Men need to claim their capacity for nurturance. We need a men’s liberation movement lead by men who are able to express love in all the ways women do. They numb themselves with video games, alcohol and drugs. They turn to work, money and possessions to find meaning. When this need is not met, men’s lives are reduced to a lonely, harsh world of one upmanship. And not just with women, but with other men and their own children. Men have as broad a range of interests as women do, but they share one deep core need with women – the need to connect. To say that men are only interested in sex is like saying women are only interested in hair and make-up. He was raised by an emotionally absent father, sent to an authoritarian military school at an impressionable age, and has been looking for attention, affirmation and love ever since. He believes the high rate of PTSD and suicide among veterans is caused by the loss of deep connection upon returning home to the isolation all men experience in North American culture.Ī panel of five authors who have all closely studied the life of Donald Trump and each written a major biography about him was asked “What really motivates Donald Trump? What is he looking for?” All five authors answered the same way in one word – love. Soldiers report that their main goal in combat is to protect and take care of each other.
Men bond in battle in a way they bond nowhere else. Sebastian Junger, in his book, Tribe: On Homecoming, says the thing men value most in war is not the pleasure of killing other people but the pleasure of close connection with other men. All other expressions of nurturance become suspect. This is how you show love, and you can only “do it” with women. Boys and men are raised to be uncomfortable with touch, with their own feelings and the feelings of others.Īs they grow into adolescence, all desire for love, connection and touch become reduced to genital sex. The words “male” and “nurturing” are seldom used together. Girls and women are permitted, even encouraged, to be nurturing. Over time, they slowly learn to shut all this down.
It means connection. Where does the myth come from that “men only want one thing” meaning sex?īoys start out as touchers and feelers and lovers. Sign up for my newsletter “What Boys Need” 10 Things Every Boy Would Like to Say to His Mother.What Your Child Means When They Say “I Hate You!”.