Men: Stand Up! Speak Up! Tell The Truth!

Am I the only married man outraged by the media’s brutal attack on Anthony Weiner? When did married men become so emasculated that they can sit back and watch a gender brother be publically ridiculed, scorned, condemned and then stripped of everything he achieved simply because he flirted with women on the internet? I can’t think of another group of individuals, including and especially women, who would sit by passively while this level of exposure was ruthlessly doled out upon one of their own.

How disconnected from our masculinity do we have to be not to hear the message being delivered to us? If you missed it, listen up: “In light of the events that forced Anthony Weiner to resign, it is hereby declared that any married man caught wandering into the Anthony Weiner Zone of Shame will have his life, the life of his wife and the life of his unborn child catastrophically changed forever.”

My gender brothers, where are you? The noose around our collective necks just got yanked tighter. Is that what we want? If we don’t speak out against this subjugation, our silence will legitimize this treatment and give our culture permission to indict us at their whim.

Millions of married men satisfy harmless sexual fantasies on the internet everyday. So what? It is none of our business. Why should the media be allowed to use a man’s sexual fantasies against him? They shouldn’t. We have to stand up for our gender brothers or they will continue to be skewered and who knows, you may be next. Imagine how your life would change if your sexual fantasies cost you your job, your marriage and your relationship with your family, friends and children.

All healthy, virile, heterosexual men are connected to one other by virtue of their God-given sexuality. We did not choose our sexuality any more than we chose our elbow. Our sex drive is a natural occurring force of nature; it is organic and unstoppable. That’s a fact, like it, or not. But since we have no Oprah to enlighten the masses or defend this essential part of our masculinity, we have to defend ourselves. The media made millions of dollars each day and their ratings soared because they kept the Anthony Weiner story alive. They profited while they systematically destroyed a man, his career and his family. Why did they do it? Because they could! And, they had Anthony Weiner’s help. If Anthony Weiner had told his wife his sexual truth, the media would not have had a story.

Men, do yourselves a favor. Tell your mate your sexual truth. If you like porn, say so. If you like lap dances say so. Be honest. If you tell the truth to the people who matter, no one can “out” you, no one can manipulate you and no one can hurt you. Speak your truth before it’s too late, before we are completely neutered. Be a hero for your sons and grandsons. Some day they will thank you for it.

Women Own All The Vaginas: Arnold & Male Sexuality

Women Own All The Vaginas: Arnold & Male Sexuality

Women Own All The Vaginas: Arnold & Male Sexuality

Women Own All The Vaginas: Arnold & Male Sexuality

Arnold & Male Sexuality

Every marriage runs the risk of infidelity because that is the innate, biological nature of men’s sexuality.

As a society, we refuse to acknowledge the truth about human sexuality. As a result, we are responsible for maximizing the emotional pain wives and children suffer when the men they love are caught having sex outside their marriages. Why? Because we continue to believe that shaming and humiliating men like Arnold Schwarzenegger will stop other men from behaving in the same manner. I hate to tell you folks: It’s not working. The fact is, there’s a burning sexual instinct pulsating inside most viral, heterosexual men to pursue strange sex whether they are married or not; and, until our culture acknowledges that biological truth and decides to begin the dialogue from that standpoint, we will be complicit in perpetrating the emotional upheaval caused by what is a naturally occurring, human sexual instinct.

Our only power in a situation that is dictated by Mother Nature is to acknowledge its reality, study it to understand it and to change our response to it. We can’t stop tornadoes by condemning them but we can work on understanding them to minimize their impact. Why don’t we do the same for human sexuality? Why do we insist on keep ourselves trapped in the dark ages?

It's not me, it's you

One of the most distorted notions we bring to our love relationships is the perception that whatever our loved one does is because of us. Nowhere is this more pervasive than when it comes to our mate’s desire to experience something sexually that does not include us. Most of us cry out in anguish “How could you do this to me?”

Yet, when my wife and I first met, we admitted to one another that we had never been monogamous in any of our previous relationships nor had we ever been truthful about it with our previous lovers. Why did we feel a need to hide our true sexuality from our previous partners? Because we have been systematically and successfully shamed into believing that any expression of our sexuality that does not include our mates is always bad and wrong, and, as a corollary, into believing that we should feel hurt when our mates have non-monogamous desires.

Most married men lie about how they really experience their sexuality then routinely set up a secret compartment within their lives where they hide what they do. In Lust in Translation: A Study of Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee, Pamela Druckerman concluded,“In America it’s not the cheating, it’s the lying.” I am convinced that the success of our marriage is due in large part to our being radically honest with each other about who we are sexually. Unfortunately, odds are, this was probably a rare meeting of the minds. Let’s face it, our culture does not encourage couples to be open and honest about their non-monogamous sexual desires, but it’s the lying this attitude encourages that causes the real damage.

My wife and I felt we had to hide our desires from our previous partners for fear of hurting them, yet consider what Don Miguel Ruiz said in The Four Agreements: He wrote, “Taking things personally is the maximum expression of self centeredness because it makes the assumption that everything is about ‘me’. Nothing other people do is because of you. It’s because of themselves.”

How many of us can actually give up holding others accountable for how we feel? It’s so much easier to lash out at someone instead of focusing on our own insecurities as the source of our pain. What’s more, we live in a culture where, lately, hardly anyone is willing to look at themselves for the real answers as to why they feel the way they do. We never answer the question “Why does it hurt so much when someone we love wants to be sexual with someone else?” because we’re too scared of asking any questions that might point a finger at ourselves. Will we ever find the courage to hold ourselves accountable for what we feel? If we don’t, we will never give ourselves the chance to heal the insecurities that drive our responses, and they will continue to wreak their unabated havoc on all of our relationships.

Why fuck with a good fantasy?

I recently read a blog post entitled "The Joys of Theoretical Non-Monogamy," at Greta Christina's blog http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2008/05/the-joy-of-theo.html

Here's a key realization she makes:
"When you're monogamous, every single person you're even moderately attracted to seems like Shangri-La, a lost city of infinite erotic promise, with genitals made of divine light and chocolate ice cream that would transform your life if only you could have a taste. (It did for me, anyway.) The allure of the forbidden, and all that. But when you're non-monogamous, you remember that you don't actually want to go to bed with every attractive person who crosses your path."

I couldn't agree more! Sexual fantasies are better than reality. So my attitude is, why spoil a good fantasy with reality? I love my sexual fantasies. So I protect them from reality. I love them because they infuse my everyday life with a jolt of positive energy. So I want them to retain every speck of their power. That way I can rely on them to always have their way with me. I never want to become wise and prudent with them. Indeed, I want to remain their captive? It’s like having my very own individual stimulus package. Am I an addict? Absolutely! Whenever I need a hit I just dial one of my fantasies up into my brain and wham-oh, I’m transported to that little piece of portable euphoria where everyone or everything that I desire sexually is granted. Why would I want to fuck with that by diminishing it with reality?

How do you think the freedom to fantasize affects your relationships?

Interview

I'll be doing an interview with Lucia on LA talk radio's The Art of Love today at 3pm PT/6pm ET. You can listen at www.latalkradio.com. Stay tuned!