MAN-MAKING BLOG: September 2015

September 28, 2015

Boys, Boobs, and Saying "Yes!"

NOTE: I'll be traveling in Spain for the month of September. Here is a popular (and timely) post from the archive.

I still remember my first touch of a naked female breast. It was in the back row of a dark movie theatre when I was maybe twelve. I was on an early adolescent date of sorts and I didn't really have a clue about what I was doing. I remember it took all the courage I had to make my way through a long run up of incremental steps to get to the object of my desire . . . that breast. I was with a girl just a little older than me who somehow managed to pretend none of it was happening, didn't say "no," and seemed to like the attention.

The breast, . . . was indeed
wonderful and otherworldly for me . . .

The breast, while it was indeed wonderful and otherworldly for me, was really just another player in the drama. I was already being propelled by my young male biology and in the grip of an ancient gender dance. Up to that moment in my life, I had NO actual experience with breasts or any other element of female anatomy. I also had no real understanding of what was going on in my body. In short, I didn’t know what I was doing or even why I was so magnetized by those breasts. I was simply operating on pure male instinct and loving it.

In my young male world at that time, there were early rumblings about girls' body parts, "scoring," and things vaguely sexual. Those ideas were mostly joked about in my young boy pack. The fact the guys a little older than us were very focused on girls wasn't lost on us, but no one in our age group really had a clue why. We knew something was going on but it was all a vague and exciting mystery.

The internet has changed everything. Today, kids with even a little sexual curiosity can go online and find all the information on the topic they can handle. An unsupervised adolescent male today can easily find enough information to become an amateur gynecologist. The good and the very bad information is all easily available. Because of how much questionable and blatantly bad information about sexuality is out there, adult guidance is even more important now than ever.

Sadly, too many parents are not having "the talk" with their kids . . . in time. A recent survey of parents and their 13 to 17 year-old kids published in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics (as reported in U.S. News and World Report), speaks directly to the need for an ongoing conversation about sexuality with kids. In the Talking Parent, Healthy Teens survey, just some of what they discovered included:

Almost half of teens had intercourse before their parents got around to talking with them about sexually transmitted diseases and birth control.
More than half of the teenagers had engaged in genital touching before discussing birth control effectiveness, resisting pressure for sex, and the importance of condom use with their parents.
Girls were more likely than boys to have had talks with parents about sex.

We all know someone has to talk with our young guys about these issues. Mark Schuster is one of the authors of the Talking Parents, Healthy Teens survey and is a co-author of a helpful book titled, Everything You Never Wanted Your Kids to Know About Sex (but Were Afraid They'd Ask). It's perfect for parents trying to gear up for having "the talk" with their kids. If you're a parent of a young male, read a book, if necessary, and start the conversation with your young man. There is just too much at risk to pretend our young guys aren't going to be sexual.

When considering these conversations with young males, the questions of how to talk about sex, when to bring up the topic, who should be having the conversations, and what the content about sexuality should include, combine to create an extremity complicated matter. These questions are beyond the scope of this post, but I do feel those of us working with young males should be talking among ourselves and with the parents of young guys about how to raise the topic.

That all said, there may be a conversation parents and those of us working with the young dudes can have right now.

The California legislature has passed a bill that clarifies what it means to have consensual sexual activity. “Activity" means not just the act of intercourse, but all the steps that lead up to two people getting it on. Here is a lot of information on that legal initiative.

This legislation begins to move the discussion out of the realm of someone having to say “no” and instead now requires both parties to say "yes," and keep saying yes as things progress! That means, "continuous, affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement by each party to engage in sexual activity.” Now that kind of agreement would have made my approach of a long run of incremental steps to get to the object of my desire, unacceptable. I’m thinking that would also be true of a lot of the strategies used by young guys these days.

. . . our young guys will need to know
how to have a
sexually intimate and very personal conversation.

Adolescent male sex impulses can be a lot like a snowball rolling downhill, gaining mass and momentum along the way. Given that fact, it’s going to take considerable guidance to make sure our young guys and women are safe in this new day of positive consent. In addition to managing powerful personal biological drives, our young guys will need to know how to have a sexually intimate and very personal conversation. We can and do need to teach them how to do that.

In our school-based and other circles with young men, personal truths are often spoken. When trust has been formed, there is a level of personal honesty, emotion, and real vulnerability that is often shared. The challenge will be to get young guys to bring this form of intimate exchange into their relationships with women . . . and to do so in the heat of a sexual moment.

There is plenty of grey area remaining between the California law’s legal consent requirements and the reality of human sexuality. But requiring a series of yes's along the way is a good start. Laws regarding consent won't stop someone intent on dominance, manipulating a partner, or committing sexual assault. Just having this issue in the public view can be a good reason to bring up the topic with our young men.

If all the barriers to having these intimate conversations can be overcome, discussions about having a healthy, mutually respectful, and positive relationship with a sexual (or any) partner can be launched with our young men. I say "Yes" to that!

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September 18, 2015

4 Reasons Young Men Hear The Call To Jihad

NOTE: I'll be traveling in Spain for the month of September. In the meantime, here is a popular post from the archive.

There is a lot of talk in the news today about how young men are being "radicalized" by religious extremists and being seduced into going off to fight wars in foreign lands. It's a sad story to be sure, but it's a very powerful call for young men.

The call to Jihad, at its core, is really the same call young guys hear to join street gangs, to join our military, or even to be on a school sports team. These organizations put out a call to action that matches up perfectly with the psychology and physiology of our adolescent males. What our young guys hear is a call to be a warrior. The surprising thing for me is not that some young men are answering that call, but that even more young men aren't responding to that message.

If we want to prevent our young men from being lost in tragic ways to the warrior call, we have to learn a little about the adolescent male experience, and then come up with alternative activities that really speak to them. Here's a four-item, short course in what I've learned about why our young men are vulnerable to extremist messages or any call to become a warrior.

. . . why our young men are vulnerable
to extremist messages
or any call to become a warrior.

1. The Biological Imperative: From adolescence to around the mid-twenties, young males are biologically vulnerable in at least two ways that set them up for a warrior call to action.

They are experiencing something like seven to ten surges of testosterone a day. Testosterone has been referred to as an aggression hormone, and it causes young males to feel powerful as their muscles are getting stronger and their sexuality is emerging. Testosterone drives a combative nature and hungers for physical activity, testing through competition and physical challenges, to demonstrate skills and prowess. You can see all this working on neighborhood basketball courts or skateboard parks.

The second biological issue is a young male's well researched and poorly wired prefrontal cortex. Simply stated, it's the part of the brain that helps them to think through the consequences of their choices. Sadly, up until the mid-twenties (and possibly beyond), this part of the brain is still under construction and is marginally functional.

If you take this biological picture as a whole, you come up with a very restless young guy, who is feeling powerful beyond reason, who is naturally combative, ready for action, and who isn't thinking clearly about his choices. This combination makes the perfect young warrior.

2. Tribal Nature: Simply stated, guys need a tribe. Men have operated in packs for eons. Look at the fans in any sports stadium. You'll find mostly men, wearing similar colors, and cheering on "their" team. This sense of belonging, membership, and being part of a pack, is very masculine behavior. For the young guys, being part of a tribe, having an identity as a member, is pretty important.

Males also like hierarchies, think of a military or bureaucratic structure. In a hierarchy, the pecking order is clear and a guy's place in the order of things is laid out. Beyond just belonging in a pack, you know your place in the masculine order of things.

Being in a male tribe gives a young man access to the book on manhood. A tribe gives a young man a smorgasbord of men he can look up to for guidance. He's surrounded by masculine role models and men who may teach him important life skills. There may even be a path of testing or ordeals necessary to achieve full membership and acceptance into the group. This is a perfect match with a young man's need for challenges and proving his worthiness.

Tribe = the book on manhood!

Getting blessings from older men and ultimately acceptance into the adult male club, getting a place around the fire, or honored status in the pack, is a big hunger in young men. A Jihadist group, street gang, or football team all meet the young guy hunger for a tribe.

3. Honor, Respect and Contribution: What our young males want is to be seen (at all) and then respected for who they are and for their unique gifts. They want to stand for something, and if it's a good or noble thing all the better. And though you might find it odd, young guys want to contribute, to make a difference, to be in service. After a community service project, I've see young men smile and stand straighter in the sunshine of gratitude expressed by the food shelf staff, habitat house owner, or elder food delivery service.

They want to stand for something. . .

What too many young guys get in our communities today is pressure for invisibility and often no young guy park or guy place to hang out. Their graffiti "art" is criminalized and over-painted as soon as possible. Their appearance is ridiculed and their music often disrespected. They slink around in alleys, the woods, or at the mall trying not to attract negative attention. So if someone offers them honor, respect, and an opportunity to contribute to an important cause, why wouldn't they say "yes."

4. Hope: Too many young men simply don't see any kind of a desirable future. There is little hope for good work, advanced education, or any legal economic success. Without those things, the idea of being a family man, father, provider, husband, are all just distant concepts for other people. So many young men have been fatherless or under-male parented and don't have good role models for any life but the street. Living with chronic hopelessness as the background to your life is sad business and makes angry and resentful young men. If someone shows them a quick path out of that place, and offers some hope of reclaiming self-respect with a few goodies attached, why wouldn't a lost young man choose that path?

There are lots more reasons many of our young men are vulnerable to the call to become a warrior. Whether or not they make good choices is really up to us. What is clear is that our young men need our support, intentional guidance, positive community, and especially good men around them.

When it comes to Jihad, like Ebola, we don't have to wait till the epidemic of under-male-nourished boys is at our door and starts taking even more of our young men from us. We can start acting now. It's not really that hard to do, we just have to be willing.

If you want to talk about what you, your group, or your community can do four young men, give me a shout and let's talk about what we can create. The young guys are waiting and the time is now!

Follow @earlh

September 11, 2015

Farting, Fellowship, and Forgiveness

NOTE: I'll be traveling in Spain for the month of September. Here is a popular post from the archive.

Let's just start with the forgiveness. For those of you easily offended, please forgive me. In my world, this topic just seems to float by every so often. After all, this is a blog about men and boys, and while it's awkward to admit, occasionally taking pleasure in, or laughing at, the passing gas seems to be embedded in the male DNA. So this post is about using information about flatulence to connect with boys . . . OK, males.

Women have a more dignified relationship with this part of the human experience, and are most often offended by any attention focused on the passing of gas. Males however, especially the young dudes, clearly have a more celebratory relationship with this bodily function.

This time the topic was brought to my attention by a mom who had been transporting a car full of young guys, when one of them passed some Serious Gas. Of course, this sent the other guys into fits of laughter, and vain attempts of the boys to match the original “call.” The mom said it was just gross and the last straw. She was offended, really was frustrated, tired of the joke, and just didn't get it. Not all moms feel that way, however.

On The Stir is a blog especially for moms. A recent edition had an article about a young boy who was actually given detention for farting on a school bus and causing a major ruckus. The mom in the article did express some boy-literacy when she said, You know, I don't like anyone smelling up an enclosed space any more than the next gal, but farting is practically an art form for a pre-teen boy. She also allowed that the young man, in his gaseous statement, had . . . just bought himself a one-way ticket to popularity-ville. At least until he starts getting really interested in what the girls think.

I have a theory about male farting. Perhaps we can attribute the joy our young guys (males) take in creative flatulence to our cave dwelling ancestors? Think about it. These guys, prior to football on TV, would spend a lot of time just sitting around the fire with not much to do or say. I can imagine them relaxing after chowing down on a big meal of mastodon, or kangaroo, or venison, and being a little groggy with the digestive process. With nothing else to do and zero social constraints, I'm sure the passing of gas was a major source of entertainment. Because they were guys, I’m also pretty sure competition would eventually commence. From my experience with men, and as a man, I just know this did happen down through time and all around the world. Ancient history there.

When farting is outlawed, only outlaws will fart!

I liked another explanation of why boys fart from a blog actually dedicated to that particular art form. The author of Farting for Boys, I suspect a young male, responded to the question, Why do boys like farting? He said, Because it's gross, unkempt, from the body, and discouraged by society. When farting is outlawed, only outlaws fart, and boys like to be outlaws. If enjoying "dumb humor" is criticized, boys would rather be dumb. The more it's hated by others, the funnier it is to do, and the more they enjoy doing it. If you visit Farting for Boys - (UPDATE! Since the publication of this post, the Farting for Boys blog has been taken down by Blogger. In doing so they obliterated another creative, but boyish expression of the truth.

When I describe the draft of this post to a couple of my men friends, the response was a smile, an “of course,” and encouragement to let it fly. Having also been through the gaseous part of boyhood and adolescence, they nostalgically remembered the strange form of fragrant bonding that comes from that particular form of male “sharing.” The simultaneously occurring feelings are disgust, compassion, humor, jealousy, and occasionally awe, that unites males in a pack. If you want to endear yourself to a group of young guys, tell a fart joke, or better yet, offer them the real thing. You'll endear yourself to them forever.

If you really want to impress the young dudes (and some of your men friends), here are some fun facts about farting from OnlineEducation.net:

The average person will fart 14 times per day and produce a half liter of fart gas. These farts can travel as fast as 7 mph and due to their composition (largely methane), are quite flammable. The top ten farting animals from most to less, are as follows: Termites, Camels, Zebras, Sheep, Cows, Elephants, Labradors - Retrievers, Humans (Vegetarians), Humans (non-Vegetarians), and Gerbils. And finally, did you know even dead people can still fart?

I’m resisting putting a “fart button” on this post because I really do have my limits. But I am including the edgy video below which I guarantee will bring peals of laughter from any group of adolescent males . . . and a fair number of men. Like I said, it’s in our DNA. If you’re not a fan of flatulence, don’t watch.

If the video doesn't show up, use this link

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September 2, 2015

Guys - Check Your Balls!

NOTE: I'll be traveling in Spain for the month of September. Here is a timely and popular post from the archive.

Among other places, this poster appeared in the women's toilet in a Hobart (Tasmania) pub. Do you think this is this going too far?

Click to Enlarge Poster

We seem to live in a very pink world these days, where so much (important) attention is given to women's breast cancer awareness. Yet it seems odd to me that a poster using the word "balls" and suggesting men (and their partners) should be checking them, might be seen as more than a little provocative. Given the data on testicular and other cancers for men, maybe not!

. . . men are 33% more likely
to be diagnosed
with cancer
than women. . .

One in 268 men will be diagnosed with cancer of the testes during their lifetime. While we often think of this as an older man's disease, while rare, it's the most common cancer in males between 15 and 45. It peaks in males in their mid-twenties. Other cancers causing death in guys include lung, prostate, bowel, and melanoma. As the poster states, men are 33% more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than women, and 30% more men will die of the disease than women! Given these numbers, it seems to me we should have more loud and bold approaches to men's balls and this aspect of men's health directed at both teem males and men.

Blue September (blueseptember.org) is a global awareness and fundraising initiative for all men’s cancers. Blue was chosen as a men's color as pink is the preferred color for women's breast cancer awareness. Since starting in New Zealand, the Blue September movement has migrated to Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. The Blue September blokes in Australia, who created the poster, are supporting Australian Prostate Cancer Research and The Australian Cancer Research Foundation. They say each year, more than 22,000* Australian men die of cancer. For the record, the number for annual male deaths in the US is 33,000.

GO NUTS! Just one of many campaigns across the globe included a Blue September event in the US, prior to the Oakland Raiders/Pittsburgh Steelers game, September 23, 2012. It turns out research says walnuts can improve prostate heath. In order to raise awareness about testicular and other cancers for men, prior to the game, fans were given a package of California walnuts, blue wrist bands, and health information. The jumbo screens also showed a pre-game video on the topic. What a great way to bring this topic to a male audience.

Are you willing to help get the word out to young men and adult males? It would be a sad thing to lose a guy at any age to testicular cancer just because we can't comfortably talk about gonads, nads, nuts, testicles, rocks, bollocks, sack nuggets, groin, the acorns, cracker jacks, stones, kerbangers, marbles, the yam bag, your junk, tenders, cullions, the dangly bits, pelotas, nutsack, doo-dahs, bollocks, huevos, kiwis, clappers, family jewels, cojones, the package, knackers, cods, love spuds, and yes, balls.

Here are some links to great videos and information on Blue September, testicular cancer, and Testicular Self-Exam (TSE) for men and young males:

A clip of Ireland's Munster Rugby Team getting painted blue for the cause.

A really great website, checkemlads.com, is run by men who are cancer survivors. You'll hear them tell moving personal stories, see a very informative video clip, and get some TSE instruction from straight talking men.

A great teen health website, kidshealth.org, with some very straight forward instructions on how to do Testicular Self-Exam (TSE).

Follow @earlh