The measure of a man is what he does with power.
– Plato
The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself.
– Henry Ward Beecher
A man is what he thinks about all day long.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Why be a man when you can be a success?
– Bertolt Brecht
Every now and then I turn off my spam filters to see what are the latest trends. I’m always astonished at the number of male “enhancement” products. Viagra, cialis, aphrodisiacs & penis patches. Before the days of spam marketing, the rhinoceros was driven to the brink of extinction thanks to the superstition, particularly within Chinese lore, that the rhinoceros horn has special powers. Now, medical science offers new hope in the form of medications. (New hope especially for the rhinoceros.) I don’t doubt that some men benefit from Viagra prescriptions issued by certified medical practitioners which are dispensed by regulated pharmacists. But from dodgy spam sites? From sites that offer advice like this gem at adultpenisguide.com?
“And like pills, a penis patch can “assist” in penis enlargement but certainly not by themselves alone. Penis patches work pretty well if combined with some penis stretching either by exercises or by a penis stretcher.”
I wonder if we would face such an online barrage of medications and herbs and devices if we cultivated a healthier view of what it means to be a man? I would hate to think that the sole indicator of my value as a man is determined by setting a ruler to my dick, or by sitting with a stop watch to measure how long I can keep an erection. It doesn’t take a (ahem) rocket scientist to see that spam marketing preys upon the insecure.
So what does it mean to be a man? I mean a real man. Not just a pill-popping, lotion rubbing, patch-wearing man. But a straight-forward, decent, not-terribly-complicated man.
But first a couple disclaimers. I have no particular qualifications to speak to this issue. Clearly, I lack objectivity. Like just under 50% of the human species, I have a dick, which I suppose makes me biased. And I have never bothered to purchase any male “enhancement” products from spam, so I have no idea if they really work, and I’ve never tested them to see whether they contain anything more than baking soda. Also, I have no idea whether I am, in fact, a decent, not-terribly-complicated man. I sometimes entertain a fantasy that I’m deep and complicated. But when it gets down to it, my motivations are about as simple as dirt: like most of our species, I like it when I eat regularly, I enjoy a little attention from my tribe, and I like sex. Does it ever get more complicated for me than this? Maybe. Maybe not. But either way, none of this really qualifies me to comment extensively on the question of what it means to be a real man.
But lack of qualifications never kept me from commenting on any issue before. Why would I change tactics now?
A second disclaimer: I’m straight. I have no idea how to incorporate a conversation about manliness with a conversation about being gay. That’s a morass I don’t intend to enter.
The most obvious measure of a man is performative. Wasn’t it Descartes who said: I do it, therefore I am? So I’m a (straight) man as long as I’m having sex with a woman? Is it the act that makes me a man? If so, does that mean I have to have sex continuously in order to assert my manhood? Forgive me if I can’t muster that much energy. Can I take a break? For how long before I’m disqualified as a man? And as an incidental question: what is a priest?
Let’s eliminate performance as a measure of manhood. It leads only to absurd conclusions.
But there’s something like performance that may come closer to the mark. I recall a recent small-group discussion about sexual ethics at Emmanuel College during which one woman—an ordinand—reminded the two men in the group that for many (most?) women, penetration is the least interesting part of sex. Most men tend to equate performance with penetration. But, for women, that ain’t necessarily so.
Here’s my first consideration of what it means to be a real man. I’m thinking, at least as far as sex is concerned, that a real man is somebody who can imagine pleasure with more than his penis.
The next most obvious measure of manhood has something to do with valour. This brings to mind images of Kiplingesque 19th century British officers—“do you duty” sorts who suck it up and keep a stiff upper lip—maybe the only stiff thing about them. This kind of manliness is particularly troublesome for me because I happen to come from the culture that honed it to an exquisitely sociopathic point. But I recall how even as a child I had serious doubts about this way of being a man.
When I was nine, my family spent a week camping at Arrowhead Provincial Park in Muskoka. I did a lot of swimming, but it was early in the season and the water was still cold. I remember stepping out of the water and walking up the beach trailing a stream of blood behind me as I stepped across all our towels. I had sliced my foot from toe to heel on a freshwater clam. As I sat in the sand squeezing my foot together, waiting for my dad to bring the car around to drive me to the hospital, a man in huge swimming trunks sauntered up to me with his three boys beside him. He pointed to me then looked at his sons and said: “Now there’s taking it like a man.” The fact was: I wasn’t taking it at all. The water was so cold that my foot was numb. I couldn’t feel a thing. And that is precisely the problem with the English way of being a man. It works only if you refuse to feel. Even at the age of nine I intuited that this man was wrong. I knew I wanted no part of his notion of manhood. I need to feel things as deeply as possible, otherwise how can I claim to be fully alive?
I think a man must learn to live with feeling. What a strange denial to suppose it’s our duty as men to embrace the world as an unfeeling objective reality. The most real of reals is the life within, and that life is most especially about feeling.
A third kind of manliness comes to mind thanks to the Promise Keepers. It’s about men supporting men in a commitment to conservative Christian values reflected in its 7 promises. In particular, two of the promises speak to the way men should relate to women. Promise 3: A Promise Keeper is committed to practicing spiritual, moral, ethical, and sexual purity. And Promise 4: A Promise Keeper is committed to building strong marriages and families through love, protection and biblical values.
These are fine words, but like all fine words, they’re meaningless without context. What is “sexual purity?” The missionary position? Abstinence? Sex only according to Deuteronomy (which requires that a woman be put to death if she has sex while menstruating)? You begin to see how interpretation makes a huge difference. What is a strong marriage? One that keeps the woman in the home making babies, cooking meals & scrubbing floors? What is protection? Protection from what? From opportunities? From the poverty of a sheltered existence? From Promise Keepers?
Seems to me a little warped that a man needs the support of other men to tell right from wrong. Are we men so stupid?—so insecure?—that we can’t assume personal responsibility for our choices?
This leads me to my third conclusion about what it means to be a man. A man is someone who doesn’t use his peers to avoid personal responsibility. Teenagers behave that way. But emotional maturity demands that we take personal stands: I make this decision, not because my support group thinks it’s a good idea, not because the Bible tells me so, but because I have thought the matter through and have found for myself that my decision is right. In other words, a real man uses his brain, then demonstrates the moral courage to assert his own conclusions.
But the Promise Keepers raise an important point—part of being a man involves being in relationship. The question is this: what does a relationship look like when it’s a relationship with a real man? Since I am far from being a real man, I can’t offer much from personal experience. All I have to share are my hopes and aspirations for my primary relationship—my marriage. Last weekend, I had one of those moments—a tiny revelation of something new. We’ve been married for nearly 19 years now (it seems unbelievable to me that the time should have flown by so quickly) and yet these moments continue to appear. I learned something new about my partner, my love. I marvel. I wonder how I could have missed this, but am glad that there is always more to discover.
Last weekend we hosted a big trampoline competition. My wife was meet director. More than 200 amateur athletes along with coaches and judges from Québec, Nova Scotia and Ontario gathered here in Toronto for three days to compete, to party, to see the sights. Everything unfolded as planned. Yes, there were occasional wrinkles, but my wife responded to everything with a remarkable equanimity. I watched her diplomacy as she stroked egos with just the right touch. I could never have shown so much patience. I would have let personal pride get the best of me or I would have exploded with a show of temper. I watched too as she drew together a team of volunteers, each with assigned tasks, then let it go. Instead of feeling compelled to track absolutely everybody’s moves, she stepped back and gave people the space they needed. Had it been me, anxiety would have driven me to pester everybody. I was amazed. Where did she learn to do this?
There have been times when people close to us have wondered about our marriage. If our marriage is solid, doesn’t that mean that we’re supposed to spend all our time together? Be full partners in every endeavor? I suppose that works for some people. But not for us. Most of the time, each of us is off doing our own thing. Church is a good example. She goes one place. I go another. She goes (in part) for the music she loves. I go for a kind of engagement I value. She has no particular interest in my theological pursuits and rarely checks out my blog. And, at least officially, I’m supposed to be aghast at the music she sings.
I don’t believe there are rules that dictate what makes a good relationship, nor is there an established set of symptoms that indicate a failing relationship. I think of my wife’s grandmother. Although born in Canada, she adhered to a traditional practice and agreed to an arranged marriage. Not exactly the medieval European ideal of romantic, courtly love. But it worked. Like her grandmother’s marriage, there is a sense in which ours was arranged. We grew up together in the same “village.” Our families were close before we ever had the faintest notion that we might one day spend our lives together. And we found ourselves drawn together not so much by common interests as by common experience.
For us—and I can write only for us—marriage isn’t instant pudding—fully formed but bland. It’s more like those kitchen inventions where ingredients get added as we go. There’s no recipe, no clearly documented plan, but it’s still satisfying. I don’t think either regards the other as a complement. Clearly there are ways in which each of us complements the other. But we also strive to be whole people, complete unto ourselves. Marriage is not a completion; it’s the creation of something wholly different. Our marriage has three personalities—hers, mine, and ours.
And so I offer my fourth and final thought about what it takes to be a real man. Oddly, I have learned this from my wife’s example, which I witnessed in her measured way of relating to those around her last weekend. A real man lets things go. Most importantly, he lets go the things he loves, so they have space to become in their own right. This is the opposite of a Promise Keeper’s protection. I don’t want to protect my wife. That would only keep her from encountering the challenges that give her cause to become more than she is now. And more than anything I want to continue to be amazed in fresh ways by this woman.