, we would cry. But I think that freedom, and seeing that we both loved self-expression and storytelling to such a degree that we could allow ourselves to fully feel those emotions, made us closer friends anyway. And if you are friends with someone long enough, eventually you will go through a rough time, and it feels good to let it out. If you don’t feel that support, or feel judged, then something is being held back.

N: Sure, Jordan and I have cried around each other several times. I can’t count how many, but each has been treated as a something significant, and yet not out of place. We always treat it as something natural and easy but we also don’t gloss over it or ignore it. We’re completely comfortable crying around each other. Jordan was my main source of support when my dad passed away, and he saw me cry many times during that period.

A lot of close friends don’t do so well living together. What has that been like for you? How do you manage it?

J: It’s been great! I honestly cant see myself living with someone else in the immediate future. With anyone, there’s a learning curve when you live with them as to what their routines are, what they like to keep clean, how to manage your personal space and public spaces. It just happens that we have a lot of the same aesthetic so we both agree on how the spaces should be utilized. As long as you communicate, and in a way that is meant to be productive, then things usually go swimmingly. And now we’ve lived together, all told, for 5 years.

N: It has literally been a dream come true. I mean we used to day dream and talk about it all the time in New York, where we got to live together only very briefly and under haphazard circumstances, really. But here we’ve really got what we always wanted. A space that feels like home and has so many great memories of having fun and being productive. We’ve had the occasional point of contention regarding basic room mate stuff, but it’s very rare. We have a very hard time doing our own thing when we’re both home.  We always end up just doing whatever we’re doing together. It’s funny because at this very moment we are both at home and we are both in our own space doing our own thing, but we’re both doing the same thing because we’re both answering these questions. So even though this separateness seems like a rare exception, it isn’t because we’re still sort of doing it together. Anyway, we don’t get that tension from interrupting the other persons mojo or vibe, because we’re always wanting to do things together. We also have different work schedules which seems to work out in at least that aspect, we can rely on having the space to ourselves sometimes.

You do so many projects together. Your short videos, for instance, destroy me- they are so endearing. What makes it possible to work together?

J: Our minds are very much in the same places most of the time. We’ve talked so much about what interests us, what influenced us as kids, and what our artistic temperaments are like, that it’s very easy for us to talk on a topic or an idea and immediately see what the other person is talking about and where they’re coming from. But we don’t back down from each other’s critiques either. We don’t always agree artistically, but thats how you learn and get better. We are both sensitive to each other’s emotions, especially when working on a project, so sometimes, especially when it comes to me, I can get hyper-sensitive about something, but as long as we talk through it, it always gets resolved. And sometimes that means walking away from the idea for a while and then coming back at it with fresh ideas.

N: It doesn’t even seem possible. It seems absolutely inevitable. That’s just our dynamic— it’s very spontaneously creative. When we’re together we’re always on the verge of creating a little fantasy or a little story based on whatever’s nearest, like what’s on tv or what we’re talking about. We like building stories together and our brains sync up very easily so as soon as one of us has an idea the other is already building on it or going with it. There’s rarely the anticipation of waiting to see if the other person likes the idea. One of has an idea and immediately it’s our idea and we’re trying to rock it as best we can. If that freedom comes from anything in particular it is probably the lack of judgment between us. We can come up things so freely because there is absolutely no fear of judgment.

Do you ever get sick of each other?

J: Nope! I feel like there is always something that can be shared or talked about. Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t also crave time to myself. I need a sense of solitude once in a while, but that hasn’t anything to do with Nick. I’d just as much rather go do something fun with him if the opportunity arises.

N: We’ve gotten a little cabin fever before. And like i said before, we let tension get the best of us sometimes, but no i don’t think it would be accurate to say that we ever get sick of each other. We can drive each other a little bonkers sometimes, but that’s not the same as feeling like we are sick of each other. I’m not being satirical when I say this: I can’t imagine ever feeling like I’ve gotten too much Jordan. Maybe I need time to myself sometimes but we’ve never been in that place where we don’t want to be together and in a good mood.

What do you recommend for other men who want to have deeper intimacy in their male friendships? How do you suggest that men like you find each other?

J: I would have to say that you need find someone whom you can relate to. Similar interests, upbringings, aesthetics. Then you need to be able to open up to them and trust them. And get yourselves into situations where you have to rely on each other. And then talk about everything. No holds barred. Even then, sometimes it can be difficult to become close friends. But if you both want that kind of friendship, I can’t imagine why it couldn’t work. Just remember that you are both probably meant for great things, especially if you work together.

N: I think the first thing would be to remove negative reinforcement. It’s okay for friends to jeer at each other in a playful way if you both really know where you stand, and that you stand in a place of love and support, but the biggest hurdle I see is men being very judgmental towards each other, probably because they’re afraid of being judged, and it all gets hidden and poorly disguised as humor. But in my experience the best humor is the good humor that comes when you’re comfortable and feeling safe. I think men being too hard on each other and not being honest with each other about how they feel is part of a different kind of self-perpetuating cycle — where guys are preemptively judgmental or defensive because they really don’t want to be judged or maybe they have been and they didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. I think you really have to just do the thing from the old PSA— be the kid who makes saying no to drugs cool. You know how that kid makes saying no cool? He owns it. He’s not scared. He’s confident and that really is cool. I want guys to start talking about how they feel like it’s not even a big deal… It can be simple, it can be colloquial… just “man, we are awesome friends. cheers to that,” other guys start doing it, one day it’s totally cool to just talk about how you feel. And when you feel safe being honest maybe you start feeling safe in who you really are… and then maybe sarcasm starts to take a hike. I would really love that. I think sarcasm is really damaging when it’s not in a safe place, and I think it’s really great and really important to have that safe place be as rock solid and indefinite as a friendship.

Where can we cyberstalk you?

N: Well, all of our fun videos together are on our Vine and Instagram accounts. I’m on Vine as Nick Westbrook and Instagram as Jabbathemuttonchops; Jordan is on both Vine and Instagram as Huxglyph. I also have a website with my poetry at Tinythingsforyou.com, an. a channel on YouTube called Honey Butter Culinaire, which is a cooking show I shoot at home.

Because I was so moved by this interview and because answering my questions left Nick and Jordan with even more to say, we did a second interview together. So keep an eye out for my follow-up article, which will include further discussion of the implications of this epic friendship as well as tips for how to really get cracking on creating this for yourself.