What about men?

Shân Morgain

Did you know that boy babies are cuddled much less? Held closely less? Talked to less? Instead they are bounced about away from body contact and expected to perform in fun ways. Cute and separate.

Girl babies by contrast are held close, talked to in soft voices. They learn to talk faster, they learn to listen. In later life they do better in linguistic matters and social skills. Recent decades have seen female achievements outstrip men in law, business and many professions after feminism fed confidence.

Angry young men have real reason to be hurt and angry.

I saw a mother at a toddler group, ‘training’ her son. The little thing sat beside her, sniffling miserably: untouched. In a hard voice she said “I am not going to talk with you until you stop making that silly noise.” It took a while but he choked back his sniffles, manfully.

Trump masculinity is harmful for men, not just women. This is too little said. Toxic masculinity is poisonous to its carriers, men. They are trained from babies to be achingly lonely.

From lacking cuddles they go to amputating  emotions until most feelings have nowhere to go except a frantic, false sexuality. It funnels into the unhappy exhausted penis. It’s false sexuality, not about pleasure or conception. It’s about brief relief from the intense pressure of toxic masculinity.

John Rowan’s The Horned God was a pioneer, opening up masculinity studies. He describes two kinds of male orgasm. One fills the body and mind with joy and transcendence. The other is a genital gasp. Rowan calls it a “sneeze”. Its effect is so limited the sufferer almost immediately needs more. It fits well with porn.

Girl being a boy

As a teenage girl living independently, I chose a year living as a boy.

Not because I wanted at all to be a boy. I liked being a girl.

I was desperate to escape from constant groping, insults, coercion and assault. This was many years before the internet arrived so I was not bombarded with toxic masculine filth in that way like today’s girls.

I wore male clothes, enjoying Carnaby Street fashions, tailored shirts, embroidered ties. Using the new shared dressing rooms was fun. Removing my shirt caused a wave of shock in other users as BREASTS became evident. Giggle.

I went to a barber for a male haircut. He thought it a great joke. My Nan laughed with me as I strode beside her, carrying her shopping. Dear Nan.

I have always loved dancing. One night in Soho walking between clubs I saw a pretty person and we made eye contact. They followed me quietly into a cafe a few steps away. We sat down, exchanging shy smiles of courtship. But when I ordered coffee his face changed, “Omigod you’re a GIRL!!!!” Simultaneously I gasped “Omigod you’re a BOY!!!!”

We became great mates. We danced together a playful double act of delight both in black gear, androgynous. Some we met were unnerved by our opaque personas. Far in my future lay a culture shift about trans. I knew nothing of that and nor did he. We laughed a lot but really I knew little about him.

So what did I find was the major difference in being a boy? apart from blessedly losing the bruises on my body and mind from insults and assault? Well I had never known such dire loneliness. No one was interested in me. No one reached out to me. The choice it seemed was between being swamped by groping and insults and being naked lonely.

Coming out of a club a male stranger clearly felt uneasy about me. He socked me in the eye. On reflection I felt that my strategy was not, it seemed, providing me the safety I craved. So after one eye opening year I withdrew from masculine life.

Much later I pioneered a men’s group. Yes, led by a woman, they liked that (mama bear). At the start of the day, after one hour I was exhausted. There was no conversation, just each man jumping to centre, waving a flag.

I asked them to trust me to try  an experiment. Each time someone spoke they must end with a friendly question, and the next man must answer it. They gallantly obeyed though awkwardly. Conversation emerged. Connecting. They got better at it with practice, even said they liked it.

Living with a man

When I  eventually lived with a man I found two instructive experiences. One was when he as a Cymro/ Welshman, said he never felt safe living in London. I was gobsmacked. Clearly he actually felt safe, somewhere. (He’s a country boy from West Wales.) How I envied him.

Feminists have remarked that men are scared of women laughing at them but women are scared of men killing them.

In the searing feminist time of the 1970s I tried to research patterns of men killing women. How prevalent was it really? I was blocked because the Home Office advised me they did not have numbers grouped by gender, just killers and victims.

Today we recognise femicide, men killing almost three women a week (UK) mostly partners. The danger point, significantly, is when a woman tries to leave.

Domestic violence is at a peak when a woman is pregnant, at her most female.

Living with the violent gender takes courage and patience. My man suffered from terrible rages (verbally, never any physical threat). I became bewildered how to help us both. Patience, confrontation, joking, silence, my own rage back, nothing helped him (and me).

What we did have was a powerful mutual respect and communication (when he wasn’t in a rage). So in a quiet moment I asked him “When you explode like that, what is it you feel you need most from me?”

His answer was shockingly revealing. He said bravely “I just want you to cuddle me.”

Raw truth. The uncuddled, weeping boy child, his pain, and how it crashes on to us all.

Years later I wondered why male authors have difficulty writing female characters, why those ‘women’ seem so lacking. This wise partner of mine explained. “You women move through a landscape of signs, hints on what is happening. We don’t. We walk in a desert which suddenly, unexpectedly erupts. It makes it harder to cope.”

So exhausted by his rages I said “Dearest you need to pinpoint your personal signal. Something tiny you do or feel must herald your explosion. Drag it out and use it to take control.”

He did, and to this day I have not asked what it is. Changed breathing perhaps. I noticed he began rushing out the room. The rages became far fewer. It can be done.

Mother of a son

As the mother of our son I was frightened, I researched carefully how to do it differently. John Rowan above was a great help. Another was Angela Phillips’ Trouble with Boys.

How our children have too little access to living male models, so they turn to impossible superheroes on how to be men. The result is, inevitably, failure.

I pondered anthropology. In cultures where men must go away for long periods, hunting trips for days or weeks, driving long distance lorries, emigrating and sending money home, they are trained early into isolation. Boys are strictly separated from mothers at seven to painfully learn separateness, masculinity.

Doing the opposite I faced inevitable pressure – “He’ll be a mothers boy, a wimp.” But I kept him close in our everyday life, well cuddled, not even torn away into school. I watched his self confidence, my independent son, strong and sure. Ha ha.

I made soft comfy clothes for his superhero dolls, little knitted sweaters and jeans for off duty time. I sang him little songs about finding ‘his own way of being a man’. We brought up a big strong gentle person. It can be done. Men can be lovely.

When he was four he asked me in great frustration why a woman in a film he was watching kept screaming. I explained Hollywood stereotypes, scared helpless women are popular.

“No, no” my boy said, exasperated. “This is different. This woman is a mother.”

Hmm. Something was working well.

I’ll give this boy, now a giant adult and my carer, the last word. At six he went to an ‘after school’ play-group and met another boy in mutual affection. Departing, mine threw his arms around his new friend saying “I do love you!”

The other child stiffened, wordlessly white with shock. In the car I gently explained some masculine codes of behaviour.

Thoughtful silence. “So”, said my wise six years old son, “Men always have a double problem. There’s the new problem PLUS they can’t cry, talk about it, get help – so they always have double problems.”

They do oh my son, and we all have to live with the pain, unless we change it.

Cwtsh.

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Shân Morgain is more usually found explaining the genius of the Magnificent Mabinogi. She is a proudly adopted Cymraes living in Cymru for 35 years and it’s all his fault.