I’ve been thinking a lot about the men friends in my life that I’ve had since grade school in Kentucky, about how wonderful 99% of them are and how much their treatment of me has shaped so many positive things in my life.
While I’ve had a LOT of lousy boyfriends, I’ve always had really good boy friends – friends who are boys, most from Kentucky. They made me feel included. They complimented me when I did the things I loved. They made me laugh a LOT. We would talk for hours and there was no eye-rolling or belittling. They shared some very private things with me, and vice versa. A few of them really pushed me to do some things I wanted to do but was hesistant to do: trying out for a play. Singing in public. Applying for something.
So many of these boys, now men, are still in my life. Some are dads – wonderful dads. Some have wives. Some have husbands. They have embraced so many different careers: they teach grade school , coach middle school sports, make films, make music, serve in the Peace Corps, lead loving, inclusive Christian congregations, farm, bar tend, take up professional photography, be an investment banker, and on and on. They’re still funny and interesting. And manly.
They don’t listen to Joe Rogan except to make fun of him. They aren’t threatened by powerful, smart women (and many have wives that prove it). The straight guys have gay friends. Some love watching sports. Some love watching a musical. Many that watch sports also love watching a musical.
And they are all MEN, from the ground up. What I mean by that is that they are comfortable with who they are and have nothing to prove to anyone in terms of their masculinity. It would never dawn on them that they needed to act in a certain way to be “manly.” They believe that engaging in acts of kindness doesn’t somehow diminish them. They really don’t care if anyone thinks they are “weak.”
Added bonus: my husband, from Germany, has ended up really liking almost all of these guy friends of mine. He likes how down-to-Earth they are. He likes that they are not at all the typical American stereotypes he learned in Europe. He likes that none are Republicans. He’s from a small town himself, from a region that’s thought of by a lot of the rest of Germany in ways people think about the Southern USA: unpolished. Uninformed. Low class. Talks funny. I think that’s why he’s done so well when we go back to Kentucky for a visit.
I was thinking about this on the drive home with my husband after we’d watched comedian Trae Crowder perform in Portland. Crowder reminds me SO MUCH of many of the men I’ve been friends with since grade school back in Kentucky (he’s from Tennessee, BTW). The image he promotes – and I believe that image really is the man that he is – is in such contrast to what so many people think of men from the South. Absolutely, as voting records and teen pregnancy records and dental health records show, the people of the US South are, as a group, a hot mess. But please remember that South has also given us Jimmy Carter. And William Falkner. And Ida B. Wells. And Martin Luther King, Jr. And Muhammad Ali. And Molly Ivins. And Rosemary Clooney. And George Clooney. And on and on. We have some good people, I swear.
It’s frustrating that so many young men now think it’s cool to try to be dominant over women and girls and each other, that the best way to assert manhood and appear “strong” is to belittle women and each other, that men are “worthy” only if they have money, status and influence. We all know that these men are tearing others down to quell their own anxieties and fears. We all know the ones railing most against “the gays” are, indeed, “the gays,” deep in a closest that will forever lack any joy whatsoever.
I guess what I want to say is thank you, to Trae Crowder, and to my male friends, for being yourselves, for being there for me, and for your version of masculinity – which is so, so much sexier than “Look-Maxing”, BTW…
As for my photo with him: my gawd, I now look like my Mamaw. And both he and one of his opener, Drew Morgan, liked my t-shirt. In fact, Drew offered to trade for it – he was wearing a dandy Dolly Parton shirt. But I declined.
Also see:
What is Southern heritage? What is worth celebrating?
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