The Masculinity Paradox: Closing and Q+A - Sessions Live by Esther Perel

okay so this is our last portion and I think what you know it's a kind of this is the moment that you weigh between should we add more knew or should we just kind of let things settle and kind of do a rap and of what are the things that stand out of the learning of today where you find yourself are at and so forth I only was able to get glimpses of a few of the sessions so I can't really build on those because I was doing a Q&A with all the people who are online but maybe what what we can do since I think I'm one of the least that I've that you've had the opportunity to do is ask me questions is to get a sense as to what what I can what you want to hear from me more of at this moment what are some of the questions you have for me let's start with that and can I get some of the volunteers to walk around with the mic so I can take notes that would be helpful right here right here right here so that G of mics how many mics do you have you have two okay all right so go and we're gonna make these questions very brief and by the way for those of you who are not comfortable with the questions you can always say I have a friend you know somebody once told me there's all these ways yeah start here in front I'm gonna take a bunch and then I will I will I will put them together yeah hi we talked a lot about how a closer closer and we talked a lot about power today not a lot about money and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how money affects their relationships in particular in cases where she makes more yeah okay great yes in this polarized environment what is your advice for how we can set a context that allows this conversation to happen in other places - mm-hmm how do we take this conversation outside hi how do you see the masculinity paradox how do you work with women who have the contradictory impulse that's so familiar to so many of us to want a man who you can crash up against and want a man to be vulnerable and yet when you find a man who's vulnerable not you know not be critical of that how do you work with women who have that paradox or that contradictory those contradictory desires yeah it's a great question hi you know this is the moment where all the questions you ask at the next day so are you ready for an all-night this is like when the conversation really becomes interesting right okay yes how do you honor anger that trauma victims might have women are men while at the same time not alienating or further shaming the other side of that partner the other partner say that again the anger that I have about something that happened to me with somebody else and that I bring to you so if there's one victim who has been traumatized one side of the partner was traumatized by the other mm-hmm how do we honor and allow the anger without shaming or shutting down or guilting the other person how do you honor it in a healthy way mine relates to the first question with regards to power and when the wife makes no money so mine comes to the point of the male being vulnerable and and then me not needing or the woman not needing to have to be the caregiver cuz to me that's the nuance that's bugging me about it you know no no but give me the bug you know that so if I think like I do want somebody that's vulnerable and emotional and then masculine in the traditional sense which that paradoxes exist but then when I think about like today when we saw earlier the two men like connecting I felt personally like oh my god if they're gonna be that like sweet am I gonna have to be a caregiver to them and I think that that is the nuance that I've been thinking about all day that's like been churning and I'm trying to been put clear in my own head and yeah if you can speak yeah okay yeah my question is actually very very similar to that question I just worded it differently in case it adds something all that bring the mic closer to you some of the women I'm working with I've noticed a strong resistance to that male vulnerability and that need for for emotional needs being met or emotional connection specifically because their personal erotic narratives require a sense of dominance and a sense of of protection from from their men so just the word the one word I haven't heard a lot of today is arousal how does arousal how is arousal impacted by the the true introduction of male emotional vulnerability within couples who are striving for greater erotic intimacy okay all right here's the thing I'm not I can't answer these questions I can riff on these questions and I also think that my faculty here for those of you who have something to say about these questions just join me I mean rather than me standing here just raise your hand and I'll get the mic to you I know you spread out a little bit but so the first one is really about women about money in relationships and what does it mean for women to make more money and what does it mean for women to make no money no money and all of that there you know I think the the the thing that I'm more interested in to explore at this moment around this is like can people do that which they are most competent to do I mean I see plenty of couples where the woman or one partner if it's two men two women one partner is really good at going outside and doing that part and the other one actually is much better staying at home in same-sex couple it's a different negotiation than in straight couples now I'm standing like Paul where is Paul every time I'm gonna stand like this I'm gonna think of you you know I find look it's difficult for many women that I have worked with so far not all but quite often when she makes more when she makes more and especially when she makes more here's the thing when she makes more and she says to him at least if I was the one not working well if I was home I would be doing ABCDE you know and he's saying look I'm taking care of whatever career that he may be doing you have heard that whole conversation and in a way that I don't hear from men particularly because I think that men have been just basically raised to believe that that's the way things are so they don't feel like why me and the thing that I have found that is and I'm answering it from the point of view of the woman now not the man that I have actually heard myself say to the women is this and sometimes they complain and I have to why my and I have to do in order and I say but can we start by looking at the freedom that it because the truth is that the majority of these women would actually not want to change it they would maybe wants less burden less responsibility some but they wouldn't want to not do that which they are doing I'm talking professional women now in this instance to be to because I'm seeing who I'm listening to um and so the thing is how to you when you begin to change these roles how do you not as a woman say you know I've been in my masculine the whole day what does that mean now I'm I'm in my masculine here today I've been working the whole day I'm not in anything I'm in my working mode you know it's this kind of gendered way of thinking about it I am I'm in my masculine because I ever had to take authority because I have responsibilities because I have agency here because I'm commanding the room is that masculine or is that just competent professional whatever you want to call it so that language is really you know and I have a hard time when I come home to regress back into my feminine and that and you can kind of concede this whole language yeah so first a part of this is when is it important to have a gendered conversation and when is it actually not useful to have a gendered conversation and to play with that you know in the instance of the person who does not work and doesn't earn the money or in the instance of what you're talking about in terms of the verb the arousal and the vulnerability and all of that what I will say is this when a relationship becomes parental meaning that there is a child and an adult meaning that there is a parent and a child mean in that sense and that's a very different kind of caregiving than the one that you blady in the second row with your blue thing here talking about which is that you instantly to take care giving caring and you maternal eyes it when you maternal eyes it you will experience the ambivalence because you will start to infantilized the man and you will be insulting bottom line is it's insulting to you know here is a way of caregiving that belongs to two adults it doesn't instantly have to become hierarchical and now it's not hierarchical in the gender terms it's hierarchical in the parental terms and every one of these relationships will be a sexual killer because if your head is screwed up right on your shoulders you don't want sex in the family so this is one of the number-one death Nell's for sex is a parental for a Parenti fight in the parental relationship do you understand doesn't matter who is in what role and those very same people by the way who are I solved a couple recently or she hasn't booked a ticket God knows never never never and here's the dance the dance is this is a straight couple of village you know she has zero interest in him no she can't have interest in him she's a child but in her other relationships with other guys she is perfectly a woman and so here is the dance that you need to begin to enter right does she want to stop being a child that means that she's gonna have to do a lot of stuff that till now she hasn't had to do and is he willing to give up the guy who manages to take care of everything for her because that would mean that he has to imagine that she actually wants to stay with him not because of what he does for her but because of who he is so there is all kinds of subtexts that need to be on earth in order for these two people to be able to become an adult relationship and an erotic relationship okay and I think that the thing that David Leigh was talking about before was such a great concept what was it the heterosexual romantic bisexual yeah this idea that you know where you are sexually attracted to is not necessarily where you emotionally connect now this is the part of mating in captivity that I was trying to to to deal with you know how you take this conversation outside there are people here by the way oh oh oh I have to tell you that because I can't forget the clip from the work the mood from the movie the work comes from a project called mankind I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that mankind is a project that went on for I think eight ten years and has been it's hundreds and hundreds of hours and has been tracking this biannual project that takes place in the Folsom Prison it's really an archive it's I connected it to Byron Katie's work but it's actually mankind so just to say that but I that Lee reminded me that they're you know two people here today who are of an organization called every man and every man is a organization that creates retreats and groups and discussion groups for men not therapeutic groups necessarily that's one of the ways that this conversation has been taken outside I think that the conversation to me primarily may I ask how many of you have kids okay if I may suggest this is the first place you take it seriously it's a it's a different way of talking I have two boys and I literally would have them do one month of summer camp in the States and one month of summer camp abroad so I got a kind of a comparative cultural experience throughout their years and about a lot of these issues you know there's some things that are very particular to the US and there is a way in which we can shift things around by having very different conversations with our daughters and our sons everybody you know to be and and that means that you have a conversation in which you do a few things to me that that are the essence of what I would like to take outside because it's simple the first thing is this pink and blue thing that we heard about the second thing is the idea that it is very important to cultivate friendships between boys and girls friendships from h3 on onwards and not to have a situation where they have to hide it because if you have friendship between boys and girls then you actually learn to relate to these girls as people with whom you have a kind of a sisterly thing with whom you talk about what happens between you and this other girl that you are actually interested in and you don't just have this unknown mysterious continent that one day you have to become interested in just because of sex do you know what I'm talking about you know and the other thing is you talk with that you talk about basically you know do you like this person you know do you have a when you go in Belgium you know it's very common that a five-year-old comes to dinner and then somebody says and do you have a girlfriend you know nobody thinks twice about this idea you know tienes una novia it's the same in Spanish it's like there's a whole language that explains that you fall in love at every age so it's an integrated thing in your life it's not something you have to go and learn later on that doesn't mean that these cultures don't have their own issues about and and dichotomies and all of that but I think there is a whole kind of integrated conversation about sex that you can have I also think this is very problematic in u.s. is the only Western country that doesn't have a public health policy on adolescent sexuality the only it has had campaigns about abstinence and as a result it has more sti's earlier onset of sexual activities and more teenage pregnancies than the liberal Dutch that's another piece you know makes find a way to have the schools talk about something you do something the schools do some things you know and then maybe the summer camps will do some things too I mean that's for me the beginning I do think that it starts much earlier rather than the repair shop later you know how I understand the masculinity paradox look I called it the masculinity paradox because I wanted to say it's complex but if you call it the masculinity complex then it looks like they are complexed you know like a complex in French you know it's like it's different so I was simply to say here is this category called men that really requires interesting thinking about it at this moment somehow it's been a given and it's no longer just a given and what what what goes in there and I really don't think it is just the story of power and vulnerability I think it's a lot richer than that you know or and so that's really what I to me it's what are the scripts that are available to men and to boys it's very interesting if women become pilots they think they've become pilots they don't wonder if that has made them less woman if men become nurses they have to prove that they are still men and that notion of how women have entered all these territories that men have vacated often and how will men enter territories that are actually quite needed at this moment and not instantly experience them as emasculating there are two words that don't exist in the feminine one is emasculated and the other is looser think about it that doesn't mean women don't have their Bane now but it is very interesting these two words that are just like crushes on guys you know just such access like this just speak volumes that whole notion that you can take that thing away as if as if it is really what I talked earlier so fragile so that's what I mean by the masculinity paradox it's really what this is an interesting moment in which we can and I think they respect that too is that we we offer to the category man the opportunity for many more scripts than the ones that have been currently available and this is not about making death less manly it's simply about saying there's many more may ways to be a man because there is not one size fits all and for nobody and for no relationships for that matter [Music] now I am really it's it's it is true that I'm interested in this question of the ambivalence of the woman towards the the man who to whom she wonders if she can lean against okay to whom she and this is a work that women have to do how do you let a man not be you know all-powerful in front of you just experience whatever is experiencing without instantly it's two things it's a the feeling that you have to take care of them and the resentment that you have to take care of them and that has to do with your mama and the history of mothers where you you know where and well it's not just your personal mother it's mothers it's the story this idea that this is the instant thing you have to do you know rather than just be there let it happen and trust the fear that when a guy goes like this that he's gonna just turn into a puddle and that you will have to pick him up and that therefore you know who's gonna be there for you and all the people that you have taken care of and all of that this is one of the scripts that women are grappling with you know that I do for everybody I do for everybody you know there's another piece I we lied to this it's a and it was you know there's something that Sharon said to me at at one of the breaks today when we saw the end how many of you thought the woman laughed because she was anxious or nervous not because she was trying to be mean to the guy right right nevertheless both end both ends she was nervous because you know because she didn't want to tell him because she actually didn't want to tell him the very thing that was gonna be hurtful but she was telling it to him in the laughter it's both ends you know it's not the intention only it's also the the simple consequence of the behavior one of the things that is that I learned from this fantastic researcher called Martha mayanna is that when you think about it and this goes to the arousal and this goes to the caregiving and this goes to the power and the money it's actually all into you will probably hear many straight guys tell you nothing turns me on more that to see her turn correct because many of them don't want the service economy the beg position that just get it over with the goat you know I'll do whatever it takes so you can go to sleep that is not what they want anymore that's a change of generation how many of you have heard straight women tell you in your office nothing turns me on more than to see him turned on I rest my case because what does she say if she doesn't say that then what is it that she says she says nothing turns me on more than to be the turn-on because if the social role of the woman is the caregiving role than the route to sexual arousal and desire and connecting to one's own erotic self is the freedom of burden of caretaking and the ability to think about herself hence female sexuality is highly narcissistic and we don't think about it like that because we are used to thinking about the man and the narcissism and the selfishness but there is a whole voice this is one of many by the way of course that's actually talks about the son generosity on the side of man and a certain kind of selfishness that is needed on the side of women in order to be able to tap into her own erotic sensation and responses if them now and this goes to another thing that you talked about with the power I think that is you know this doesn't take anything away from what Virginia talked about you know but but I don't particularly whatever I work with with with other stories as well that I hear is this there was an article in The New York Times awhile not too long ago that really talked about all male sexuality is predatory and it had more responses than any other article I think this year but I thought there's a different way I want to look at it there are a bunch of them but I would say that if I turn it around and I said actually female sexuality is quite narcissistic because it counteracts with the burden of caretaking which is often the primary erotic bloc in women then I will say that it is not the predatory nests of men that is the issue as much as the fear of the predator enas the predatory fear meaning and this is particularly in men women relationships her response is the only thing that he has available to know if he is hurting or if he is pleasing he completely depends on her in a way that she often will want to avoid but that dependence is intrinsic and part of the why he says nothing turns me on more than to see her turn down is because if she's turned down then I know that I'm not hurting then I'm know that I'm not being predatory so if the if the block for women is the burden of caretaking the block for men is the predatory fear and this is how I understand the blocks around arousal and in the in the shifts that take place around caretaking and and the devaluing that sometimes takes place when one person makes all the money and then looks at the other as a child I think I combined all your questions all right [Applause] let's do another round of this I didn't talk about the anger of the trauma victim that's the one thing we will come back ok let's continue yes Sarah I'll come to you so I just wanted to say something regarding going to our children as the first point of contact I also work with these families like for example I came back like three weeks ago from Sweden and I consulted with their parent group that and the boys little boys were so traumatized because the the mother thought that you know put them in girls clothing and took the cards away for certain hours of the day and put them like in front of dolls and you know like strollers just to play with them because they wanted their son their sons to be in touch with their feminine side and that's traumatizing for the child you know we we should really be careful about this discourse or for example I was talking to a father Iranian father who said both of my daughters they are not going to ballet they are going to soccer games nowadays because they need to learn to compete and be aggressive so we need to also have that you know in the back of our minds that you know some people really take the pin jewel to the other side so I just wanted so one interesting piece of data is that the country in Europe where Jordan Peterson is the most listened to at this moment is Sweden the interesting right the most egalitarian society on the scandinavian continent has a group of men many many men saying i love my dad i don't look up to him and then goes back to this kind of old code yeah yes Doug hi yes I've been thinking all day about the idea of you know that was suggested all the time right of men catching up to women right but what can we talk about on the other side of women learning to be patient right that because I feel that that's a lot of what I manage in the room with working with a couple so what can you talk in terms of what we can do as couples therapist and handling that other side of women learning how to be more patient rather than becoming maybe aggressive or get our detached to the process I just want to say a couple things about your use of the word predator I think it's a great teaching tool for us in this room but it is not a helpful word in the clinical hour I have sat in groups with men who are there for having out-of-control sexual behavior and there's an idea in the sex addiction field of degeneracy that if somebody doesn't treat their addiction they'll become more and more predatory as the sign of their addiction worsening and this narrative comes into the family where a partner will be so worried about the safety of their children because the partner believes if their addiction relapses enough they will sexually non-consensual e violate their own children as a worsening of their addiction and the pain the men have had in the room when they think that the partner they love the person they've been with for decades actually believes that this man might actually non-consensual e violate his own children as a sign of his sex addiction it's such a painful place for for the men to have to endure this perception on the part of their spouse not because there's any indication that they could actually be non-consensual but the fear that this addictive disorder will lead them into this behavior it's one of the most painful dialogues I hear the men have in the group together with the other men so III would just direct me yes thank you a staircase you know that this is what I like to have conversation with you about I I think it's a really useful training narrative but from my language I would use find a way for the words consent and exploit and not consent and non exploitation to become part of the narrative the couple one of the promos prideful I there's these six principles of sexual health they teach men but one of the most prideful moments many men will have is I've never crossed the non-consent boundary ever and these are men who feel helpless about controlling their sexual behavior and I'll say well from a strengths perspective say okay let's start with the one you're confident you'll never do who's that who do you rely on how does he mate how does he manage the world how do you how do you how did you come to believe you would never cross that boundary we need to get to know that person so that sometimes the consent boundary becomes the fact that you won't cross it this the beginning of the health and strength based conversation and most men are just are so adamantly appalled at the idea that somebody would perceive them as crossing that boundary with their own children and if I may I would add to bridge that with the question that was just asked I had a woman recently who came in I thought it was incredible him she sat down she said I exploit men I said tell me more you know and then she said this one has a car this one has a house this one has a beach house this one you know gave me bags this one you know so when you talk about consensual and non exploitive I think that we sometimes the notion that exploitation only goes from one direction to the other there's a lot of other ways that exploitation happens between people doesn't have to be just women you know but people people know when they're using people and people know when they're using sex to you get something from people then people know when they're using whatever in order to marry people thank you I will I will really pay attention yes yeah no no mic is coming so again as a single woman in New York City um how many of you people know let me ask you one quick question may I one sec yeah how many of you are in a relationship currently and how many of you would like to be in a relationship and how many of you at least on occasion would like to be out of your relationship you're in good you're not alone let's go I mean I date but no but something I know so to you oh sorry um so like I was off the market for like four years and I'm 35 and now that ivory entered the market I have been meeting more and more men who are really into Jordan Peterson which as a feminist with us southy healthy sexual identity it's really frustrating and one thing that I've been especially with all the in sell stuff and all the violence against women and they often turned out to be the mass shooters I guess what I'm curious about is like my push back to them is against forced monogamy why can't we just legalize sex work like if they're so horny that it makes them violent but then does that reinforce the patriarchy wait a second look I think the thing is this there's a difference between consensual roughhousing and rape there's a difference between play-acting is something and having it done against their will and I think it's important that we don't fall into the idea very puritanical idea that in order to control our behavior we have to control our feelings feel what you feel what what you want and then make grown-up decisions about what you're going to do about it I think there's a tremendous resurgence of old style masculinity because it's being threatened right now but I also think there's a great resistance to that resurgence so I think we're in the middle right now and I think that we have a part to play in that dialogue so that's what I want to say about that and thank you for handing me the mic when you didn't want it take it take the question yeah access to pornography actually decreases rates of sexual violence across the world access to pornography and sex work do decrease rates of sexual violence and sexual crime but it's very very important to understand that that's a macro level and that it's not that all men that you know listen to Jordan Peterson or that whatever we have to look at those more sophisticated kind of issues so if you're dating a guy with high antisocial traits that is angry towards women and is getting drunk and and then then that that's the guy we worry about and again as Sarah said earlier it's the context that is so important and we have to be very very careful about over attending to these one kind of variables okay let me just yeah I think one of the thing I wanted to just add as you were as you were talking is that you know the the there's different answers to the fear of loss at this moment there's a whole generation of men boys coming up of which probably half of them grew up with primarily with a mother and that means that their dinner table conversation was probably different too and that means that they have a different ease with or or comfort with a certain kind of relationality or relational language I think we're going what you will see generally when there is something that is challenged is that the responses are going on the extremes on all on both sides you know Peterson and or Peterson as the symbol of a certain kind of response is one thing and then there is a whole group of other men who are actually seeking every men and a bunch of other ways to actually expand the repertoire but I think to what David was saying to one of the things that has really struck me is that it became very clear to me that promiscuity has nothing to do with comfort I mean you would think that people became a more promiscuous because they became more sex positive because they became more comfortable with sexuality everybody and what I think when I say to a lot of the people are younger people that I work with the Millennial people I work with the men and the women for that matter I say tell me something if you like mountain climbing do you like to be aware while you're doing it if you like to drive a motorcycle do you like to remember the next day that yesterday you had a great trip why the hell do you want to have something called sex of which you don't remember anything the next morning maybe you're not that comfortable with it to begin with that you need to be totally smashed to engage in it to then wake up the next morning and wonder who was that in hope that you get a wave of fast enough so that you don't have to remember this is sick you know so there is a complete paradox between the amount of sex people are having and what this actually represents or the ease or the raspado respect or the fun or the pleasure or the connect whatever it is you know connection doesn't mean long term it just means a good night sometimes but that's two very different things and for me that anxiety that comes in here that is really at the core of this thing that is the base that is degraded that is the body compared to the that is the flesh compared to the spirit there is a multiple traditions that have really tried to make this thing called sex and that of course is seen as the property of men because it is the sanctioned language with which men can talk about a bunch of things which they otherwise have no permission to talk about in the same way that she has a sanctioned language called feelings which she has to wrap into all kinds of layers of relatedness to be able to talk about sex every gender gets permission to talk about the same things but each one's get the allocated vocabulary do you understand what I'm saying and that makes it a much more of a societal thing than just a gender specific thing but it is obvious why the men can talk about sex and sex is the language to which to talk about everything so I I have actually tried to come up with a different vocabulary and I thought instead of making it about feelings or emotions versus sex I'm gonna make it about verbs why verbs because you know I speak a lot of languages and every time I learn a new language I know that I have to go and find your Zillah reverbs the main verbs that allow you to construct the basic sentences and then I taught they are about it could be ten it doesn't really matter the number you know basic relationship verbs that have no gender to them at the onset they become gendered through your personal experience through the culture you live in etc in the moment in history and the verbs are like this they're not in order you know to ask to receive you can go developmental with these verbs you can literally see the baby as I talk and begin to see how we grow up with these verbs to give to take to share to play or to create to want and to refuse you know I saw this little kid I mean it is the thing I watch many times when you have a kid and they're playing in there running waiting you know my there's no gender to this you know and it's a want and it's and it's and it's a hold on to it it's like that sense of you know and then after that a whole life comes in that starts to create some people who want too much and some people who don't know to want enough some people who ask too much and some people who've never asked for anything some people who know to say no and some people who are terrified to say no and therefore have never known to say yes and so you go down the verbs like that I find that a very neutral very simple structured language to which you can delve into the entire you know relationship landscape with everybody free of tags okay that's it we are arriving at the end of our day so I wish I could get yes you're trying to tell me something yes yes thank you everyone for being here today and being a wonderful audience participant group of participants a couple things one we will be sending out a post event email with resources so everyone's books all of the Faculty's full list of books will be included a couple additional links will will include a link to everyman which Astaire's mentioned a couple times today and a few other resources CES will be you'll receive an email within 48 hours of today with instructions of what to do to to apply for CES and if you have any questions about Astaire's sessions platform so if you want to be you can find all the information about the community on Astaire's website sterile comm if you take a picture of this this link on the screens will take you directly to the page with all the information it's true there's a free 14-day trial and hopefully next year we do an event like this again but we hope to see you in that community as as well as as in person in at these events so that's all for me you can so there's no way to wrap this up it's dot dot dot at the end of a sentence to be continued as we say at the end of many of our sessions I wish I could say see you next week but I and feel free to write to us to share with us what this is like you know I don't I hope you won't just focus on the light or the temperature of the room but the meat you know I think Terry and Sara and Alexandra and Rick and Doug and David and Virginia do I have everybody and Paul west pole he was standing there because I can't do this without them and I couldn't do this without you thank you many of you have come to tell me you know you take these risks you do the truth these people I am a little counter phobic and it is with you that I get to strength to try out what I try out and to say what I say and to do what I do it's your invisible support you don't know it but I think of you a lot so thank you very very much [Applause]

Channel: Esther Perel

Views: 89,029

Rating: 4.8800273 out of 5

Keywords: relationships, marriage, love, communication, therapists, therapy, clinical training

Id: O5sDXJoRbcI

Length: 43min 53sec (2633 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 29 2019