12 Comments
Aug 13, 2022Liked by Liz Plank

The sentence “ They don’t know which parts of their prototypical masculine roles to keep and which ones to toss, and they’re not sure what to replace them with“

This sums up so much of my thoughts and feelings over the past 15 years, thank you so much for articulating this.

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Aug 12, 2022Liked by Liz Plank

Great read, thanks! Reminds me of Mona Chollet’s « Réinventer l’amour ».

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Thanks for this Liz. I guess I feel lucky as straight guy in that I've always genuinely liked women, and I think, with some years on me, I've learned to deeply love and respect and value them. What I don't love is the hegemonic definition of heterosexual relationships that most of us grew up with that create so much bullshit that, well, no wonder non-straights are having a chuckle at our expense. I have also found that having deep **homosocial** relationships with other men has helped me to relate better with both men and women, in part by way of the opportunity to practice non-sexual intimacy.

One question for you, since you call out the lack of positive examples for men... Why not point some out yourself? I love your writing and the work that you're doing, but, and, I have the feeling that pieces like this sort of reinforce the backward-looking stereotype. There are actually lots of good examples out there for men.

I suppose I should have my own list ready. Well... just about every man that I know, to begin with. And all the guys that I've interviewed on my Brothers and Teachers podcast, which is part of the mission of that show, in fact. And so many others. Peace!

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The psychology today article you mentioned wasn't very good. It was poorly researched, only took a few data points and the author also cited...his dating call-in show on tiktok. Ultimately, the article was a therapist encouraging men to level up their mental health game by...going to therapy. That's all, no mention of atomization, or how our culture is literally designed to keep us all apart, just another uncreative, unoriginal, unimaginative, uninspired, underwhelming, thoughtless, thickheaded, think piece that says "Men's issues are all their fault as individuals and they have a personal responsibility to fix them." These takes are as predictable as the tides, and the worst part is that they always act like they're the first person who thought of them.

One day, I hope that the internet will come to terms with its obsession with therapy. One never takes into consideration, cost, scheduling, or the fact that there are a lot of bad therapists out there. The internet talks about therapy like its a panacea for mental health...when it's not. Therapy is a good thing, I wouldn't be in it myself if I thought otherwise but I'm not going to sit here and pretend that therapy is the answer to everything.

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"Some even tried dating women”

How true is what you said? Did these women continue to date women? Were they really heterosexual?

This affects the reliability of your article do inglês

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