Men — Tyler Thompson, LMFT, LPCC

Men & masculinity

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I was standing in the shower thinking
about what makes a man:
An outlaw or a leader,
I’m thinking about power—
The ways a man could use it
or be destroyed by it—
The water hits my neck
and I’m pissing on myself…
Standing
in the shower
thinking…

—Jane's Addiction

~

The crisis facing men is not the crisis of masculinity. It is the crisis of patriarchal masculinity. Until we make this distinction clear, men will continue to fear *that any critique of patriarchy represents a threat.***

—bell hooks

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Suffer your interpretation
of what it is
to be a man.

—Fugazi

~

Look here,
not a thing to fear
Brother to brother,
not another as sincere
Teach a man how to be a father,
to never tell a woman
he can't bother
You can't say you don't know
what I'm talkin' 'bout,
but one day
brothers gonna work it out

—Public Enemy

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Some people claim
that there's a woman to blame
but I know it's my own damn fault.

—Jimmy Buffett

~

Why don’t you do right
like some other men do?

―Jessica Rabbit

~

Malcolm: Dispute it like a man.
Macduff: I shall do so;
But I must also feel it as a man.

—Macbeth

~

dusting off
his father’s sheet music—
spring moon

—Kris Moon Kondo

~

My mother once said the world would never find peace until men fell at their women’s feet and asked for forgiveness. This is true. All over the world, in the jungles of Mexico, in backstreets of Shanghai, in New York cocktail bars, husbands are getting drunk while the women stay home with the babies of the everdarkening future. If these men stop the machine and come home—and get on their knees—*and ask for forgiveness—and the women bless them—peace will suddenly descend on the earth with a great silence like the inherent silence of the Apocalypse.***

—Jack Kerouac

~

*I am a proud man anyway.***

—Jane's Addiction

~

All humans, regardless of gender, have the capacity and the need for toughness and fallibility, gentleness and emotionality, wild courage and tender nurture. If we really want to help boys break free and find more expansive and healthier ways to show up in the world, it’s not ‘positive masculinity’ that they need, but full humanity.

—Ruth Whippman

~

I am Kenough.

—Barbie

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Poem: Men Say Brown

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The Lover Within