Quite possibly the manliest motherfucker in history.
Yeah. I know. I haven't posted in a while. Well, between the commercials, and the photo shoots, and the suiting up in armor and riding horses for a living (saving that for my next post), and the awesome daughter, and the girlfriend (also very awesome), I haven't had just a shit-ton of time to sit down and collect my thoughts in words. But last night I remembered an article I'd submitted to The Mid (an online magazine that sometimes buys my words, and pays me with actual money), that they rejected, on account of it didn't exactly gel with their whole "we're-all-about-middle-agers-but-mostly-female-and-mostly-feminist-and-also-men-shouldn't-be-too-manly" vibe. And then I remembered that I have a space where I literally do not have to give a fuck about what anybody thinks of me, or my words, or how I use them.
So I'm reprinting that piece, unedited, here. You don't have to agree with everything (or anything) I'm saying. But I promise you: if you have a man in your life old enough to be introspective, he is thinking about this shit:
Teaching My Daughter How To
Be A Man
By
Larry Brantley
Alright.
Calm the fuck down. The title was provocative on purpose; I’m not actually teaching my 12-year-old
daughter how to be a man. She is as girlie as a girl can be, and that’s her
choice, and I’m all for it. But this morning I got to thinking about the very
broad subject of manhood, and what it
means to be a man, and in particular what it means to be a man in the 21st
century.
I
did a Google search that went like this: How
do I teach my daughter about being a man? The results were edifying – and
aggravating – for two reasons: 1) of the top ten results, seven of them were
fucking lists, the form of writing
that has become so very popular in digital media, because it’s easily
digestible, and implies you can learn every damn thing you need to on any given
subject in just a few numbers (full
disclosure; I recently wrote a piece for The Mid that had the Ten Commandments
To Not Being A Douchebag listed in it. Hello, pot. It’s me, kettle.); and
2) of the top ten results, nine of
them were written by women.
All
of these results had the same basic theme: this
is what you need to teach your daughter in life. Very little of it had
anything to do with boys or men, except for things like Don’t ever let any man convince you he has power over you. (Couldn’t
you just as easily say the same thing about any woman?) Other “lessons” were
along the lines of empowerment, self-sufficiency, speaking her mind, etc. But
what was missing from all of these articles – every one of them – was any
counsel on how to teach my daughter about how fucking confusing it can be to be a man in the 21st century, and
how the very concept of manhood has been upended, and pilloried, and denounced
as outdated, and sexist, and wrong.
And no, that’s not everybody’s view
of manhood, but if you disagree with me, then you live on a parallel earth
where things are way goddam better, and you should stay there.
We
live in the most resource-rich culture in the world. Our society is more
gender-equal than at any time in human history. (I'm not saying we're finished with that fight; but do you really want to tell me that shit was better in Susan B. Anthony's day?) These are awesome things, and
it’s a good idea to occasionally remind ourselves that one of the really big
reasons we got to this point is that, way back in our collective story, there
was a time when we didn’t have enough
resources, and there were dangers on all sides, from the ravages of nature, to
wild beasts, to other tribes who wanted to take our shit and kill us off. And
it fell almost exclusively to the men to protect and provide: we evolved
expressly to handle those kinds of things. Plus, we were expendable; we couldn’t (and still can’t) make babies, so we would
cheerfully die in order that the life-givers could survive and procreate, and
carry on the tribe. There was a time in our collective story – not too far
gone, if you really think about it – when a man had to be good at being a man. The lives of his family and
his people literally depended on it.
We
live in a different age now. The Huns are no longer at the gates. Hunting and
foraging are conducted in air-conditioned, well-lit buildings, with Kenny G
playing softly in the background. The danger and dire need has passed, and now
we hear a new message: you no longer need
to be good at being a man; now you need to be a good man. And I will tell you honestly that we are struggling –
mightily – to figure out just what the hell that means. For my part, I’m still working it out. I’ve certainly
become more empathetic. I’m a better communicator than any previous man in my
family line. I’m a good listener, and I understand the concept of emotional
needs, and how to meet them in a society that now has the luxury of
self-actualization, as opposed to self-preservation. But I’ve never gotten in
touch with my “feminine side,” and for a very simple reason: I don’t fucking have a feminine side. I’m a
man.
The
other night my girlfriend said something to me that, for all of our
gender-equality and self-actualization and modernity, blew me away in its
honesty. This is a woman who is a vice president at a very up-and-coming
company. She is capable, confident, and highly successful. Talk with her five
minutes and you know she has her shit together. But as I held her on the sofa
while we were watching TV, she said, simply, “I feel safe when I’m with you.”
The
subject of masculinity can’t be condensed to a list. Boo and I are going to
have very long, thoughtful, and fraught discussions in the coming years. But I
think I’ve found a good starting point – a question I can pose of any future
suitor, who would win my daughter’s heart away from me:
Does he make you feel safe?
