I was recently involved in a discussion on Facebook that was prompted by a man, Mike, asking why he was not succeeding with women. Except for me, all the responses were from women. I think they show a continued split amongst women on male/female roles in relationships, equality or not? What they all show, however is a need that is not being provided by men. I think men need to think about this situation seriously and start looking at how they can change it.

Mike

Are all women only interested a man that can ‘provide’, either protection, good looks  or money? I’ve heard a nice smile, a big heart and a sense of humour works, but not long-term in my (limited) experience thus far.

Susanne

The more a woman knows she can provide for herself and the more she defines and creates ‘security’ for herself the less she is looking for someone to do that for her. This leaves her free to enjoy the many other gifts a man can bring to the relationship.

Jackie

Just as you ask it of women, there are men who aren’t willing to do the ‘providing’.

Jodi

I think to have a successful relationship you need to be equals on every level. You need to complement, not complete, each other because you can only complete yourself. You should never change yourself to be who they want you to be, because you will only end up resenting them.

Hanna

For me a man with a big heart, lovely smile, great sense if humour are a must but I also want a man who has stability in his life. I don’t need a man to provide for me, I want us to be on equal levels. Independence is very important for both the man and woman. You need to have love, trust and respect for any relationship to work.

Pauline

You are just encountering the mixed up world of confused genders! Neither gender is sure what they are aiming for these days. In times gone by it was all rather simple; man was the hunter, gather, provider and the woman was the supporter, nurturer. Thankfully equality kicked in and women got the chance to shine in the boardroom as well as other rooms!!

However things got dreadfully confused. Us girls started to think we could have it all; the career, the husband, the children, the fabulous dinner parties, and the charity work. We were raised and educated to excel and work every hour to achieve our dreams, on our own. Then reality set in, we couldn’t, do it, it was all too much, something had to crack. We started to feel worn out by it all.

Whilst women were tipping the scales so out of balance, men got confused as they no longer had clarity of their role. Most were becoming rather intimidated by this surge of independent females.

The reality is that money, careers, and material things come and go, what remains is someone with whom you share values, passion, interests and future aspirations. In this “coming to terms phase”, some women are moving away from being driven by careers to wanting what their mothers had; a man who can provide and take care of them and they will play house. These women should be applauded as they have worked out what they truly want and won’t bow to the media and other female pressure to say they want it all!

Graham

Mike, you ought to know better. A nice smile, a big heart and a sense of humour are great but they’re not enough, and it’s not to do with providing. A woman needs a man she can trust. A man she can rely on. A man who will be strong and be there, no matter what. ‘Providing’ is a tiny aspect of this, it shows some level of commitment, but a lot more is needed. Mike, stop blaming others, if relationships aren’t working look inside yourself. The answer will always lie there.

Liz

I just want someone to look after, that will look after me too, in other words a joint relationship where both take responsiblity for their actions and each other, oh and the important bit to be happy, if I don’t have that I have nothing.

Rachel

Every woman is like a snowflake. They are unique and beautiful, but only flourish in the right conditions. Men are strong by nature, they are the protectors, and different men provide different nurturing conditions for each type of ‘flake’. Some flakes are gentle and sit on the end of your nose making you smile, and some need a plough to move them as they are tough and weathered.

Katy

Be yourself, be your best and you’ll find your soulmate/partner who wants to be themselves and their best. When you want to compete in loving, providing, caring, because you both value each other, that is a great start and better than a retro provider/homemaker contrast. Many women now work as well, so men should share in traditionally female roles. We are evolving towards equal respecting partnerships and a balance and flow in roles depending on circumstances. If we take the long term view we want someone you can grow old with and laugh, cry, smile, never bore of communicating with or loving forever.

Laurie

I do agree with Graham about the trust. My man being there for me is how I would define providing for me. Money comes and goes, external beauty can fade, it’s who you are inside that matters. I believe when you let go, enjoy life and are not focused on finding love, it’ll find you.

Liz

Graham is right about trust.

Mike

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Of course I know all that, and it’s lovely to know I have so many caring and wise friends that I respect and trust. Thank you for being there.

Anita

I am interested in someone who can be themselves with me, while I am being myself. If I answered that question in theory I would say that having a life partner that can contribute to a comfortable lifestyle is imperative. However, in practice, I believe that love is a little more selective than that.

Graham

Mike, come off it, stop pretending! “Of course, I know all that”!! Knowing means nothing, how is it showing up in your life? Your “limited experience” has left you asking the question, the least you can do is take what all these ladies say seriously and give them some time and respect. When a man thinks he knows all about women and relationships I know he is desperate because it just isn’t happening. Get out of your head and get into your heart and look into what’s there. Show you are trustworthy, show that these ladies have not all wasted their time.

Mike

Haha, thank you Graham, that was hard-hitting and yet made me laugh, just as well I know you and know you’re coming from the heart. As you know, I am very fortunate in that people do trust me, and I am generally the leader in all aspects of my life. I put that down to following through and actually doing what I said I was going to. Time to change focus now, no more comment required on this subject.

Laurie

Graham, you are AWESOME!! That’s great coaching. I can see you are a true friend to Mike. Mike, you will definitely grow from this experience.

Tracey

Maybe trust comes from being able to make ourselves vulnerable to people we care about, showing our feelings and speaking our truth (from the heart) is true strength and that is the ‘provider’ that every woman seeks, not money or looks but a man who shows up and stands up with all his insecurities and hence his passion and his love unlocked too. Ohhh, I’m going all weak just thinking about it.

(Note: The conversation has been edited for clarity)

Technorati Tags: equality, Female, Gender, Male, women

All of life has rhythm, from the cycle of days, created by the sun, to the cycle of months, created by the moon. The seasons roll around from year to year, birds fly south, and back again, and the snows come and go. As humans we have a cycle of life and death roughly around the ‘four score years and ten’ of the bible. Even civilisations have their growth and their decline.

Women are well known for their menstrual cycle, men live with it and still cease to understand it. It is governed by the moon and by proximity to other women. It creates an ebb and flow to female life, a way of measuring time going by. Men, of course, interrupt this by impregnating women but only during the cycle of child-bearing, after ‘the change’ that is all gone.

But what about men? Through all this there seems to be no discernible cycle in a man’s life. Are there any rhythms that are peculiar to men, that separate men from women? What is different about men?

I think there are discernible differences and that by coming to understand these we can grow as men and come to better understand ourselves. Once we have a better understanding we develop our strength and change how the world sees us.

The Flow of In and Out

This is the most basic rhythm of all. It doesn’t denote the sexual act of in and out, although there are clear connections there, but the male characteristic of involvement and non-involvement. Men are ether in or out. They are either focused or in their ‘nothing box’, either attached or detached.

This is one of the great indicators of masculine strength, their ability to be totally there, completely present. Women know exactly when a man is in this state and they get very excited by it. They also know when men are not detached and they get very frustrated by it. They often cannot understand how a man can be so detached, so devoid of thought or interest. They cannot see how a man can be so empty, so uninterested.

One of the distinctions between men and women is that women are all about filling up and men are all about emptying out, we see more about this in the next section. Women are constantly involved and thinking and caring and … men just can’t deal with it. They cannot see why a woman can’t just empty out and watch TV, or fish or …

This is one of my favourite qualities in men. We are able to focus and achieve precisely because we can completely empty ourselves and let it all go.

The Sexual Rhythm

So, OK, there is a sexual rhythm of in and out, but that is a very simplistic view. The sexual rhythm follows the pattern; Interest, Arousal, Orgasm, Sleep. It’s a basic build up, empty out rhythm. It is associated with the flow of in and out but gets a little more complicated. I know men are supposed to be simple, but sometimes there can be a little complication.

This rhythm is definitely different from the female sexual rhythm which grows and builds and just keeps going. It causes no end of aggravation for many men who cannot cope the the continuation of the intensity. For men there is a finish and to go beyond that requires a lot of effort and strength.

A man starts by being interested in a woman and the play begins. At this stage all options are open and the women still has choices open to her. If she returns the interest a man can very quickly move on to the next stage, arousal. Now the woman’s choices are rapidly closing off. Many women miss this and still think a man is playing. By now he isn’t, he is on track. Arousal is the start of sex and often the start of a process that men are unable to stop easily. Depending on the maturity and experience of the man it can very quickly lead to climax, the ultimate end of sex. This is the emptying out that all men strive for, ‘la petite mort’, the near death experience. This triggers a hormone shift that moves the man to sleep. He is finished, spent, done for. Sometimes the shift brings on a big yawn in me, then my partner knows it has been good.

This basic rhythm also appears in relationships and marriages. There is interest that grows and peaks followed by … nothing. Women find it hard to understand, but it’s just a natural process and has nothing to do with them.

The Archetypal Male Life

This looks at the flow of a man’s life and has extraordinary applicability across cultures, which is why I am looking at it from an archetypal perspective. It has the following flow of archetypes:

Birth > Child > Predator > Warrior > Father > Saboteur > Elder > Child > Death

After Birth the Child is weak and defenceless. he is dependent on his mother and is building his reactions to men and women, more on this in the next section. He then reaches puberty and dramatic changes happen in his body, changes that he is not often equipped to deal with. These can turn him into a Predator as he tries to understand the strong sexual desires he now has. He hasn’t the strength or compassion to properly deal with them. Lust and dominance characterise this stage. He then moves in his Warrior. In some societies there is a formal move into this stage, a move that can help him deal with what is happening inside him. In western society this shift can be far more problematic.

The Warrior is able to show his strength and form relationships which enable his move into the Father. Here responsibility takes over. Other people crowd into his life in a way the Warrior wouldn’t have accepted. His wife/partner and children depend on him, he needs to keep working and earning money, the responsibilities crowd out his passions and desires. This shifts him into the Saboteur, classically known as the mid-life crisis. He is getting older and wants to return to the passion of his youth, either with a younger woman or a more exciting job.

This is, of course, just illusion and make believe. He is really growing through this stage. His children get older and leave home, his wife’s focus comes back to him, his job gets more important and suddenly he is the Elder, the Sage, the Wizard. His strength returns in a more mature way and he realises the responsibility was an important part of leading to this stage. Old age then beckons with the prospect of returning to the Child and Death.

The Myth of Oedipus

This flow can be seen as a constant struggle to acknowledge separateness and to bring opposites together. It is about the opposites of masculine and feminine and a boy’s struggle to deal with them. I am indebted to Peter O’Connor for his analysis of this in his book The Inner Man. He points out that there are three clear stages of struggle in a man’s life, the Oedipal Stage (5-6), adolescence (13-19) and mid-life (35-45). These stages are cumulative and each incorporates the former.

In the Oedipal stage the young boy becomes a rival with the father for the mother and experiences the threat of castration from the father as a punishment for his sexual longings. At this stage he represses his yearnings for his mother and lines his psyche up with the father, thus beginning the process of separation from the mother, or feminine.

In adolescence the boy is in a rage through estrangement, separateness and the feeling by the son of being abandoned, of having an unavailable father and most certainly the absence of an enabling one. The ego-inflated young man is pre-occupied with triumphing over the Great Mother, or inner world.

Mid-life is a psychological return to adolescence and a re-working of this earlier stage of psychological development. It is an opportunity of dealing with incomplete business, facing his unknown feelings that have been sacrificed on the altar of power, success and ambition.

There are greater depths to this Oedipal Myth and its applicability to the flow of a man’s life. It can illuminate his struggle with his masculine and feminine feelings, his feelings about his mother and father and his struggle with sexuality both with men and women. It is a complex and rich vein for exploration and I will return to it in the future.

Technorati Tags: Gender, Masculinity, Men, Orgasm, Psychology, sex

In the Good Men Project Tom Matlack talked recently about re-defining the Alpha Male. The issue of the Alpha male is something I have talked about before.

He talks about re-defining what an Alpha Male is,

“…perhaps we humans, particularly the males of the species, can rethink what it means to be an alpha male. “Since we seem to be stuck with the word alpha,” said Owens, “how about redefining the term so it’s no longer about dominance and aggression and more in line with the leadership role that good parents exhibit?” If we use that definition, then I’d like to think that I’m an alpha male — someone with strong leadership qualities rooted in compassion, kindness, and consideration for others.”

Well I agree with him, although I would add other qualities such as presence and focus but my regular readers will know that. My issue though is not with his concept but with the idea that we can change people’s definition of what an Alpha Male is. For me there are too many people out there promoting the aggressive view of Alpha Males, selling pick-up guides and generally giving men a bad name. The idea is so deep rooted, certainly on the internet, because it suits many men who like to avoid their emotions and any sense of responsibility.

I would like to see a new definition that encapsulates the idea of a dominant male who has compassion, a sense of responsibility and strong leadership qualities. I have thought about this and would like to propose the term ‘Re-Awakened Man’. This term arises from the idea that we are all born with the qualities of masculinity we need in this life. During our life we are conditioned by parents, society and events to suppress or contain many of these qualities. This core essence needs re-awakening to enable the full essence of a man’s masculinity to re-appear.

I would be interested in my reader’s reaction to name or whether any of you have any other suggestions. Let me know by commenting on this post.

Technorati Tags: Alpha Male, core essence, Gender, Leadership, Masculinity, Men