Let Men Be Men.

As men we must do whatever it takes to access our natural power.

There are ways to do this, and some of them are traditionally male, but some of them might require a little experimentation.

Being a man is not something that is measured in what you do, but how you do it.
Anything can be described as a masculine pursuit, whether it is ballet dancing or boxing. Being a man is state of mind, not a set of behaviours. This is where we go wrong.

All too often as men, we sacrifice our masculinity by trying too hard. We assert our masculinity too much and we end up falling flat on our faces. A lot of the Feminist backlash has to do with women showing that they are sick and tired of false masculinity, of male bullshit in our culture.

However, there has been an imbalance as a result. It has become fashionable for women to start adopting this kind of posturing, this sort of masculine bravado. It is a way of them saying screw you to old masculinity, to the idea that they must be little women house-bound and in awe of their man.

In a sense this is a natural transition. It had to happen. Men had to be put in their place, they needed to be shown that you can't fake being a man, you can't just act the part. You have to produce the goods. You have to respect the fact that women have fullproof crap detectors. They know when they are being lied to.

So a lot of this modern woman, she-needs-a-man-like-a-fish-needs-a-bicycle stuff is just a response to how heavy the lies became in traditional relationships.

Things have gone too far now. Though the backlash was necessary, it has also become common for men to grow up thinking that women don't want them to be men. A whole generation of men has evolved to watch their step, to swallow their assertiveness for fear that they will be condemned as archaic, old-fashionaed, even abusive.

What was a reaction to unhealthy masculinity, has started to erode any trace of healthy male expression. Men are no longer men, because they think it is wrong to be masculine. They think it is wrong to be confident, to be physical, to be sexually assertive.

Women were right to put men in their place. But the wires have gotten crossed. And it is causing social problems.

It is my honest feeling that women need to back off now. Let us be men.

There is still lots of work to be done. Equality is an ogoing project. But the point has been made. If men are not allowed to feel valuable because of their masculinity then we put the stability of society at risk.

Men need to be men, and what is more women want their men to be men. What needs to come out of this flux is a more nuanced idea of what it means to be a man. And this applies to women as much as it does to men.

Instead of bravado and pride, men need to assert their natural confidence in who they are. Instead of domination, men need to demonstrate a power over their own emotional experience.

There is nothing that characterises masculinity other than a confidence to assert one's true perosnality in a given task. You can be a male flower arranger for Chrissake and still exert a self-empowering energy through that.

Male or female we all have this energy. Whitman's procreant urge. But it when it comes to attracting women, men must cultivate and demonstrate this in abundance.