I want to make it clear that in this post I’m not asking why I am gay, that is a writing exercise for another day. Meaning this essay isn’t why I am attracted to men, this is why I am attracted to a certain type of man, why I am attracted to the brand of masculinity that I am. I’m exploring my sexual attunement and discussing the style of man, not man itself.

Do I feel masculinity is superior? No, not at all. Seeing Masc for masc on apps sounds troubling because it is indeed troubling. It’s exclusion by identity rather than exclusion by actual attraction. How does one even categorize themselves as “masc” or place a level on their masculinity in an app when each person has a very subjective view of their own masculinity as well as that of others they have yet to meet and have only seen a carefully curated photo of? If we place a value upon a person because of our perception of their attractiveness, we are exercising our exclusion by identity by making our own perception the identity we place upon them and then judging them based on our prejudice. A good majority of people understand this when applied to other scenarios (and many do not) It’s ok to say we don’t like certain flavors in the food we eat, but it’s not ok to say we don’t like the food because of the race of the person who cooked it.

I’m attracted to someone because they mirror or compliment a need or desire in me, and chemistry is when they respond in the same way. Attraction is not about superiority but rather a magnetic pull of seeking a reconciliation of one’s desires and needs through the person who arouses them. Meaning, what does my body respond to? You could be the most handsome or beautiful man in the world (also subjective but lets say Mr Universe), yet if your potential partner is not aroused and engaged by you, how could can desire develop? Attraction functions like our taste in food, not our near sided taxonomy of the person cooking it. We don’t owe everyone desire, but we do owe everyone respect and decency.

Presence or Repulsion

Personally what I am attracted to is self restrained power, those who have the ability to exercise their power yet know how, why, and when to do so. I am not interested in those who do not know how to wield a sword without cutting themselves and those around them, that is repulsive to me. I pay attention to those who know how to navigate the world, rarely seeing a need to exercise their power because they are comfortable and secure with themselves and understand exactly what a threat is and isn’t.

Understanding this capacity of what I’m referring to here as masculine power (far more appropriate names for it I’m sure) is understood best by trial and error, feeling the hurt and seeing firsthand that a man who does not confuse discomfort with danger and, who understands what a proportional response to a possible threat is. A man who measures twice and cuts once, so to speak. Understanding that those who speak the loudest and draw attention to themselves are often doing so as cries of insecurity. Don’t tell me I must respect you and show you loyalty, show me you have earned it by the hard work you have put into yourself. Prove to me that the person inside is an adult who is capable of restraining the masculine body he inhabits.

Recognition of Desire

If I chase in others what I lack myself I will only remain disappointed because I have not done the work to posses those qualities myself, but I do admire and am attracted to shared or similar successful survival patterns. I’m drawn to men who put in the work to earn from themselves the comfort of being in their own bodies. I’m attracted to men who have worn the same shoes as I have. Who have struggled with understanding their own masculinity and have triumphed.

We can only be apologetic about our desires if we also understand their relationship to the personal values we apply to our own worth, because they are linked. When we have a healthy sense of our own value and that of those around us, our desires become far more clear, and the way we seek and express them becomes more in tune with who we want to be, and be with.

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As always please share your thoughts, I’m looking forward to discussing this topic with you in the comments! Please subscribe now for Chasing Masculinity : Part 3

As a gay man living in the Midwest who slowly began to come out and understand who he actually is, my answer has slowly developed alongside my understanding of both the world and myself.

My concept of masculinity was defined largely by religious indoctrination. I was supposed to be level headed. I could show emotion, but not in the same way as a woman. I was expected to be the head of the household and family. As a man, I was supposed to make the ultimate decision for the family at the end of the day. These were things I learned to follow like an act. I played the role and hated every moment of it, though I could not understand why, or rather, I did not want to admit why.

Looking back, my attempt to understand where the lines of sexuality and gender trait expression intersect and diverge helped me see why I rejected the idea of embracing masculinity at a younger age. I was disgusted with the men around me. I found them hypocritical, unethical, lacking values, and lazy. I wanted nothing to do with them. I refused to resemble them in any way. I had identified toxic masculinity without even being aware of what it was and understood it to be masculinity in general.

The Male Body

I simultaneously found the male form attractive and arousing while I also hated many aspects of my own body. I can even say that masturbating and watching porn hurt my conscience, not because of my religious upbringing, but because I was attracted to what disgusted me. It symbolized power and dominance, control within a hierarchy, and all the negative qualities I had come to despise. I was attached to that which I could not reconcile with who I was being told to be. The male form had been incorrectly defined for me as something beyond strength and athleticism. It meant dominance, and belonging to a club I was not interested in or supposed to be invited to. My inner self did not match my exterior’s potential. I felt counterfeit.

Beginning in my late teens, I spent a considerable amount of time researching and understanding my spiritual and emotional state, fine tuning who I was inside, while just as faithfully neglecting understanding and knowing my body’s potential. I worked hard to keep my body slim, but not muscular. I eventually became skinny fat and depressed in my twenties and early thirties. In many ways, I hated my body. It reminded me of the struggles around my sexuality and attraction that I was so strongly resisting.

Though not muscular, I was often referred to as a beautiful man, a handsome man in my youth. I was very aware of how much influence my looks could have on the circumstances I found myself in. Yet I hated feeling weak. I hated being out of shape. I also hated the idea that straight men had something over me, as if they were blessed with a special strength that I lacked. I knew in my heart that was not true and I refused to feel inferior, and with my mind and wit, I learned to put those who intimidated me in their place within the scope of power that I possessed and had honed; tactics, logic, strategy and diplomacy.

Yet this has not been enough for me as I have continued to grow into myself. Refusing inferiority meant charging toward something I not only hated, but had never embraced: my body and its potential. I have already engaged my fears and inner demons. So I became determined to engage the demons that spill over into the physical and embrace becoming muscular and embody my own concept of masculinity, while remaining congruent with that vision in mind, body, and spirit.

I have noticed that as I have grown more comfortable with my sexuality and who I sleep with, I have also grown more comfortable with my gender expression and masculinity. I am no longer resisting my masculinity and displaying it externally the way I once did, but I’m learning where the boundaries of toxicity live. In order to accomplish this I also no longer resist appreciating my feminine qualities. In the present, I am discovering who I am in full, and for me, that has meant understanding and knowing the entirety of my mind, body and soul’s potential.

What I later came to realize is that the men I respected and truly knew as good men did not share the qualities I hated so much. I learned that I was attracted to them not because I was broken, but because they did not display the toxic qualities that I found repugnant, and this realization helped me separate my attraction between my sexuality and their gender traits and expression even more. My masculinity as I am continuing to discover and understand is my self acceptance of my entire being and self, my desires, my actions, my mannerisms, my beliefs and my body.

My masculine and feminine traits are not different aspects of me; I simply am, and it is with that acceptance that I continue this journey of discovery and learn to love all of myself.
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In my next article, I’ll continue to explore masculinity and further questions. Since it was once something imposed, policed, and resented by me, what does it mean that I now want it in another man?

When I changed my beliefs as an adult man, I realized sacrifice would be involved. I realized that it would be a journey and may take time to see joy again in my life. But I believed something better awaited me, freedom.

The world around us, it scares me right now, I’m not ashamed to admit it. How we see fellow humans treating each other, this isn’t normal. Humanity as a whole is better than this, but we can rise to the challenges around us with hope and compassion.

I’ve written about Pluralized Individualism before and the need to grow beyond tribalism. This is yet another opportunity for humanity to do so. We must move towards an agree to disagree mentality as it is pertinent to peace. We must aspire to always place the value of human life above our own personal desires and wants. If we do not value life, how can we possibly love? If we do not respect the universal rights of our neighbors, can we call ourselves a neighbor, or even a good person? What I hope for humankind is that we grow and begin to prioritize peace, even if we aren’t always harmonious in belief. Until we unshackle and respect everyone’s universal human rights, none of us can say that we are truly free.

Everyday so many of us wake up and look around and wonder how we arrived where we are today. More importantly, we wonder how we can make change in a world that doesn’t seem to respond to our cries and concerns.

Humanity has seen darker times than we have currently, and with each darkness and enlightenment we have experienced, strengthening communities has been key to finding brighter futures.

We will not change the world with one demonstration; we will not convince someone in one conversation. Changing minds and hearts takes much time and energy, like the growth of a magnificent tree or the wearing away of a riverbank reshaping a landscape.

One of the most powerful actions a person can do right now to change the world is to have a cup of coffee with our neighbor, express our own personal journey in life, explain how we became the person we have become, and share why we feel the way we do about the world now and where we are headed.

Yet the very most powerful thing we can do is to listen intently to the person across from us as they tell us the path they have walked themselves. Listen to their fears, listen to their wants, needs, and concerns, not in a transactional way, but by holding their thoughts in compassion as if they were our concerns.

Morning will always come, but it is up to us as individuals how we spend the dark night, and what we do to protect those we care for, our loved ones, our community, as this world shifts around us.

Here is my advice to you regarding the skills I needed to survive under intense stress and in a world where I was not welcome to be me. These are lessons I learned from over 30 years in a cult, leaving and then losing everything. Times are rough, this might prove helpful.

We must find a reason to survive, and if we lose our reason, we must find another. These are our happy thoughts, and they do indeed help us stand tall when we do not have the energy to move.

When we can control nothing else in life, we can control our beliefs, we can hold them deep in our heart, sometimes privately, without anyone knowing but us!

We must reinvent the meaning of our suffering until it becomes a reason to continue on itself. We must be adaptable in our strategy to survive, but we can NEVER compromise our vision or our hope.

When we are overwhelmed, we break it down into just 5 days at a time, or 5 hours, or 5 minutes, and perhaps even just 5 seconds at a time. The point is we manage the weight of our burdens in increments, and we must celebrate our wins, no matter how small.

But most importantly, we must know deep in our soul, without a doubt, that we are not alone. We must feel it inside, no matter what anyone tells us, even if we never meet another soul, we MUST believe that we are never alone.

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We must build a world where compassion prevails, where the most vulnerable are safe, and where we show that we love our neighbors.

It is imperative that we love our neighbor for our own ability to thrive, whether they are rich, poor, homeless, regardless of their gender or race. We must find empathy and understanding somehow, even if we disagree, even if they disagree. We cannot retaliate in kind, we must rise above and grow somehow. We must find a way to love each other without causing injury.

I’m finding more and more that great things happen when our feelings, thoughts, words, and actions are congruent. When these aspects of ourselves align, happiness is found.

When my internal dialogue is in turmoil I often find that one of these: my feelings, my thoughts, my words, or my actions has deviated from the others and harmony has been lost in my mind and if enough time passes my life.

In my opinion the journey towards congruence begins with acknowledging feelings. Emotions are often the first warning system that guide us through life’s complexities. By understanding and respecting our feelings, we can make choices that truly resonate with our outlook. This emotional honesty is the foundation upon which we can build a life of authenticity.

Our thoughts are powerful forces that shape our perceptions and realities. When our thoughts align with our feelings, we can achieve a sense of clarity and purpose. This alignment is crucial for making decisions that reflect who we truly are and what we genuinely desire. It is about having a harmonious internal dialogue where our thoughts echo who we truly are as a person. I imagine our thoughts as the love child of our desires but tempered with logic and awareness.

Words are the expressions of our inner world. They have the power to manifest our thoughts and feelings into reality. When our words align with our internal states, they become tools for authentic expression and powerful communication. Speaking truthfully and respectfully, in a way that reflects our true thoughts and feelings, strengthens our relationships and enhances our integrity.

Finally, actions must mirror our feelings, thoughts, and words. This is where the heart and soul of congruence lives. It’s about actually walking our talk. When our actions are a true reflection of our inner self, we live a life of integrity to self and respect of others. This congruence in action ensures that we are not only true to ourselves but also to the world around us.

The congruence of feelings, thoughts, words, and actions is a path towards self discovery and true authenticity. Each area plays a necessary role in shaping a life of happiness. As we align our existence, we not only find inner peace but also bring a positive impact to those around us.

Depression and anxiety, coupled with disquieting thoughts, guilt, and trauma, often feel insurmountable for many including myself, like a constant obstacle where relief is always elusive.

Talking openly, and at times very publicly, about mental health challenges is actually quite uncomfortable for me. I grew up in a hyper conservative, patriarchal community where admitting struggles with mental and emotional health was seen as a sign of weakness, as well as a lack of faith or spirituality.

Success doesn’t always feel like joy.

The stigma surrounding mental health remains a powerful enemy when searching for answers and relief. Yet being open about the challenges faced while forming community and connections with those who also face similar obstacles is empowering and inspiring.

If you suffer from depression or anxiety, know that there are others out here who understand others who also feel fear, others whose hearts are bruised, yet we are not broken.

I constantly must remind myself when I’m tired of living is that, even in the deepest moments of pain and despair, I’m successful because I haven’t given up. Success doesn’t always feel like joy. Success can be as simple as opening our eyes and looking to tomorrow for hope and relief.

It takes courage to ask for help. It takes courage to get out of bed, it takes courage to get dressed, and it takes courage to step out in public. Simply put, it often takes courage to live.

Logically, I understand no miracle cure exist to solve everything. That would be amazing, but I don’t expect therapy or a pill to completely make my problems disappear.

I do expect that those things can help me smile more, that perhaps I will be able to help make the world a little less painful for myself and others, and that one day the joy behind my smile and in my heart will surpass the pain that currently resides there.

The overall goal of social consequences for behavior says much about the person who desires them. If justice is sought, two wrongs cannot make a right, and two deaths cannot bring back a life. Two wounds cannot heal a heart.

We bind our soul when we seek justice not for ourselves but to protect the future and community. When we focus on responding to our own injustice, we walk closely to vengeance.

The desire for vengeance may seem as though it will remove the pain from our heart, but the pain does not cease to exist; it is merely passed on to someone else, as if we handed them a dagger, where it is honed and incubated until, once more, it is plunged into an enemy’s heart, like the weapon it is.

Vengeance, though certain to bring a reckoning, will never reconcile the pain in one’s soul.

Values, morals, and ethics are so intriguing to me. Religious indoctrination especially captures my attention because of its power over people. In my case, I have found that if I allow my thinking to go unchecked, it is easy to develop a certain special type of hate and intolerance towards those who, in my opinion, are hateful and intolerant themselves. What paradoxical and even hypocritical thinking, which leads to a cycle of disunity and division.

Hate within our hearts exists as a strong, powerful emotion and acts as an effective motivator to free oneself from circumstances that we feel strongly about and want to escape, such as an abusive relationship. Yet it is also very destructive. Responding to hate with hate produces even more hate as a byproduct.

I believe hate is the chemotherapy of emotions—perhaps in some circumstances it gives a desired result, and we free ourselves from our circumstances like a cancerous growth that is an abusive relationship, but the damage it can also inflict on our soul is often irreparable or very difficult to come back from.

I don’t know how to function and live successfully right now without having some hate in my heart for intolerant individuals who harmed me and others like me in the past, especially when I feel that someone is prioritizing an organized religion over their family. It’s hard not to feel hate and disgust in my heart.

So, while I freed myself from others’ oppression, I then proceeded to give birth to bias, stereotypes, and prejudice towards those I didn’t know but who resembled my family and those who abandoned me because of their intolerance. My tolerance for others is depleted because I have so little to give as I’m healing from profound wounds. I’ve overcorrected, and I don’t know exactly how to get back on track yet I’m determined to do so, because not only am I off course a bit, but I also feel that I’m out of fuel. If I’m correct, this is the time I watch and learn from those who faced battles of their own and are still left with love in their hearts. After all we can choose to love and grow, or we can choose to hate and teardown, I choose to love and grow.

I love to people watch and study others and reflect, like today as I’m writing in this beautiful hotel lobby. When I think back over the last couple of decades to my earliest memories, I realize that while many of my fears have become reality, many of my dreams have also come to fruition. Gratitude is an interesting thing. So often, when we are at our lowest, we forget to be thankful for what we have, and when we are at our best, we also forget to be thankful for what we are experiencing. This suggests that the relationship between gratitude and circumstances is not necessarily indelibly linked. Gratitude is not the result of circumstances but rather a chosen mindset of resilient champions who see the entire picture, with the path to joy winding around this journey.

Like the rest of America, I’ve been considering the ethical nature of the choices made by Gypsy Rose. Her story resonates with me, and I think with others, because those closest to her caused so much harm and she took a stand in an extremely dramatic and violent way. Both she and her mother invoke feelings of rejection, frustration, anger, sadness, forgiveness, injustice, and vengeance.

While on completely different levels, we all understand at least some of those feelings in some way or another. Many of us have faced an abuser, many of us have faced family difficulties, many of us have had to mold ourselves in the image that our parents wanted for themselves.

Growth is something that, in my opinion, Gypsy Rose wasn’t able to experience. She was trapped, and when we are unable to flourish and are repressed, it’s possible we begin to make decisions that don’t turn out well and at times have consequences that are lasting in ways we may have never expected.

Another captivating aspect of her story is how we often assign the roles of villain and hero to her. We are captivated because it echoes our own struggle with ethical values. We grapple to make sense of this, and as a result, we are drawn to stories like these that resonate with our emotions and make us ponder and question our own judgment.

My family will always bring a smile and a tug at my heart simultaneously. This is not a post about anything I hold against them, on the contrary. Oftentimes, it’s so easy to still love those that hurt us so deeply, to feel the effects of their harm and still feel what we perceive or hope or perhaps even is Love.

While looking through my 250,000+ pictures, I saw these pictures form a road trip from 21 years ago, and I love these. While I have deep feelings of frustration towards my grandfather for being a Jehovah’s Witness elder and guiding the family as a patriarch into the religion long before I was born, I also saw him as a loving grandfather, someone who loved adventure, someone who loved to study and research and grow, someone who dreamed and taught me how to be passionate. I’m thankful that I have beautiful memories that preceded the pain I feel today.

Navigating the complexities of relationships has been an intriguing and often challenging journey for me. My upbringing in a conservative Christian community deeply influenced my understanding of love, embedding a notion of conditional affection that hinged on strict adherence to certain rules and norms. This form of love was like a double edged sword, it offered warmth and belonging as long as I walked the perfect path, but turned cold and distant the moment I strayed.

This early exposure to conditional love has significantly shaped my approach to relationships in adulthood. As I wade into the world of forming new friendships and relationships, I often find myself in a state of constant fear and over awareness. This vigilance manifests in two conflicting ways: an over sensitivity to the dynamics of my relationships, leading me to question their authenticity at every turn, and, paradoxically, a tendency to miss or overlook critical signals that should capture my attention.

The process of unlearning the principles of conditional love and embracing a concept of unconditional love is similar to navigating a maze(I know I love comparing life to a maze). Each interaction becomes a lesson, a step towards understanding that true love and affection aren’t tied to a set of conditions or expectations. Instead, they are unmovable, not falling in the face of choices or actions that go off the path only slightly.

This time has been about discovering that genuine relationships are built on a foundation of trust, understanding, and acceptance. It’s about learning that love, in its purest form, is about giving without the expectation of receiving something in return. It’s a gradual realization that while the love I knew in my youth was contingent on compliance, the love I seek now is about mutual respect and understanding.

Each day presents a new opportunity to understand love and relationships better, to distinguish between the conditional love of my past and the unconditional love I aspire to both give and receive. This ongoing evolution of my understanding of love is not just a path towards healthier relationships but also a journey of self discovery and growth.

Reflecting on it now, it seems rather astonishing that I was taught by a religion that we are inherently sinful and wicked, and that we need someone else to make us whole. This teaching emphasized our flaws and imperfections. It’s understandable why so many people feel unable to meet such incredibly unattainable standards.

Just a reminder: you are amazing just as you are. You are enough. And you don’t need validation from those who don’t appreciate you for simply doing your best.

The blue screen of death, the universal sign of a system failure, strikes a particular chord with me. It takes me back to my own internal system crashes, those of belief, expectations, and self identity. There were many times when I felt like a computer crashing, overwhelmed by demands and tasks that I simply couldn’t process or fulfill. This blue screen of emotion was something I was familiar with. It signified a state of my well being.

Growing up in a high control environment, I was often seen more for my function than as an individual. My value was tied to my performance, to how well I adhered to the expectations and roles laid out for me. I was expected to operate smoothly, to comply without question, to be a cog in a larger machine. When I couldn’t meet these demands, when I “malfunctioned” because I was trying to be something I wasn’t, it was like hitting an internal blue screen of death.

The frustration wasn’t just my own. It spilled over from the people around me, those who couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just ‘reboot’ and run the program as expected. Their impatience was a dangerous force, it was a pressure that compounded the sense of isolation and failure.

I still have that blue screen of death pop up from time to time.

What happens in that blue screen of death in my mind? Chaos, that’s what. My brain tells me that a situation is not sustainable, it activates rapid coding of a need for emergency response, it tells me that there is imminent danger and threats to me that I have no way of navigating. It’s a system failure that bypasses fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses.

When my internal blue screen of death pops up, I simply want to turn off the computer permanently. The blue screen represents a total shutdown of my internal code. It acts as a self destruct mode when there is no apparent escape. That’s a scary realization when we think of what that means for a person rather than a computer.

Except when we do face the blue screen, we have to remember we actually have a choice and a healthy positive escape.

Here’s the thing about the programming of humans, life can be rebooted, and sometimes, it needs to be. Sometimes, the only way to fix the problem is to start fresh, to build something new that doesn’t crash under the weight of old code and outdated operations. That’s what I had to do. I had to leave the system that was never really designed for me, to stop being a computer malfunctioning under others’ commands, and start being Matt, a person with his own will and desires, ready to write a new program and code for his life.

Why is it that traveling holds such allure for many, including myself? Is it the allure of venturing into the unknown? An escape from the daily worries that consume our lives? Perhaps it's the thrill of witnessing breathtaking places and immersing ourselves in diverse cultures.

It's likely a combination of these reasons and more! There's a Welsh word, Hiraeth, that I find intriguing. I have to confess, I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce it correctly, but I've stumbled upon a translation/meaning that resonates deeply with me. I rely on the internet for its definition since I don't have any Welsh speakers around to confirm. Nevertheless, I've grown fond of its meaning, a longing for a home that one can never return to, perhaps a home that never truly existed. In my adventures, maybe I'm seeking to find a sense of home, knowing that the one I once had is no longer within reach. I encourage you to look up this word, Hiraeth. It has truly captivated my imagination. What are your thoughts on this word?