Men, you’re falling behind!
I think it’s fair to say that a lot of men want great sex and meaningful intimacy. We fantasise, we like to look at beautiful women, we want lovers. We also crave fulfilling, inspiring, supportive relationships.
I'm sorry to tell you this, men, but the kind of woman you want - someone who will really excite you, inspire you, challenge you and care for you - is fed up with men. She has transcended so many of the boring, immature men she meets. They can’t meet her on her level. We’ve fallen behind.
But a lot of men have realised this. If you’re bored of playing at someone else’s idea of what it is to be a man, if you want to delve into your masculine potential, and if you want to meet a truly inspiring partner, there are tools out there to help.
Men can be vibrant. Men can be confident, powerful, inspiring, charismatic, creative. Men can be deeply expressive. Men can harness their strong desires and yearnings and use them to energize their whole lives. Men can have purpose, meaning, direction, ambition. Men can be fantastic lovers and supportive partners.
But if we’re honest, how many men do we know that fit this description?
What’s the problem and where did it come from?
As men, we've inherited some very bad lessons. Each of us is ready to evolve into something really powerful, somebody confident, a man who’s a great leader, father, lover and partner. And if you want this, it can be useful to understand where all the bad messages came from and how we got into this situation...
For a while now, we’ve lived in a very narrow understanding of what men and women are supposed to be like. The system is called patriarchy, and it’s the social model we've all grown up in. Patriarchy is a game: a set of made-up rules and characters that we’re supposed to play. Social rewards like money, influence and personal security depend on how well we play the game - the better we are at pretending to be these made-up characters, the more successful we appear to be.
In the game, women are defined as docile, inferior, pretty, silly, emotional, weak sex-objects.
Men are supposed to be brutish, tough, superior, emotionless, lone wolves. They aren’t spiritual. They aren’t caring. They only dream of wealth and power - any other dream, any other behaviour or ambition, is crushed with shame, humiliation and exclusion. Men are supposed to be aggressive, domineering and controlling, but rarely actually violent - it’s a passive-aggression, the threat of physical or sexual violence.
The whole game is complete nonsense, of course. Most modern men feel distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of playing their role. But where women had to fight for their freedom, men aren’t directly oppressed under patriarchy, so we haven't bothered. The world has evolved around us and we’re left clinging to outdated ideas about who and what we’re supposed to be.
Patriarchy gave us unfulfilling, uncomfortable, unsatisfying answers to the questions about being a man, but at least it gave us answers. Without these simple routes to success and acceptance, men everywhere are floundering.
An obstinate group of game-players clings on. They have a lot invested in the game and they’re often old and powerful...so they run our governments and our media outlets. That’s why you don’t hear much about this crisis in masculinity. And some men still pretend that the old rules still work for them, that they still feel fulfilled by its shallow interpretation of how the world should be. Some women are still playing along too. But it’s all crumbling.
Many modern men are playing at being strong, thriving, vibrant adults.
But a lot of us are just confused, and we’re cut off from answers because we’re supposed to be totally independent, not needing help from anyone. If your father didn’t teach you that there is more to being a man, and if you feel unfulfilled, then it’s hard to find the answers you need.
We still crave intimacy, sexual ecstasy and satisfying relationships, but the kind of woman who’s going to give it to us wants things from us we don’t know how to give.
There’s a crisis in modern masculinity. and it’s time to start fixing it. A modern man can feel secure, powerful, fulfilled and meaningful again. It just takes the courage to take steps into new and unfamiliar worlds...
Have men always been shallow, emotionless, repressed, etc?
The patriarchy game isn’t that old, and it didn’t used to be so widespread. A lot of us have been taught that men have always been aggressive, territorial and in-charge. Cavemen used to rule with a club, and the biggest and most ruthless male was the leader. That’s nonsense as much as the game itself. There is loads of evidence that we men used to be stronger, wiser, more secure, less power-driven and (crucially) we had a much broader understanding of what manhood was all about.
In a lot of indigenous and non-western cultures, men are celebrated for being:
Deeply spiritual
Emotional, sensitive, vulnerable AND strong
Healers
Dancers
Warriors
How can you learn to recapture the depth of your masculinity?
The first step in becoming in escaping the disempowering rules of the patriarchy game is to listen to the impulses in your mind and heart that say “I don’t fit this mould!”. If you’ve found, at any time in your life, that you’ve been ridiculed or made to feel un-manly for an emotion, a desire, a way of expressing yourself or a lifestyle choice...then you owe it to yourself to stop playing along and start finding your own way to be a man. Real men, after all, aren’t conformists.
Men all over the world are standing up, refusing to have their spirits, creativity and growth crushed by the outdated ideas, and they’re writing and teaching the things they’re learning about deeper, fully man-hood. So there are a lot of good books out there to give you pointers in reclaiming your real, masculine power. Some of these are:
The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida
King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette
Iron John by Robert Bly
David Deida and the 3 stages of man
Deida’s book, The Way of the Superior Man, can awaken you to all sorts of ideas about love, sex, relationships, desire, potential, and finding and living your calling. It can be an inspiring, challenging book. If you’ve ever wanted to know what the elusive word “masculine” means or how to govern and harness the power of your deepest desires...this is the book for you.
There’s also a growing movement, partially inspired by Deida, that talks about three stages of men, as they’ve arisen over the past 60 years…
The first man
This is the 1950’s stereotype of a man. He is strong, independent, emotionless, hard-working. He’s the bread-winner. Masculinity is a rigidly defined thing. He controls and dominates his partner with violence and by having sole control of the household income. He’s personally stifled and frustrated, unable to express himself, but in a world where all men strive to be the same thing, he is at least respected.
His sex life is pretty boring.
The second man
As men began to evolve past this tired, stifling role (and want more intimate, meaningful relationships with their partners) we invented the “second man” in the 1980’s and 90’s. At the time it was more commonly known as the “new man”.
Men became very emotional. We wanted to stop oppressing our partners so we became sensitive listeners who wanted to meet their needs. We became more traditionally “feminine”. We cried, we expressed ourselves, we became preoccupied with doing the right thing, being fair. We got into self development and read John Gray and Eckhart Tolle.
We also became a bit needy, a little victim-like and so eager-to-please that we damaged the respect our partners had for us. By embracing the feminine so fully, we upset the delicate polarity between men and women, and a lot of the sexual tension and mutual desire was lost.
The third man
This is where the challenge lies now, for each of us.
The third man has integrated his masculine and feminine.He knows what he is here to do, he operates with excellence and integrity and he directs his energies along a single trajectory.In his strength and vitality, he lives to serve the world.He understands his sexuality and desires, and harnesses them to bring greater energy and power to bear in pursuit of his life goal.He is deeply intimate with his partner, but he doesn’t make her the centre of his world. Thus, there is always tension and passion, and the man and woman deeply respect one another.He has the freedom he wants AND the intimacy he craves.He is grateful to his partner for the vital contribution she brings to his world. He is whole alone, but he is a larger whole when in union with her.
What now?
There is an exciting journey waiting for each man, into the depths and limits of his strength and vitality, and into awareness of his unique gifts, wounds, potentials and vulnerabilities.
The knowledge is out there to take these steps, whenever we each feel that we need to, whenever the old stories of masculinity become stifling, frustrating or insufficient.
There are groups to support your journey.
There are books that can give you the tools and the building blocks to unlock a more fulfilling, more sensual, more real life.
And if personalised one-to-one support would be of value to you, I offer a coaching package specifically designed for men who want to dive deeper into this journey.
Good luck, men.
Do not be satisfied with someone else’s idea about who you should be.Take the bold steps.Be smart and learn from the masters - get the knowledge and understanding that’s already out there.Meet your partner and lover in a whole new way.Feel more alive, more useful...feel like you have a purpose.