Sex And Drugs Made Me A Man
How one man's "vices" taught him about humanity.
Everything I know about being a man I learned from women, and especially when we were stoned and in bed, f***ing and/or talking.
Men approaching the AARP age, if my conversations with my brethren are at all typical, do not think this way. We're above sex now—or at least above talking about it. When we take the measure of our lives, we speak of mentors and character and hard work, and if we can stand to offer a reason to explain the good things we've got without beating the drums for our personal excellence, we may even throw in luck. Thanking the women who took us into their bodies? When I mention that, guys give me the look that says, "You're weird."
If I were the careful sort, I'd assign sex-and-drugs to the rock 'n' roll phase of my life—and pretend that phase had ended long ago. Because in the Gospel according to Media, life has this arc: When we were children, we acted like children and smoked dope and lay with women whose breasts bounced free and easy under their tie-dyed shirts, but now we are men, and we have put away childish things, and drink Bordeaux to self-medicate and need Viagra to rouse us on those rare nights when we feel the urge to bend one into our wives. Sex After 60: Not All the News is Good
Nonsense.
*****
I have always feared the male of my species.
And with reason.
Several times, when I was four or five, I would look up the wide stairway of our house in Kansas City and see, behind the gauze curtain on the landing, the shadowy figure of a man. Much later, I learned that he was Carl Austin Hall, the former owner of the house. He had returned because he was broke. He was casing the joint.
My mother did laundry in Hall's old champagne tubs; we were chump change. Another family in our neighborhood was dramatically richer, so Hall kidnapped and killed their six-year-old son before coolly collecting a $600,000 ransom. His arrest soon followed, and, 81 days after the murder, his execution.
A few years later, after my family had moved to a suburb of Boston, it seemed like a good idea for me to join the Cub Scouts. I was small and bookish, but the members of my pack took to me right away: They cocked their BB guns, told me to start running, and blasted away. Thus ended my scouting career.
I eventually escaped to one of the most exclusive New England boarding schools. T.S. Eliot went there, as did Bobby Kennedy. The academics thrilled me. But my classmates were, for the most part, a sorry bunch of Old Boston losers for whom school was a low priority; when I volunteered a correct answer, they were likely to pound me in the back.
My response to a decade in the company of my gender?
Discussion
I think for most men there comes a time when they do have to grow up in some form. I realize that everyone's path is different but for me that meant getting sober and spending a lot of time listening to other men telling their stories and ultimately telling my own. I really couldn't relate to women until i had figured out about manhood from other men.
Tom Matlack
Founder www.goodmenbook.org (where Jesse's essay originally appeared)
I think for most men there comes a time when they do have to grow up in some form. I realize that everyone's path is different but for me that meant getting sober and spending a lot of time listening to other men telling their stories and ultimately telling my own. I really couldn't relate to women until i had figured out about manhood from other men.
Tom Matlack
Founder www.goodmenbook.org (where Jesse's essay originally appeared)
Drug addiction is different from recreational use. Addiction is a horrible thing, but just as not everyone who drinks becomes an alcoholic, not everyone who uses drugs becomes an addict. That said, it's an easy line to cross, and thus not something to be taken lightly.
I don't agree that the feelings he had weren't "real." He felt them in an altered reality, sure, but the emotions themselves weren't fake. When thinking about this experience in the context of everyday life it's important to remember that the intimacy was enhanced by a drug, but that doesn't alter the value of the feelings. Judging by the author's memory the experience was quite powerful and made a lasting, positive impact on him, and it's impossible to dismiss that.
I do agree that it's possible to find love and deep connection without drugs, and in general that's the better route.
I met a woman once whose husband became a drug addict. He changed completely and became abusive. She was hiding from him and living under a new name.
I'm skeptical of this guy's claims. Mostly I just wouldn't believe in a mystical experience of love that was drug-induced. It sounds nice, but it's not real, so it's not worth anything. You can find love without using drugs.
I also wonder what the women he slept with would say about him. Before you write a book about your mind-expanding experience with a woman, you'd better check what she thinks happened.
