An article on theatlantic.com caught my eye. How to Land Your Kid in Therapy takes a look at the effects of “overparenting” on the development of kids. The point that the article is making is that our emotional and mental resilience in the face of challenges, adversity, and failure needs to have the chance to […]

My partner and I have been together for quite a while. Nineteen years, in fact, and we have certainly had plenty of challenges and triumphs in that time. I don’t think the fact that we’re deeply in love with each other after almost two decades makes me an expert on relationships. After all, each person […]

“As a queer person, I feel…” The other night, I was talking with someone who said something along these lines and although I’ve heard that kind of thing many times (with substitutions where it says “queer”), I finally figured out what it is about that phrase that bothers me. I had a teacher once who […]

When I read the post Some laughter with the lovemaking, please: on porn, performance, and deadly seriousness, I was struck by his observation: If there’s one thing that we see rarely — if at all — in porn, it’s laughter. What strikes me about most pornography is that it’s always so deadly serious. A nervous […]

One of the difficulties that those of us who are looking to challenge the Act Like a Man Box (see my post The Performance of Masculinity for an explanation of that, if you aren’t familiar with it) is that the Box itself gets in the way. My observation is that’s because “believes in the Box” […]

I’ve been teaching workshops on male gender socialization for about 15 years or so. The foundation of my presentation is the Act Like a Man Box, which I learned about from Paul Kivel’s book, Men’s Work: How to Stop the Violence That Tears Our Lives Apart. I like calling it the “Act Like a Man […]

I’ve been really intrigued by the comments on my post last week, Consent and Public Disgrace. Some folks found that it helped them unpack some of the issue of consent. Others pointed out (rightfully, I think) that the question of what forms of sexuality are permitted in public spaces is deeply influenced by privilege. Homophobia, […]