Men

I have deep, direct clinical experience working with men across every age and background here in Idaho. Older men facing isolation, middle-aged guys navigating fatherhood and marriage, trans men stepping into their skin, straight men carrying heavy unexpressed stress, and the girlfriends and partners who are trying to reach them. Most of the men who sit in my room are straight, working-class, or carrying quiet burdens they have never had words for. I don't give you canned men's mental health advice, corporate self-help, or clinical saviorism. I know how men operate, how power moves through relationships, and how to sit in a room with a man without demanding he perform or sanitize who he is.

I grew up male, knowing I was male. I understood physical sex differences, but the rigid rules handed to men never made much sense to me. As a kid, I was sad I couldn't just hang out with girls, held back by rules about sleepovers based on assumed attraction. I was a gay boy, hence I advocated for sleepovers because that doesn't apply to me obviously. I can understand why I was told otherwise... I don't think I ever connected the dots for everyone else, haha.

Being gendered as a man is erotic, embodied, and real. In my friendships with men, there is an intensity that is companionate and heavy, but not strictly sexual. Sex with men versus sex with women, embodied attraction, deep bonds, and lifelong companionships. That's just how it is, and it isn't weird.

I remember being at a Jason Aldean (country concert) surrounded by 24,000 people, wearing my signature suit vest open with no shirt under it, flannel tied around my waist, with my snake tattoos showing; A woman came up, touched my chest, and exclaimed at the tattoos. In my mind, I carried the thought of my own beer belly, but she was focused on expressing her joy at the art on my body. I chuckled loudly and pushed past, but that moment hit like a truck. 

Later that night, literally during Jason giving his signature fuck you, Try That in a Small Town, I was laying down next to my male friend. He looked over at me, chatted, and it was just completely normal. It was a moment I felt joy within my own body.

There is a specific weight to being in relationship with men, navigating manhood when the rules don't fit, and finding companionate peace outside of expected roles. We look at those bonds, the rules you were handed, and what it actually means to exist as a man on your own terms. 

Manhood is what you want it to be and mine was an expression of. I dont know. I just was and that's enough.