MAN UP! CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF SEX

WOW! Now that’s a title for you right?

In contemplating how exactly I wanted to explain the next step in our 8 step journey I was led to address a subject that I don’t think men speak honestly enough about even though science says that men think of it every 7 minutes. Sex! That’s right 7 minutes. Boom! I just thought of it as I was typing this sentence. 

This year, I will celebrate my 25-year of engaging in sexual activity- and when I use the term ‘celebrate,’ I am using it loosely. 

If you do the math that tells you that I began having sex at the tender age of 15. At the time I thought I was long overdue- but that was before I had a daughter who has reached the age of 12 and then I’m thinking “she’s still just a baby, and I was just 3 years older than her!”. Children have a magnificent way of putting your life into perspective. 

My first encounter was driven by peer pressure. No, I didn’t have a group of guys that were looking over my shoulder and pushing me to move out of virgin territory {pun intended}, but still the same, there was this ominous expectation that to be a real man was to have had sex. 

My Training
At the tender age of 13, I had been trained and had mastered the ancient African art of ‘ass watching’ by my best friend at the time. I particularly remember that our days were filled with nothing else but goggling and passing comments about each and every ass that passed by. Shapes, sizes, indents, curvature, hip placement, gaps, tone, movement, firmness, muscle- you name it…we watched it {ass so phat, we spotted it from the front}. 


I mean, up to this point, I had always been attracted to girls but more so as a whole concept, you know, cute, giggly, smell-good, rope-skipping members of the opposite sex. But now I had been introduced into the craft of objectifying them and this took long and careful study. I mastered it. 

In these years, I also distinctly remember developing my sexual seduction repertoire. This was my combination of words, tones, innuendos, body gestures and an assortment of other “weapons” that would go into my ‘mac daddy’ arsenal. So by the time I was 15, I felt like I was more than ready to enter the realm of manhood…..did I ever mention that I call these my young and dumb days? I have? Ok. Good. 

Yes, I was young, dumb and full of cunning and looking for the stray girl to fall away from the herd so that she could be devoured by my quest of perceived manhood. And she did. My first encounter wasn’t even with someone that I was even ‘dating’ at the time. Some poor girl as ignorant and needy as myself. Enough about me, I digress.

My Assessment
As I continue to explore and examine manhood from a more mature perspective I find myself reflecting back on my process and continue to uncover the source of the beliefs that I was and fed. I then assess the results that stemmed from my acting out of those beliefs and I marvel on how I ever made it this far. I also truly have a deep understanding and appreciation for why so many men have a difficult time inside of relationships. 

As I have said before, relationships are WORK and that’s without throwing into the fray the over-sexualized, objectified, narcissistic perception that most men feed on. Once that factor enters into the game- relationships are damn near impossible…..but I’m preaching to choir again, aren’t I?

As a youth I was spoon fed some of the most destructive ideas that you could ever put into a young boy’s head. And where did these come from? Well, for me, they came from Hollywood and music. Where else do young teenage boys turn to for societal guidance- but tv, movies and popular music?

Let me give you a brief sample of the movies and songs that were the source of education and inspiration during my teenage life:

MOVIES
Delirious by Eddy Murphy: Feel me on this one! My father and I never sat and watched tv with each other unless it was football- and even that was rare. 

However, when this concert came to HBO, I found myself in a room full of men and their teenage sons who had never been pulled together before or since, eagerly awaiting Mr.Murphy to drop his jewels into our wide-open domes. 

The excitement that surrounded the release of this comedy concert completely engulfed my community {has this been matched yet?} and we as children unabashedly soaked it up. .

In the two hours that would follow, I was introduced to the following relationship concepts:

• Forced Man on Man Homosexuality {the Mr.T rant} 
• Racial stereotypes of penis size
• Promiscuity as a natural behavior of MAN 
• How hard and fast men should “bang” a women
* How to lie to your woman and make her believe you
* Oral sex
• To fear women’s motives in relationships {the reason behind getting ignorant Umfufu from Africa}

Weeks after viewing this concert we were echoing the "funniest" cliche statements in the halls and lunchroom. I'm still not sure that most artist really know how much power the really do yield

Want to do an interesting exercise? Rent this movie but this time watch it from the perspective of a training manual for a young man’s camp- or better yet…view it as a responsible parent with a teenage daughter or son. Ha! The irony of LIFE! 

Now, without passing judgment on Eddie, he clearly being the comical genius that he is, was merely tapping into the cultural psyche of a society and laying it to bear with humor. However, as is true with any artist and his art, he seems to be living out his comedy of errors with 2 divorces {one marriage lasting all of a week}, a sexcapade with a transvestite and a basketball team of baby momma’s. Who’s laughing now?


MUSIC

Erotic City by Prince

When this song dropped it was played in more basement parties by teenage youth then any other song I can recall. 

For the record- Prince has to be one of the biggest paradoxes I have ever witnessed for our society. No artist that I can think of has entertained and at the same time totally contaminated the sexual consciousness of a generation on the level of Mr. Purple Rain {some may argue lil wayne but he doesn’t have his own movie!.....yet}. To me, Prince singlehandedly turned a generation of youth into straight ‘freaks’ of the highest calling. 

For those of you who are reading this that may be a bit older or younger let me just drop the lines of this most mesmerizing popular underground hit:

Every time I comb my hair, parts of you get in my eyes
You’re a sinner, I don’t care- I just want your creamy thighs.
If we cannot make babies, maybe we can make some time
F*** so pretty you and me Erotic City come alive
We’ll be F******** till the dawn, making love till cheery’s gone
Erotic city can’t you see..F*** so pretty you and me 
{dishonorable mention include: Whodini's- I'm a Ho} 

Ahhhh, poetry at its best. Now, again, I completely understand that Prince is merely a messenger for a society that seems completely committed to corrupting its youth. I mean, a fish is only as clean as the water in which it swims. 

The point is this: If we want better men we have to make them. A man, who is in the making, that is fed with the type of distorted ideas and concepts illustrated above is going to find it extremely difficult to attract, maintain and succeed in a harmonious relationship. It’s like wanting to bake chocolate chip cookies but your list of ingredients reads: two full cups of cow dung. Bon apetite. 

Most of what you have experienced in your failed relationships can easily be traced to extreme doses of popular culture, sexual myths and antiquated gender roles fed via parents, peers, tv, movies and music. Most of us have never really had an opportunity to have a relationship with the actual person- as we usually cannot tread through their/our-adopted garbage to get to the real person. 

Listen; there is nothing wrong with people. I believe inherently that people are good. People are great! People want to love and be loved in return- God’s creations, perfect in their imperfections. However, people fed with corrupt ideas about how and why they should relate with the opposite sex are a loaded gun of the worst sorts and most of us have delivered and tasted the hot lead of this wicked weapon. 

I see the popular education around women, sex and male roles that is rendered to Men in the following metaphor.

One of the ways that hunter’s in the arctic kill wolves is by placing a very sharp blade inside of the ice so that only the blade is protruding. Then the hunter places a small amount of blood on the blade as bait and waits for the wolf to come. The wolf smelling the blood comes quickly to the blade and begins to lick it ferociously and of course the harder he licks the blade the more he bleeds. The wolf thinks he’s having a fantastic meal as more and more of his own blood continues to flow. Ironically, the wolf never realizes perhaps until it’s too late that he has just devoured himself and he bleeds to death. 

Popular culture is the blade and we men are the wolf -dining on our own destruction and until we make the commitment to reject the popular ideas of what Manhood is- then we are doomed to be a destructive force in our homes and in our nations. 

We are in desperate need of new paradigms, because unlike the lone wolf who out of his ignorance and greed only destroys himself, we men, in our injury then go out and wreak havoc on the very entities that are the source of our healing- our Women. And when we destroy our women, we destroy our families…..and when we destroy our families we destroy our very own future. 

As I celebrate 25 years, I rejoice in my emancipating myself from these popular views. Trust me, I am very clear that a lot of people {especially men} view my writings as the musings of a guilty soul akin to that of Saint who was once the worse sinner and this may not be to far from the truth. 

However, be that as it may, I heard a wonderful quote about the truth that goes “ the Truth needs no crutches- if it limps, it’s a lie”. 

I’M READY TO RUN! 

At least that’s what I believe in 1800 words or less.

Man Up!