A recent video response to an anonymous correspondent regarding emotional trauma from assault, from rape, on male guilt, white knighting, and female adulthood.
Here are some relevant links I mentioned as “in the low bar”:
Male victims of female violence
http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/female-sex-offenders/50b3e38002a76052c60000c8
The way society infantalizes women and demonizes men in sexual assault:
http://www.genderratic.com/p/836/manufacturing-female-victimhood-and-marginalizing-vulnerable-men/
Men more likely to be victims than people are aware (these stats are for Canada but for USA and other countries it’s very similar, and this does not even count the fact that men are less likely to report to authorities than women are):
http://www.victimsweek.gc.ca/res/r512.html
“My Path To Recovery From Sexual Assault” by my friend Girl Writes What
http://owningyourshit.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-path-to-recovery-from-sexual-assault.html
The radio show (because it was mentioned by my correspondent):
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLADBYaQWbQhegRubzO65NKLa3-mXZhmlJ
150 Posts in Total
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strix:
re-construct:
elicleveland:
Murray Pearson:
Shrek6:
iimnotmrabut:
Hey Dean. There’s a couple of documents I’d like to send to you, one of which I can’t put in a public space. How can I do this?
I’ll shoot you an email.
I emailed you but got this error:
“Hi. This is the qmail-send program at ******************.**.**
I’m afraid I wasn’t able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I’ve given up. Sorry it didn’t work out.
user is over quota
Find me on Skype as deanesmay (no spaces, no dots, no dashes, just “desmay” that is fastest) or get me a working email address.
Now that’s odd.
Try this…
gwallan777 at yahoo.com.au
My apologies.
Very well stated Dean…I can’t think of a better person to address the sensitivity of male empathy your correspondent represents in his experiences. I think of male empathy as a place between heart beats where we are alone and wonder how to express the next beat.
There is a tone of shame in the letter almost obligatory in nature a shame that restrains personal injury and prioritizes the pain of another. Uniquely male in nature that men heal in a fellowship much like the exchange described with his father. A thoughtful presentation thank you both.
The expectation that males will react to and process grief, sadness, and other forms of emotional pain the same way women will, and that it’s not “authentic” if it’s othwerwise, is a common cultural poison.
He wrote me back a very moving letter thanking me. I’ll keep that private.
“The expectation that males will react to and process grief, sadness, and other forms of emotional pain the same way women will, and that it’s not “authentic” if it’s othwerwise, is a common cultural poison.”
Very well said Dean. Males have some unique ways of expressing and processing emotional issues that females do not. Unfortunately, women and the entire ‘helping’ profession try and shame men into renouncing thier unique methods and to adopt instead typical female’s approaches as “better”.
To give but one example, males like to physically act in order to not only express emotional issues, but to process them as well. Males often prefer this method over talking out thier feelings. For example he may express love by giving flowers or via physical affection or sex, or express his anger by walking away or lifting weights, or express joy by climbing a tree. If he is anxious he might go for a slow walk in the park or listen to relaxing music, and if he’s melancholic he might go see a move with a freind. All these methods work brilliantly if only the “helping” professions started honouring them instead of shaming men into believing that action is “primitive” and “non communicative” – that in place of these men should supposedly gossip for hours and hours on end in order to process issues and make themselves feel better- ie. women’s preferred method.
And if men do decide to talk about thier issues it has a very different quality about it to women’s talk, as you suggest. Men tend to talk more about the facts of the situation and focus less on thier personal feelings in the usual way of women. Men are also less verbose, generally speaking, preferring instead to get to the point.
The helping professions conveniently choose to ignore these male things. Or worse they denigrate and shame males for them…. no wonder males are less likely to seek help!
Well stated. Even when we do try to communicate through their methods, our problems are typically trivialized so that women can feel like their personal problems are the worst that anyone has ever suffered in the entire history of the universe. The problem is that the modern woman has been so thoroughly coerced into believing that she “has it tough” that anyone else’s expressions of grief are perceived as a challenge to that belief. This is why we keep seeing such vehement pushback against men’s and boys’ issues, as well as women who “duel traumas” with each other, as though there is some kind of prize for whoever has suffered more.
Hi Tawil,
An excellent comment by you as always.
Those primitive actions of ours eh… Compare Man’s countless thousands of years of that to the last 40+ years of Feminist bullshit. Now who are the real primitives I ask you?
Tawil, Thank you for saying this.
Around 12 months ago, a number of things happened that just about destroyed my beloved emotionally, and I told him the story of the basketball player who tried to make it in baseball in memory of his father who had dreamed he would be a baseball champion. I explained about men expressing their grief through doing, rather than talking (as a rule, not as an absolute of course).
Although he had to go deeper into the valley of darkness with his emotions before he could start finding his way again, he has said a number of times that this idea of communicating with his own father (and communicating to his estranged daughter) through doing rather than talking has kept him intact.
I think I have said a number of times in posts, I have a fairly masculine brain for a woman. Many is the time I’ve helped people mourn by doing practical things alongside them. Its about knowing what love requires.
One thing I remember from years ago was an article on how men used to deal with the death of a relative, and the problems for modern men had because things changed.
Not that long ago (relatively speaking), when a someone in their family died, men would _do_ things in the company of other male relatives – dig the grave, build the coffin, put together a marker, etc. And in the silent company of his male relatives each would process and come to terms with it.
But now at funerals, men are left shuffling their shoes with nothing to do. They can’t give a final send off showing his appreciation for the deceased with heartfelt effort, they don’t have a ‘male space’ were they can work through things with the silent support of other men, and the absolute last thing they want is to mouth empty words about ‘how he is feeling’ when he just wants to think silently.