Of Boys and Men

"Around the world, boys endure strange and humiliating rites of passage before coming men.. like wearing skinny jeans."

Again, I think Docker's is on to something here on their 'Second Dawn of Men' marketing program. But as I flip through some of the articles in this month's GQ, I notice one that states the 'Is this the End of Male Vanity?', it seems that there is a movement back to the Natural Man (or whatever).

At least it feels like an undercurrent, a subtle movement that man is more than vanity and paper thin shells. There are those who are merely swimming on the surface and those who's waters run deeper. Common sense can easily identify people in the extremes of these two groups: one waxes his eyebrows and gets botox at 21 and the other, well... doesn't.

The fact that this cultural shift occurred around the same time as the Great Recession is not merely coincidental, it may acutally be causal. Men have this interesting connection with the control of resources and through the evolution of various currencies in our history, credit became the soup-du-jour of this past decade. While it was flowing like milk and honey, the vanity factor increased exponentially because we could 'afford' it. Everyone went metro, got spray-on tans and paid (read: borrowed) $120 for ugly t-shirts.

While some ignorant few are still playing the arrogant bit (sidenote, I think it's interesting how closely both of those words are in terms of spelling and meaning). There is clearly an underlying difference between those who still cling to their chunky watches and waxed eyebrows and those who have accepted reality, took a long enough look in the mirror until they understood what they really saw and moved on.

The difference, you ask? Initiation.

Initiation is a wonderful and terrible thing because it separates the men from the boys. It's wonderful (to most) because it ensures that those who come out the other end are really capable of handling great responsibilities while equally (and terribly, to some) ensuring that those who lack the ability to be counted on for anything, simply aren't.

In other cultures, a male is not considered a man until he kills a lion. Then he is able to have the honor of being bestowed the responsibilities of marrying and procreating.

Personally, I think about that and wondering how many idiots had never been born if we had that ritual in our society.

Initiation now, as the Docker's advertisement referenced mentions, is mostly passive. Many men now must seek it or at least be acutely aware that it's happening. The Great Recession has been a wonderful initiation. It's the Darwinist cleansing that capitalism so greatly relies on to expose who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.

A man who has been initiated is one that is comfortable in his own skin. He doesn't need to be a poser with designer threads, chunky watches, massive lines of credit, and German cars that he can't afford. He doesn't need to flood his body with supplements and spend all his time being a big fish in a little pond at some gym. He doesn't need to pretend that he's an MMA fighter and look for fights wherever he goes. He needs to be himself and not anyone else. There are enough guys trying to be what the world tells them they should be and they aren't man enough to say no. Being a genuine individual that is conscientious of others and his relationship to them is, in part, being a real man. A real man realizes that he's one of a kind and let's the world deal with the weight of his presence.

Want to know whether or not you are comfortable in your own skin? Here's your challenge: go to a mirror, stand about 3 feet away and look yourself in the eyes for as long as you can. If you feel noticeably uncomfortable or can't hold the gaze for at least a minute, you may have some soul work that you need to do. As always I appreciate your comments and next time I'll be going a little more into the details of initiation.

Death of a Gentleman.

We are a nation of playboys.



I muttered these words to myself as I flipped through the first few pages of this month's GQ magazine. These fashion advertisements portray what these designers think the average American male should aspire to: overly-tanned, self-centered objects of sexually-ambiguous excess. I am in no way homophobic, I have a lot of good friends that are homosexual. But this blitzkrieg of pomp and arrogance succeeds in giving me a model on how to perfectly execute a meticulously-dressed shell. But what about the core?

Then comes one of the most profound advertisements I've seen in recent memory:

Once upon a time, men wore the pants.
And wore them well.
Women rarely had to open doors and little old ladies never crossed the street alone.
Men took charge because that's what they did.
But somewhere along the way, the world decided it no longer needed men.
Disco by disco, latte by foamy non-fat latte, men were stripped of their khakis and left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny.
But today, there are questions our genderless society has no answers for.
The world sits idly by as cities crumble, children misbehave and those little old ladies remain on one side of the street.
For the first time since bad guys, we need heroes.
We need grown-ups.
We need men to put down the plastic fork, step away from the salad bar, and untie the world from the tracks of complacency.
It's time to get your hands dirty.
It's time to answer the call of manhood.
It's time to WEAR THE PANTS.

Thank you Docker's. You read my mind.

I recently sat in a group (I was the only male there), and it was a generalized complaint that there were no more gentlemen left. That there was no formality in dating, no courting, just a bunch of guys asking to hang out- hopefully thinking that it will eventually lead to sex. No leadership, nothing to offer, everything to take. All these women came from different backgrounds, they have different perspectives on their roles as women, but the simple aggreance was that they wished for more men to act like men.

Guys: Be a Man. Take charge. Don't be a flaky cop out. Live your life as if it existed before FICO scores, when your signature and your handshake was the only thing that mattered. Open doors for women, take your hats off inside, wear pants that fit, and wear them around your waist with a belt. Have some manners. And do it, not for sex or for "points" as I see so many marriages based on, but for the simple fact that you earn the right to upgrade from "Male" to "Man".

Women: Be a Lady. Let us be men. Shoot hard-lined feminists on site, for that's what they did to gentlemanship. They forgot that there is a difference between heroes and bad guys, thus producing a genderless society where no one wins. Women have more opportunities, but less pay (sadly) and men don't know which actions build him as a man and which ones he will be ridiculed for as a shovenist. Guide the protocol by reciprocating acts of Gentlemanship with acts of lady-like behavior. If you text during dinner on a first date and talk about all the "best guy friends" that you "love to death", don't let it be a surprise when we drop you off at the end of the night and don't call again.

I aspire to be a Man. I want to court a Lady. I want to be a part of a society in which there are basic manners that everybody knows and respects. Being civilized is not a function of enlightenment where you are the most amiable and adaptable man in the room, someone who has no presence. Being civilized is being courteous and having manners but knowing that sometimes you need to draw a line in the sand and stand for what you believe in in a way that is firm but respectful.

There are times to show courtesy and respect and there are times to stand and deliver when that respect has been violated. The more that the latter is emasculated, the quicker Gentlemen become extinct. Because manners and courtesy are derived from unshakeable masculine strength. That strength is only realized and defined when it is put to use. If you stop telling us to put it to use, then all you end up with are a bunch of soft "nice guys."

Gentlemen: It's time to be Men. For the sake of being Men.