Inquiry

Absolutely, the time I felt completely powerless based solely on my gender was during the birth of my nephew a little over two years ago. I stood in as a last second doula as the baby was being born 5 weeks early and they needed some help preparing. I received a call from my brother at 1am telling me the baby was on it's way. I was awake and had been laying on my bed trying to figure out why I hadn't packed for the flight I was suppose to be on in less than 5 hours and why I had bought travel insurance on that flight. I travel about half the month and had never bought insurance before. After the phone call I smiled to myself, grabbed a few things and drove an hour south to help out however I could. I had no idea what I was in for. I don't think I blinked for over 15 hours. Being in the same room while the baby was born and holding the baby in my arms mere seconds after it took it's first breath was the most beautifully humbling experience I have ever been witness two. To feel helpless as a male at that moment doesn't even begin to explain it.

Back in the 70s, working the truck docks, 2am in the morning , sub zero weather conditions , and the girl I was dating at the time told me "she needed some space " And guys know what that means.  But I had so many conflicting emotions, and yet had the label of being a Teamster, . Your supposed to be tough, but I felt so powerless at the job, and losing a high school sweetheart was a double wammy.

The good ole damaged self. lol

Bill Kilburg

Several years ago my marriage collapsed after my wife entered into a relationship with another man, a younger man.

I did not have knowledge of it until she was irreversibly entrenched in the affair. We had a few talks. We went to a mariage counselor. I learned that I was being counseled to accept  the change. We separated. We are going to be divorced. That's it!

I felt powerless then. I feel powerless now. A unilateral decision was made. Done. No serious discussion about the cause(s) took place. The counselors accepted the woman's choice. The woman was not inclined to discuss why. No comment to me from family, friends, or workplace then or now. I would have welcomed interest and help. None.

My point. The male stereotype is strong and silent. The female  stereotype is weak and noisy.  I was treated as a stereotypical male and she a stereotypical female. The culture legislated against me in favor of the woman on every level. All she had to say was "people change." Had I done the same thing the culture would have sympathized with the woman. It seemed that all of the consideration in this action was in the woman's favor. So, on one hand she was given the benefit of the doubt, i.e, I was justly left for another man without explanation, and on the other I am a man, and therefore there is no discussion necessary. I would be an adulterer if I was having the affair. The woman is excused by virtue of her sex and the new view of women as independent and free. Double whammy! Fini!

 I am 68 years old, very happily married for 30 years with six well adjusted offspring.

I notice I should like to dispel any suspicion of being a sex-maniac. I have spent most of my life feeling powerless

and compromised around sexual issues.  I believe that male sexual "hard-wiring" has had great difficulty adjusting to the relatively recent constrictions and mores demanded with the advent of modern Judaism and Christianity as conceived by the early church. I feel that the relative rapid adjustment to a system that much more closely corresponds with female sexuality than with male is largely responsible for the preponderance of male disfunction in society. Sexual aggressiveness, predatory behaviors, addiction, suicides etc, are all indicators to me of underlying stressors inherent in males in modern society. I also believe it is impossible for females to understand male sexuality and for males to understand female sexuality. We thus in the best of cases end in an uneasy truce and compromise, with the male gender in the more compromised and thus stressed position. I believe that an analogy may be usefully made between persons under the influence of drugs. The communication and interaction of a person under the influence of MDMA (ecstasy)  and a person using an amphetamine will have great difficulty communicating with each. My wife and the other women in my life have operated with brains flooded with lessor and greater amounts of estrogen, a hormone with incredible brain effects. I meanwhile have had a brain doused in the very different and powerful hormone, testosterone.

 Under these powerful and very different drugs, our words and actions have very different meanings. I recently had a female that in the search for just the right combination of replacement hormones for a period of time introduced her brain to a substantial dosage of testosterone. She reported that life changed for her and she finally could understand male sexuality. She concurred with my experience the she was able to walk in any supermarket and discover at least  two members of the opposite sex that she could imagine having a joyous, if brief sexual encounter with.

 I think Ken Wilber's reference in "Boomeritus"  regarding (I am away from my library and am recalling with an increasingly faulty "recaller) the incredible difference between an active homosexual  man not having to operate through the filter of female sexuality, of being quite comfortable with 19 different partners in a months time and a lesbian woman who would average one different partner in seven years . If this disparity does not ring bells and blow whistles it is being ignored for reason....  

While I have never in my most sexually expressive days ( I was a single airline pilot for many years) had 19 different partners in one month, I can however imagine it with envy.  And most impossible for the estrogen-laden female mind to believe is my assertion that I could feel great tenderness and deep appreciation for each partner! I know this is true as I in this moment review  my  feeings  toward past sexual partners.

 Females would almost universally ( i believe) call these feelings "not love".  If it is not,  it is so close to the deep and appreciative feelings I have for my dear wife, absent the life-long commitment and familiarity I feel for her...I cannot feel the difference!   The fact that males sexualize variety and yet can feel love and appreciation for their lovers seems undecipherable to most females mind or if accepted derisively assigned to the dustbin of "penis-brained" male impulse.

In summation and response to the inquiry before us. My natural Alpha male sexuallity is deeply 

compromised in-order  to  remain within the restrictions in this cultural  in-order to  qualify for and to enjoy the other very strong Alpha male inclinations of providing for and protecting mate and offspring in a lifetime continuum..

For most of human existence Alpha males lived a polygamist lifestyle which I believe more closely aligns with natural male sexuality. Society as structured  today exacts a heavy price and a great marginalization for that natural expression. I suggest this is done at a very heavy cost to society and the full self expression of many sexually frustrated males. 

I obviously have thought about this issue a bit  and revisit the topic  each time I read or hear a report of men acting out in a violent and dysfunctional  manner. Many talk show host  make HER living around this issue (although not as much as she used too).  I don't see any ready answers. We are certainly not going to turn back the clock. I am not even a little bit  suggesting that. However I do believe there are some interesting  and more integral possibilities emerging with options that were not in any practical sense available to my generation. 

Please excuse this lengthy tirade.....I'm feeling it this morning. The question evoked  deeply held feelings. If l I have used too many undocumented assertions and references to "others",  please replace those references to my first person singular.