Hey there, podcast listeners Galen to here this week, were bringing you a bonus episode from our friends at W and why see studios five thirty, eight partnered with the podcast death, sex and money It- was served by asking men what they think about being a man in two thousand and ten is not exactly the politics coverage that you might be used to hearing in this feed. But it is interesting and of course, identity does play a significant role in american politics. So does also something to think about as you listen but without further ado here it is. I get this kind of paralysis where you're trying to be all these different things at the same time and unlearn pass behaviors and I know that the only get stuck there this is death, sex and money. The definition of man is changing the show,

from W and Y see about the things we think about a lot. The social revolution damage and need to talk about more always been like. How do you do whatever I mean a sale? Dwayne is a forty five year old man that these days he's feeling a lot like an awkward teenager I see a co worker who has an awesome dress and I didn't have an awesome dress and I spent thirty minutes later going to attack. I don't know if that was okay right, his married a father and was raised and rural Ohio in a religious family, and he told me it feels like what he law- about how to be a man, doesn't apply anymore. What I learned about being a man as a kid I learned by watching these older men blaze a trail where they thought it was supposed to be an getting your halfway down that path and realising its terrible

And so I built blunder about blazing my own trail that I hope is better for the person who comes behind me and so here I am you know Dwayne emailed after we asked the men in our audience to answer the question once the most confusing thing about being a man today we asked because we know there's a lot of conversation right now about men and how they, b or should not be, but I at least haven't been hearing a lot of conversation with men about that, and we heard back from you Dwayne is not the only one feeling stuck in this moment of change where confusion face is very unclear set of expectations as far as oh, a man should behave. The confusion comes from being told you definition is strong enough. Now, learning it's ok to cry, but with given no clear path to strength. I think this is the case.

There is a vast silence at the heart of the interact. Men have with other men, there's no clear, also diskettes, very, very, very, very confusing. Heard from a lot of men that feeling and need to change, but then also told us actually letting go of some of the expectations they grew up with easy? That's what I'm listening name Dray RE told me, he's forty seven now It's a barber shop and rental properties in Oakland, but he wrote us about when he was just out of high school and selling drugs. He says he had to follow clear goes as far as being a man on the entire. I'm about to take advantage of you? A view is considered. We it can lead to you eventually the murdered or kicked up, maybe you can be over here anymore. You solve this now for you

does. It feel, like you, had to perform a certain way. Did because, even though, weapon, enable the peoples or drugs they were of a different. Species is like they were real aggressive. I wasn't I evolved into that when I first I was a charge boy. How is raised in the church? I actually slang and require a cane thing, but they can be the war or the choir. So coming from that to this world where, dramatic. It was so dangerous dray Involved in shootouts, his best friend was murdered, but he kept at it. Until he was running, drag operations and his neighborhood money and status was everything he wrote in his email. Without it, you were a loser above what, if some one had said

to you when you're eighteen, nineteen, when you're young man, like you, know what it's ok, if someone thinks you're soft, do you think that would have been good advice or bad advice. And that particular environment and at this moment in time. I would say, and so what you think I'm softly softly other now is unless it was, one of our higher economic Social stand into the point: where respect do ok, Michael Jordan, Begbie was like idolize, Michael Jordan, if Michael by what it says on like that to me. Then I might have to listen to it, but just the average Joe know I've been like you must be. Soft drink was arrested when he was twenty six and ended up serving three years

eight prison when he got out he had to learn how to support himself legally, it's a trip when you go from Heaven somethin to nothing how people did you. I was back their women grandparents, that was, our below for me, DR and airport shuttle. I remember one time my auntie I had a tense b and on the other, the test, the work I may have a vehicle and And she said when I'm with common automobile around with the bite on my way to work with the uniform law, which I felt like. I look like a cloud arm. She said, and this also put me back into the street, she said Andrei. Yes, she go. How does it feel? so, where work- and she said Now- he had already fancy cars in all nice close, then and now on a tense be going to work,

and she just fill our lifestyles. The funniest thing. My grandfather looked at early really in any turning looked at me, so nobody gonna work does in all work and went to work. How am I in his earning money to you now as in the ways that you think about yourself as a man and provide How do you think about money? I know that money isn't really that him but it is important right is like You needed to survive is like air water, but they relate to me as a man if What, if I didn't, have the ability to take care of my family? I think there were way terrible when a listener named David Indicator, Georgette became apparent. He and his wife to say that she would be the financial provider for their family while he stayed home with the kids

The initial idea that my wife and I had you know This will be the obvious choice and you know gender rules. They really are quite silly well maybe, but maybe not, that was In ten years ago today, David says that even being a stayed home. Dad was a choice he made freely for him. It wasn't a good fit it was clearly not as fulfilling for me as it was for my women friends who were stay at home mom so really like. What did you notice talking with them? They cared about the intricacies of it and and and derived some sort of emotional pay off from it that I never got You know I was you. Can you can look at it this way? I was in a job that wasn't making me real happy and I was Greedy angry at myself about what

a variety of reasons for having made that the decision in the first place and then for not being good it you know, stiff upper lip just make it through sport. Were there other men that you could talk to about this during that time. Here's the ironic, thank you, know, people well, meaning lovely people would say. Oh my friend Bob is stay at home. Dad you too should get together and the the internal reaction in May in my head. Was you know it? I don't really like stay at home Those guys are kind of we knees and you had crept so you never can have. Made it made a friend with another guy who was staying home with his kids know. Absolutely not end was completely uninterested in doing so.

The listener named Stephen, a male lies outside Detroit, where his wife's stays at home with their two kids he's built a different sort of family than the one he grew up in. Where his dad wasn't around at all, you ve was absent when he laughed, I mean I was too, and my first memory of my father unfortunately is his hands around my mother's neck. It's almost like dream. I look back for Stephen being a man is all about providing for his family. He works the overnight shift. As a man, sure of a commercial cleaning company go. I will ever be able to give my girls all of what they want tangibly by no one. They look at their fight. You're, going to see a man that treats his queen higher than any other woman. There must be a man that binds joy and hard work. That's what makes at that makes a man man, you gotta get up and you could questioning things. Do it not complain? What you don't have complain what you want but complain that you?

Do it does it? Does it feel like for you that to feel that sense of grounded, Senor identity as a man that it's been important to have today, no gender roles in your family. Yes saw my wife every morning. Got a little late. Could I get home a little late and she brings me a coffee. You'll, be sleep on the fold out, bed small place, you call home and I think maybe you need to bring me a coffee and she says it's an honor to okay. I come home, it's not. Questioned, but I'm respected. First, I'm appreciated first ever say half an hour. Your talk here,

I'm on the ability of man like ever her boy. You know, Jack Mill again, is a kindergarten teacher in Boston and a Trans men at work. He tries to teach kids that they can be anything no matter there gender I want my boys, know if they grow up and they want to, like you know, be some sort Breadwinner than they can, but they don't have to, they don't need to do these things. There's roles as nurture their roles of caregivers, there's rules for all sorts of things. But in his own life. Now that he's prison his mail Jack's learned. He has some constraints year. There Those things on China to navigate through, for example, when in a grocery store has a man. It is in a vague, socially acceptable to you like wave and smile I won't talk to small children that you dont know, whereas when I presented the female, I like a kid was:

groovy. We would smile at each other in like maybe wave and admire the parent, they'd smile back and I earned had it doesn't sometimes like feel right, like I can feel of feeling and ass, a male performance set have to like be better at. He doesn't feel that pressure at work, though, especially with his students. To them what kind of man he is just hasn't been a big deal. When I transition to three years ago, the kids were just so much better than the adults about everything about pronoun about the response I may I literally had just one can tell me, mom told me about you, and then just gave me comes up like ok, coming I'd, keep quiet and extend my parents are just He very live up and the hitherto similar they just went right about this.

Their gender norms are just so borri. And I love it. Will it's interesting to me you. He talked about the conversations with with no boys and making sure they know that they have a wide range of what they can be interested in Wanna. Do does it feel, like the little girls have, that assumption were built in then possibly- and I feel like there was a push on the like Girls- can be anything obviously and there. I love that push, and I think I remember bring the boyd along to say they can also be I would say it is easier for girls to be free air. Then the boy right now, when I was named Charles was a boy he felt like he never got to choose what kind of guy to be near members being told what being a man meant, and it wasn't good

I grew up in a very very liberal town and there were a few family, friends and kids on the schoolyard who had been raised. A radical feminist environment, and so they they would use that they would use the ideology as a sort of a bludgeon, an enemy. Like they would like us sort of lake, and time male behaviour? Is that what you mean or resort of the you know you, you and the patriarchy indebted. I you know- and I didn't really understand it, but it it was. It was just being used as a time or at least I absorbed it, is tat. This One of the first is if somebody explaining to me that I was responsible for for people's fear of me. Charles is a big guy

and when he was a teenager, the way his body look to other people's changed faster than the way he saw himself. He wrote us an email about a fight he had with his mom when he was fifteen. I don't remember what it was about, but I remember a sort of wishing my point and raising my voice, probably for the first time and she just drew back and she was visibly afraid of me- and I thought that was I was just I just whore, for I was horrified with myself the idea that this sort of this body that I'd, I was growing to inhabit at that. Time could be add a threatening object, really been a part of myself image. To that point,. It really the language you used in email when you said it and hurts to be the monster It can feel so em.

Alienating to be seen in a way that threatening one. That's not what you intend yeah, it's that's probably one of the hardest things, is to just be walking around and having people be afraid of, you wouldn't have you. But the most lonely in your life. Probably when I was in college- and I was very heavy, and I had very few friends. And I just I felt like there was there is no real chance to be to be a part of a society. Did you feel angry at that time that you felt so cut out? Absolutely I mean it's and I still feel angry when I you know it's it's. My anger is not a control

smashing rage. It's just something called that I feel inside of me. It directed anger like other other people or were way. Things that you ve been angry at not individually. Boy I've directed at unites its. This is now we're getting to the crux event, because do occasionally when I'm really wallowing in it find myself being angry nodded any individual woman that women and in general, and I see I recognise very easily how how easy and how good will to go down that path of becoming an outright misogynist you know in a yankee, I do have to fight that back and Stand that it's not it's not something that is that that make

answers. Not anything. That's real. An end had stopped me understand. Like any in a moment where you're having a feeling you're not proud of what does it sound like the people would not be so Fraid of me. I wish the people wouldn't hate me. Keep them for hating me again, then I catch myself. You know a blink of an eye later and recognise that I'm being stupid, but I do feel it coming up. Are you currently dating Frederick Single Ready, the meaning

He might be stung with the family assigned. And his father talking together. You know- I was forty one when I got married right. There is a precedent. Mind if they so wish. We asked the man in our audience. What's confusing about being a man today, you have a lot to say that, as we worked on this episode especially as a mostly female production team we also wanted to. From men who don't listen to this part, cast. We sent reporters out to talk to men, indifferent american Citys, and asked the same question what's confusing being a man today and we got really different answers. I can't say that I find it confuses the Ryan's no

I think so not for me really. I feel like being a man is knowing who you are. I want to say there's anything confusing for me, you're, a good man is simple. We also serve aid more than sixteen hundred american men in partnership with the bad, a new site, five. Thirty eight and survey monkey. You can find a link The full results on our website at debt, sex, money, dot, Org, slash men, but here new findings that stuck out to me fifty seven per And of men surveyed say they rarely or never cry we. What men worry about on a daily basis and from a very low best of options. The top worry was their weight. More than half also report worrying about money and the third set in particular. They worry about providing for a fee. As man where economies supposed to be getting the hunters is still have it in my headed, the man is the provider, and that is not right, wingers also what the hell are they and when,

air worried many men. With it on their own. Nearly half said they frequently or sometimes feel lonely for than forty percent said they ve met. Or have rarely asked a friend for personal advice and more than Two thirds of men say they have never been to see a therapist. That's the case for Dray in Oakland, Let's talk to my stalemate was counselling. I don't think so. We ask asked about the impact of me too in our survey and what, Men out on the street, I think than me to movement has been accepted. Our foreign strong in autumn and a lot of ways, but a kind of funds me the strain had to be very nice in a way. I don't, I usually don't ever think about what I say Certainly I actually do. I feel now it's a little harder to walk up to women and to start talking to them and more staff. A fish Someone who's a man and you don't think of it.

Gentlemen, unless he explicitly acts like it and when it comes to intimacy and I the way men reported dealing with consent varies by age. More than forty four, then of men, ages, eighteen, thirty, four civic age interest by asking for verbal consent compared to less than a third of middle aged man. Fifteen percent of men over sixty five said. They ask for verbal consent and final. Nearly a quarter of employed american men said in our survey that they'd never heard about the need to movement again. Can find a link to these survey results on our website at death, sex money, dot, Org, slash, men. I want to quickly give you a little more recommended listening about manhood now the pie cast reply all from Gimme

recently did an excellent episode about the roots of the invoice. Terry celibate were in cell movement. They traced its origins back to a website, set up by a shy queer canadian woman who was just trying to help people like her, learn how to date, it's code number one twenty go check it out to learn some really fascinating and disturbing history about manhood on the internet. Today, again, that's from reply. A show, that's all about the internet, but really it's about everything and its consistently great. I also loved their recent episodes about the murky underworld of drug addiction, treatment. Advertising was sent to reply wherever you get your pie cast. This is deaths. Send money from W and Y see. I mean a sail in our survey. Most men, six and ten said they got there ideas about how to be a good man from the first man. They knew their fathers like Frederick, he's. Third,

four and living in Little Rock Arkansas where he grew up. He says he looked to his father as a model, even though for him that left some gaps, I didn't grow up around any out, gave me, and so I couldn't really imagine what a lot would look like from me based on the men and I was encountering, I could probably think of at least eighteen fault. There was in immediate area that were there to me they were not secretive. That's freeman, Fredericks, dad, in a son a nearly fifty years apart and age when free was growing up in segregated little rock in the thirties and Fortys. He says he never got explicit instructions for how to be a man. It was just understood that it was about fitting,

I mean we didn't have a class in terms of my. What would it look like? good man would mean the converse she's that you would hear in talking about was a good man who was not a good thing that shade and who is willing to do that. You were expected to you were expected to follow was that that That was. There was a conversation that you would you would you would hear when it came to teaching his two sons, how to be men, Freeman wanted Frederick and his brother to be active in the community, just like he'd been taught, which meant that his boys should play football, and so I didn't come to a by native interest. Restaurant boy that I was. I thought that I was supposed to be and probably with afraid that I was failing to be more so than anything. Do you thing did, I was

Justinian all thought was important. Was that they not be isolated from the appears in there in the community, football was the. Activity in our name, who were all their peers were were in a day were engaged, it's what I really was very had demanded that they would have been bought on one at home after school yeah I mean in the whole neighborhood. The physical activities that would have pursue probably would have isolated me from my community. There out, I may quest to take gymnastics unless it's a eventually gymnastics turned into one in take dance lessons in I know that I remember both wanting to X. For my body and ways it didn't necessarily feel overtly mail or masculine. I wanted. I wanted to begin sorted export, my body

That way, and I wondered sort of the privacy of debt, and I am most of the spaces that I think my dear would have encouraged me to partition You didn't, did not allow for that kind of privacy Frederick quit football. After his freshman year, with his dad's blessing, he left Arkansas for College and just move back earlier this year. Freeman also. Laughed when he was a young man. He was one of the first peace corps. Volunteers and Frederick says he could feel how that time away shaped his father as a man. Did I always liked hearing you talk about sort of having to transition the peace, factors that you you'd gained, while you were a broad back to Arkansas lack, feel like throughout my life. I've never felt. You exerting a lot of pressure to be a certain type of man, and I just wondered how you you came by that expansiveness

extend, we extended to others, the privilege painting the box that ours I certainly didn't wanna Trotter painted somebody else any new, remember someone who, when we ve run on one June, Mandela's alot of boxes, people trying to put us in the future but our community committed a group. We shall put it in a mass. Always we'll! Let you yourself, because you put him in a box. You got to state at a whole. Amendment was ill. Do you get out of to me that would be wasted energy, so always just felt you give the person support. Let them go the direction that day that that day

need to go over the day felt needed to go gender yourself, a job in very bad advice. Given out. I thought: that's not true The tabling Alex just moved home to San Diego after finishing college and he's feeling like isn't measuring up ass, a man. I begin in many ways. I have not been very successful man. You know I haven't really aided mush on Stolliver, innovative, twenty three. I don't really have a job. You know I'm not exactly the most physically fit person and the entire world. So a lot of if things were each crystalline associate with good Matthew, Eddie you're not really have any of those things. Part of the problem, Alex told mean, is he

then, a lot of time on line where there is a lot to compare yourself to the internet. The worst thing that ever happened to you is generous with people of its kind of distorted along the way, by seeking a competent issues about being a man and- did you not shake my thinking because on the internet, you now for many years been told me tat. He was very male, dominated space, numbered not by numbers but culturally and some people tat. You see a lot of really toxic Pinder ideologies floating around and get the opportunity for them to gain a lot traction. He said something you consume. Yak people consume dad television, there were high, describing a kind of entertainment. One of the things Alex reads is the red pill, a thread on right.

Where men ridicule women to ride feminism in general and share advice on how to become what they call alpha? Males went a little grieved for every single man may be, can work out an hand and group without actually be successful, would really show that it is vital for people always end up scene at the right kind of works. An alarming throughout the wider ideology one weapon have you ever? Have you ever worried that you might fall into that? No, what do you get out of it? I'm just curious about the way the bank has judged ghastly efficient way to be given to evolve over the years, but about an opera comes from may not be quite alone in the world, know that there are also struggling to become the wrong answer, but it's not just me,

I would have been a direct, that's probably more what it is we are listening. Recalling Luke was a young man in LOS Angeles, he found his sense of aid. Maybe as a man not on the internet but in the bedroom, but their point. My sex tribe was all consuming. How many people I was sleeping with, His sword, like that became my measure of manhood every place. I when I was looking at, who is the most attractive who might be available missing a very attractive woman was a great turn on something wrongly desired, and if she was not available, there were sort of resentment and for me there were self put down about that too, and so I have a sense like say like in one of your most sexually active years. How many different women would you say you slept with twenty or thirty.

When you think back on that time, and the way they did the way not about Saxon and having sex with women are other things that you feel regret about. I feel regret. For myself, and then I was so in secure that I was missing a lot of life that there is so much more to be. Seen in the world than just sizes How pretty a woman was when I walked into a rumour who was the prettiest woman, the room or something like that? So looking back upon it, who's gonna shallow, but it was still a deep drive that kind of controlled me do you think when you were entering rooms in signing up women's attractiveness? Do you think the women could tell I'm sure they're good.

I'm sure that good, I don't think I was one who leered lot, but I think gum people can tell when their being looked at and looked up and down and judged Does it feel embarrassing to think about yes, but does feel embarrassing and It wasn't something on a fairly was aware of at the time, but looking back yes, I think that makes people uncomfortable ass how important a sex to you now at seventy one, that's one of the big identity. She sets faced me is actually the reason I responded to. The calls you put out said inspector. I deserve saw myself from sending this email cause I'm finding my own big transition,

in my seventies because around sacks it is totally different When I got into my certainly late sixties and now my sex drive has diminished to a very low level and then Papa, that a few years ago, I had a have surgery for prostate cancer, and I lost that sexual ability. Unfortunately, none of the drive to do much about it, but gone and so, as a man part of what defined me for so many years and am sure defines most men is simply not there do you think it's changed. The way you move through the world it has bit. I realise that sexually impotent older man, and so I'm really aware of that

of moving around partly invisible, because I'm an older guy and partly being reminded that I'm also impotent. I am struck by how use you said the word impotent without pause, and that word is so charged is utter, a word that you have easily embraced. What what do you use because that is reality and face reality. I've ever gonna if you're going to be, You're gonna be healthy. Living you face. What's real and what's real for me, is that impotence, and so I dont think that's. What I have run out of impotence can be physical or existential just a feeling of helplessness. As a man. That's what

Snow named Cisco, wrote about and his email to us, not his helplessness, but his dad's worthy of my dad made a guy, like you numbered margins better, but I dont picture as long growing up. A lot of emphasis on providing for a safe When Cisco was an elementary school, his home was broken into a whole family. Was there this wasn't just a robbery, they were tied up and held at gunpoint. No one was hurt, but Cisco says the experience scarred his dad. He could every everything he possibly could in the time after that and to make sure that we were taste and try to make us feel safe? so he bought guns, dont around the house

the data we involve an alarm system. We had four bites how can we turned on religiously, and so, Why did we get all the things tat? They try to feel safe and you know he didn't it was always always talk a little bit better, but it never quite felt like enough. Was there a time in your life when you realise like I need to change them. Definitions and how I think about manhood masculinity or where was it more just kind of this- is an outgrowth of the cunning. Kid you earn and who you grew up to be, I think I should like this. I'm gonna go to arrive at a little bit, but what will offer you our attention on this is when I was in Let us go in high school. I spent a lot of damage church,

A lot of time in youth group of candidates and. My fate has always been something that really really important to me and the thing that really complicated the definitions and as honest I ve been thinking about the way that the people talk about God, and especially since we get to where we drove up. Language, macabre language and then our full and all those kinds of tourist superlative turns out some boy. I'm really wanted to re. Imagine some of that stuff, because see enough capacity. In those terms it like the words that you had four, God and what God has meant in your life have felt too.

Small and then to expand. Those is to also expand. How you think of yourself as a man than I thought Can this conversation pretty easily I'll ask but I do women have conversations about what it means to be. A woman is Dwayne again from the start of the episode. I feel let not directly and those birds, but there's a lot around work. Their heard? You know, bishop in care, giving which I feel like I know, is really about we're talking about what it is to be a woman. But we don't say tell me, right. That's the reason sorted by. I posted that just eleven there, because I dont think of it as conversations about how

Be a man you can learn what you're supposed to do, but nobody can we tell you anything, my my when he got angry, he yelled his father when he got angry. He Elden and through things the justice There was always sort of this hint of justification that that his father was worse and somehow his improvement was better and forgivable. Hum like that, makes it ok and then one one last question, and that is when you think about being a man now This is being a man, you're fired this generation. Do you think it's gotten easy harder- I'm gonna say harder listen, I'm gonna say harder is when you're not self aware it's fine,

When you don't realize you're the asshole in the room, it's fine! I, when you don't, when you dont, have people pointing out that Europe behavior is bad. There's nothing wrong. thank you to all the men who shared their stories with us. As we worked on this episode, you can see all our coverage, including a link to the full results of our survey with five thirty eight tat, death sex money, dot, Org, slash men in check out, Bear show the five thirty eight politics podcast for more stories about the numbers behind are changing. Culture insists that sex and money is a listener. Supporting production of w and Y see studios. I'm wasted the centre for invest

reporting in retail caliph, when our team includes Katy Bishop Annabel Bacon, Stephanie, Joyce, Emily Beauteous and Andrew Duff, the Reverend John D lower and steep Louis Road, music, special thanks. Dan Voice, indian costs for their help. In this episode, why only public radio and the Buffalo Bill Centre of the West, I'm on Twitter at Anna sail the show is that sex money on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook tell us your thoughts. Episode using the hashtag manhood, now emails that sex money have you in my seat. And on July, eleventh we're going to continue this conversation about manhood today live on the radio CNN, W Canal Bell will join me and will take calls from you. We broadcasts on public radio stations across the country and streamed on W and my c dot org at nine p m. During six p m again, that's winds, eight July eleven. One thing we have-

again and again how awkward it can be for men to talk to each other about being men? But Jack told me he transition the words came: easy for is dad. I think that has changed our relationship that longer hardly like. I love Johan he's like, but I love you. You know if you change one word bad, like that: I'd at Vienna again prevalent room for father, but I mean a sail in this. Is death saxon money from daddy you in my seat.