Men are Beautiful
One of my joys in recent years has been a softening and deepening of my relationship with men. I feel this is important, because I am a man, and I do not think it possible to fully embrace myself without accepting the gender I belong to with a similar degree of openness. I feel it is unfortunate that we as men unconsciously condemn ourselves when we take on and give voice to the shadow-stereotypes of what it is to be a man. If men are untrustworthy, I am truly speaking about myself. If men are beautiful, I am opening to the perception of my own beauty.When I was six years old my curiosity with my and other’s bodies began to express itself. Show and tell was a hilarious and scary process – particularly when the other boys I hung out with told their parents that I started it. I remember both the shame and the pleasure that came from offering one of my child-hood friends a matchbox red car if he would snuggle with me under the covers naked. I lived in a rural, media free community without TV, Radio and could not read, so I had certainly never heard of sex or seen it. I just remember how good it felt to rub our whole bodies together and that girls were still “icky” at the time so naturally I would prefer this with my friends. These thinks were always remarked about or given glances by my parents, leaving me with the impression it was significant and questionable. I did not like the attention it garnered me or feeling like I was the only one who did not see something.
