Masculinity Mondays 26: Turning 40, and What That Means

 

(Image shows a chocolate cake with candles)

I turned 40 on Saturday.

If you spend much time on social media (I'd just made the decision I was done with it...and then I got a freelance gig which did not disclose how much of it was actually "be on social media"...I wasn't, and am not, in a financial position to drop it, which I'd honestly prefer to do...) you'll almost certainly have come across people "explaining" that "ackshually, midlife isn't 40 - the average age of death is 76, so middle age is 36! Think about THAT when you realise how long you're being expected to labour for capitalism!"

As is very common with the chronically online brigade, especially those who love to cite the "study" that "proved" that "the frontal lobe isn't fully developed until 25" (it didn't; the study only included people up to the age of 25, and no one's frontal lobe was fully developed...because, if you actually know anything about neurology, you'll know that the human brain is constantly developing, throughout a person's life, until conditions such as Lewy Body Dementia, Alzheimers, stroke, or traumatic brain injury prevent the brain continuing its normal development), whilst...not recognising what that might mean about whether they should be yapping on about a topic they literally just came across on Discord as though they've done years of indepth research into it - and often aggressively mocking people who have done those years of indepth research, or, in the cases of ethnic or political regime experience, have actually lived through it.

"Middle age" isn't about "are you exactly halfway to dying?" (because that's different for everyone - even in my family, those who've died, whose age at death I know, cover a range of ages: 2 days, 32, 59, 61, 65, 60, 63, 89, 91, and 102...)  Middle age is 40, for everyone, because it's the strikingly jarring realisation that 20 years ago, you were 20 - objectively "young", looking ahead to all the possibilities of life, at the start of things, and, in 20 years' time, you'll be 60 - looking, more so, towards the end of things.  Aware of all the things your body, finances, and life commitments prevent you doing, rather than thinking about all the things you could do or become.

For me, this birthday has resulted in a significant depression flare.  

My 20s got wiped out by severe mental illness (schizophrenic breakdown and subsequent intensive treatment), homelessness, managing the administrative exhaustion of medical transition, sexual harassment and financial abuse in two different forms of employment, the terminal illness and death of my father, and my mother violently assaulting me.  There was a lot of poverty and stress tied up in all of that, obviously.

At the end of my 20s, I got married.

My 30s seemed to be getting somewhat on track - then the pandemic hit. We were a shielding household, as my wife's disabilities include compromised lung function, so I couldn't work (I'd frustrating had to give up my job 6mths before, because a bus I relied on got scrapped - I was already having to arrive late, and go without lunch to make that up, travelling by bus - walking wasn't viable - and the job wouldn't allow me to work from home...if the bus company had waited 6mths to scrap the route, I would have just been working from home, and might well still be in that job.)  Almost immediately after my household's life began to open up after the pandemic, I was told I was legally blind, and would likely lose my sight entirely by the time I'm 50.  The impact of sight loss resulted in the loss of two further jobs, both of which I'd hoped could become careers, and resultant poverty and stress.

I didn't get to manifest the bold belief in both my own potential and the potential in the world that I felt at 20.

My body is already showing physical disabilities which are more common with people in their 60s.  I'm never going to be able to retire, because the past 20yrs didn't allow me enough time of having the money to pay into a pension in a way which makes it worth anything (and the UK doesn't show anything like the same compound returns that the American finance "gurus" love to bang on about.)  I'm facing a future of having to financially support two disabled trans people for an entirely unpredictable period of time - I could live for only another 20-25 years, or I could live for another 50-60 years...that span is impossible to plan for, realistically - in an increasingly violently hostile society.  That's terrifying, exhausting, and, increasingly, causing extremely strong suicidal ideation.

It didn't help that I'd had an intention for my 40th birthday to be about reaffirming friendships, including those that had drifted or lapsed because of distance and differing circumstances - and no one was able to come. Two people didn't even respond. And then I was unwell on the actual day anyway (I don't do well in extreme heat - it's looking increasingly likely I may have fibromyalgia, as all of my experiences, including several "separate health conditions", match the symptoms listed for fibro...having explored what the available UK treatment is, it's pretty much stuff I've already been doing, because, as a qualified naturopath, it makes logical sense - trying to be physically active every day, eating sensibly, staying hydrated, pacing with appropriate rest intervals - there is the possibility of being prescribed antidepressants, but I've never got on that well with them, and I don't subscribe to the idea of long-term suppression of anything, including mental health experiences.)

I have Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (without attendant autism or ADHD), which also means that my brain is now trying to tell me that the reason my best friend of 25yrs wasn't able to make it wasn't, as she'd said, that she needed to take that shift at her job, because she'd had a lot of shifts cut recently, with attendant loss of income, but because she actually didn't want to hang around with trans people any more - despite us having dated early in my transition, while she is entirely heterosexual, and her working in seasonal hospitality, which is very precarious around regular shifts, etc.  The media narrative following the publication of the EHRC guidance doesn't really help with that - after all, who would want to be associated with people who have basically been legally reduced to non-people?

Every response to "how do you make friends as a man in your 40s" is either physical activities which are not accessible for me, going down the pub (which is neither enjoyable nor affordable for me), or the "men's groups" - which I tend to be very wary of, as, around here, they're likely to be populated by people who are mildly homophobic and misogynistic, who are not the kinds of people I want to spend my time with - I've intersected with members of the most prominent of these groups on social media...where they were talking about how "misunderstood" Charlie Kirk was, and how "he made it so clear how men literally aren't allowed to do or say anything these days" - I'm not going to get along with people like that, and I'm certainly not going to be safe around those people.  

I have tried to set up the kind of groups I'd like to join - apparently, no one else resonates with those interests. Which is fine, but still kind of isolating.

I feel a key aspect for the rest of this year will be the acceptance that, while Warriors are inherently social and connected, Magicians typically do thrive in seclusion - and that seclusion is not isolation.  Seclusion is giving oneself space to be quiet, reflective, and focusing on oneself in order to come into community with full self-knowledge; isolation, by contrast, is a refusal of the concept or possibility of community, an arrogance in how "different" from everyone else one is, and a fixation on the feelings of isolation, rather than the productive explorations of self.  

I can't be a Warrior any longer. Firstly, I've aged out of that. Warriors are young men. Youth is the right and proper time for Warriorship. Secondly, my body cannot physically support Warriorship any more.

But I live in a society which pretty much only values men as Warriors. It can feel like if I want to be accepted as a man I have to be a Warrior.  This has had me exploring conversion to Islam previously, before I came to follow a Pagan path, because Islam holds space for men to be both Warriors and Scholars (which equates, for me, to Magicians).  I came to find Paganism more resonant because of its stronger ties to the land and the elements, and the more flawed representations of the gods and goddesses, the impression that the gods and goddesses expect their followers to try to solve problems themselves before they'll intervene.

Right now, I feel very isolated. I recognise that, in order to move further along my path to Magician-hood, I need to translate that to the more productive concept of seclusion, and embrace the work that can be done there.

Masculinity Mondays: 25: Mental Health, Men, and Mental Loads

 

(Image shows two white men sitting across from one another on a double-sided sofa)

If you've spent any time either online, or reading newspaper Op-Ed columns (Opinions and Editorial), and you're a man - not "masc", but resolutely "a man" - you'll be rather exhaustingly aware of this apparently all-consuming "mental load" women carry, and that men literally refuse to share! Something men definitely know women are carrying all by themselves, but are simply too lazy and selfish to take their part of.   You'll also be aware of the very firm subtext: men don't have a mental load. Men wouldn't know what a 'mental load' was if it spat in their face. Men are just cruising through life in neutral, playing on easy mode, and are basically teenage boys who get to have an adult paycheque, a car, and the right to drink alcohol.

But there's a distinction between a genuine "mental load" and a task list.

I'm a man. I very definitely carry the mental load for my household. That mental load looks like this;

. How am I supposed to keep earning enough money to provide for both of us when I'll never be able to drive, I can't see well enough to cycle, I can't edit videos, I can't reliably see to work a till or a factory line, I can't navigate safely after dark, which in winter comes by 4pm, I can't easily get to anywhere of any distance for shiftwork,  no one will recommend me for anything, and I can't afford to take any more courses and qualifications, even if they ever lead to anything, which they don't.

. I need Morgana (my wife) to die before I do, because, once I'm not here, she's completely screwed for being able to afford to live for more than a week.

. Because I can't rely on her dying before me, I basically have to somehow get at least a million quid built up, so she's got plenty of money even if the life insurance fucks up, which it already has (the life insurer I was with went bust. I currently need to get at least one more long-term freelance contract before I can afford to sign up for life insurance again.)

. How am I supposed to keep on top of things staying clean and hygienic, and not stinking, so we don't get neighbours kicking our door down in a rage, when none of the pet waste, or the incontinence pants I have to wear to deal with IBS, will be accepted in any kind of recycling from next month, and so they're going to be sitting in the black bin for almost a month, because the council are only collecting the general rubbish once every 4 weeks, and I don't have a way to get to the tip, or afford a private collection between times? (we don't have an earth-based outside space, so burying or composting isn't an option.)

. How am I ever going to get more contracts when no one - not even my so-called friends - ever remember to recommend me for anything, and I can't get to networking events, so I don't have any contacts who know my name?

. I'm probably never going to be able to have a PAYE job again, between the fact that my mental health is going wild again, my sight loss, and the fucking shitshow that Digital ID will be, because of course employers will mandate it, even if the government claims it's "voluntary" (I've already had to resign a Trusteeship and close down my Ltd company since Companies House decided you had to "prove British citizenship" in order to be a Director or own a company, but they provided precisely zero affordable, accessible way to prove that citizenship if you don't have a passport or driving licence.)

. How the fuck am I going to keep Morgana safe with the basically legalised transphobia and "dodgy US company now has access to NHS healthcare data" when she's focused on pursuing treatment for the hernia that was diagnosed last year?

. Bearing in mind all of the above, how the hell am I going to know where I'm at with handling any of this, considering I've basically decided it's safer if I don't interact, at all, with any element of the medical community?

That's one hell of a mental load.

And I'm sure there are some women out there carrying similar mental loads.

But a lot more women - and almost all of the ones who scream the loudest about how hard the "mental load" makes their lives - aren't even actually carrying a mental load; they're running a task list. Most of which could be delegated to someone else.

. Did I wash 13yr old's PE kit? - if 13yr old has arms, and can stand upright, they can wash their own PE kit.  I was dealing with all my laundry by the time I was 10.

. I should check in with XYZ friends - either do it, or forget about it.

. I need to make hubsie's lunch for work - as per the 13yr old; if hubsie has arms, enough grip strength to safely use a knife, and can stand upright, he can make his own lunch.

. I need to remind AB&C about XYZ appointments - Got a calendar? AB&C are able to read? Cool. They can remind themselves about their appointments. If they forget, or are late? Tough.

. I need to sign kiddo's school trip permission slip - Just. Fucking. DO IT when you first come across the fucking permission slip.

. The house needs a good tidy up - Does it? Are you expecting guests? Do you have other people with arms, legs, and passable eye sight in the house? Cool. They can get on with the "good tidy up."

. Oh, but they can't - weaponised incompetence is real! - Ignore it. Go to a hotel. Go to a friend's. Go to a relatives. Or just hire a campervan and drive somewhere. If you have to do this more than three times? Leave. Can't weaponise something no one's responding to.


I have a task list too - almost everyone does. But I treat it as a task list, the same way I treat a task list for my work: I focus, settle down, and get through as much as I can. Anything I didn't get to and can't delegate (in my work, I don't have anyone to delegate anything to) goes at the top of the next day's list.

My domestic task list looks like:
. Cleaning the bedroom - daily, sometimes twice daily, because of the birds: Vacuum on getting up, and before going to bed.

. Mop the kitchen every Monday. Wipe the counters down every day whilst waiting for the kettle to boil for coffee.

. Pets in cages get cleaned out every Thursday, and on Saturday or Monday if the weather's hot, or they need cleaning before then. Cat litter trays are cleaned every morning while I'm feeding them. 

. Dog needs to be walked either when I break for lunch, or, during late Spring-late Summer, when I finish for the day.

. Does Morgana have to be somewhere for a fixed time? Keep checking in on where she's at with her preparation for getting there. (Morgana has ADHD, which includes time blindness; I often have to "sheepdog" her through preparations for getting to somewhere she has to be at a particular time.)

. Does any laundry need doing? Try and get to that Saturday or Sunday, because Morgana doesn't always have the physical energy/strength to manage laundry. (As well as ADHD, Morgana also has cerebral palsy, which results in chronic pain and chronic fatigue.)

. Is there any housework Morgana hasn't been well enough to get to? Find a time to do that.

. When am I going to do grocery shopping this week? (The main grocery shop typically gets ordered online when I get paid, but this is potentially going to change, since Iceland, whilst still charging for bags, aren't providing them, which makes it difficult for Morgana to get the shopping in - I'm usually keeping the dog out of the way upstairs, as I'm calmer handling dogs than Morgana. Fresh fruit and veg, bread, and some other top ups, I pick up weekly.)

. What toiletries/household essentials are we running low on? (Morgana won't reliably notice until I'm already in town, usually, because of the time she's typically able to get up and get on around pain and energy levels, when I'm already heading back. The not-noticing is common for ADHD, which doesn't seem to include the usual "What's my stuff doing?" brain tag that people without ADHD have.)

. Do I have to be onsite anywhere for work? Do I have meetings? Have I reminded Morgana that I'm not at all available to help out at these times?

My task list is relatively short, I suspect.   I am very aware Morgana also has her own task list.

My mental load is fucking heavy, especially as I have no option but to carry it alone.

I do not confuse my domestic task list with my mental load.

I do not call what is an entirely manageable task list a "mental load", because it is not that.

My works task list is entirely mine to manage, in addition to my domestic task list - but I've been combining some kind of required attendance and expected effort with the management of a domestic task list since I was eight years old; nearly 32 years later, I'm a fucking pro at being on top of everything.  Organisation, and the willingness to just fucking deal with things when they cross your path, puts paid to a lot of angst where managing task lists is concerned.  I've never understood people who insist they're neurotypical looking at something which needs signing, or paying, or following up, and just...dropping it somewhere else, and insisting that they'll "get to" it.  Why the ever-loving fuck would you not just deal with it there and then?!

Currently, I'm handling all of this - task lists, mental load, mental illness, physical disability, kinship care, systemic uncertainty - on a household income of significantly under £2k a month.  I'm trying to get at least one freelance contract, ideally 3-4, but so far, nothing's working on that front, and I'm starting to stress about that, because I'm running out of ideas that are actionable for me, given finances and ability to actually fucking get anywhere or pay for any help. (I've long since accepted I'm not the kind of person people "just help out" - I've tried "just asking people!" - the answer, even for something small, is invariably "No.")

I'm also currently applying for remote PAYE jobs, and something that's circling my mental load is the awareness that political attitudes may mean that remote work stops being something that's remotely accessible.  So far, that's not going anywhere - and that's despite my having worked with three different "career coaches".  I can only reliably do remote work at the moment; realistically, remote work is the only viable way I can work, given the impact of my disabilities, the impact of being around other people all day on my mental health, and all the domestic stuff I also have to handle, which all takes time.

But I don't get to wail and hand-wring to national newspapers, or scream at everyone of a different gender to myself I come across on social media. I don't get to stamp my feet and denounce my spouse as "lazy and selfish!", to accuse her of "weaponised incompetence", and "deliberately making my life harder!" I don't get to call her a "womanchild", or talk about "womankeeping" (what is it about women and inventing ridiculous nonsense words every time their feelings get hurt?) I don't get to abuse and misuse (and, indeed, actually weaponise) therapy speak.

My mental health is in shreds.
Many men's mental health is torn to pieces.

But we're not allowed to even mention our struggles - because women will immediately rush to howl and scream about how much worse they have it, about how everything should absolutely get even worse for us, just because we're men, some women will start throwing slurs and abuse.  We know we'll become jokes, for women and for other men.

Men don't even get to have spaces like barbers shops and men's sheds - women own those now. Women demand inclusion, even as they deny it not just to men, but to women they've decided "aren't woman enough to count."  And we...just have to surrender those spaces. To accept that it's "wrong", somehow, to want anything and anywhere for ourselves.

Masculinity Mondays: 24

 

(Image shows a white, bare-chested man bound in rope, photographed against an atmospheric backdrop to give the impression of smoke underwater)

One of the main elements of toxicity associated with masculinity is the way negative experiences are handled.  Very often, when men experience a setback, disappointment, or frustration, they respond with disproportionate anger, usually directed at entirely the wrong person/people.

The accusation is two-fold; firstly, that women don't behave like this, and therefore, secondly, that men are only acting out in this way to "remind women what they want to do to women".

Firstly - women absolutely do do this; it manifests as "rage cleaning", which often involves other peoples' possessions being damaged or thrown out, or as passive aggression. 

Secondly, the misdirected anger is actually what men feel towards ourselves, but the mindfuck of patriarchy is that accepting that you feel something "bad" means accepting that you are bad, and "bad" doesn't just mean "not good" - it means "undeserving of success" - and success is the measure by which men are judged as worthy of being included in leadership, in relationships, and in connected society.

When something that brings negative feelings happens to women, they tend to be more aware of whether or not the event is connected to something they have done or failed to do,  because women have an extensive history of freedom from responsibility.  Men, having far longer been held responsible for outcomes in every conceivable setting, tend to assume that "X happened because I did/failed to do Y"; the "I am a man, and therefore this is my responsibility/my fault" is the default for men, and therefore when things go "wrong", and we can't see how we can "fix it", the anger we feel towards ourselves becomes overwhelming.  

This is why therapy needs to work on recruiting more men as therapists, and, in the meantime, understanding that it is not appropriate to simply assume that "men need to be made to understand things the way women do", rather than recognising that men have a fundamentally different cognitive perspective than women, and that we process things in a different way as a biopsychological default; insisting that "men just need to learn to process things the way women do" is as harmful as the 1980s' attitude that "if women want to be in leadership, they have to do leadership exactly the same way men do" was.  If you wouldn't tell a racially marginalised person that they "just needed to learn to process things the way white people do", you shouldn't be telling men that they need to be "more feminine" in the way they engage with and process situations.  If therapy could accept that men are different to women, and deserve to be engaged with as we are, then therapy would absolutely be something I'd consider essential for men, not "to teach men how to behave", but rather to prevent the behaviour in the first place,  by helping men understand that they are not responsible for everything that happens, and they can just have the feelings they have about something, without the added narliness of feeling they "need to fix" both the experience and the feeling/s.

Strong feelings aren't toxic in and of themselves - they're just feelings, and when there isn't an obvious action that can be taken to resolve the trigger for the feelings, it's often better to just let the feelings play out - but to do that in private, so that you actually fully process the feelings, rather than, through misdirected crash-outs, make other people responsible for them.

Feeling something that overwhelms you isn't failure.
Making someone else handle that feeling for you, when they have not consented to support you through co-regulation facilitation, is the failure.

Yesterday, I found out that none of the people I'd invited to celebrate my birthday were going to make it. Not even my longest-standing friend, who I've run with for almost 25yrs.

I had a lot of very intense feelings about that, amplified by the fact that birthdays never actually being about me is a significant aspect of difficult experiences from childhood - not "trauma", but definitely "a thing which sometimes still trips me up, even as an adult" - and therefore basically all of the small number of people I feel I have any connection with other than my wife not being able to show up on what feels like a high-impact birthday, because of the life experience I've had, and the current situations I'm in, very much triggers those childhood feelings of "no one actually thinks I'm worth putting first, not even for one day."

I was extremely upset - but I did not take that out on my friends, nor did I try and pretend I wasn't upset; I let the feelings of hurt, anger, and sadness play out, even though they wiped out most of yesterday, and left me actually still feeling unwell today. (That's another difficulty for men learning how to effectively handle emotions - women often feel more comfortable taking time out "for personal reasons" - men have been raised with an insistence that we compartmentalise; many employers are very focused with their male staff on "You leave your personal problems at the door when you come to work" - while telling women the same thing results in accusations of misogyny.

And yes...I still feel upset. Not as violently upset as I was yesterday, but still as deeply upset.  I honestly don't think I'll ever bother arranging any future events for birthdays, because this isn't the first time this has happened.

Men and the Mental Load

Men also carry mental loads. Society doesn't like taking that idea seriously, and will point to "man on sofa scrolling on his phone while his wife is literally drowning under the mental load!"  Women like to snarl about "How come he  just gets to go and nap?! How can he even sleep while there's all this to deal with?!" - breaking cycles of abuse includes the abuse that insists that rest is something you "earn" by "doing all the work", rather than the thing you need in order to get the work done.

Social media is littered with women presenting laundry lists of "my mental load", almost as though it's a badge of honour, and yawping that "And this is as well as holding down a full time job!"

Okay. Let's play.

Just today, my "mental load list" looks like:
1. Did the rolls my wife said she'd take out of the freezer last night actually get taken out of the freezer? Oh, surprise surprise, no, they didn't. Right, they're out of the freezer now.

2. Getting the rolls out destabilised the freezer Jenga. I now need to make sure everything is restacked, so that if my wife goes to the freezer, she doesn't yell and swear in surprise because something overbalanced and fell out. (We can only afford a small cube freezer with a fridge-style door. It's not effective, but it's what we have.)

3. I have to keep one eye on the clock, even though I'm feeling extremely unwell, and trying to get this blog up, because my wife needs to be out of the house by a certain time to get to an appointment, and her ADHD includes time blindness, which means even while she's actively getting on with getting ready, she can struggle to hold on to the passage of time, and what that means about her punctuality.

4. I'm trying to predict when I'll next need to go grocery shopping, and when I can do that around the work commitments I have for my paid job this week - I should do it today, really, but I'm feeling far too unwell.

5. I'm trying to work out how to get a check up opticians' appointment where they actually take on board the fact that I know about my sight loss conditions, and don't refer me to the hospital, who then get snitty with me because there's no point to me being there.  I feel like I need stronger glasses, but I don't know if that's even something that would be effective at this point.

6. This leads to a panic state about how the fuck I'm going to keep earning the one income that has to support both me and my wife if "stronger glasses" aren't going to be the answer, and it's just that the two degenerative sight loss conditions have...degenerated past the point where anything can help, and it's only going to get worse from here.

7. My mother will be expecting me to get in touch with her about meeting up for my birthday. This is the woman who tried to kill me, but has spent the past fifteen years insisting firstly that it never happened at all, and latterly that "You know I was poorly back then, I couldn't help it" (she has the same psychiatric condition I do - I've never had anyone tell me I tried to kill them...If I did, I'd apologise, even if I didn't remember it.)

8. I need to order roofing material to banjax-fix the roof insurance won't pay to repair. But I can't afford to do that this month, because I have to pay for accommodation so my wife can attend an event which could be productive in networking terms for her.  I'm trying to figure out when I will be able to afford the roofing material, before the end of summer, and the onset of England's predictable downpours.   That's causing me anxiety about whether I'll be able to afford to order it before the weather changes.

9. I'm feeling stressed out about the work demands I have this week. Honestly? I need to take some time completely off, but, being freelance, I can't afford to do that.

10. I can't see a time when I'll be able to get to a monthly social event which is pretty much the only contact with people beyond my wife and my boss I have around work, and it's looking like the organiser is planning a move at some point to a different area, and I don't know if I'll be able to afford to get to that area.

11. I know I need to get at least two more freelance contracts, of at least a year each, but I have no idea how to actually do that, beyond cold pitches and applications to the 0.5% of advertised jobs that are freelance, a skills match, and don't require onsite attendance in London.

12. What the fuck am I going to do if Reform get in in 2029? (Currently, the answer is: kill myself and my wife, because I can't see a way to survive the damage they'll try and do generally, and the focused harm they'll try and inflict on disabled people, especially those for whom work is either not possible (my wife) or a running struggle to keep hold of (me.)  I don't want to die, but I don't have the kind of support network to survive them.

13. The house needs cleaning. I'm genuinely too unwell right now, my wife is dealing with having to back and forth for medical appointments, I'll be working all this week...when the hell are either of us going to have the energy/feel well enough, and have the time, to get to it?

14. I really need to sort the yard out. But I have no idea what to do with any of it.

Fourteen items on a "mental load" list...and it's not even 2.30pm yet. And none of them are things other people are actually completely capable of handling, but I've decided "it's quicker if I do it"/"they don't do it right"/"I might not be a good person if I don't do this for them".

Some of them are trivial, and easily resolved - but so are many of the items women are listing: "I need to pack my kids' PE kit" - well, do that then. Or teach your kids to pack their own kit.  "I should text my friend" - do it, or forget about it.

If we're going to claim women should get "more consideration" at work "because of the mental load", we actually need to just start asking everyone "What else do you have to handle, outside of this job? How much support/money do you have with that?" (My wife's support when she is able to support, and not a fucking lot, in my case.)

This is a really big case for making BDSM mainstream.

Not the 50 Shades type (which is actually abuse dressed up as a Consensual Non-Consent dynamic...which require fully informed consent, and do include ongoing awareness of boundaries, even when those boundaries are pushed.)

Not the Ann Summers "tee-hee, he likes to spank me, aren't we naughty?!" type.

The type a lot of people pearl-clutch about. The type with roles and rules. The type where people are deliberately hurt, but never harmed. The type where people surrender control, and where they take it.

I've been a Sadist for almost 20yrs.  That's how I get focus when I feel distracted by the whirl of things that feel out of my control. It's gender-affirming for me.

Recently, I've started exploring Pup space - which feels like it's going to be a good way for me to handle times of extreme overwhelm, as well as a way for my wife to indulge her more Dominant side as my Handler.

BDSM gives rules and routines for handling stress and strong emotions. It forces people to identify their feelings, and remain in control of those feelings as they work through them.

If we stopped treating like "adult naughty time", and started treating it "as an adult space for emotional regulation", I can't help but feel things would improve considerably across society.

Masculinity When It Matters

 

(Black and white image shows a person in a hoodie holding an open umbrella)

Across the UK today, a lot of people will be processing a change to their local government, and the landscape of support, resource provision, and systemic attitudes, that is concerning and upsetting to them.

Many of those people will be men.

Men who have heard for at least five years that they're "everything that's wrong with this country."
Men who have been told, aggressively, day after day, multiple times per day, that "Yes, it is all men! Look at who's running and literally destroying the world!"

Men who've been called rapists simply for inhabiting the bodies they were born in.

Men who were told they "deserved loneliness", that "the male loneliness epidemic needs to get worse."

Men who were told their experience of surviving sexual assault "didn't count".  That the woman who battered them, who attacked them at knifepoint, who stabbed them, who screamed at them in the street, was "just overstimulated, because patriarchy."

Is it any wonder that the party that said "We're going to put a stop to this, we're going to stand up for normal, decent people" are doing rather well today - even though they're racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, ableist pieces of shit who fully intend to rip up the fabric of British society and piss all over it, because they're well funded by foreign authorities, and have cushy beds and plum jobs to scurry off to once they've fucked the rest of us over?

I didn't vote Reform.  I voted Liberal Democrat for my County seat, and Green for my local seat. (Fortunately, the local options only included Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green, and Independent in my area.  I will never vote Labour again while Starmer has anything to do with it.)

But: I can completely understand why many men did. Because there have been times I've wanted to be able to support them, even though they're against everything I stand for, just because it would be so fucking nice to live in a society that could cope with the reality that most men are actually decent human beings, not every man is planning how to get away with raping someone, men get overstimulated too, and "believe survivors" includes male survivors, and particularly male survivors of female perpetrators. (The extreme left love male survivors of male perps, because they can just crow about how "patriarchy doesn't even care about men!!!" - like, thanks; we'd actually worked that one out.)

But Reform, Restore, all the other bullshit bigot bands, are not what masculinity actually is.

Masculinity is inclusive, because masculinity says "I have the strength to protect, and the resources to provide for, everyone.  My identity is known to me, and solid, and I'm not afraid of shifts within it; I know who I am, so I welcome the person you are - you won't change who I am, but I will learn from who you are, and I will enjoy sharing my learning as you share yours."

Masculinity is equitable, because masculinity says "The important point is to get things done; getting things done requires a breadth of skillsets, and all of those skills are necessary to the job at hand, therefore they should all be respected, given what they need to succeed, and honoured in the announcement of 'job done.' "

Masculinity is curious, because masculinity is always looking to improve and enhance, to do more and be more.

Masculinity is not afraid of difference and diversity, because masculinity is secure in itself.

If you want "more masculinity", you can't vote for parties who live and base their policies in fear.

Masculinity Mondays: 23

 

Image shows a blue butterfly resting on a branch

Recently, British actor Danny Dyer observed that "boys are taught to be boys; they're not taught to be men."

That's true - society celebrates men who embody the Warrior archetype, which is an archetype of young men.  An archetype you are supposed to age out of.  An archetype you should surrender when you become a husband or a father.  

Society celebrates the shadow aspect of the Lover - men who are compassionate, considerate, generous lovers, who love slowly and deeply, who centre their partners in their love, rather than themselves, are seen as "unmanly" - even by women, who will then loudly wail about how "all men" are "toxic" - of course all the men you're encountering are selfish and shallow in their relationships with you when, through your mockery of men who stand fully in the light of their Lover archetype, through your constant questioning of the sexuality of those men, you've told the Universe that you do not want a secure, whole, and integrated Lover. 

(For what it's worth, gay men are often much more aligned in the enaction of their sexuality with what women consider "toxic masculinity" traits - because gay men are men who appreciate masculinity, and who understand that archetype-shifts are a transition process; they happen over time. You can't marry the man you will fuck you until you can't walk, whose abs are perfectly delineated, whose arse is pert and hard, who's succesful in a career that rewards him with considerable financial wealth, and then overnight, with zero support from you, demand that he calm down, become gentler, less risk-taking, more focused on community than cold, hard cash, less direct and aggressive in his sexuality... Women only associate "calm and compassionate" with "gay" because gay men have to tone down their sexuality a lot around their female friends.  Even when that sexuality isn't drawn to society's 'masculine ideals', gay male sexuality is a sexuality that is expressed as a sexuality primarily - not as a claim to want a relationship primarily; relationships are certainly a strong and genuine desire for many gay men, but they are pursued separately to the desire to fuck or be fucked.  This is actually cognitively the case for straight men, too - but women happily hold to the part of patriarchal socialisation which tells them they're not allowed to be sexual, and therefore straight men have to present relationship intention in order to get to the point of having sex with women.)

Society invests a lot in holding womens' hands through every single transition stage of their lives. Women's transitions are recognised, and honoured, even celebrated; who has ever congratulated their son on his first "wet dream", praised the fact that he's "becoming a man now", and brought him power tools and tickets to a sports event to affirm his social role as one of energy and strength?  But cloud servers and dead trees tattooed with ink are choked with the insistence that girls who have their first menstrual period be brought heating pads and chocolate, that every time a woman has her menstrual period, she should be "warm and cosy, without demands being made of her" - reinforcing the idea that women are helpless, easily overwhelmed, and basically equivalent to orchids; delicate, in need of constant, intense care.   We (rightly) offer generous maternity leave, and chastise countries that do not do so.  Increasingly, the talk is around providing "menopause leave", and treating menopause as equivalent to a "disability" in the workplace.  Meanwhile, andropause is derided as "not an actual thing!"  We're not offering men working patterns that align with their testosterone cycle.  Instead, we're trying to return men to the status of boys by insisting that every single health problem they experience is "because of low testosterone" - which has the effect of actually ignoring the high impact health crises of men who actually do have clinically low testosterone, rather than men whose testosterone is simply lower than some other men's, men whose bodies are built more for speed and agility than bulk and strength, men who genetically aren't coded for beards and body hair (frustratingly, the men on both sides of my family have never been able to grow beards...we get stubble and scruff, at best.  I'd love a beard, but my facial hair looks like trash whenever I try to grow it, and I'd prefer not to look like I got drunk and slept rough, so I have to be clean shaven...the story of how mocking men for not having beards is actually tied to poverty shaming is one for another day...look up the Victorian beard tax, though....)  Just as not every health niggle needs antidepressants or GLP-1s, not every health issue requires testosterone.  (And don't get me started on "trans people can't have gender-affirming hormones, because they're unproven and cause irreversible changes!, but we're happily handing out testosterone to cis women now, because they want the "energy and focus" benefits that the "low testosterone is the cause of everything that makes men feel physically sub-par" crowd claim.)

By not recognising the transition phases men go through the way we do with women, we've created a belief that men don't actually need societal support to become men, the way girls need societal support to become women; one day, boys leave school, and bam, they're men!  It just happens. It's not a learning process that family, older friends, and society need to do any work within.  And of course, to be an "adult human", male or female, you need to prove that you are sexually desirable to other adult humans, and, most importantly, that you are fertile - hence why men are often more excited about their female partners being pregnant and giving birth than they actually are about equitable parenting - society doesn't recognise and reward them as men when they genuinely co-parent their children; the pride and status, the affirmation of adult maleness, only comes with the proof of sexual desirability and fertility - the pregnant woman, the baby with your DNA.  But you can't just prove those things once; men have to constantly prove that we're still men - and "man" means "sexually desirable and fertile". If you're not fucking, not creating endless replications of your DNA, you're basically a boy playing pretend. Don't believe me? Look at the attitude society takes towards single men, even relatively young men in their twenties, who live with their parents in order to save more money for their future selves, and, potentially, future families, or in order to build a business.  Consider the creeping dialogue around how being childfree by choice is "selfish", and the rising tide of voices telling us we "need to stop harranguing women for being childless, and ask why men aren't having children!" - concerningly, the article of exactly that title I read a few weeks ago was written by a woman; hopefully it was just AI with a female name, honestly, because the idea that actual women believe either that men are able to "just have" children, without a woman's involvement, or that women shouldn't withhold consent, so that men can become fathers, is...concerning. Think about the recent controversy with Steven Bartlett on his Diary of a CEO podcast, where he mused aloud about whether the State should require women to have sex with misogynistic, antisocial men, because "we're losing all this DNA, these genetic legacies that never get to exist." (Darwin has something to say on "genetic legacies that never get to exist", and why that might happen, by the way...)

Something I've had to work through in myself has been anger at trans people embracing capitalism, and creating endless cards and merch around medical transition.  I didn't even get to take the recommended recovery time off work after any of my surgeries, didn't even get someone helping me with domestic chores, much less have anyone throw me a party to celebrate my "becoming a man." (I got a lecture from my church fellowship group on "how it affects other members of the group", and an ultimatum.  I got a violent knife attack from my mother, and an aggressive eviction from the family home.  Nearly 18yrs later, I've still not had one person actually recognise that I went through a lot to be the man I am...and I'm now having to deal with people shrieking that "You don't have to do anything! Your gender is what you say it is! It's all made up bs, anyway!" - no. Your gender is what you cohesively present to society.  That cohesion doesn't have to conform to stereotypes, but it does have to actually work as a presentation of "more likely than not to be X".  And some people just...don't experience their gender as something they can cohesively present. And that's okay - that's covered by "non binary" and "agender" (which are a lot deeper than a new, trendy label, or a way for trans men to soften the reality that they are men, they are masculine...)  

The whole "transition is just buying All The Affirming Things, and Speaking Yourself Into Being!" is another part of the problem of Western society's drift away from seeing life, and particularly adult life, as a series of observable transition points, each with their own need for community involvement, and education and support from elders.  It's an allowing of capitalism to replace community that is destroying society; you don't need a 65yr old trans man who transitioned in his 30s to talk to you about what kind of man you want to be, and how to become that man - you just need this cool trans pride flag top surgery hoodie!  You don't need to hear from a 70yr old trans woman who transitioned in her 20s about her experience of ageing into and through womanhood without ever having known girlhood, and whilst dealing with society's expectations that she would, in fact, embody a progression of male archetypes - you just need that cool trans-anarcho-feminist t-shirt, because down with capitalism, one payment at a time, am I right?!

Masculinity is a process, not a one and done.

SMOULDER Sundays: 4: Employed Restfulness

 

(Image shows a smouldering volcano, shot in bluescale.)

We've reached the final part of our SMOULDER Sundays series, where we look at the last aspect of the financial concept of SMOULDER, Employed Restfulness. (If you're new here, or just want to recap on what the concept of SMOULDER actually is, check out our first blog on SMOULDER as a financial focus, which gives both a background to why SMOULDER was developed, and a straightforward explanation to what SMOULDER is, and how it works.)

So; Employed Restfulness in place of the typical "retirement."

I was 17 when I first looked at the State of the UK, and thought "they're not going to keep the State pension as a concept long enough for me to get it."  That was over 20yrs ago. The options for ordinary people to invest weren't there (and the investment scene does NOT create "literal millionaires in retirement!" out of people on average incomes...it's why Caleb Hammer can only screech about spending at low-income people on his show, why Dave Ramsey demands that low-income people "only see the inside of a restaurant if you're working there!", and why Ramit Sethi gets (politely, demurely) frustrated at "how you can consider yourself a functional adult" on a low income, as well as why the UK (whose investment returns are significantly lower than those available in the US, and whose wages have been more or less stagnant in contrast to inflation for decades) doesn't really have financial advice for ordinary people - UK finance YouTubers are either shilling crypto or MLMs, or they're simply explaining the logistics of effective saving; because the minimum level needed for stocks and shares investments to even begin to show genuine retirement-comfort-level returns is already more than half a genuine low income person's take home. Which, as those on the lowest incomes are forced to spend the highest percentage of their income on the bare minimum fixed costs of housing, utilities, groceries, and travel, simply isn't feasible.

I currently reliably make £1,200 a month.  Depending on the month, I can add up to an extra £800 to that, but that amount is wildly variable, as it's Universal Credit top up, which depends on the level of expenses I've incurred earning the £1,200 I reliably make. (Don't ever do non-profit externally funded contracts, kids...it's a battle to get reimbursed for making the things that are mandatory elements of your contract happen - mostly, you'll be paying for those yourself.)  If I haven't had any expenses in a given month? I get £600.  

My fixed costs run to £800 a month if my wife doesn't have a fair to attend (she reads tarot; it doesn't bring in ANYTHING, typically, unless she attends a fair/festival, and her disability and reliance on public transport means she can only attend very local ones, with low stall hire fees); if she does? That can add a minimum of another £100 a month, often more if the start time and location of the fair means she'd need to stay overnight.

While they are technically fixed costs, because I'm not going to rehome them, and they need to be cared for appropriately, I consider my pets in "guilt free spending" - the things I will spend on without resentment, anxiety, or "feeling bad", the things I always ensure I have money for.  They run to £150 per month, including known vet costs.  
My total amount of guilt-free spending varies between £200-250, depending on total income, other fixed costs coming in (not just my wife's fairs, but our respective insurance renewals - my freelance work requires I carry professional indemnity insurance, she has to carry public liability insurance, and we typically add professional indemnity to that, because...while it should be obvious that a tarot reader is not giving you life advice you absolutely must follow...you can't predict what people will try and get a payout for...), etc.  I'm trying to work to a position where I don't feel guilt about spending money socialising - for now, because I recognise it's good for my mental health to connect in person with other people, and that often costs money, it's in guilt free spending, but I feel guilty about it.

I try to save between £100-150 a month; £100 is usually possible, £150 can sometimes be.  (Yes, Ramit, I know that I should "just automate savings", but I'm not in the tax bracket you work with...)

I try to allocate £50 a month for investments - either my (very small, performing terribly) stocks and shares portfolio (currently worth £90...I spent almost £200 buying the fucking shares...don't get the idea I'm living passive income whilst talking lifelong work out here...) or precious metals, which I buy as physical items. (And which are going to be a better investment than the stocks and shares...)  Again, sometimes I don't have the money to invest.

The impressive thing is that, from watching Ramit Sethi's "Money for Couples", my fixed costs are 66% of the income I get from my current contract, falling to 44% of that income+ the minimum top up I'm likely to get from Universal Credit - and I'm on very low income. There are people making ten times my take home who are running fixed costs of 80-90%, apparently...  The reason I can keep mine so low is that I don't have a rent or mortgage payment - my Dad died in 2013, and had been disciplined enough to maintain a life insurance policy through two rounds of sudden layoffs, and terminal illness which meant he had to give up his job; I received a 50% payout of that (£75,000), and, because that money came through in 2014, when the economy was very different, I was able to buy my house outright for £69,500. (If I were renting an equivalent house, my fixed costs would be 122% of my direct income, and 81% of direct income + minimum variable top up...  If I were to be completely ruthless, get rid of all my pets, and move into a studio flat? Fixed costs would be 100% of my dependable income, and 68% of my dependable income + minimum varied Universal Credit support...because rent in the UK does not typically include utilities, you still have to pay council tax (and I'm already in the lowest band it's possible to be in... Also, a lot of tenants in the UK end up doing repairs themselves, because landlords here see "You needed something fixed" as "you're a bad tenant, so here's your eviction notice" - especially at the cheaper end of the rental scale.  I would also be stressed as fuck, and miserable as hell...I've lived in flats before, and my anxiety was overwhelming, because one of my triggers for anxiety spikes is being able to hear neighbours...which is obviously going to happen in a flat.) I wouldn't be able to buy a house outright with £75,000 now; I got lucky through the worst possible way. If you took me back in time, and told me I could either have £75k, or my Dad could survive and be healthy? I'd take my Dad still being here every time.

Had I had a crystal ball? I might have brought a static caravan for £25k, with £18k a year fixed site costs (site fees and gas), invested half of the remainder, and used the other half to fund starting a business... But I didn't have a crystal ball, my wife was only just beginning to explore tarot back then...so we're where we are.

Yeah, okay - you have a complex back story! Who cares?! Tell us about this Employed Restfulness thing already!

Employed Restfulness isn't "do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life!" (because that sector's not recruiting...and no one pays for that...) I grew up with my mother twittering nonsense like that (and my Dad rolling his eyes, and muttering to me "Don't listen to your mother...she thinks God called her to just drift around volunteering for church crap." I listened to my Dad...)  Even if you can get paid "doing what you love", you often end up falling out of love with it, because it's no longer just a joy; it's an obligation. It's the thing that drains you, not the thing that restores you.

It's just as well I got on better with my Dad than my mother, and thus took his advice over hers, because "what I love" looks like:
. Talking with my wife
. Feeding squirrels in the local park

. Watching The Bill (long-off-air police procedural; ran on ITV from 1984-2010).
. Spending time with my pets

. Writing

None of those things are going to make me money. I've tried exclusively focusing on freelance writing - I'm still owed nearly £10k from contracts I completed, but wasn't paid for. I can't manage the marketing demands of being a published author. I don't have the social clout to make an actual income from self-publishing. (I self-published a cosy crime series a few years ago, Raglan's Streets...that made me literally nothing.) I have previously had great jobs, which I genuinely enjoyed, working in-house on marketing and comms roles - but my sight loss means I can't keep up with those roles (which have now included videography and social media content in the 'writer's' job description), and they're few and far between as it is now, as more and more companies switch to AI for content creation. (I refuse to work with GenAI, because it runs counter to my personal and professional focus, of improving the situation of the (global, but starting in the UK, where I'm at) working class. GenAI is destroying the planet, and driving people into poverty; I refuse to be a part of that solely to add to the wealth of the top 1% through purely "cost savings", rather than any additional production on their part.)

I tried with the squirrels in the park thing - I launched a business offering to cater and set up picnics for people...it flopped. 

I tried housesitting and dog walking for other people...that did okay, but, because I can't drive (medically banned), and therefore was very restricted in the area I could cover, and the number of dogs I could walk in a time period, it never progressed beyond a side hustle, and now, it wouldn't even be that, because there's three different services run by people with vans and employees, who can do more, and therefore do it cheaper, than I can, within a 3mile radius, plus a professional dog boarding "hotel" just 8miles away.

Employed Restfulness is about identifying the problem you want to solve in the world, then identifying the skills you can bring to solving that problem, followed by identifying a working pattern, and your known and predictable limitations, and viewing these as core to any working contract you sign.

In order for Employed Restfulness to be effective, you have to narrow your focus to one problem - but that can be more impactful than you'd think.

For me, the problem I want to solve is the impact of classism on the working class. Solving - or at least lessening the impact of - that one problem also addresses:
. Racism
. Misogyny
. Ableism
. Financial exclusion
. Systemic educational failings
. Systemic healthcare failings
. The destructive nature of hypercapitalism

. Climate change

. Pollution

Even thinking about trying to have a positive impact on all of those points of focus is overwhelming. It feels impossible.  Narrowing it down to "I want to address classism by working to improve the situation of the working class", you create a feeling of achievability, and address multiple high-impact systemic challenges.

My limitations are that I can't be highly active for more than two consecutive days (thanks, chronic fatigue as a cascade impact of sight loss), that I can't drive, I can't do high-graphic work, I can't edit videos, I can't do screen based work for more than 2hrs continuously, and I need support, and considerable notice, to be in unfamiliar locations (impacts of sight loss), I can't work away from home at short notice, or for prolonged periods (kinship care responsibilities for my wife, and her own disabilities meaning she can't manage the care of my pets on her own for more than 4-5 days at absolute max).

My working preferences are that I work remotely from my home, although I am happy to include planned, scheduled attendance at locations that are easily accessible by public transport, ideally not more than once per week, and that I work for three days per week, with only two of those being consecutive. (Currently I work in a paid capacity Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, and work on things which might add to the paid work I have, but which do not currently pay me, on Sundays and Mondays, on an ad-hoc hours basis, rather than a fixed focus.)  I know I will be able to continue working like this well into my 80s+, if I live that long. I will also be able to reduce my paid working days in older age, as I will have fewer pets, and a decreasing need, as children are not part of my life or my future, for both savings and investments.

For me, the most effective way to bring about Employed Restfulness is to focus on building a viable freelance career (which means triggering my social anxiety by networking, and reaching out to relevant people...which my brain insists is "bothering them", and therefore the most selfish and awful thing I could ever do...), within the niche of providing inclusion and class consciousness support for leadership in the public and private sector, and supporting non-profits who are working in class consciousness with written communications, admin, and project management, all of which are skills I have proven in private sector employment over many years.

Working freelance is the most achievable way to mitigate my limitations and ensure my best working patterns are in place, as well as allowing me to (within reason) set fees which meet my financial needs within the bounds of my working preferences and limitations. It is the most effective way for me to keep working in a sustainable, balanced way well into older age.

As a side hustle to my freelance work, pursued when I genuinely want to, or when I know that my freelance opportunities will be entering a slow phase, or I'll genuinely need additonal income, rather than "to get even more money every month!" I can submit articles to magazines, and run courses.

Employed Restfulness may look very different for you - if you'd like to book time for a free 90minute conversation to explore and outline your version of employed restfulness, just drop me an email: theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com