Last night I went to this event called The Cock Project.
To best explain what it is, I think I should tell you how it was started.
This woman, a counselor and certified sexoligist, was at a workshop for orgasmic meditation a few years back and talking with her male friend—if you aren't familiar, orgasmic meditation is a slow and purposeful clitoral stimulation where a woman is brought to orgasm in a very soothing and meditative way—and during this workshop, the woman's male friend says "well, what about the cock?" in kind of a joking way.
She responded, "good question, what about your cock? Tell me about it."
He reportedly got flustered and a little defensive and didn't know what to say. This is when the woman realized that in the fight to make sexuality safe and fun and pleasurable for women, men have been largely left out of the conversation.
To be sure, men still dominate most conversations about most everything, no denying that, but when it comes to sexuality and even things like body image, the conversations men have are still in that old vein of toxic masculinity where we aren't allowed to feel insecure or vulnerable.
I know myself that in the years that I've had in feminist circles and reading feminist literature that the only conversation I've ever had about male sexuality is how bad and predatory it is. Sometimes we get as far as saying how the patriarchy hurts men too, but we never really discuss what healthy male sexuality should look like. We absolutely never discuss what is good and beautiful about it.
As someone who grew up with some very intense sexual shame, these conversations only amplified my discomfort with being male. More often than not, I have felt embarrassment and discomfort even expressing sexual interest in someone because I was terrified that she would think that I was "only after one thing" or objectifying her or exploiting her in some way.
So when I heard about a workshop where men could safely discuss their cocks—what they liked about them, what made them ashamed of them—in a room full of women who were not allowed to talk, but just hold compassionate space and listen. I felt I was the perfect candidate.
The room had about 12 guys and 15 women, all ranging from our early thirties to mid-fifties. We sat in two circles: the men in an inner circle facing each other, the women in an outer circle facing the men.
Before we started, the moderator asked us to name any kind of resistance or discomfort we were feeling about the project and sharing.
The men sat in silence for a minute or two,
finally I volunteered that I have major social anxiety and some hardcore trust issues and don't usually feel comfortable even opening up to an intimate partner, let alone a room full of strange men, but that I was here to open up and willing to try.
I expected a murmur of agreement, that other men were feeling what I was feeling and glad that I spoke out. Instead, it was just silence.
The moderator asked the first question:
What did you call your genitals when you were a child? What do you call them now?
The men in the circle delighted in the question. One older man said that he called his "Leroy" because his penis was like an old friend to him. Another said that it all depending on context. When he was getting a blowjob, he'd say "yeah, suck my cock!" but when he was penetrating someone, he'd say "how does my dick feel?" Everyone laughed in agreement. Everyone but me and maybe one or two other guys.
I eventually confessed that now that I was thinking about it, outside of sexting and maybe some dirty talk during sex, I have never had a conversation about my penis. In fact, this would be the very first time I have said the word "cock" in public. I said that I never really had any guy friends growing up and still really don't, so I've never had that sort of "locker room" conversation that the other men were laughing about. I told them that even with sexually explicit talk, my focus is always more on the woman and her pleasure, I don't talk about my dick at all.
Silence. Dead silence. Apparently I was alone in that particular experience.
The second question was about our first experience with ejaculation and how that felt.
Again, the men mostly relished their experience. They talked about how good it felt. Many of them had experienced orgasms long before they first ejaculated and were either slightly confused or relieved when they had their first release of sperm.
I told them how I was absolutely terrified.
I am the homeschooled son of a fundamentalist pentecostal pastor, I told them, I had zero sex education and as mentioned not even guy friends to get information from. I was up in the middle of the night, in pitch darkness, watching some movie with a lot of nudity in it.
I had been rubbing myself for a few weeks at that point, but would always stop after just a few minutes because I knew it was bad. But that night when I came for the very first time, I thought I had irreparably damaged myself. Because it was dark and I couldn't see, I thought the warm substance on my hand was blood. I thought I would have to go to the hospital. I woke my mom up (because my dad...well, let's just say he was never a safe person to ever talk to) but was too embarrassed to tell her what happened. She saw that I was hysterical, probably assumed I had a bad dream, prayed for me and sent me back to bed.
I then told them how that started a pattern where I would masturbate and then instantly feel so much shame and guilt that I would begin to weep in repentance and fear. I told them that pattern lasted close to ten years. That I never once enjoyed masturbation or orgasm until I was in my early twenties.
I could sense the other men look away from me. Again there was silence. A few men eventually mentioned that they were also raised religiously, but got over that sexual shame far more quickly.
I thought then that being "raised religiously" was a lot like people saying they're "poor." There is a wide spectrum for what those words mean, and those of us on the more extreme side of that spectrum can easily be misunderstood by those with milder experiences.
The night went on, more and more questions, and the men felt more and more comfortable talking.
One man, a former NFL player, talked about how he often felt objectified physically by women and how he was treated like a sex object, especially as a black man. A few men, all also in great shape, shared similar experiences.
As awful as it has to be to be objectified, especially because of racial stereotypes, I wondered in silence what it would be like to feel really and truly desired purely for my appearance.
As the evening progressed, I felt less safe and less comfortable opening up. I could not relate to most of the stories that the other men were bonding over. I definitely felt like they could not at all relate to where I was coming from. There was so much bravado and machismo and delight in being male. An area in which I have always felt shame and inadequacy. As the other men got more comfortable, they spread out their legs more, they took up more space. I sensed myself beginning to shrink and clam up.
When the question came to sexual experimentation with other men and the guy in the army started talking about homoerotic play in the locker room, I decided to not talk about how my mom caught me and the neighbor boy looking at each other's genitals when I was five. I didn't talk about how much trouble I was in because of that. I didn't talk about how I was lectured for hours on the sins of homosexuality even though I had no idea what sexuality even was. I was just being curious and was punished severely for it. I decided not to talk at all for the rest of the night.
My hope for the evening was to discover that I wasn't alone in my struggles and to learn how to embrace my masculinity in a healthy way. But I was discovering, or at least perceiving, that I was very much alone in that room. That confidence with masculinity was not a problem at all for these guys.
We were coming at it from opposite places. They were manly, sexually confident guys who needed to learn how to be more sensitive and in-touch.
I was a sensitive man terrified of being manly and sexually confident. And no one there could relate at all to that.
The evening closed with me feeling more ashamed and alone that I had before I arrived. And I really did not think that was even possible.
A few of the women had noticed my face and body during the talk and approached me after to see if I was okay. I sheepishly told them what I had just wrote here. One found the moderator and had her talk to me.
The moderator told me that she wished it was a smaller group so that I could share more and express the shame I was feeling.
I told her I didn't think the size of the group mattered, that I just didn't belong with other guys.
She said it seemed like what society at large does to men is what this group did to me tonight. That I felt ashamed to talk and pressured to hide my vulnerability. She told me how sorry she was, how she really created this event for people like me and how she wished I felt safe talking more.
I thanked her. I went home and straight to bed.
This morning, I decided to write this all up before I did anything else. I am still rife with shame. I am wondering if this is why I am still single. That maybe I am just not enough of a man. That because I express myself so differently than other guys, women interpret me as a friend instead of a sexual being.
I wonder if I will ever feel not alone.
I don't have an answer to anything.
There is a lot of undoing to be done. I don't even know where to start.
6:08 a.m. - 2016-12-06
Recent entries:
The Freak Out - 2016-12-23
Parents - 2016-12-18
I graduated - 2016-12-16
First draft of a rambly poem - 2016-12-15
A gathering of whiny complaints and grammatical errors that I am not going to bother to fix - 2016-12-11
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