[Show Intro] Jala Hey, thanks for coming! I'm glad you're here. Come on in! Everyone's out on the patio right now. Looks like a couple of people are in the garden. I can't wait to introduce you! Can I get you anything? [turned away] Hey folks, our new guest is here! [Intro music] 00:00.80 Jala Hello world and welcome to Jala-chan's Place. I'm your host Jala Prendes (she/her) and today I am joined by Lance (he/him) and Briar (they/them). Yay. It's been a while since you've been on Lance how are you doing today. 00:16.14 Lance Okay, um, I'm doing pretty good. A lot of anxiety about recording this episode but I'll do my best. 00:24.48 Jala I understand I understand we were kind of talking in the green room about that. It's a tough subject for real. Um, we were talking about toxic Masculinity. So That's something that is kind of pervasive throughout our entire culture. So um, yeah, it's. Hard to grapple with overall and identify and you know weed it out and everything No. It didn't. 00:46.80 Lance And it's an issue I'm not like finished dealing with we're in the middle. 00:53.53 Jala The thing is is that like I don't I Honestly don't know that toxic masculinity is one that you can ever one and done and be be done done with it because it's so much in our society. You know it's kind of like ableism in that way right? 01:05.87 Lance I Could just hope not to give it to my kids. That's the goal. 01:12.80 Jala For sure So Briar How are you doing? Ah did you recover from your sunburn. 01:16.62 Briar Oh yep I am perfectly fine after my long-awaited Honeymoon Nine years delayed but we're there and I am Tip-t top shape and ready to talk about the troubling side of masculinity. 01:32.27 Jala Yeah I know you were supposed to be on ah like the masculinity was yeah the masculinity episode that we did last year and then like your internet crapped out on you So fingers crossed We want you on to talk about it. Damn it. So yeah. 01:41.70 Briar Yeah, the the ebb and the flow like special thanks to Dave. We've already talked at the green room about it. But just oh what What? a wonderful edit Dave like thank you for taking care of me last episode I was on. I promise it'll be better this time. Yeah. 02:02.75 Jala I'm promise I'm I promise coach anyway, so yeah, we will be talking about toxic masculinity. But before we get into today's topic I want to give a shadow to our newest patron Dave Jackson yay Dave was on the Metroid fusion episode and he also has his own show tales from the backlog where each week he pulls a game out of the backlog plays it and talks about it with an assortment of lovely guests including many folks who have been on this show so you too can be a cool kid and shout and get a shout out as well. By going to k o hyphenfi.com/Jala so there is the ability to do a onetime donation or a subscription there and there are also patron tiers just like Patreon and extra stuff that you can get. For being a subscriber. You can also rate and review us on your podcasting platform of choice. It's been a while since I've gotten one of those so please y'all go it really isn't that hard to do I promise you it gives me warm and fuzzies warm and fuzzy feelings all the time every time that I see them. So that's all and I totally stumbled over that I'm sorry we will actually talk coherently from here on about toxic masculinity. So huh. Well I mean I already fumbled the crap out of my intro. So. It's fine. 03:19.39 Briar No promises no promises. 03:30.57 Jala So ah, we will actually kick it off as usual with our academic section talking about stuff and things so researchers have shown that there is very little difference between the brains of men and women while gender identity is a deeply held feeling of being male female or another gender. People of different genders often act differently not because of biological characteristics. But because of Rigid societal norms created around fast femininity and Masculinity. So ah, this basically is a summary saying. Gender is a construct. We've talked about this several times because we talk about gender a lot on this show. So um, anything y'all have to say off the top of your head about this in particular. 04:21.83 Lance I No you haven't gotten far enough in yet. But. 04:27.44 Briar I Think this is a good start to ah like um, you know, especially episodes I've been on. Um this is a good summation of a lot of the things we talk about in those episodes. 04:37.43 Jala I Know right? like I spent how long trying to break down what is gender like you get the definition and all this other shit. But here is the real real juice right? so. 04:46.64 Briar Yeah, like if you want the one oh two, It's in the Jala Chance plays backlog. 04:52.11 Jala Right? And so the good men project defines toxic masculinity as a narrow and repressive description of manhood designating manhood as defined by violence sex status and aggression. It's the cultural ideal of Manliness where strength is everything while emotions are a weakness where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which feminine um traits are the means by which a man's status as a man can be taken Away. So. It's also like the way that men's masculinity is measured is how violent how sexual how much status they've got you know how aggressive they are. That's how they are rated as a man if you will So ah, this has definitely been. My experience with toxic masculinity like my dad for background on me. So Obviously I'm time female at Birth and um, my dad was an iron worker so we had a lot of rough dudes and real toxic masculinity dudes if you will in. My house at all times when I was growing up So for me like this. This definitely was mirrored in what I saw from guys that were my example men when I was growing up Lance. 06:17.60 Lance Oh I Gosh you were in the middle of talking I wasn't ready for you. So I like the because you were kind of trying to summarize it I I define it as like toxic as a toxic masculinity. 06:36.81 Lance It takes half of the human experience a signs that to women and tells you you're not allowed to be a full person. Basically. 06:45.23 Jala That's a very good way of putting it that is because what the result is for somebody who is sign mail at Birth is that they are told this is your box. It doesn't include emotions. Have fun being Robot basically and also these are these are the you know so yardsticks you need to measure yourself by. 07:04.66 Lance Have fun constantly hating yourself for feeling feelings sorry Briar. 07:07.17 Briar Yeah I oh no worries I think that's like incredibly true too is um so I think that's the first jumping off point and then the second jumping off point that I think we're going to drill really deep into ah this episode is. How toxic masculinity is something you can do to yourself. It's like giving up some of yourself too. It's not just your what your effect on the world is your effect on yourself. Um, and we're going to talk more in depth about that. 07:35.12 Jala Oh my God Absolutely I'm not yeah yeah because I I am not a sign male at Birth but I assigned toxic masculinity to myself during a certain individually a certain part. 07:36.77 Lance I Yeah I added I added notes to Jala's document about that I. 07:43.44 Briar Yeah. 07:52.55 Jala Of my life where I was really soaking it all in and realizing that I identified a lot more with a lot of the masculine. Not necessarily toxic masculine but the masculine traits that were um, you know presented to me versus The. Traditional feminine role that my mom had when I was growing up because I I have a very binary gender role Household plans. 08:20.12 Briar Forgive me if I'm like jumping out of my lane real quick too. But it's the the not like other girls effect is like 1 of the ways that toxic masculinity um isn't just localized to people who are. Assign male at birth. 08:36.93 Lance It's definitely not.. It's like my wife was primarily raised by toxic masculine men and she's picked up plenty of it because you know from her perspective women. We're often the victims of angry men and in order to. Be safe, you just needed to embody the characteristics of the toxic men around her so we like we all, we all get it. It's not just ah like a men's issue even from like the internal landscape aspect of it because there's you know, like Jolly, you're saying. 09:12.59 Lance There's women who deal with the same kinds of impulses to does that make sense. 09:17.50 Jala Yeah, yeah, well for sure. 09:18.61 Briar Oh yeah, that's um, I've known women who have been in the factory for forty plus years and like once once you get through that armor that they've had to erect for having a career that's spanned so long at this point. Um, and have like a real honest conversation with some of these ladies on the cusp of retirement they're like yeah that it was adapt or die um and like I had a couple where they were like. 09:49.77 Briar I'm going to be harder than all of the men here because that's what it took for decades. 09:53.75 Jala Yeah, and see so there's there's several things I want to add to that if we're going to talk about like um, you know female experience and you know toxic masculinity so there are cis femmes who they will assume toxic masculinity. Because it is a defense mechanism like Lance was talking about with Susie but there's also Cis women who put themselves in the box and they want quote unquote want to be taken care of by the man or they like brainwash themselves or they are brainwashed by. Um. 10:29.41 Lance By by christianity I buy christianity. 10:31.00 Jala The guys that are around them. Yes, but I didn't want to just point the finger because it's not just that there's lots of others but here yes here here in America yes is predominantly. There's there's christianity that does that a lot. But um, so. 10:32.50 Briar Keep it. First. 10:47.62 Jala They have those kinds of influences. 10:48.19 Briar I Think um, why I jumped onto that direction too is what we're going to get to a point where we're going to talk about like the attention economy that young men have for fulfilling their toxic masculine role. That will use examples of women exhibiting toxic masculinity and surviving under toxic masculinity. Um, they'll use that as an example of why the man or the boy in this case has to become a more toxic man. Um. Because if you're a low value and like I don't have better language than the the Shitty um Mra side of things but low value men is like something they throw around a lot and then they will point to. Women who enforce the idea of low value men. 11:44.47 Jala Yeah, yeah, there is that for sure. Um I do want to finish the rest of my thought though. Um so there are we will. We will talk about that we will. There's so many things to talk about with subject. This is not the only episode we're going to do on this subject. Um, so. 12:01.76 Jala Ah, in any case, there are people there there are assigned female at birth individuals who they are Cis and they are ascribing to it because they either trick themselves into being in the box actually like the box or guys have tricked so tricked them into it. Whatever um. There are people who do it as a defense mechanism There are also people like me who feel like you know, a lot of their traits inborn traits are things that would be described as masculine and therefore they look to that toxic masculinity as a kind of guidance because that's what they've got in their purview. Right? And that's what my situation was because I felt very strongly because like I had these dispositions that I have forever. So you know I've been the aggressive person I've been the take charge person I've been all of these different things I've been the stoic kind of person and. Having all of these traits and having been told all my life that those are masculine traits it really made me when I was a teenager go like am I supposed to have been a boy like what is going on right. And that kind of actually led to me having the gender identity that I do now where I say I'm essentially I am non-binary or I have a I I say I'm I binary but I really have like a binary switch in my head and it goes from you know, ah feminine to masculine. It's a hard switch. It's one or the other because. 13:31.67 Jala When I was growing up I had this hard binary household with hard binary gender roles and that's what I learned all my life and I will say with all of the work I've been doing with studying with talking to people on this podcast. Um, you know recording this podcast doing all this stuff. And you know doing my due diligence and everything I've been slowly changing over time and I am happy to report that the hard binary switch in my head is slowly going away. It's going to take a long fucking time for it to really go away. You know 100% because it's a fight. It's a battle all the time. But. I'm reducing the amount that the hard binary is affecting me ah you know like I I still feel like I'm somewhere on the gender spectrum I don't fit Cis female 100 % but um, you know like that that switch is going away which is kind of cool to see. But it's been taking me actively talking about toxic masculinity and different stuff about femininity and really exploring gender and talking to people and grappling with the topic to get me there. 14:42.19 Jala Briar did you have anything further you wanted to add about your prior statement. 14:45.75 Briar Oh no I was just ah enthralled by listening I think that it's real fun. Having been on this journey with you for quite a while too. Um because like so some of ah. What we're talking about are things we are like learning about ourselves and enriching our own lives because from my perspective masculine Ja Jala Feminine Jala there's a degree of like I'm just bouncing off Jala you know what? I mean and like. Ah, we've gotten close in some ways that I don't even notice the code switching if it does occur and like that actually validates that feel like a little bit for me because now you're like well the code switching doesn't happen as often as hard. 15:35.70 Jala Yeah, it's it's not it used to happen real hard hard switches and like I haven't really like I've I've noticed that I've been more more of the things that I identify as being masculine or more of the things I identify as being feminine, but the switch doesn't really like. Click in my head like it doesn't feel like I'm you know assuming a different persona assuming a different gender. Suddenly it's still me. You know, like some some of it's softening those edges are softening some over time which is good like I want that because I don't want to have this kind of you know, dual nature that doesn't really um. You know speak a hundred percent to just like my reality you know like i. 16:18.74 Lance Instead of you don't want to have to choose between two examples of half of a human being. 16:25.18 Jala Right? right? So that actually leads me into ah a quote I want to drop and then I want to go ahead and throw to Lance in case Lance has further thoughts so traditional masculinity as we know it is an unnatural state and as a consequence men are constantly at war with themselves. 16:41.59 Jala And the world around them. This is from the man they wanted me to be by Jared Yate Sexton so Lance what do you think about that. 16:49.87 Lance I Oh I'm distracted by your notes I'm sorry I I would I you're gonna have I I was reading part of the but the document and I didn't listen to what you said I'm really sorry I can't my brain is. 17:05.18 Jala You can read part of the argument or ah the article aloud. Okay, okay. 17:09.58 Lance I'm self- distracted I'm really sorry you can have David at this best out hi youth you threw to me and I was reading a sentence because there's just there's part of your notes that oh it really bugged me. 17:15.57 Jala That's fine. He'll do it. It's all good. 17:26.34 Lance And I'm like hyper fixated on waiting until you get that far down. Ah so I'm really sorry I'm really sorry. 17:28.25 Jala Okay, well then I will move forward and we will we will go we will go from there. Okay so they are left with only the ability to express themselves. Through anger and violence because as Victor J Seidler writes in unreasonable men masculinity and social theory a whole range of softer emotions like sadness tenderness fear and are often displaced into anger because. This can be seen as affirming rather than threatening our masculine identity with emotions like sadness tenderness and fear being gendered not to mention a whole range of more complicated actions that rely on those baseline emotions being not only accepted but put into action like empathy or intimacy. Men who practice traditional masculinity are left with little way to express themselves other than to lash out. In fact, a term has been coined to explain this condition normative male Alexa Thymia Alexa thymia means problem with feeling emotions. So yeah, they even made a term normative male Alexa thymia problems feeling emotions because you are a guy in this society. 18:51.69 Lance And so is that what I call it when I have that weird impulse that stops me from crying even if I want to. 18:59.70 Jala Yeah, probably I've felt that too as much as I have cried because of hormones. Thanks Estrogen Um, you know like I've I've also definitely had times where I've not because I can't because I'm in Stoic Man mode. So. 19:14.73 Lance But so the thing that you I because your your notes I don't I feel like I feel like the first because you you down at impact I feel like the very first thing you wrote is. 19:15.45 Jala Probably. 19:32.91 Lance And exemplar of a problem because the the first part of the impact that you wrote is more violence against women which not that I'm disagreeing with that as a symptom of toxic masculinity. But that's a that's like. Treating a sneeze or a cough instead of treating the viral infection that's causing you to be sick because like at kind of at the heart of the whole toxic masculinity thing to me is it's about men being violent to themselves and and the largest. 20:11.19 Lance Victims of this violence are men because men commit 80% of violent crime and the primary victims of that violent crime are other men. So not to say that the violence against women think doesn't exist or that it's not important, but. Talking about that as the first point the first point your bullet point and your list of impacts of this is missing the point and is kind of like it to me it. Ah it makes it not about like. The actual problem. It makes it about a symptom of the problem. 20:51.77 Jala I Totally understand what you mean and let me explain to you too that all of the notes in the academic section are never me saying my own thoughts These are me pulling lots of articles on the internet and finding a consensus. 21:04.71 Lance I Oh I know I'm not I'm not like blaming you. It's just oh yeah, you know. 21:07.98 Jala So like I just I I do I do want to put that out there as well. My notes during the academic section are always quotes or summaries of like ah an aggregate of information from out there. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, but. 21:19.29 Lance I'm not trying to direct that statement at you but it is but typically like a from a feminist perspective that is one of the first things that they'll that they'll point out and it's like. 21:25.87 Jala Right? right? And that's because feminism you know as much as yes they say feminism is equality for all and liberty for everybody is first and foremost focused on women. So the problem that we find here is that if all of these articles are saying the first problem is that. Men are violent to women then that means that there's not enough advocacy for the health of men to begin with which you'll already know everybody listening already knows this this is a big endemic issue and that's kind of part of the why part of why we're talking about this right now. 22:03.13 Lance And it feeds into the the false idea that the concept of toxic masculinity was came out of the feminist movement because like it. It didn't though ah whole the whole phrase was termed by. 22:19.13 Lance Men's groups. Men's self-help groups in like the the mid to late 70 s who you know they began to identify the problems with it and they coined the phrase so like it came from men. It's not a feminist critique of men. It's men recognizing their own issues. 22:37.40 Jala Yeah, and then like ever since because of the rise of the feminist movement which kind of drowned that out. Um you know because women were the um you know were not the ones who got all the benefits of the patriarchy therefore as an underdog. Group were you know the the thing that ended up in the media more where you know people talked about well what about women what about women what about women and then men kind of got in and this is kind of a. Reminds me of the Barbie movie I know I'm not supposed to talk about that with sag after but like I'm not talking the movie like talking it up and reviewing it here. I'm just saying like terms of the thing that the Barbie movie is about you know that's exactly what happens to Ken in that movie is that you know Barbie and Barbie World all the women rule everything and then the men. Feel like they don't they don't know what their place is they don't even know what they're supposed to do and that movie is actually about the issues that men deal with. 23:36.85 Lance I I see ah like the way the conversation happens like like there's an important. There's a big part of toxic masculinity that makes it really hard for men to really comprehend what patriarchy means and actually is in the ways it benefits them because. 23:54.28 Lance Our like a lot of Ben's experience of patriarchy is internal conflict because no matter how hard you try, you will never not have emotions that you're told you're not supposed to have so that. So. All you do is just hate yourself for feeling the way that you will are going to feel no matter what so to be told the patriarchy benefits you and it's like yes in like outward ways in materialistic ways in ways of. The yes there are a lot of ways that it does. But while it's benefiting me. It's also causing me immense internal turmoil and self-hatred and how many men kill themselves. You know that's it's not actually benefiting them so it just there's problems in the way, the conversation happens. 24:48.40 Lance That because it doesn't come from men because men aren't allowed to have the conversation so it doesn't come from men. It comes from feminists. It comes from. Ah you know people who are trying trying to break these rules. So we I don't know Briar's trying to talk o Briar. 25:04.64 Briar Oh no, Um, so first I want to preface that like I'm agreeing with you just in my convoluted roundabout kind of way but I think ah part of where toxicness masculinity comes from is Masculinity's intersection specifically with. 25:24.21 Briar Patriarchy and I think you're exactly right about that with like um the ways that every masculine person everyone perceived socially as a man. Everyone who passes as a man. Um some of the privileges that they get. 25:43.40 Briar Now you know there's the intersection of identities like being poor being a person of color being queer that kind of thing. Um, you know those put you different places on the social. Ah the the social ah pull. But um, like. Some of the ways that I always benefited from being perceived masculine. One of the reasons why I'm not out at work and why I go boy mode at work is because I can walk into a meeting and act like I belong there. Um, like the ways I personally benefited. From were so insidious that until my entire identity had a recalibration I didn't even see those benefits because also I'm not rich. Um I view myself as relatively privileged. But I I see that slipping away. Ah, every day along with a lot of people probably see that happening. Um, but the reasons why I'm not rich. The reasons why I'm where I'm at ah in my social Stratosphere and things like that they never come down to because I'm perceived as a man. And um, you know once I I interrogated the insidious nature of my masculine privilege. Um how it doesn't necessarily reflect like material changes. Um. 27:16.76 Briar it's it's I don't want to say it's a void like it's nothing. Um, but it's the benefit of being treated as the default like that's why when we fight for in queer spaces when we talk about. How being straight is necessary as a term just as be much as being gay is a term is because if we just called straight people normal. It automatically makes everything else. Abnormal. Um, it's the same thing with Cis and trans why I refuse to. 27:51.62 Briar Seed Cis to anyone and is is because the only alternative is calling it normal or something normative like that. Um, and like I see I can see us having this exact same debate. 28:08.38 Briar When talking about masculinity 10 years in the future. You know, um, it's a very similar like drive that we have for this sort of thing and so like one of the things that benefits you know. Patriarchy and consolidates power in the hands of a few men is by having the way this those privileges work be so intangible and unidentifiable and mercury mercurial specifically like edge cases like. Um, we see this happening with a lot of um, ah cis gay white men. Um, how much privilege they're willing to seed or acknowledge exists while being in the queer community and these are conversations I've had with. Men in the bars and in bars and things like that like this is personal experience is sometimes you'll see a man just be like I've talked with guys who have gone into respectability politics in the queer space and they've been like well if you can just be a little more normal. And it's like do you remember ten years ago when that was an impossibility for you. Um, and and I think we treat men and as so much of the normative human experience and we truly. 29:39.83 Briar Ignore the nuance the specialness that each individual man has you know. 29:45.68 Jala Yeah, absolutely. 29:50.73 Lance So You're ah when you start your what you're saying about privilege like it caused a bit of self-reflection so in a lot of ways. Ah I'm kind of the like perfect. Reflection of white male privilege like I'm a white guy I'm straight I'm physically like I'm attractive enough I guess I don't know what the word is to say it but like I'm capable of attracting women like I haven't had a hard time dating. So There's a lot of ways I'm like the. And I was raised by a bunch of misogynist white men who fed all of this to me. So As like my late teens early adulthood I was successful with women in the ways that toxic masculinity told me I needed to be and. Like I was doing a good job emboding all that and I had all this privilege from coming from an upper middle class background and I was miserable and hated myself and in complete emotional turmoil inside which made it really hard to like really understand the ways in which I was privileged. Because it didn't feel good. It doesn't feel good to be part of a human being. It doesn't feel good to be to hate yourself for feeling sad or wanting to cry or wanting to be tender or wanting. 31:18.93 Lance Softness from your partner and care in a way that you know would be presented as like you're you're weak. Why would you want this? You don't need this and it's. 31:29.98 Briar Oh yeah, that lines up so much with my experience too is by a lot of measures. Um I could have been a handsome man. Um, you know? yeah you know what I mean is I could have put in the work I can succeed. 31:49.76 Briar As ah as society dictates that I succeed and in some ways I get forced back into that box because there hasn't been a clean break between my masculine identity and I don't want to give it all up I I like some of it That's the beauty of being an envy is picking and choosing. 32:01.62 Lance Yeah, like I I was I was succeeding in all the ways I was told I was supposed to succeed and I hated it. It was miserable just there's because there oh you're fine. 32:07.49 Briar Traits that I like and just being critical of that. 32:17.26 Briar I I agree I Sorry agree is the wrong term. Um I experienced the same thing like it's no secret to listeners of this show that like I am a suicide survivor and it's specifically. 32:32.80 Briar Ah, masculine urge that drove me to try to take my own life a couple of times and um, we have a bit in our notes about about um suicide rates. Um, ah among men and um. 32:41.63 Lance I understand. 32:52.20 Briar Like if I was still a man I would be a statistic by now. So I have a lot of sympathy for. Thank you. It's ah, a lot because I have beautiful people like you guys in my life. So um. 32:57.73 Lance Thank you for sharing and for still being here. 33:11.95 Briar But the that's why like when I am critical and why I try why I try to be a hard ass with men sometimes is because I know that's the language I spoke when I was a man and I know not every man speaks that language I tried to deploy it effectively. Um. But I also know that like I need to have sympathy. Ah because I was failed on that front and so I'm trying to be as compassionate as possible is like that's why I Think. Interrogating toxic masculinity How it comes home to roost is very important and that's why I Really love what you're saying about um how men um, commit more violent crimes against each other and like the degrees of violence change because I Think. Um I don't think it's a controversial statement on this specific call with all 3 of us to say that like micro aggressions against women are way out of control like I could almost um you know this is just a theory an educated guess. But um I bet you the. 34:26.26 Briar Violent Statistics would flip flop if you counted microaggressions versus things that had a lethal catastrophic consequences. It's because the way I was taught to interact with men and assert masculinity and affirm my gender was to come out on top. And sometimes that got bad. 34:48.59 Jala Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So Um I do want to circle ah back a while. Um I just remembered that I didn't get to talk about it. Um, when we were talking about the impact Onyme female at Birth individuals. I Did want to say that um I had a bunch of friends in the military and my first husband was in the military and everybody was like you're so badass. Why didn't you join the military and I told him straight up as a woman in the military. I would have to be harder than all of the guys and I would have to be to become something that I don't want to be some of this is already my disposition but I don't want to have to turn off the other half of myself in order to survive in this situation without without hopefully hopefully without. Having a problem being sexually assaulted which is rampant in the military or being killed or whatever having some other form of violence from people that are supposedly on my side and so. It was literally a thing I thought about when I was younger. Do I Want to join the military and I decided no because even though I have some disposition towards that kind of activity at the same time I'm like actually I don't want to do that to myself because I know what would happen to me. 36:14.54 Jala Briar. 36:15.50 Briar I think that ties well with my statement about I called them factory ladies some of them were my factory moms. Um, ah you you specifically said that ah you would have had to be harder than the men around you which is what those women had to do. Um, but also like these were women who were firmly women. You know they had seen several schools of feminist thought on top of you know working hard jobs and um, so like I think it was. Just interesting how like by being in this masculine coded space and by haning to deaden their nerves and be harder than the men around them. Um, but they were still a hundred percent woman 100% of the time you know, um I just think that. That ties well with that is like um what is required to enter masculine spaces by non masculine people. 37:21.20 Jala Yeah, and that's something that I've talked about before on some episodes somewhere about like when I was doing what 1 thing that I noticed and the reason why I was like you know I actually don't think I'm Cis because. I I feel like I am switching into a different mode in that I I identify far more with guys in these situations and meanwhile these other people like if I'm doing an 18 hour rucking events I would be on events sometimes with all women and when I was I noticed this big difference between how I was behaving and how everybody else was behaving. So I noticed that. I was embodying the way that guys who do these events act and how they are and how they're thinking even my body language everything is switched and then these women that are on these events with me. They are still women. They're still the same person that we stepped off with. But. They are they are retaining their femininity while also doing the hard shit and that is kind of one of the things that made me understand oh shit I actually think that I'm not Cis like oh I I am not not only did I have this sneaking suspicion for a long time in a whole. 40:10.32 Jala Gender Dysphoria thing in my teenage years but actually it's still a pervasive thing where I'm still not I Still don't line up to this box I'm given for being Female. So I Actually don't think that I I fit that box 100%. So um, Yeah, so the the feeling of these people being um, you know, still them but still retaining their femininity and also being hard. That's something that is is not something that I'm capable of doing so it would cut off part of who I am. To do that. So That's why I couldn't ever do that. 40:48.13 Briar I think that ties a lot to what Lance was saying about being part of a person too is I've seen young men and older men even fail in these scenarios and I've seen young women and older women fail in these scenarios because like it. It can chop you up. It can take you apart and it is I'm so glad Lance that you said it's being part of a person. Um because like that just rings so true with like the alienation and personal emptiness that it felt doing that. Yep. 41:24.54 Lance Self-hatred. 41:26.96 Briar And um, you know, like not to be appropriative but the concept of like Ying and yang and having like a full degree of wholeness is like admitting. There's overlap between those kind of things that admitting fullness comes from that intersection. 41:42.21 Lance Um, yeah, and like stopping the impulse to categorize things as masculine or feminine like simple basic parts of the human experience. 41:57.30 Lance Because it's like I can be sad and be a guy. Do you know what? I mean or or happy or excited or tender with my children you know like and okay, what what you were saying Jala about so thank. 42:16.20 Lance Luckily for women there has been progress made by through you know feminist movements and that whole thought that women are like the definition of what is a woman is broadening and the generally. Like and the traits that they're allowed to embody and still be a woman is' broadening but for a myriad of reasons men haven't done that for themselves and and that in in a lot of ways makes the progress that women have been making. 42:53.37 Lance More threatening and more dangerous to the men who are still stuck in a you know ah 200 year old box because if because if you're a man and you define being a man by certain things. 43:11.66 Lance And now you see women doing them that attacks that fragile structure that you have in you know in your head of like it's causing men to kind of lose touch with what is. Manliness What is masculinity because now even like the few things it's it's like it's like oppressing women was necessary self-defense because as soon as you allow women out of the house and into the workplace or into fields that are typically masculine Now. We've Lost. We've lost what is masculine and now men are adrift even more so than they were before because there's nothing to hold on to there is no thing that this is a men's Arena This is the thing that men are allowed to do and is a healthy or not healthy and is. But is an expression a public expression of Masculinity. It's all gone and I think that's a large part of why toxic men are kind of moving. It seems like they're moving to more extremes you know incels all that is. 44:26.14 Lance The few things that men had to hold on to like for as wrong as it was it was still at least giving them like a base a something to stand on and that's all gone that whole patriarchal foundation is largely gone from their view. So what. So their whole the whole structure that creates their personality is evaporated and that makes them more dangerous because they're incredibly incapable of dealing with their own feelings. 44:57.60 Jala Right? And it kind of feels like and I know Briar. You also want to talk I promise this will be real short. It kind of feels like that thing that you were talking about earlier that we were discussing where um, part of the problem with the conversation is that the conversation is focusing on. From the women's perspective not from the men's perspective talking about men and there's not enough men discussing men bringing that to the fore and that being you know, shed light on I think in more recent years. It's only starting to only as a reaction to the fact that there are so many. Situations of violence and hatred and all different kinds of stuff that we see every single day in America now. Um as a result of you know these men having no other mode of expression for themselves. You know not having. 45:43.69 Lance The only thing left is extreme violence. That's kind of the the problem. 45:47.29 Jala What they what they feel they don't feel like they have is. Yeah yeah, there's they yeah and because they are so sad they are so angry and everything else and it's all pent up inside and they're not allowed to express it within their own Groups. So The only way to. Do anything about that is to explode Outward. So Um, and that that kind of feels like a historically patriarchy was crushing everybody else and then so then. Everybody else starts to rise up and then they're coming to prominence and they're getting them. You know themselves starting to be explored and things like that. But then the men got left behind somewhere in there is is the problem that we're seeing now. Um, where the men's health and the men's you know,? well-being. Needs to be addressed and because the problem is because they are part of you know they are getting quote unquote getting the um benefits of the patriarchy they are like oh well, you guys have it made but that's not actually addressing the issue of men's mental health and emotional well-being and. Spiritual situation or what have you? you know like it's only treating physical means if anybody you know who is a man is getting those privileges on their daily life. 46:59.58 Lance And somebody who's stuck in that perspective telling them that they have the benefit of patriarchy is it's counterproductive because it's what I said earlier they still have the internal the internal turmoil and that doesn't feel like a benefit. Doesn't feel like winning. It doesn't feel like you know it doesn't feel good so to be told you have privilege. You're benefiting from Patriarchy. It doesn't that causes more reactions which I'm not trying to like blame anybody who would. Speak out on things that need to be talked about, but it's just it's a worthwhile thing to consider. 47:42.80 Briar I Think by its very nature. It's harder to notice absence and like like I was kind of trying to allude to was like um yeah, you know, ah noticing the absence of oppression. 47:59.39 Briar Is something that like is some next level thinking some really high level empathy. Um and things like being depressed and being alienated shut off those receptors. 48:12.55 Lance Well like there's there's different and there's different kinds of oppression as you're you know wait, there's internal and there's horizontal Zeic because it's like men holding down women as te has happened throughout lots of different. Times of history is external. It's it's easy to go. These are the these are the victims of this oppression. These are the perpetrators of the oppression and it just it's an easier kind of problem to try and speak to and do something about but men oppressing each other. You know, horizontally in social circles and you know like because it's like the amount of like toxic statements that were overtly made to me growing up or whatever that are exemplars of toxic masculinity aren't. Common like I wasn't really told boys don't cry like straight out I wasn't you know abused for having feelings. It's It's just Modeled. It's what's modeled around you. It's it's stuff. That's a little more amorphous. It's what you see It's the kinds of men that are lifted up to be exemplars to like reach to and that that stuff's harder to deal with. 49:36.62 Lance It's harder to because you can't point out this is the the this is the problem person and this is the victim person. It's you know, somebody else can't address my internal conflicts me oppressing myself. 49:49.53 Briar It's it's like when we talk about um you know people like Andrew Tate's impact where like sure he's teaching a lot of men to be awful to a lot of women but he's also he's straight up robbing a lot of young men. And like I said his audience is primary like teenagers and things like that and he's straight up taking their money. 50:07.94 Lance Yeah, because he's it. It has a massive opportunity cost because he's correctly identifying a problem and offering toxic solutions which yeah and that is. 50:19.31 Briar And he's emotionally manipulating them and like yeah he. 50:25.40 Lance That is directly taking away the opportunity for that person to reach like to have a healthy solution. It's like somebody going to some quack. No nothing you know mystical doctor instead of going to ah a hospital when they have a sickness or something. 50:42.57 Briar Yep, and every time that asshole comes up in the news we talk. Ah just this might be related to my social circle and you know might be my blind spots. We talk about his impact to women first. 50:43.13 Lance Not only that. 50:57.82 Briar And sometimes we're exhausted by the time we even get to talking about how he's victimized men. 51:00.88 Lance Yeah, and but it's because one of the like big big major problems kind of at the core of this is that toxic Masculinity pushes men down to where they can't self-abdicate. They don't get to. They don't get to feel. They don't get to feel the feelings that would lead to self-advocacy and. 51:27.38 Jala Yeah, yeah, and that that's a thing because so many women um who do not experience that situation will say well you just need to get therapy. But it's not that simple. It's not that easy. 51:37.60 Lance And how do you? How do you therapy out the impulse that tells you that doing therapy is a direct attack on who you are as a human being. 51:47.10 Briar And that also just ignores the material reality of how many therapists have benefited from like how many therapists are exist within the system of patriarchy and exist within the system of capitalism. 52:00.13 Lance And yeah, the first the first couples the first couples therapists me and my wife went to was like a practicing Christian so he was and this was in the south in Tennessee so he was. And exemplar of toxic masculinity and the patriarchy and like so. So even if you go get help is that help going to help. 52:32.48 Briar Exactly and also like and I'm not trying to like read between the lines on your situation. But I bet that therapist as wrong as you know he is now. Um he was real sure of himself and that was wrong. 52:45.63 Lance Yeah, oh yeah, and I mean and the kind of problematic thing is like he kind of helped us but like he helped us to what did it long term did it long term help us. It didn't address any real. 52:48.87 Briar That was really appealing wasn't it. 52:54.14 Briar Because because I trust experts. 53:02.10 Lance Issues it you know it was surface level it just it. We didn't get to talk about how I felt you know which for a while I resented and was kind of mad at my wife like why didn't I get to talk about how I felt about these situations but like did she didn't do anything wrong are the professional. They didn't. 53:16.49 Briar And you probably never even looked at. 53:20.50 Lance The professional we were talking to didn't care to understand how the man felt because it didn't matter. 53:25.93 Briar Yep, and that's as professional as professionals can be is they are still human and valuable and they still have their own agendas and biases. Um, it sounds like you started interrogating. 53:41.93 Briar Ah, what was lacking? Yeah yeah, like after it was already a problem. 53:42.57 Lance Years later. Oh my gosh like years later you know like I've been married for 15 years and like that is 15 years in October so that's an accomplishment but like I met my wife when I was 15 Um. 53:59.37 Lance Which is seven years before we like got married and the impulses that I had at that point from being a toxic man destroyed the opportunity to have my relationship have been 22 years long because at the time I was busy. Trying to trying to bed as many women as I possibly could because that's what I thought my what you know would make me a good man and the like treating my treating. Her appropriately was not part of being a man being vulnerable being caring for her feelings that was not a priority of mine because that didn't make me a man that made me more like her. And then there was also like there's also the social pressure of did I consider her to be enough of a status symbol was she conventionally attractive or attractive enough to my friends to be an appropriately sized trophy for me to put on my mantle and that led to oh. Jaw is gone again. I wonder if it's still recording I hope it's still recording. But. 55:13.77 Briar That speaks a lot to my experience dating when I was ah you know, ah because I I didn't come out until after I got married. 55:26.67 Lance What is what come out as as what exactly just so I understand. 55:28.39 Briar Was like getting married a second time So I'm nonbinary and I'm trying to be more feminine every day. Um, and. 55:38.00 Lance Okay, to okay I Just ah so kind of unfamiliar I like I understand the basics of non biary but Sexuality is that. 55:48.23 Briar So so I'm Trans myself as my gender identity and my sexuality I'm actually um, like a dirty by like pan it. You know. 55:49.78 Lance Ok. 55:57.72 Lance Sure that sounds fun. 56:01.73 Briar Um, yeah, like I usually just say buy for like Layman's turns but it's really like um, it's really based on the intersection between all kinds of attraction and it it. It boils down to it's not limited but it is also. 56:04.41 Lance Yeah, yeah. 56:12.43 Lance Sure I get it I Just it's it's complicated and there are and there's a lot of different terms and there are not a lot of opportunities where it feels safe to ask the questions that would like in. 56:20.30 Briar Precise. 56:45.58 Briar So like I would say too about my dating experience too. Is you talked about like getting all the way to like sex itself and like having a bunch of partners but that was so similar. To my daving experience but it never was really about like sealing the deal sorry to be that. That's both what very crass. Yeah, it was like making myself a fixture in these women's lives to um. 57:07.76 Lance Is about conquest. It was about conquest. 57:20.80 Lance Um, knowing at that point in time knowing that I could bed them like I'm using Cras terms because that's where I was I was at the time like these terms I like I feel like the crass terms are the only way to properly do this because it it is just it is a disgusting way of thinking. 57:38.30 Briar Um, it applies at impli. Um, its accuracy and that's kind of like. 57:38.60 Lance So terms that yeah and and terms that cause a listener to go to Recoil is that feels appropriate does that make sense So like so feeling like. 57:46.84 Briar Yeah, oh yeah, yeah I think you you have a lot of positive intent with with that I think that is a very good way to word that. 57:55.32 Lance I could accomplish feeling like I could have I like I did like knowing that they would have been willing was enough because it was about the conquest it was about being able to the actual act at some point didn't even matter anymore. 58:10.82 Briar And so when I was coming to I bought into the I'm actually deep I'm a romantic man. Um, it's not just about sex. Yep and. 58:19.68 Lance Um, yeah, you have to create you have to create special boxes to fit in because yeah. 58:27.14 Briar So even if it wasn't just about sex and I had convinced myself or if that was the reality at the time. Um I still needed to be like dateable I needed to be desirable. It was like me lashing out in like. 58:36.70 Lance In here. 58:43.14 Briar Instead of lashing out with my fist and my feet I was lashing out with love bombing and ah being saccharine sweet and just like being the rom-com Boy I like I remember probably the worst thing I've ever said on a date. 59:00.97 Briar Was a girl told me she liked how I met your mother and I said I was Ted Mosby when I was fricking sixteen years old yeah because my yeah, my analysis of that was like I viewed him as the hero and the romantic and now I like. 59:05.70 Lance Oh Wow Wow Damn girl I don't know if you should admit that on the internet I. 59:20.31 Lance My my pattern was to find women attach them to me and then as soon as I started to feel really feeling if real feelings to self detonate is self-destruct because I can't. 59:20.82 Briar Cannot stomach that show because I hate that Ski's ball. But. 59:35.17 Briar Oh yeah, that was terrifying and the the cool guy stories I would make up so they would not want to be with me and I was just too cool. 59:39.24 Lance Ah, can't let myself do that. 59:47.80 Lance Or just acting like a complete asshole so they would get rid of you is was ah was a normal pattern of mine was like okay like I can't I can't do this anymore. This is uncomfortable because I'm feeling things. So now I'm going to act like a complete piece of shit until they. 01:00:05.48 Lance Until they give me what I deserve. 01:00:10.25 Jala Wow you are talking about stuff that I've experienced in my life from people I was with. 01:00:13.67 Lance I Know there's it's that's the thing That's why like like certain pieces of media that I've watched where you just see men do particularly terrible things and they're phrased their. 01:00:15.91 Briar Um, yep, it's rough. 01:00:31.40 Lance Presented as the as an antagonist or as like a bad guy and it's like it just it can feel really relatable in a really gross way because it's like I've been that person self-detonating my own life because I hate myself for. Feeling a certain way or not fitting this idea of what is a man. 01:00:55.56 Jala Right? right? and it kind of feels like you know look I think so far my biggest takeaway from the conversation at least at this juncture is that we really need to talk so much more like as a society yes, also on this podcast also wherever um. About men's health and I think like in the discord server. We do a lot of talking about that kind of subject. Um, but like definitely men's mental health has been set by the same wayside because again like. People are you know people who are not men are looking at the situation and going. Well you guys benefit because of this meanwhile guys are also um, you know committing suicide three point six three times more than women. So. Yeah. 01:01:48.70 Lance Yeah I go Briar have something to say it's. 01:01:55.29 Jala It's wild. It's fucking wild. So like as some of the things. So so when I was doing my research and and and for every every mood move everything about this um, different things that I read to be causes. Of toxic masculinity in the first place like for me I would say just like example, the modeling that you're talking about because that's exactly how I got it as well. Lance is I got it from my dad and my dad's iron worker friends right. 01:02:26.53 Briar I think Lance and I had a great conversation too about the different ways. We both did similar things too and the ways we convinced ourselves to do things is there was not a doubt in my mind I rose romantic and women told me. 01:02:26.68 Jala So that's where I learned toxic masculinity from um, that would I think. 01:02:45.93 Briar All the time you know like oh yeah, no, you're fine for doing this thing that like I wouldn't be asking about it if I didn't know at least subconsciously it was bad or destructive but I was also like dependent On. Um what you call it. I I was dependent on like their validation and that was also just another axe of me either getting their validation or seeing I wasn't going to get it from them and then breaking things off that way. 01:03:23.42 Jala Yeah, yeah, so something that's interesting about reading these notes over within the frame of what we've been discussing in the last however long we've been On. Um, it's allegedly causes of toxic masculinity include. Violence or trauma at home which oftentimes is caused by the toxic masculinity that already exists within the parents being modeled on the children dysfunctional family dynamics again. Same thing. Not necessarily always the same thing but a lot of that in my experience anyway is. Lack of mental health treatment which of course toxic Masculinity does does not support mental health treatment social rejection which of course happens when people are toxic you know are are embodying toxic masculinity to people who don't want that in their life. 01:04:10.61 Lance That it's more I think that's more important to notice the the other way is the rejection that you get from your peers when you are not being toxic. 01:04:17.28 Jala Um, yeah, there's also that there's also that for sure where like you also get the rejection if you are not toxic enough if you are not quote unquote manly in the toxic masculine way you know. Ah, taught Behavior surrounding male dominance and violence. Yeah and just like all of these different things that are listed as causes read to me as symptoms. Not as causes you know it's a self-perpetuating cycle a catch 22 of how do you undo it. 01:04:43.20 Lance So yeah. 01:04:52.79 Jala When you're caught in the middle of it and you can't break out because of what you were taught. You know it's a very hard road. 01:04:57.13 Briar That's um, a lot of the men that advocate against toxic masculinity. A lot of them ah tend to be fathers just because they've engaged with masculinity externalized now and they can see it. Um. But a lot of them. They call it breaking curses and that they always talk about how that comes down to the self perpetuating cycle that you just talked about and so like the few advocates we do have of men talking about men's issue. Ah, the ones that are educated thoughtful and not praying on other men. Um you you just hit what they have noticed on the head. 01:05:42.34 Lance And well I mean ah societally and culturally the very first thing that happens to most ah boys when they're born is a piece of their penis is cut off and it's like that kind of that. 01:06:00.60 Lance That sets the tone that sets the tone for the boy's entire life is from the second you come out here is an act of violence performed perpetrated upon you and. 01:06:08.48 Briar Oh yeah, we could. We could just from my uneducated perspective. We could have an hour or so conversation about circumcision alone. 01:06:14.96 Lance Yeah, and the idea that that doesn't that that doesn't do anything to the developing brain is a complete fabrication. 01:06:26.50 Jala It is It is actually when you look at the science behind like what actually happens when you circumcise a kid. Yeah yeah, that does yeah and actually that's something that the discourse server talked all about in our not safe for work channel because yeah. 01:06:31.60 Briar Yeah, definitely worth digging into. 01:06:37.95 Lance And I know Zombi is but she she's so wonderful. They yeah I'm so I'm sorry Zombi they're so wonderful that I loved that I was glad to not be the like cause. 01:06:52.44 Lance I'm used to being like the only person in a circle who cares about this subject and is willing to talk about it and that was really great. 01:07:01.52 Jala Yeah, well I I but I gave out ah shouts to Zombi on the last episode as well for being like the champion of normalizing bodies of whatever shape and size and this that in the other they are amazing. So ah, everybody who listens to this already knows because you've. Already heard Zombi on an episode. So um, but yeah, like anyway that's that's totally ah, a sidetrack. There. Yes, circumcision is definitely like the first thing that's done to a ah a male birth is a violence. So yeah. 01:07:34.55 Briar And I think too as a as my journey through my transition has continued um learning about when we're allowed to consent to what we do to our bodies and that's just such a socially accepted modification to your body. That is so removed from the consent equation from the personal choice. Any of that. Ah. 01:07:58.64 Lance And the the lack of the lack of like a movement to do anything about it and the pushback from I mean okay, the decision in the hospital is primarily made by Mothers So The pushback from women who won't. Respect their baby's bodily autonomy like that that communicates something out into society and into culture and to the men who have experienced this and the conflict that they have to have and then consider how much of toxic Masculinity puts weight on the. 01:08:29.83 Briar Um, and that can undermine so much. 01:08:37.63 Lance The size and quality of of a man's penis as there's Needs. There's so much of his internal value that is tied up in that and then to have this thing done to it and the internal conflict that arises of needing it being and. Extremely important for that man to accept what was done to them as good and right because if they do not then not only do they have to deal with the fact that their mother did something violated their own consent but also violated their consent in a way that directly attacked. The most important aspect of them being a man. 01:09:15.70 Briar I also think to to piggyback on that is one of the ways toxic masculinity expresses itself often and it's not a pure masculine urge but I went through it so you could go through it too and then to have. Bodily autonomy be the first thing on the table that goes yep to have that be 1 of the first thing that goes even if you don't fully critically look at it is. 01:09:34.77 Lance Sour grapes. 01:09:41.16 Lance But then you raise these men and you're telling them. They need to respect other people's bodily autoomies and it's like but wait a second I was an I was a completely helpless infant and you cut off a piece of my body for no fucking reason. Yeah. 01:09:48.80 Briar How am I supposed to do that when I never had that. 01:09:55.76 Briar Yeah, sorry job. 01:09:59.24 Lance Jala has her hand up. 01:10:03.91 Jala Um, yeah I do I do because um I know this is not sex chat. But I'm not going to talk like in-depth like we did on the sexuality episode. But um, all of that also ties into and the toxic masculinity also ties into. Several different aspects of various things that I'm aware of like the fact that men carry a lot of tightness in their hip area. It is not just because of things that they do. It is also related to the anxieties that they have about. A lot of different things and they just they guys carry a lot of tension and pressure and it makes them inflexible, but it also you know can cause lots of different actual issues for them and it's all like you know, hip tension stuff and I know that you know Dave Dave is like not a toxic man. You know I don't think he's ever like oh he had like touches of it at some point in time because I think that's unavoidable, but like you know some time time way back in the past but he is at this point in time. Absolutely not and I'm more toxic masculine than he is you know like I'm I'm terrible compared to him. And um, anyway, he also has the same thing where he just carries so much tension in his hips. But also when it comes to stuff like sexuality like men don't have the variety of cool stuff to wear that women. Do. 01:11:28.84 Jala Men don't have a whole lot of variety of sex toys men also don't tend to if they are Cis men. They don't tend to want to explore much of anything when it comes to like orogenous zones on their body. They are about you know, mostly about the penis but then also like. Women that they're with also assume that that's what they want because that's what they are also taught because of toxic masculinity which also limits guys' full exploration of their own like sexuality their own bodies like they're afraid to actually explore their own bodies. Fully because that's not manly for them to do that. So it. It also impacts so many other things too like just talking piggybacking off of the discussion of like circumcision and. What that does like with the nervous system and with just like their immunity even is compromised by that a lot of different aspects. But then there's also this whole section about just like you know their their sexual pleasure as well and like their their tension and you know they're bodily just ah. Lack of ability to relax ever. You know. 01:12:41.90 Lance I Yeah sorry I was relating too hard to that internally. That's somebody who is regularly tense and stressed out for all. Yes for all of the reasons. 01:12:56.43 Lance Go Briar go go say something. 01:12:59.15 Briar But no, ah my brain is just wrapped around trying to smartly express the words penetrative sex and ah yeah I can't get from point a to point B adequately. So I'm just going to blurt it out and try to be act like I'm here. 01:13:10.56 Jala Um, you can just say it is fine. 01:13:12.19 Lance Yeah, go just be crass. We already with Jala wasn't here to to listen but we already said why it's good to just be crass. 01:13:16.41 Briar Stick it? ah. 01:13:17.22 Jala Um, stick it in. Um. 01:13:25.20 Briar Yeah, at at yeah, like um, there's There's so much ah around like masculine sex. Ah penis having sex of just like solely being penetrative that it it can ignore like unless you're taught like really. 01:13:27.33 Jala Um, yeah, do it. 01:13:43.10 Briar Like sex is an art form. It's a science. It's magic. Whatever you want, but it's a practice you can get better at it and um and less if you're so focused value focused on penetrative sex. Then um, you're ignoring so much of mind. 01:14:01.62 Briar Body Soul Just um, you know, just think of how many square inches of skin you have on your body you know, just think of how wild your brain really could go when you're with a partner and. 01:14:08.70 Jala Right. 01:14:17.25 Briar Ah, just if you're so focused on your penetration game. You're neglecting yourself and your partner um is neglecting that part of you and a lot of men don't have that vocabulary to realize that they crave more. They want more. 01:14:34.11 Briar Um, and if you don't that's okay, too like ah like I know I might be talking. Yeah, but I think it ties back to a lot with what Jala alluded to earlier too is like. 01:14:37.68 Lance And if you don't are you in touch with your internal landscape and. 01:14:51.56 Briar Men are complicated nuanced individuals and patriarchy and Masculinity specifically toxic masculinity can flatten that like a ah goddamn Steam roller. 01:15:03.20 Lance And what you so what? you said earlier about one of you 2 said earlier about most men's voices coming from men who are experiencing parenthood that because that's where I'm at like I have a seventeen year old boy and an eight year old boy. 01:15:22.34 Lance And a three year old boy and a little while ago I was sitting just talking to my kids and my 8 year old son asked me or said something about oh once boys grow up. They don't cry anymore because they've. 01:15:41.18 Jala Oh no. 01:15:41.54 Lance Because they've never seen me cry and I'm like son of a bitch like because it's like I don't I'm not toxic with them I'm not I don't but it's so much of just because so much of how kids learn is through what's modeled to them. You can explain something a thousand times but they will learn. They will immediately learn and internalize something that they have seen you do because that's the primary method of which they learn anything and so. 01:16:16.18 Lance I I Just got to quickly be put on the spot and think okay, what in the hell do I say to this? How do I respond to this and so I just went into explaining to him This is like this is not healthy. The the fact that you've never seen your dad cry is not. Ah, healthy thing I wish I could I wish I could feel that feeling and let it out and I can't and it's like hopefully that's enough but is it I don't know. 01:16:56.89 Lance Dude it sucks. 01:16:57.31 Jala Me tear up, not that that's hard to do right now. But anyway yeah like I will say that like just just I don't know if ah, this will help or not Lance but like there are but definitely been times where my parents sat me down and had a serious conversation about something like that and. 01:17:16.84 Jala I took it to heart. Ah that that's not to say every kid every person will do so everybody is an individual Um, but yeah, so up. 01:17:23.65 Briar Yeah I think it means a lot that you're willing to have like a Frank dialogue with your kid because um. 01:17:26.40 Lance Oh boy, Parenting is a constant succession of uncomfortable Frank conversations. 01:17:29.27 Jala Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:17:35.10 Briar Yeah, so some people just don't get that and it baffles me. Um I didn't like really start having these deep fully intellectualized conversations with my own parents until I was like an adult. 01:17:48.51 Lance Well, how do how do you get to have them with your dad when Dads are so we're supposed to be out. We're supposed to be out doing stuff you know and and coming back to the family after we've worked all day and we're too tired and we're too fed up to put up with the kids or put up with the wife. You know it's like. 01:18:08.70 Lance The whole patriarchy is destructive in that way. How many how many important lessons did people not get to learn from their fathers because of this. 01:18:17.40 Briar And and sometimes sometimes that dad needs a little little bit of yelling at. And yeah, you yell and you yell back and forth at each other and eventually either either the damn breaks or people break. 01:18:36.52 Briar And it's devastating. Um I I can't say I've observed and this is largely me speaking to the integrity of my own father and him as an individual I see so many young men who could not get to that point with their dad ever and it kind of breaks my heart. 01:18:55.87 Briar For them and I know no your heartbreaking on other people's behalf is is a little tacky but like just where my relationship is with my own family is something I. 01:19:03.15 Lance I disagree. 01:19:11.68 Briar Just wish other people could have without having to go through Strife and to strive for that. You know. 01:19:16.10 Lance Well like I as you know as a husband and father I don't have I did not have any role models of how to do this at all and no like I can't think of a single positive male role model I had I can think of. Toxic Male role models I had I can think of my grandfather who would get drunk and yell at everybody and thankfully the beating up his spouse and kids happened before I was born but that's the kind of guy that my grandfather was. My dad was an ah emotionally abused terrible example of a man who is stunted by the fact that he was raised by a physically and emotionally abusive alcoholic with untreated Post-traumatic stress disorder from the Korean war like it's like it's a complete nightmare being able to. Sit down and like listen to my children and ah hear them Express feelings and address them is this terrible experience of me trying to figure it out as I go when all of the impulses that I have are to not. Are to yell and be like no stop shut up. This is not. You know this is scary for me and I'm going to take that fear out on you to get you to stop doing things that scare me and that I'm not prepared to deal with it's ah. 01:20:48.46 Lance I Don't know I get lost in my own feelings about some of this stuff and then my thoughts kind of trail off. Yeah I. 01:20:53.59 Briar I'm not like along as hard as I can with you right now I think you're you're right about that. 01:20:56.69 Jala Um, Boom Yeah and I don't have kids you know, but my sister does and she was raised in the same household as I It was so ah, you know we were both affected by the same things. Ah, both of us have real hard strife with the fact that we never have been able to really connect with my dad 100% because he is a mix of ah bipolar nightmare um as well as and I say nightmare specifically because like he is Bipolar. He has medication. But for the longest time he didn't so it was only in college that he got medication and started to kind of get better and it's only now in his old old age that he's becoming somewhat manageable only because he's in pain all the time. Um, so. That that in in he was ah violent and off the handle a lot of times when I was growing up ah destructive hurtful as hurtful as he could be anytime he could be hurtful. Um and all of that. But then when he was not on a rampage. He was this real sweet guy. Right? Like complete flip complete flip to a different and completely different person and and well well. So Anyway as I was trying to say um even when he was nicer though he still had a lot of those toxic masculinity. 01:22:12.40 Lance But it's I don't know I just I have a perspective on that I'm sorry sorry sorry sorry. 01:22:28.93 Jala And toxic masculine traits and he would embody those and then my mom would enable those and support those and even if she felt that these things weren't right. The things that he was doing or whatever. Or things that he was saying or decisions that he made he would tell my sister and or she would tell my sister and I that behind his back and then to his face throw us under the bus and you know get us into like whatever as a self-preservation. Ah, for herself. So My my modeling of a woman was horrible. I hated women for a long fucking time I did I hated women I didn't want to be a woman I didn't want to associate with women because every woman not just that. But other situations in my life other people that I knew who were female who were around me were also trash like that and ah so I was stuck between a rock and a hard place where I didn't like anybody and I had to figure out where I fit in there right? And what was and and it's like oh no actually. 01:23:38.20 Jala Just because your mom was a victim of abuse and that's why she's like that and oh it's because your dad has bipolar and is has been untreated all this time and doesn't know and he needs help and he only so got that help like after you were out of the house. Oh. Okay, well you know, but it's it's real hard when you you have that kind of back and forth whiplash too where it's like I mean there are times where I've been frustrated and been like I don't know ah that I love my parents and then there's other times where I'm like of course I love my parents and like because of the. Cycle of both abuse and other nice moments that I've had in this roller coaster going throughout my life with these people like it's just real hard and my sister is just as conflicted but when she ah how I I wanted to come back to the point you were making Lance was that when she. Ah, had kids of her own. She was terrified and she like me got a lot of her behaviors from my dad not my mom so when she became a mom she had yes, she had hormones and stuff that were doing 1 thing. But then like her brain was doing something else that was more in line with the toxic masculinity that we learned from my dad so she was having some of that whiplash too even though she's assigned female at birth. She's Cis you know, ah, whatever. But. 01:25:08.76 Jala Like she still had that same problem as a result of toxic masculinity. So it is it definitely affects men more I'm not trying to discredit that at all. But I also wanted to say it does also affect. You know people who are assigned female at birth. 01:25:19.33 Lance This is the part where it's good. It's good to spread out the who we're talking about does that make sense because it is. 01:25:25.76 Briar Well I think too that talks to a lot of like Jolly we've we've talked a lot about how we formed these recursive loops and it's not strictly the father who is enforcing that loop. 01:25:29.50 Jala Um, you know? yeah I mean like it's um. 01:25:42.38 Jala Yeah, correct and it definitely was like you know my mom was enabling it and the reason why she enabled it is because she was abused from childhood on and so she didn't know anything else. So she just thought this was 100 % normal and it was her fault. She always blamed herself for everything. It was her fault. It was her fault because that's what my dad told her and that's what everybody else in her life told her so you know and that's that's a separate issue that's like a cycle of abuse issue. Ah. You know? but then again toxic masculinity is abuse so it's kind of one and the same thing just a different lens. 01:26:18.44 Lance Yeah, it's It's the same thing as that was still her internal battle with toxic masculinity which is why I'm saying it's that that's not the same thing as earlier when I pushed back about you presenting it as a problem for women is that's.. It's ah it's a problem for people internally and that's the part that I prioritize not just men but you know all humans because we're all dealing with what is a concept of masculine Period. You know it doesn't matter where you are on any of the spectrums if you have. 01:26:53.73 Lance This broken idea of what is masculine. It's going to severely negative impact negatively impact your internal landscape. 01:27:04.72 Jala Absolutely and not allowing that Breadth is also damaging. It's it's again, some of that perpetual cycle because assigned female at Birth or other non-male identifying individuals will assume. These things to be masculine traits and will follow along with these toxic masculine roles and everything for any kind of male in their life. You know any kind of male identifying male person. Whatever in their life and then that limits. Those interactions automatically because those assumptions have been made and then that guy is then stuck in that same loop of having to live up to this expectation that is placed on them because they're they're they're being told by people who aren't even men you know? ah. 01:27:56.99 Lance Yeah, and it's a common experience for men to be told by women in their lives that they're typically in a romantic relationship with that. They need to be more more open more emotional more vulnerable. 01:28:02.15 Jala That this is how they need to be. 01:28:14.35 Lance And then to experience negative consequences from those same women when they do when they do actually do that because that woman is influenced by toxic masculinity and what is the ideal. What is the ideal man that she needs to be with and it's. A broken picture of a man. So. It's very, there's ah like there are a lot of experiences I've had of trying to break out of it and then being kind of beaten back by the people who you expect would appreciate it. So make sense. 01:28:53.80 Briar I Think that sings to this might be a little lighthearted. Um, there was a and I try not to recommend accounts like this because you know the flip to oh this is an mra could happen at any moment but there is an account that I kept seeing pop up. That was just stitching all these tiktoks of like women saying okay girls red flag when a man eats ice cream like this in Public. Ah, that's a red flag or that's my Ic and just like this account would go through with all these stitches and then just. 01:29:25.42 Lance Oh yeah, there's yep, that's that's the one I knew you were and it dude that list. It's sad how long that list gets how long that list is these yeah following that account for a long time and that list is. 01:29:29.21 Briar Flip over to a word document that said things men can't do in public. Yeah, and it said how many times those lists have been restarted and populated a bit billion times over. 01:29:45.26 Lance Fungus and it has some of the most absurd things on it and that that like ties into what we were talking about earlier of like women are in all of men's spaces. So yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:29:53.49 Briar And some of them are like so toxic too like hugging your kid in public is a sign that a man's a pedophile if that's literally something I've heard someone say on the internet like to a camera post editing you like. 01:30:06.90 Jala I mean hell justin yeah well Justin Trudeau went to go see the Barbie movie with his son wearing a pink hoodie and then everybody's like oh my god he's gay like ok oh my god. 01:30:16.81 Briar Oh my god. 01:30:20.64 Lance And which which makes it really frustrating when men get told rightfully by feminist groups that we need to fix men that we need to deal with men's issues and it's like well y'all aren't helping you know what? I mean like it. 01:30:38.49 Lance Where where do we? where do we go? What is a a space for men to to to define What masculinity is in a way that's nondestructive to entirety of society. 01:30:52.96 Jala So something that this I've been thinking about in the background wall listening to everybody talk is um, like the episode about Alok's poetry that Briar and I did earlier in the year so Alok is trans. And says you know look a lot of different stuff like nonbinary and I I believe they they're trans I might be misquoting there Briar are they trans I don't remember anyway say identify that they're trans. Ok well they they are nonbinary at any rate. Ah, either way they. 01:31:18.90 Briar Um I don't know if I've ever seen them specifically use the word. Yeah. 01:31:29.95 Jala They are advocating for like non-binary ah approaches like breaking down the binary and part of the reason for this is identifying the fact that we are in what they say is a crisis of loneliness. Everyone is. Isolated and there is like not a space for people to feel their feelings and since they are a signed male at Birth. Um, you know I know that this is speaking directly from an experience with toxic masculinity that they are saying this and I was thinking about it and really. Part of that that drive that alo is talking about of trying to break the binary isn't so much. Ah, ah you know like oh we're going to deconstruct and no longer have the identifiers of man or woman or whatever it's trying to deconstruct and get rid of those expectations when you see somebody. That oh this person looks this way to me and therefore I assume this about them and that's what they're really railing against and if like the zoomers and other young people. Whatever the next generation is called after that. Um, Alpha Alpha okay. 01:32:35.98 Lance So alpha. 01:32:43.44 Jala So if the zoomers and the alphas are then um, you know able to kind of proceed with like this opening back up like if if the current measures that are trying to be taken to tamp down everybody and polarize everybody. Ah fail. And we still get more um liberal leanings in society and they are able to start breaking down some of this expectation then that would do a lot for men's mental health because a lot of those expectations would be broken like as you were saying Lance. When it comes to feminism like females women women identifying individuals. Whatever um, they have less and less of a a box to fit into like they're they're having a broadening of what the definition is for them. But that hasn't happened for men in the same way and the kind of the concept of breaking the binary is to allow whoever to be whatever they are regardless of whatever their assigned sex at birth is and so I was just. Thinking about that as a correlation to some other things that we've discussed on the podcast previously. 01:34:02.48 Lance We So we just need to figure out how to get it out to more guys. Good luck, good luck. The it's the always problem with it's they always issue with every problem. 01:34:16.40 Jala I Know well especially because it is that catch 22 loop right? and you know like it doesn't allow for.. It's so rigid that it doesn't allow for like it doesn't have permeable walls stuff doesn't go through them. It bounces back. Off as it continues to cycle right. 01:34:34.47 Lance Go Briar you kept trying to talk go. 01:34:38.32 Briar Oh sorry I was just saying I like how that formalizes the conversation and like I said I'm a nonbinary individual I'm not a man. Um, so you know if some of the thoughtss I have some of the things I see. 01:34:54.41 Briar If a masculine listener is like well what do they know they need to stay in their lane like yeah, you're probably ah right? you know I'm not a man you are entirely correct that I should stay in my lane. But um I hope that like. 01:35:11.77 Briar Ah, we at least consider each other's words and consider even me as an outsider I've listened I've listened to men form these sorry I've listened to men form these thoughts and start formalizing this conversation. So if you don't trust me as an outsider listener. 01:35:14.80 Lance Yeah I don't think that I don't think that because I I think ah sorry. 01:35:31.50 Lance Yeah. 01:35:31.57 Briar Thank you Lance for giving me grace. Um I beg you to find other men who are having these conversations because they are happening. 01:35:37.17 Lance I I've seen perspectives presented from women who've transitioned to being men and I think it I think like it's it. Somebody who's experiencing similar things to what I'm experiencing from a different perspective. You know having come from something different like that's valuable I think that's really useful and interesting information because they're not. They're not it it like in the thick of it. They're not already in the mud. They're kind of walking into it. 01:36:11.84 Lance And it's like oh shit, you know it and it I find those I'm just trying to say I find those perspectives valuable so I would also find I Also find your perspective valuable. 01:36:24.27 Briar And hooked up. 01:36:26.16 Jala Yeah, and the the whole reason that I wanted to have the both of you on this episode was so that we had this variety of perspective to have this conversation in the first place Briar. 01:36:38.52 Briar Um, So I think yeah I like that you call on both of us specifically for it is because like as a nonbinary individual I like some masculine aspects about myself. I Like some of the physical masculine traits I like some of the emotional masculine traits. Um and I'm just trying to deprogram the bad stuff. My superpower is I Want to be the best of all Worlds masculine feminine in between and outside of yeah. 01:37:15.88 Briar And um, I Just ah I think too. It's the way we signal boost voices like um, a lot of times when it comes to men listening to feminists thought it comes through a filter of they tend to prioritize. Whether it's personal bias other men talking about feminist topics and um when those same men try to talk about masculine topics Their voices get discounted because a lot of the masculine perspective is. 01:37:51.82 Briar You're already an expert on yourself or or your own feelings or your own masculinity and with the societal threat of even questioning that undermines it um with the. Outsourcing to try and find external resources on being a man. Um I. 01:38:09.45 Lance See I don't I don't think there's very many men who feel that they're experts on being men I think that's the problem is that they don't. 01:38:22.39 Jala I Think it's just that the expectation is there though even though men don't the expectation from society from toxic masculinity as an entity that has been given a personification. Ah. 01:38:37.35 Jala Is that? no you know what you're doing. You're a capable man and as a capable man you know all of this and you don't need to be told X or whatever. 01:38:42.25 Lance Well see So that's yeah because that's like where I see like the core of the conflict is That's the thing that they think that they're supposed to think but they don't feel that way. Okay, oh we agree. 01:38:44.80 Briar Um, it's It's like a thought terminating cliche. 01:38:56.89 Briar Um, yeah, and is you you're right I think it's important to name it to Lance that I think you're you're you're saying it's neglectful and I agree entirely. 01:38:59.12 Jala Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly we're all on the same page. We're all on the same page. Yeah. 01:39:02.00 Lance Cool. We all agree I. 01:39:14.55 Lance I Okay good. We're all on the same page. Ah I'm just I'm feeling like emotionally like real tired like I want to like. 01:39:15.16 Jala Yeah, absolutely. 01:39:29.93 Lance Have the conversation more but right now my insides are like real deflated like oh because it's still yeah, it's still talking about things that I'm like in the in the middle of dealing with. 01:39:35.22 Briar It. It's work. It's so much work. 01:39:41.34 Jala Um, it is work I know and and that's. 01:39:45.11 Briar Yeah, and we're putting on a show at this point but there is like um this natural like I think part of our appeal comes from I'm I'm being honest with you and I feel like you're being so kind and honest to me and. Jala you are such a great arbitrator and you know it's work though. 01:40:06.92 Lance I Hope yeah, it's like heavy breathing and and anxiety not in my chest. 01:40:08.63 Jala It is. It is absolutely work and yeah, well at that on that note we can put a pin in it and come back to this topic. You know we can. We can legit put a pit. 01:40:19.36 Lance I Need to go I need to go have a beer. Ah. 01:40:23.59 Lance We can do part 2 01:40:27.92 Jala And it's not like we won't yeah we will do another one. We will do part two and we can continue the conversation from there I mean this is ah basically intro to toxic masculinity and you know men's mental health in general and I think we pretty much. 01:40:41.95 Lance I think I've done a good job muting myself in between talking but maybe Dave if he picks up my heavy breathing. He shouldn't edit it out. Maybe it should remain it's important. Don't hide my feelings Dave. 01:40:46.00 Jala Broached a lot of ground and. 01:40:54.32 Jala Yeah, right? and just be like no this is you can tell the internal state. Yeah right right. 01:41:01.40 Briar Um, I will say like just my desire to be like an entertainer in stuff like you've been knocking this out of the park comey like this has been such a good conversation. 01:41:10.12 Lance Thank you I Really I Really appreciate it I Yeah I think this went really I was scared to come into this and like not having talked to you before Briar not having had. 01:41:20.56 Briar Because I'm a I'm a horrible recluse with not a lot of spoons for social activity. 01:41:24.75 Lance Yeah, you really need to use Discord you need to use Discord more and. 01:41:31.39 Jala Yeah, you you do need to use Discord more I know that it's not your disposition to do so though. but yeah yeah so ah but ah you know that this is just kind of ah a good good. Um. 01:41:46.15 Jala Way of expressing. Yeah well the well this is yeah this is a good good thing though because like you can you can trust that if I'm bringing somebody on the show with you I'm thinking that they will have a good conversation with you. So I know I know and you too. 01:41:54.21 Lance And oh yeah I know it's it's scary though not being able to like get an idea of where Briar was. 01:42:05.24 Jala Ah, big and you took a big leap and you did the thing and you talked about the uncomfortable thing and then you told me you were scared and you had anxiety. You did it all. Lance. 01:42:07.86 Lance I hurt my feelings Jawa I know you have no idea like because I've been working nights for the last couple weeks and every night was just hours of me being like why in the hell did you agree to do this. 01:42:26.63 Lance What excuse are you going to come up with to not do it like ah it was very scary. Joa. 01:42:29.65 Briar Oh yeah. 01:42:32.68 Jala Oh goodness but you did it Anyway, you did it anyway and I'm so glad that you did I'm so glad that you did so we will. We will get you ah the time but we're going to wrap this so you can go get your beer and relax and breathe. 01:42:42.10 Lance I Need a fear me me and me and the wife are supposed to go out on a date tonight. So I'll I'll get to go act I'll get to go act manly. 01:42:42.91 Briar Yeah, do some self-care like. Are. 01:42:50.34 Jala So oh ok, well then yeah we got to hurry on up so you can get on out of here. Yeah, so so yeah, like a wrap up thoughts on this men's mental health needs to be a bigger issue and yes considering um, you know breaking the. 01:43:08.70 Jala Expectations of the binary is an important thing to work on as a society so that we don't do this to each other because we are doing a violence onto each other and perpetuating this issue for every single one of us and doesn't matter what your gender identity is or what you were assigned at birth. You know this is true of all of us any other wrap up thoughts Briar. 01:43:30.78 Briar Ah, Nope Just thank you I tend to I tend to get it all out. 01:43:35.55 Jala No okay, okay, and Lance I already know you want to go. So yeah, yeah, okay so so ah, where in the world can people people don't find you anywhere Briar um, are you you are you car still kind of aren't you on Twitter x or whatever it's called still. 01:43:54.77 Jala Or did you delete that? yes you Briar. 01:43:55.82 Briar Of me. Oh I I lurk but um, really my only project is the the books I'm working on um and you'll know more about those when I know more about those. 01:44:13.58 Briar I need to find an editor if anyone's an editor or a publisher email me at Briars Grove at gmail.com 01:44:16.86 Lance Oh if you discorded more we have another offer in the in the Discord server who knows answers to those questions I actually spoke to him about them. But you have to come out of your shell and you have. 01:44:34.81 Briar Ah, why new people roll so much. 01:44:35.19 Lance Come into the server and talk and Alex can Alex Alex personally knows editors and people and so resources for finding them. 01:44:46.63 Briar Well good because I'm starting to panic myself I am 50000 words into my second ninety thousand word book and the first 90000 word one is not out yet. so so you 01:44:48.48 Jala Yeah, absolutely and he he talks about it. 01:45:01.97 Lance Yeah, yeah, yeah, you do okay. 01:45:03.22 Jala Hey you sound exactly like Alex Alex is dealing with some of that you need to talk to Alex so we we we do talk about that in the projects channel. So um, yeah, just keep that in mind Briar. Um, anyway. 01:45:13.79 Briar Well if you people like if listeners like me look out for welcome to Waters meet sometime. 01:45:15.80 Lance I'm really glad. Yeah. 01:45:22.54 Jala Yes, and I will I will still put your Twitter link anyway and all of that stuff. Lance is are you found findable on the internet anywhere. 01:45:27.47 Lance I Don't ah you know if they want to talk to me. They have to prove themselves to you and get invited into your Discord server. 01:45:36.75 Jala Um, there you go it is right right? it is It is a curated space. But if people are. 01:45:38.10 Briar That's how I roll yeah I don't know if we verbally express enough just like Jala you are such a nexus for. 01:45:40.40 Lance That's it I use Jala to curate who's allowed to interact with me. Ah. 01:45:48.91 Lance We do appreciate you Jala Yes, it's very cool. Sorry that all the pressures on you. 01:45:53.75 Briar Finding beautiful people. Thank you? yeah. 01:45:57.10 Jala Well well my my Discord server is a curated space. But if people are listening to this and have been listening to all all these episodes all this time. You can definitely reach out to me and chit chat with me get to know me and we'll see. 01:46:12.61 Lance She's Jala-chan in places I've heard you say that a thousand times. So. 01:46:14.94 Jala About whether or not, you're a good fit. Yeah I'm @jalachan and all the places including jalachan.place where you found this episode and all the other ones so until next time that is all folks. Take care of yourself and remember to smile and also Lance go get your beer in your date. Ok bye. [Show Outro] Jala Jala-chan's Place is brought to you by Fireheart Media. If you enjoyed the show, please share this and all of our episodes with friends and remember to rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. Word of mouth is the only way we grow. If you like, you can also kick us a few bucks to help us keep the lights on at ko-fi.com/fireheartmedia. Check out our other show Monster Dear Monster: A Monster Exploration Podcast at monsterdear.monster. Music composed and produced by Jake Lionhart with additional guitars and mixed by Spencer Smith. Follow along with my adventures via jalachan.place or find me at jalachan in places on the net! [Outro Music]