While it might seem simple for men to date another man, manshit screws it all up. This is on the Top Ten List of issues that I routinely go over again and again in workshops. Gay men are deeply concerned with being exploited by men, perhaps it’s just a general male thing or it’s exacerbated by being a male attracted to a large percentage of the population who might react violently to your sexualized interest since you were a child——so men hide their interest then come out then hide their interest in men.
Men who date women and women who date women learn to share resources. That part of intimacy is look I have this many coins to do this for you. I’m doing this for you because I think there’s something special about you that romantically interests me. Order what you want!
Men with men: did you bring your credit report? You have enough cash, right? because I brought exactly my half in cash. I have mine, do you have yours, because I have mine and you better not need any of mine because I have mine and I won’t be exploited!!!!
So MSM date less because they’re concerned about this power dynamic and what is expected from an imbalance in the power dynamic and what isn’t expected by the power dynamic imbalance and what it says about them by not acknowledging the power dynamic imbalance or what it says about them about by acknowledging.
Here’s the mighty marvel secret to dating a man. Whomever asks, pays.
Boys learn this in elementary school. Boys learn with girls that sharing your resources is part of courting. Sharing resources says not I am buying you but that I like you and I want you to enjoy something. Gay men turn it into some sort of slave trafficking sexual emasculation attack.
If you have $10 you take your interest to McDonald’s and make goo goo eyes over the Dollar Menu. If your budget allows for more, you save up if you have to, you take them to a $50, $100, $200 dinner date and enjoy their company. My personal best has been $200 on a first date because it was to my favorite restaurant and I hadn’t been in awhile. It was our first, last and only date but I had a good time….now that I think about it he tried to feel me up. I try to pointedly tell men if I ask, I’m paying. If this emasculates your precious male ego, this should probably be our first, last and only date anyone because you’re too sensitive to power shit from your manshit. Sit back, enjoy the meal—-that’s what I’ve done when men have taken me out.
But why is this?
Capitalism and Transactional Power Perspective of Men.
The overarching ideology is that men in Western society are viewed in terms of what they have, do or can create, particularly through currency—-resources, money, networking, effect. Women have a much broader position within capitalism because to some degree they can both be the workforce and produce offspring to become the workforce. Men though are viewed by men and woman as what they have/can do. Which is why part of how we identify men is by what they do, what they have, what they are capable of, their resume.
Gay men, working exclusively with other men, are hyper-effected by this paradigm unless they make considerable social effort to negate, resist or acknowledge it. Gay men are then man-ness doubled so they are taught and receive social power through this paradigm in society. Because there are so few models of male to male romantic/social relationships that are not friendship, business or familial based, this fourth unknown category has confused rules——or worse no specific guidelines. Men are taught in society to follow guidelines, even if part of their identity circumvents some of those prescriptions. Coming out is so big a thing, so traumatic, because a man (and a woman)_ can no longer act on automatic pilot, they must consciously define their identities, their relationships, their destinies. They are in many ways giving up social privilege——whatever is conferred as a man or a woman.
Heterosexual identity can be followed without expressing an opinion beyond agreement.
Homosexual identity requires constant negotiation with not only self, but another person and society itself. This can make six constantly occurring negotiations between two men which is one of the reasons why men opt out of relationships with other men and default to sex—-it’s not always easy to consciously negotiate. Society supports men and women learning to communicate, women are taught from childhood to communicate (and to defer or accommodate); men are taught to control, dominate, seek an agreeable power based position in relationships. The further layered confusion of what a homosexual acting out male does sexually can upset the whole apple cart of those negotiations because their identity-sexuality is compared to their physicality.
I know, you were just trying to get a meal and suddenly it’s a psychic gender sex sexuality mind war, right?
Hence, why in workshops I default men to—-whomever asks—-pays.
Then we build from there in negotiating men with and without money receiving and giving to men with and without money without it being a code for control and dominance.
Then I start climbing the mountain of getting men to ask other men out on structured dates.
One you know what you’re negotiating and that you’re negotiating power dynamics then you can negotiate power dynamics. Starting with what money means to the other person, how they have learned to share, what is appropriate sharing and help based upon individual life stages—-not everyone is at the same financial place just because they’re both men and no relationship can be 50/50. Relationships are skill and ability based. They are also proportional. If I make $25,000 and you make $100,000, you can’t expect me to pay 50/50 into the bills because your money boat is larger than mine so you will naturally buy more expensive or costly things. What we can do is figure out by matched percentage if the housing expenses run 30%, we both contribute 35%—$7500 adjusted by taxes, $30,000 adjusted by taxes.
Which might mean one of us covers the cable, electric and food and the other the entirety of the mortgage. And most importantly there’s no snarkiness, emotional devaluing or control/sex issues from about that. Bluntly because the greater contributor numerically may not be the Top. Or the couple might be Versatile.
Perhaps the one who earns less is then the primary cook, the primary house cleaner as an agreed upon balancer (with the house as joint tenancy after a reasonable amount of time of living together or buying together).
Sex is negotiated as well based upon the goal of the relationship and we have a discussion about sex in the light of day, fully clothed, in a public place so that they hormones and eagerness don’t overrule our sense of what each wants and hearing the other. If a man can’t talk about sex, he’s not ready for a relationship. If all a man can talk about is how he can use your body to get him off, he’s not interested in you. if he can say—-I like to do A, would that bring you pleasure? Do you like that? He’s talking to you. If his sexuality is just a laundry list and you are welcome to fit yourself in there then he’s not connected to connecting to another person. Which is why you have to listen, dressed so that you aren’t confused with him doing sexual things to you that seem like it was for you when in fact it was simply AT your body. The Courtship period that women put men through when they decide not to have sex on the first or second or 5th date is when they’re teaching men that he must be alert to her signals and suss out what she wants, likes and how to mesh their mutual sexual interests.
The disadvantage of Me Top, You Bottom, is that it assumes the sex is static to all homosexuality and not individual to each person. And sexuality is individualized.
I write further about all of this in several of my books, culled from years of workshops, particularly Good Men for Men Finding keeping and Being loved By a Man.
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