I have waited for this moment. From the time I determined that I was going to write about this, I have lived with feelings of dread and excitement. That is how I know that I am about to be taken on an adventurous ride through the looking glass. I will go, but I will keep my fingers crossed. This journey promises to be wild, bumpy, and more than just a little irreverent.
I am a man. I like having a penis, usually, but now, and for a long time, I am angry and hurting about the state of male sexuality. I am angry enough that my feelings will probably leak (is that a bad metaphor to use here?) out throughout this missive. I am also hurting in a way almost no one knows about, or could guess. That is the real reason I’m writing about this aspect of being male. I could have taken these feelings to my grave, but I have a sense that others are hurting about this, and these feelings are so buried away, so taboo, that people, men and women, may not even know this pain hurts them too.
I haven’t really wanted to notice these feelings. I try hard to ignore the hurt. I’ve talked about this to only a few people. I don’t think anyone gets it. I certainly didn’t think I would ever write about this. But, here I am, going where this awareness take me, believing that air, consciousness, compassion, and caring will help redeem something that has lived in the darkness too long. Please bear, forgivingly, with me.
I’ve been angry and hurting about the fact that I have seen no positive images (not even in the gay world) of male desire. When was the last time (if ever) you saw an erect penis portrayed as a positive, loving, connective, creative source of divine inspiration? The answer is probably never. And, that has an impact upon me. One, I have ignored too long.
I am aware of the Hindu frescoes that show a loving Krishna with an erection. Thank God! At some point in history male sexuality was seen as a spiritual expression, but not so today. And, what a price I (we) have paid! As a man, I can’t think how many times I felt that what was arising within me was the worst (although it also felt good) sort of thing. Having an erection may seem simple (certainly it is portrayed that way) but it is a complex emotional experience. I am deathly tired of masking my vulnerability, hiding shame and being the butt of myriads of degrading jokes. Socially, culturally, the absence of any sign of kindness related to male sexuality is painful to me.
Male sexuality, especially erect penises, are shown as powerful, but more tellingly, as animalistic, unconscious and rapacious machines disconnected from hearts. How sad, untrue, and indicative of the worst kind of de-humanizing reductionism! Growing up as a man, I lived with, and was treated as, something alien, laughable, and unwholesome. And regrettably, excruciatingly, I believed it, even played the part, and hid out.
Being male has always been confusing, even (maybe especially) when enjoying the privilege of maleness, because there are very few positive images of maleness. Being male sexually is supposed to be the most privileged of positions, but sadly, it also seems to be the most hated, and the most misunderstood. And, there is nowhere to look for a positive image of male sexuality. Does anyone know, or care, what the effect of that is upon the male heart, women, children, the world and our relationship with the Great Mystery?
I am beside myself with grief, fear, sadness and anger about this. I am mad at women, at the terrible things they allow themselves to say about men, who are admittedly sometimes clueless. I am mad at the way women wouldn’t be silent if another women was being degraded in their presence, but will join in when it is a man. I know there is more, the way women think they are better than men, but I am also angry with men.
Pornography doesn’t just reduce women to exploitable sex objects, it reduces male sexuality to the crudeness of disembodied and pathetic penile machines, and exploits the loneliness in men’s bodies. And men pay for their own degradation! Men play like dumb, bumbling, aggressive animals, and forget their own humanity all the time. This isn’t heroic, no more than being cannon fodder is, if a man must go down with the ship, at least do it lovingly!
Sometimes, when I am particularly aware of being a male, I feel despair. The absence of a positive image of a loving man, happy in his body, alive with desire, sensitive to the Universe, haunts me. I think that something important is being left out. Is the light so one-sided, so blind? I don’t think so, our short-sightedness, and on-going prejudice, hurts.
I know women have a lot of pain too. I know men have been the cause of most of it. Still, someone has got to give voice to male pain and exhort everyone to look upriver at how we keep hurting each other. I pray that Rumi is right, that “the cure for the pain, is in the pain.”
l/d
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