Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Unfortunately, the stigma regarding men sharing feelings is prevalent in western society, and it's not only the men causing it. When I told several female friends about the work they did, their response was: "Are they gay?"
No one is going to be impressed if you burst into tears during a code review. They're going to be a lot more impressed if you bullshit your way through with positivity and can-do.
This is irrespective of the quality of the code.
This culture rewards overt displays of competitive individualism and punishes weakness irrespective of actual productivity, value, or objective performance.
Generally, being confident gets you breaks, even if you're astonishingly incompetent or just plain manipulative and dishonest.
Sometimes there's pushback from the surrounding culture before something goes horribly wrong - but just as often there isn't.
I think "confidence" is rooted in the belief that "whatever happens, I'll be able to handle it. I'll be okay." Showing confidence is externally-emoting as if you believe that to be the case.
Vulnerability...I'm less sure of. I think it is the ability to be wounded. By being vulnerable, you reveal information which someone else could use to ridicule you. Patrick Lencioni's work on organizational health refers to vulnerability as a key piece of building trust[1]. How does it work? By showing that you expect that people hold a social norm against ridiculing people for the thing you reveal. That you are willing to pay a cost for that social norm. I think when people use the word "vulnerability", they mean sticking your neck out for a social expectation of compassionate collaboration -- norm-building vulnerability.
And that sort of vulnerability is compatible with confidence. If they do ridicule you, then you've learned what sort of person they are and you have the power to respond accordingly.
But I think its easy to confuse norm-building vulnerability with another vulnerability: insecurity-revealing vulnerability. This is where you present something that could genuinely hurt your sense of belonging -- Information which you think others could present as evidence that you should be ostracized from a group. For example, a man in a homophobic environment who reveals that he is bisexual. How should a man express these sorts of insecurities? By default, he shouldn't. He should hide them until he can find a supportive community. Unless he's with someone he already trusts or a mens' meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Don't express insecurity-revealing vulnerability.
[1] https://www.tablegroup.com/newsroom/news/vulnerability-endea... is an example, but he talks about the concept in The Advantage and his novels.
It doesn't have to be like this. Vulnerability doesn't have to be a weakness, showing your emotions can be a masculine trait. We're not defined by, nor locked into, our traditional cultural values and norms.
They didn't assert that, though. They said that confidence is rewarded while vulnerability and weakness aren't. If anything, their description implies a distinction between vulnerability and weakness.
I took their statement to be primarily about perceptions. That anything people perceive as a lack confidence is penalised.
If someone keeps confidently asserting that 1+1=3 and then tries to act like he’s my superior, my conclusion is generally that he’s just a moron or is deluding himself.
I had a typo above and wrote 1+1=2 but I’ve had the same situation: someone who is of normal competence keeps repeating things pretty much everyone in the room knows over and over and thinks he’s leading you forward.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btud-zsdmk4
There are definitely caveats to this. It has to be done a certain way. It works better when you already have some status. And I'd absolutely agree that society lets women express more vulnerability than men. In a hypermasculine environment like a group of socially clueless 20something males at a tech company, you will probably want to show vulnerability less often.
But with the general population and normal people, it's really fine and even good to show some vulnerability, just do it in the right context.
In other words, it’s not the ”oh my god, my life is crashing, I don’t know what to do, please help me” kind of vulnerability (that one isn’t seen as very attractive or welcomed by the society), it’s the “my life is awesome, except this tiny part, but it’s cool, I’ll manage” kind of vulnerability.
Also a way for people to attack you. A vulnerability is always a weakness, it's the definition of vulnerability. You are talking about faking a vulnerability, a social technique so old that is in Sun Tsu's "The Art of War".
Hell, their recognition of non-binary genders, preferred pronouns, and a singular 'they' pronoun, speaks volumes as to how much ideas around gender and masculinity has changed. Not that long ago, the idea that a person's gender didn't fit neatly into one of two boxes was unthinkinable.
It went like this: it is ok to hold hands with a man (because no one will think you are gay/because no one thinks anyone is gay) -> it is not ok to hold hands (because people will think you are gay) -> it is ok to hold hands (because it would not be a problem if you were gay)
and the last step is still ongoing...
It's funny. From the days of chivalry all the way to the modern patriarchy, men's behaviours have been conditioned by one overriding factor: what will impress women? I don't see that evaporating overnight. Men suppress the emotions for the simple reason that women have demonstrated a preference for men that do that, and this is simply an example of that being made explicit. You could say "this is how the patriarchy harms men!". But it wasn't men who chose it to be this way.
EDIT added 'modern'.
As I think about Asia and Africa, I’m drawing a blank on this. But I’d be happy to be shown wrong.
If the State monopolizes violence to the point that we can’t hash things out with our fists, and there’s no room in our society to emotionally vent, then what’s left? It’s not like violence disappeared from society, it just takes different forms when suppressed.
I think with physical violence, it can escalate. You punch me and "win" the fight, next time I come back with a few friends and the fight may get worse over time. And that's just assuming it's only punches. If knives or guns are involved, it can escalate really fast, and perpetuate unresolved for years, if not generations.
And I agree with you that the violence is just taking other forms. One can't punch another, so instead, we shame that person, humiliate them, embarrass them in front of their friends and loved ones. I sometimes have fear of posting on public forums, saying something that will make someone angry, and then receiving an onslaught of comments ridiculing me and beyond.
So while I think some conflict can resolve itself through merely putting on gloves and duking it out, I think more often than not conflict resolves itself much better through communicating in a nonviolent way.
The LGBT members that don't have those characteristics you would never know they were LGBT.
While a woman may have told me "don't cry (or be sad)," "don't be a baby (or express helplessness)," "don't be lazy (or feel too relaxed)," or "stop being so jealous," I have also told people "don't worry," "relax (or don't feel stressed)," "chill out (don't be angry)," and others.
I try as much as I can to let people feel whatever they are feeling, annnnnd I'm still human and project a lot of my cultural expectations on others and myself. Really grateful to have this space on HN for this conversation and to further the conversation :-D
The polite response is something like: "I hear that as shaming, and it offends me."
I have few male friends I can share feelings with and most of the females I've dealt with just don't want this while wishing for men to be more sensible.
One thing I find fascinating about humans is that we are so compulsively cultural that we will actively propagate cultural practices that are harmful even to ourselves. When you are young, you absorb whatever culture is around you completely uncritically, and then you immediately turn around and start broadcasting to the next generation.
Cultural changes and evolves, of course, but it's really hard to uproot a norm or more once it's settled in, even if it's one that causes you personal pain.
Terence McKenna lectured on this at length. Here are some apropos quotations:
"As a global civilization, we can no longer afford the luxury of an unconscious mind. When you can pull down the fusion processes that light the stars on the cities of your enemies, when you can sequence DNA, when you can map the heart of the atom, then it is entirely inappropriate to have an unconscious mind, because the power that is given onto you is a kind of god-like Promethean power. So how can we switch on the lights on our animal nature…? I think it is very simple: we have to de-condition ourselves from culture. We are sick, we require medical intervention… into what is a galloping, cancerous state of neurosis - the growth and spread of ego. Ego is like a calcareous growth in the psyche of human beings, and if it is not treated, it creates the kind of society that we have. A society based on hierarchy, male dominance, accumulation of physical goods,suppression of the weak by the strong… This is why the psychedelics are so socially sensitive, because they dissolve de-conditioning. Every culture is a scam. Every culture is a lie. A shell game, run by weasels, for the amusement of rubes. If you do not want to be a weasel or a rube, then you need to inform yourself of how the shell game works, and what lies beyond the carnival midway of civilized values. And the way to do that is to go back to the plants, to the original gnosis."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IO7pHD3X9M
"Culture is an effort to satisfy this weird desire human beings have to close off experience, to live with closure, to force closure. That is why cultural trips are so bizarre; why they don't make sense to anybody but the Witoto, or the Guaraní, or the Americans, or the Japanese. If you are not inside a culture, it seems crazy. Cultures do not make sense because they are not trying to make sense. What they are trying to do is produce closure, which then somehow makes a human being, who is living in the light of closure, a more manipulable, a more malleable, a lesser thing… The message coming back at all of us is: live without closure. That is the honest position given that you are some kind of a talking monkey, some kind of a primate, some kind of creature, on a planet, in an animal body,in a time and space. In the face of that, life without closure is the only kind of intellectual honesty there is. If you have to inoculate yourself against the various means of closure that are around,psychedelics do that. That is why they are so politically controversial and potent, because more than any other single act that you may voluntarily undertake, they pull the plug on the myth of cultural meaning."
Terence McKenna: Don't Believe/Follow/Consume/Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV1RC2zlymQ
Dissolving the egoistic boundaries of society (Terence McKenna): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7sfZiRLqOE
I think the young execute on a unique position to see the culture of their elders and actively choose to fill spots where it could be improved for their own benefit and drop customs that are no longer worth it.
I don’t know if I believe this in general. Certainly we are happy to utterly change our lifestyles whenever a convenient new technology comes about. How much have smart phones or social media changed us culturally in the spans of a couple decades? If culture can change quickly over convenience, surely actual pain would drive it to change even faster. It seems that those “hard to change” cultural aspects are actually _useful_ in some way, and therefore they survive.
I'm a little confused, who are the they you are referring to? People are hired on to perform tasks in return for remuneration and feelings should be reserved for outside the job. Getting emotionally involved with ones co-workers is a recipe for disaster. If you're ever invited to a workshop on diversity, don't go. James Damore and Professor Alessandro Strumia would know why.
I'm a man who has focused on and has been building tools to get better at expressing my emotions since 2012, including an app called iFeelio, in which I answered the question "how do I feel" over 4,000 times across 4 years and a class called Emotional Self-Defense, which I've run in the US, Europe, and Africa. I have realized and re-realized many things along the way.
One thing I've seen is that each culture seems to have rules about which emotions one is allowed to express and not allowed to express, based on the specific contexts. We often say that men aren't allowed to express our emotions, but I don't think that's the case. We men (in the US) are often allowed to express anger, confidence, feelings of triumph, horniness (maybe), calmness, and maybe even excitement. We're often not allowed to express tenderness, sadness, confusion, uncertainty, fury, etc. And funny enough, when watching our favorite sports team, we're pretty much allowed to express all of the emotions above and more. On the other hand, in the workplace, we're not allowed to really express much at all.
Women may have a different list, as well as people from the Midwest or California, those born in the 60s, digital natives, engineers, or really any different culture or sub-culture.
That being said, I'm glad to see programs like MKP and Evryman providing the place, and moreover, the permission, to express all of the emotions. (Save a Warrior is one I recommend for military vets—I was a witness on one of the programs and it really helped to open my heart and the hearts of the other guys.)
I'd love to chat with anyone on here about this, either in the comments or on Twitter, Telegram, keybase, or whatever people on HN use these days. Check my HN profile for those usernames.
Edit: Moodflow seems like it could be good so I'll try that. Just in case this helps others.
That being said, I have been thinking about how to get it fixed and even develop v2.0, possibly through open-sourcing it. Do you think you or someone else you know might be interested in that?
In the meantime, the magic sauce is really nothing too complicated...I used a note app on Android before developing iFeelio and it worked pretty good.
I would open up the note pad, type down the date, time, 1-3 comma-separated words for emotion, and then 1-2 short sentences about how I was feeling. Similar to an I-statement from NVC.
An example would be:
2019-09-28...01:09...grateful, tired...just checked HN and saw that a few people replied to my comments, and it's also 1am so maybe I should go to bed soon.
I made the app mostly because I wanted to enter the date/time automatically, password protect it, and create some ways for me to sort/filter/search previous entries.
The cult like approach to certainty we see on the web will fade over time as well. Expressions of uncertainty will become more acceptable.
The way to overcome pain is to acknowledge and include it instead of denying it. The difference is huge, and most of us need help to get there—personally contactful help, not idea help. I found it pretty liberating to be able to get such help from other men, in a group no less. The point is not to become a gushy feeling-sharer or a sensitive new-age male. It is to no longer be governed by unconscious feelings and the wounds of early experience.
The organizations that practice this work are not super clear about that distinction, which I suspect limits their appeal to many men. I went because of a friend I respect, who in turn went because of a friend he respects. Had either of us only read an article like this, I doubt we'd have been interested. Its subtle ironizing, which approaches belittling ("chastened menfolk", "There, there"), would have turned me off. The photos would have turned me off too, and I've sat in a lot of workshops (though usually with few men and many women).
Edit: an interesting thing to me was the gap between practice and theory. Even though there were parts of the theory behind that work which I didn't necessarily find appealing, I met quite a few men there who struck me as having a kind of integrated masculinity (maybe not the best phrase, but it's hard to find words for these qualities). They seemed strong and open at the same time. I found myself admiring them and wanting to be more like that myself. None of this had much to do with expressing feelings or being emotional; I would use the word presence instead. They maybe even seemed a bit less emotional than most men I meet—more able to take in what is happening without being reactive.
So I would say the theory doesn't work as well as the practice. You barely ever get that! usually it's the other way around.
Publicly? It's one thing to be denial, it's another to acknowledge it to yourself but still elect not to engage in a public display of this. The strongest men I've ever met were not in denial of their emotional state but didn't need to engage in public displays like those listed in the article.
On the one hand yes, there's no need for emotional display for its own sake. As far as I've observed, that is mostly a cultural (or really a subcultural) marker anyhow; some communities value it, that's fine. I'm not personally that comfortable with emotion as a tap that gets turned on and off on demand. (During the group I mentioned above, I told them that if they kept asking me what I was feeling, the only feeling they were likely to get out of me was anger about being expected to feel something.)
That sort of cultural practice is a different thing, though—completely different—from deep feeling coming into experience as part of a healing process. The latter is not a tap and there is no quality of display about it. It is more like a flood that rises from forgotten places, and the healing comes from surrendering to that flood and allowing it to change whatever changes. Maybe after that you become more emotionally expressive, maybe not; I personally think that matters less than people in these communities say it does. But you become more integrated, gain capacity, become less reactive, less conflicted.
The subtle part comes up when you say "Publicly?". Yes and no. I don't think there's any need for ongoing public emotionality. I do think there's a deep reason why healing can't fully happen in isolation. It's because our wounds happen in relationship, usually in early relational experiences, and what is wounded relationally can only heal relationally. Personally I have found that frustrating—I would rather go off somewhere, resolve my issues myself, be a self-healing organism. But I've come to see how this impulse to isolation is actually an aspect of the wound itself, and so not a way to heal. Wounds don't heal themselves—they just repeat until something changes. As far as I can tell, there's no way to avoid connecting with others if you want that to change. But others' mileage may vary, and in any case this connecting needs to happen in safe, closed environments with strong containers, not in random public settings.
I think this is where meditation (and stoicism) deviates from some types of psychotherapy and most support groups. Meditation teaches you to look at feelings dispassionately, which helps you lessen their power. This is very different than treating each emotion as if it is "correct" and in need of resolution via lots of introspection.
Say you are pissed because you did not finish a job, but your job performance is increasingly better. Your emotion is not guiding you anywhere useful. It can be useful to understand dispassionately, and then choose to endorse it (that is, this seems a feeling that points to a correct direction, I will thing about solutions) or not (that is, this seems a feeling that does not point to where I want to go, thank you for your message, but I would rather not act on it).
Sometimes feelings are mistakes, like a optical illusion. Sometimes they are not.
Anxiety means your brain has more of a tendency to worry about potential threats. Possibly because your amygdala are more easily activated. It may just be that, back when we lived in the savannah, being easily aroused by potential threats, and being overly careful, was in many ways beneficial for survival. However, we live in a time of relative safety, and it seems that being someone who worries a lot about potential threats is not generally a useful trait.
I'm not saying that there's nothing you can do to manage anxiety, that is obviously false, but I'm saying there's a strong genetic component, and that judging people who appear more anxious and telling them just suck it up shows a fundamental lack of self-awareness and understanding of how the human brain works.
I have been this way my entire life and as far as I'm aware it didn't come about from some life experience, I think I was just born like this. My mother used to laugh that everything was "like water off a duck's back" to me.
All throughout school and University I never once was stressed about any piece of assessment or any exams. There were a few I was woefully unprepared for and knew I would likely fail, but it never really bothered me. It wasn't that I didn't care, I just never saw the point in worrying as worrying is never going to change anything.
My wife is the opposite. She stresses about everything, many things that are completely out of her control. I have learnt a lot about how to support someone in that frame of mind, even when I don't understand why they are stressed.
This does have downsides. Many people, especially in professional contexts, mistake my stress free and easygoing nature as laziness. I also have relatively low empathy, though I'm not sure if that's a side effect, cause, or completely unrelated.
Rumination is unhealthy. And believe it or not, one of the antidotes to it is being able to communicate ones feelings effectively. In my experience, more expressive people tend not to suffer ruminating thoughts.
I grew up west coast, spent a lot of time with people who I could "share my problems" with. It taught me to be pathetic when I'm down, to really reach for it. I don't like who I was when that was an effective means of attention.
I really wish the response would have been "You're having a hard time coping with the harshness of reality and acting immature, do your best to get it together soon."
Try as I might, I have no idea what this has to do with feelings. Are you making an assumption that people who acknowledge or express their feelings are not handling problems?
And of course, as others have pointed out, stoicism doesn't suggest not pondering over feelings.
This may be colored by my experience of mental illness, but generally I've learned/grown more from pondering and sorting out feelings in the past rather than right now. It's easy to fall into a trap of "worshipping your pain" (or your hypomanic euphoria for that matter).
OTOH I'm very appreciative of the dispassionate attitude encouraged by stoicism and meditation, etc. -- but that kind of wisdom is acquired with work, like building muscle. "You should lift heavy things!" is both an interesting aspirational model and dangerous advice if it isn't culturally obvious that you can get hurt lifting heavy things while not in shape.
(Edit: stoicism/meditation etc. are more or less like "second-order repression": as you acknowledge your fingertips or your breath, you acknowledge that you have feelings in order to theoretically understand them (locus of control/illusion of self). The danger is that letting go of first-order repression, you can let yourself have feelings about your feelings -- feeling good about feeling miserable would be the common type.)
I like to think of my self as happy Sisyphus enjoying pushing the rock up the hill. Thinking about the futility of the effort is by definition futile.
It's not a gift compared to what? Nonexistence?
"Handling your own problems" a lot of the time means "making other people responsible for my emotional well being."
I do love stoicism though and I think meditation and stoicism are excellent paths to understanding yourself and managing your internal state.
I'm seeing a lot of agreement in this thread, though. Healthy, deep relationships with family and close friends are important to keep you grounded, and therapy can help everyone. Many seemingly desirable positions of status that men and women strive for involve incredible amounts of stress, and people naturally have differing levels of stress tolerance, so at some point self-knowledge becomes very valuable. Having good people around you is a great way to build that self-knowledge.
Some people really seem to want men to be very emotional and assume something is wrong if they don't appear to be showing strong emotions. Often, they're just fine, and there's no there there.
If you keep picking at them, you'll probably generate some emotions, however.
I'd compare it to a tooth abscess. It's not like it's so painful you need to scream. It's just kind of there, occasionally causing problems. But if it goes untreated long enough, the bacteria in it can kill you. There are some parallels there with loneliness, which a lot of men suffer from.
So I'd say this is more the realization that "Oh, this pain is because of this source. I'm gonna go deal with that source." The process of dealing might involve making your emotions known (such as when breaking up).
Of course, if you're legitimately not in any kind of pain, then great. But most people are, in one form or another.
This is new to me. Making other people responsible for my emotional well-being is being dependent on other people for our own happiness. Stoicism does not suggest that you do this, on the contrary.
For me, men who need to share their feelings are weak. This is what women do. But we can't all be women. Men need to learn to enjoy their advantages: superior strength, speed, and resilience, but accept that problems won't just go away if you cry about them. Either solve the problem or accept it and don't give it another precious moment's thought.
As men we have an unbelievable amount of expectation on our reactions, communication, behavior, past behavior, and others behavior. (Their friends and their partners)
On top of all of this: Men spaces have been mostly eliminated.
An organization that was once called "Boy Scouts" is no longer catered only to young boys. And yet the Girl Scouts remain female only.
I mean sure it's illegal to exclude women but there are plenty of things they're just not going to show up to.
Want to be around only men? Go to a BSD meet up. (or join most channels on freenode.)
(note I'm not saying any of this is good, but there are plenty of places that are pretty exclusively attended by bales.)
Any minimally functional group eventually lead to opportunities.
The outgroup (women in this case) want to access those opportunities. Any push back against that will be labeled as misogynistic or ridiculed.
Men have no other choices than to open up the group and let it become just another open space for everyone.
What is surprising is how some groups: 1) just lay down and accept this unilateral loss... 2) even when it is never reciprocated.
It’s wonderful that’s been your experience of women, but don’t invalidate what others experience — particularly with a citation free comment.
For those wondering why my comment is flagged: dang engages in political censorship, and flagged my account because of my views. I look forward to the upcoming rules on social media censorship, and the accountability that will bring to dang’s actions.
Men aren't obligated or motivated to open up men only social groups until other men start to take issue with them (and usually for their own self interest).
Anyways, I have heard of discrimination that men have faced when trying to create "safe"/support groups that were men only.
Would recommend it wholeheartedly.
For anyone who is actually interested, I would recommend the book Iron John, by Robert Bly (https://www.amazon.com/Iron-John-Book-about-Men/dp/030682426...). The first chapter is usually assigned reading before attending the NWTA, but when read with an open mind I found the entire book to be profound. Profound isnt the best word, but I experienced the content as if I personally was being spoken to through the pages; my problems, my struggles and my victories. Spoken to with support, compassion and understanding. I re-read it every year.
Beyond sharing that however, seeing how much vitriolic hyperbole is being thrown around within 2h of posting, I dont feel it productive to share anymore. You might say that the vulnerability it requires of a man to speak to other men (and women!) who are openly hostile (and often deliberately misunderstanding) about this topic can be nothing short of herculean.
We live in an age where men are being villainized at every turn, and this is just another way men are being told they don't measure up... because they aren't sharing in a way that women recognize. With all due deference to my trans friends, men are not simply women with penises.
Agreed. The conspiracy theory part of me wonders if this is a natural way of challenging and verifying perceived strength, thus the trope of a wife accusing the husband of not talking about his feelings enough.
Not to say that's the only time it happens (I've asked my wife basically just this), but I think part of being human is to want a stable, emotional foundation so to speak. And once we've tested and verified a leader/friend/family member who appears to be strong in ways we are not we then rely on them to help us in that regard.
This is the age old men vs women problem where women feel like men don't want to talk about problems/feelings and men feel like women just want to blabber on without ever solving anything.
I'm a man. Sometimes I do the former, more often the latter. And I do feel shamed for that, sometimes.
Expecting men and women to fit into neat, stereotyped boxes like this is a big part of the problem.
On the other hand, I do worry about "emotional masturbation". Simply put, sometimes we indulge ourselves in sadness/fear/anger because it makes us feel something and feeling something is better/more exhilarating/exciting than feeling nothing at all.
For example, I have some insecurities. Sometimes I feel like talking about them may be pro-actively bad because I am indulging myself and making my insecurities occupy more mental space/brain power.
It's no good just blurting out whatever it is you're feeling and like you say, turn it into a masturbatory indulgence, but we should still promote talking about out feelings because suppressing them is no better than having an emotional wank.
Sometimes beeing strong means to become vulnerable.
For instance -
Feelings: https://www.cnvc.org/training/resource/feelings-inventory
Needs: https://www.cnvc.org/training/resource/needs-inventory
--
Yet the needs exist, are often projected onto others (partners, co-workers, kids, whole countries, etc) and then action is taken to try to get /them/ to meet needs that one doesn't even know they have. At best, this tends to be frustrating, at worst...well we can all look up the stats on violence perpetuated by people raised as men in the West versus people not raised as men.
By pure rational thought many young men have accepted to treat women like equal human beeings, just as many women have understood that the traditional division of gender roles might not fit all social encounters.
The issue is, that understanding and doing are two seperate things and switching between the old and the new paradigma when it fits us seems to be common place.
So many men end up getting the worst of both worlds: they are not the strong leader of the family any more, but they were still raised in a way to hide their feelings, just like many women are expected to be strong while they might not always have been raised in that way.
The thing we aim for as a society here is defintly worth it (I could experience for myself how amazing a relationship of equals between man and woman can be), but there are many people who struggle with this and it leads to all kind of societal side effects like depression, suicide, drug abuse and violence.
To be fair in times when the man had to be strong this was also a problem, because there are always people who simply don’t fit the role society wants them to take and if you force them into it bad things happen.
Communicating your own feelings is important for mental health. Anyone who struggles with this: get help. Write letters to a person that you never send — writing will help you to think and reflect.
You make it sound as though men have never considered women as equal human beings until some recent enlightenment. I find this world view to be absolutely apalling, and arrogant. You're denying a history where the vast, vast majority of relationships between men and women (eg. marriages) were cooperative, reciprocal, and built upon a foundation of mutual respect.
> "The thing we aim for as a society here is defintly worth it (I could experience for myself how amazing a relationship of equals between man and woman can be)"
A relationship of equals betwen a man and a woman is not some novel new concept we should aspire to, it is completely normal and has been for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
This is true so long as you appear vulnerable, not weak.
I talk about topics that are so hard to talk about that people lie to themselves about it. Things that you don't want to be real are things you try to hide and emotions that don't fit your role in society are part of this.
Becoming vulnerable is the price you have to pay to talk about these kind of topics. And if it happens that you look weak as a side effect you have to pull through it. But this is not about looks, this is about beeing able to interface with the world around you and exposing your true self is the price you have to pay for meaningful conversation.
Give examples of vulnerability that is not also weakness.
The easiest example of vulnerability I can think of is leaders from other departments asking my opinion on work processes or product ideas. One could argue that's not weakness but I believe it is, in that leaders who believe themselves above everyone else at the company will make policy and standards that ignore important aspects of product development and delivery.
An example of weakness is confessing personal issues to your manager or a peer, so much so they think less of you but generally don't tell you directly. The "vulnerable" version of that is handling your issues as you see them, asking peers and mentors for comments on your work and how you can improve, and simply not talking about them outside that.
I'll admit part of my judgment is shaded by personal bias from my own weaknesses, but that's how I see it.
But if all you ever do is only talk about topics that you can confidently speak about with out risking something, then you are missing out on something. And sure you can also go and deal with it on your own till you got the confidence to talk about it without exposing yourself, but there are connections you will be never able to form if all you ever do is deal with yourself.
In my experience, sharing feelings makes me feel worse and substantially reduces my appeal to others. I prefer to just deal with my problems logically and avoid such navel gazing.
Is it illogical to ask for food if you are hungry?
It displays psychologically lack of preparation for hard things in life or even weakness.
So it can easily lower the Sexual Market Value of a man.
It's fairly common for people to have adverse reactions to therapy. Not everyone reacts the same to this sort of thing.
Adverse reactions to therapy might mean that therapy isn't for you. But more commonly, I think it probably means that you don't have the right therapist and / or you have some really heavy, painful shit that you need to deal with but don't want to. Otherwise you wouldn't be having "adverse reactions" to simply sitting in a room with another human to talk about your life.
What I just said is clearly ridiculous.
It should not be a surprise that some people don't feel positive about talking about their lives. If you can't imagine it, I'm afraid you may lack imagination.
No mention of similar mens groups that occurred 30 to 50+ years ago? There's the Mythopoetic men's movement for one.
You're right that the article would be better if it weren't so ahistorical.
Funny enough, that movement coined the term "toxic masculinity."
I'm male. I believe that has had a significant effect on my upbringing.
I'm an individual. I believe a whole lot of things have had a significant effect on my upbringing.
Why would I want to try to resolve my issues within this gendered framework? Am I really primarily male? That seems like a forced choice to me.
It is a forced choice. The model of gender as a binary state rather than a spectrum is an obsolete and harmful social construct.
The way it's going about right now is "equality for me but not for you" by using over exaggerated claims.
I’m not surprised to see so much pushback and gatekeeping here from other men, or suggestions that encouraging men to find spaces to “talk about their feelings” are a radical feminist ploy to subvert true masculinity, but I am saddened by them. That attitude reflects a deep sickness that is at the heart of what makes it so hard to be an authentic, open man in today’s culture. MKP and similar organizations are one of the few healthy forces I see working against this.
Calling it "New Warrior Training Adventure" comes across as super patronizing. "ManKind" isn't great either. The names alone are surely responsible for much of the pushback that you're seeing.
I did a bit of digging though, trying to keep an open mind, and I was surprised to find that MKP is indeed not a radical program to feminize men.
Their FAQ is pretty informative: https://mankindproject.org/frequently-asked-questions
Their YouTube channel gives a feel for it: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcR01KkQCYfHbzHwBlI8eeg
Basically, it's a small nondenominational religion for woke men. The leaders are a Marine Corps officer, a therapist, and a PhD of "curriculum studies". It's not very surprising to see all the comments here about how profound it was, because it was designed to be a spiritual experience.
It looks like a cult and is certainly weird (nudity is optional), but the leaders aren't getting rich off of it, and you are allowed to leave. There are regular meetings, rituals, a set of shared values, and a drive to recruit more members. It seems like mostly dudes who want to better themselves and the world at large. A lot of it is classic self-help stuff. They advertise NWTA as "Get Ready for a 48 Hour Adventure that Can Transform Your World as a Man", for example.
I think people are right to be skeptical of these types of groups, as they're playing to an audience of disaffected men and trying to improve lives with groupthink and rituals. I'd place MKP somewhere between Scientology and Tony Robbins. Probably a powerful experience in person, but best to avoid it or you might get roped into an organization.
First, you are correct that MKP is not a cult and everything you're saying here checks out with the research I just did into MKP.
What I meant was that it is cult-like in appearance. It's an engineered experience for human bonding and introspection. The members are doing stuff that's out of the ordinary and trying to connect to some deeper spiritual thing. Sometimes people get naked. There's a big wooden phallus used as a talking stick. There's a bunch of oversharing. It's not a cult, but it's not exactly Rotary Club either.
As far as roping you in, of course it's designed for that. The group couldn't grow without getting you to come back. There's a good chance you're going to form bonds with the other people in the group if you do a bunch of emotional stuff with them on a retreat. That's a social situation that I'd much prefer to avoid.
I looked at your HN profile and I see that you're a life coach for freelancers, so you might be less sensitive to what's triggering me about MKP. Don't take this the wrong way, but your site gives me a similar feeling as the MKP stuff. I'm pretty sure I'm your target too, as a developer considering switching to freelance work. I wish I could give you something more useful than "feels scammy, stay away", but that's how it comes across to me. And you're blogging about "mastermind groups", which also give me the same feel. It's possible that I'm just hyper-sensitive, but I think you'll have an easier time getting through to developers if you aren't tripping the alarm that tells me "this is a cult" or "here comes a pitch for an ebook".
As a side note, I wonder if you get many calls from putting your number in your HN profile. That was definitely noticeable and didn't trigger my overactive skepticism at all (even though it's obvious self promotion, it feels authentic).
I'd say that NWT was the least aggressive about membership recruiting. And est/Landmark was the most. Because their goal is indeed to have everyone do their work. And they're pretty upfront about it.
If you google for "masculinity", "toxic masculinity" is the first thing that comes up. I'd never heard of "victorian masculinity" before, but that and "harmful masculinity" were the only other types I could easily find. Google also helpfully suggested "The culture of masculinity and its negative impacts on men" as a recent PBS Newshour segment that might interest me.
If you put the words next to each other for long enough, and you never see anything about "positive masculinity" or "altruistic masculinity" (which I just made up because I couldn't find any real examples), then you're going to create a culture that associates masculinity with toxicity. From my point of view, that's been happening for a few years.
The idea that brought masculinity into mainstream discussion was "there exists a type of masculinity that is toxic", but the way the public seems to have internalized it is "masculinity is toxic".
The seminar was described in Details Magazine as having a "cult like subculture." (Wikipedia)
Also this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Brainwashed/comments/1tb1cb/a_justi...
Classic case of cult business.
Believe me, it's not a fun place to be, and I hope new parents do realize how important it is to teach young children how to make sense of their emotions.
This article seem to be written by an ideologically inclined woman. A woman trying to understand the men in her life better might be helped more . by reading: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594151121/ref=dbs_a_def_r...
A man trying to understand the women in his life better might be helped by reading: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1601425740/ref=dbs_a_def_r...
I likewise would recommend reading "Islamic Patterns: An analytical and cosmological approach" when approaching geometry.
Either the book is good or not in getting you to understand something you don't currently understand. I trust the reader to be able to make their own judgements, especially in this case where you can read the book for the opposite gender to see if they are full of bullshit.
People have been making this sort of stuff since way before LSD was invented, but I can't help notice how incredibly similar the patterns are to psychedelic hallucinations. To see them described as "sacred geometries" makes a lot of sense for reasons I can't quite explain.
>This article seem to be written by an ideologically inclined woman.
If you are calling out someone as being ideological and then recommending books that are based in a religious ideology, it seems relevant to make note of it.
Most religions have ideas about relationships that are not informed by anything secular, and Christianity certainly does.
Opening a preview of the book I was quickly able to find lines like these:
"If we are willing to be molded by His hands, the Lord will shower us, our men, and our relationships with abundance. That is the way He works. He made us for each other. He is the Author of love"
"I feel like the Lord has blessed my desire to serve my husband and our marriage by giving me a permanent internal motivation to have a healthy "temple." And I know He will do the same for you"
So no, this is not the association fallacy. This is asking people to disclaim when the advice they are giving has a significant religious component.
Divulging one's emotional state is not a "[female] mannerism". It is a basic, androgynous function of all social beings. It's endlessly frustrating to have my faculties gendered away from me.
I suggest reading the book if you are interested in the topic because it’s not saying what you think it says and will help you utilize your faculties more adaptively.
In the worst case you think it’s bull.
Nothing helps me get through feelings more than getting punched, and punching someone. Its the main reason I still goto hardcore/punk shows. The moshpit is a group therapy session.
- It's better to understand people than to not understand them. Averages and stereotypes are not a great way to understand individual people.
- If you want to understand why a person did or thinks something, a good place to start is with a generous assumption that you might have done or thought the same if you had the same experiences. Reflect on what sort of experiences might fulfill this statement.
- Assume completely understanding an intelligence is impossible. If you haven't before, pay close attention to your internal narrative(s) until you catch yourself telling yourself a story about why you did or said or thought something. This is you, reflecting on what sorts of experiences led you to do or think something. This is evidence that we don't understand our own intelligence.
- Don't be surprised if you find you are less generous when reflecting on what experiences lead you to do something than you are to others. You have, after all, been trying to understand why you do what you do your entire life. Look for opportunities to show yourself (and, more importantly, your internal narratives) that you care. This may feel stupid. Reflect on what experiences might lead you to think it is stupid to show yourself that you care.
- If you are more generous with yourself, you aren't giving the rest of us enough credit. We all contain multitudes.
I often looked around and all I've seen was men who don't need more softness but more discipline. And women past their prime who are still childless but looking to find "a meaning of life" while continuing to delude themselves that the natural purpose of breasts and vagina was sexual pleasure.
On the contrary, I found the greatest relief in training Brazilian jiu-jitsu and joining a muay thai camp for a month.
It wasn't far from a popular hippie site. But I looked around and I saw a big difference. A lot of these people on 'retreats' aren't seeking change, they are seeking a pleasurable and an EASY kind of change.
You have people there that cry a little take some drugs hug each other, some hoping to get laid and basically chill on a "retreat" thinking they're doing 'hard spiritual work.
On the contrary, I saw people in the camp that trained for 4-5 hours and woke up early morning, conquered the pain and comfort, got out of the bed and went on to train on their bruised feet. Every day.
And when you're down, your muscles are out of your oxygen and you suffocate wrestling but still have time to go you start to converse with a voice on your head that wants you to give up and you'll question a lot of things and learn a lot about who you really are but you will have to find energy where you think there's none.
This rewires your brain not whining in the woods.
No you don't need drugs and it doesn't take strength to cry in a group where everyone cries.
The reason why all the westernized forms of buddhism and all sorts modified of Eastern practices and drugs like ayahuasca gain popularity is because people look for easy "fast-food" change.
Ironically people despair in comfort but look for comfortable way to get out of it.
Everyone who tried ayahuasca or crying in woods, or some other form of 'retreat' knows the change lasts about a week.
Worse, some people get addicted to seeking this relief and continue falling back to depression actively, just so they can get back and get some hugs. I know it's over-simplified but a lot of them will get addicted to the community and other paying attention to them even though it's artificial they get more of it than in their real lives.
In better case, you'll become a bozo kind of like Jim Carrey and crash parties just to tell everyone how deluded they are and how enlightened you are ... because duh fools, can't you see what I see "we're all one."
Finally, after a decade of searching I found that classical philosophy and in fact christian philosophy, as ridiculed as it is in media and the western society, the true deep philosophy, not the shallow popularized image, it offers all of the hard work and depth none of these 'retreats' will ever provide.
Someone has to stand guard, typically men. Part of staring into the void is wearing emotional armor. On occasion you should take a break, go towards the middle of the bubble, be safe and warm, take a bath, eat, drop your armor, etc.
But that doesn't mean you were wrong to have worn armor at the wall. Nor does it mean the bubble is reality.
Reality is harsh, and everyone is trying to forget that. I commend those who refuse to.
Most of our reality is composed of humans doing things, and if you dig deep enough into why humans are doing various bad things, you'll find a lot of confused, closed up people chasing odd status markers because they need it to survive against other parties chasing odd status markers. It's an error that endlessly feeds itself, and the only escape is to cancel it somewhere - do something else.
The point is kind of moot when the people you are supposedly protecting against are of your own kind.
6 weeks ago Epstein was suicided because his trial might have led to even a few of the super rich 1% from getting reprimanded for raping child sex slaves. Not only is there nothing any of us can really do about it, the world forgot in less than week.
Bad is winning. No path to utopia takes the "let them rich rape children" fork in the road.
2. Emotional armor:
The above example is a single drop in the ocean. Empathizing with the raped children hurts. Feeling your powerlessness to do anything about it hurts. Now start adding the 1000 other awful things that have being done to people. You already have, and you already have shut down. Nobody can feel that much pain. But having armor is more about letting yourself take as many hits as possible before shutting down than hiding. The more cold your empathy, the more you can stare into the void.
3. Better coping mechanisms
Dumping this shit into the safe space would defeat the point. It would just make the world even worse. I put what I can into trying to recruit. We could really use more strong people, if you're interested. Most of it though, I let it hurt me, then I use this awesome feature of being a human where I forget about things. In the moment it sucks, but over time I look back and see a beautiful existence.
Valor is a quality not easily acquired, and I wish to.
I disagree that they're reality.
There's reality, consensus reality, and the outcomes of our collective actions. Including the second two in the first one implies it's unalterable, implies they're not fundamentally artificial.
As much as I detest things like the Men's Rights movement and MGTOW and other such groups, they've sprung up largely to fill the void left by the various (and rightful) excisions made into masculinity by progressive politics. We've learned how much of what was traditionally defined as masculine was not only sexist, but also just straight up harmful, both to men and everyone else. The problem is we set about destroying these elements of masculinity without then replacing them with something else, and nature abhors a vacuum. So now we have large sects of male demographics leaning into the toxicity, because having a bad identity is better than having no identity.
If I have one serious complaint with progressives, it's that the majority seem to regard men as privileged so far beyond everyone else that they have no legitimate complaints, and it's bullshit. And not only is it bullshit, it's ultimately self-defeating. With each lonely young man who is ignored and cast out of any kind of progressive minded group, the alt-right and MRA activists gain another pawn, easily radicalized against those who hate him when he himself has done nothing wrong.
So no, I don't think reality is that harsh. I think humans are harsh.
This is not a story of how utopias are made. Write that story in your head, then compare and contrast. Maybe read up on 20th century torture.
I lived the good life for a while, then I got pushed to the fringe, and now I'm somewhere in between. The worst I saw was nothing compared to the worst there has been, but it was bad enough to make one thing very, very clear: happiness stands on the back of suffering.
You may think that your question is innocent, that your optimism is an answer. In reality, you're just spitting in the face of less fortunate people. Imagine looking an abused child in the eyes and saying "is reality that harsh?" Or saying that to homeless people. Maybe go find a couple HK protesters who have vanished, I'm sure they're having a great time.
Good worlds don't let this shit happen. It's not a few people slipping through the cracks, it's a fucking dystopia.
I do thoroughly enjoy reading when people constructively disassemble an upvoted article with well reasoned logic and solid prose.
On the other side, male sexuality selects based on looks more than anything.
Feminism calls the latter shallow and toxic, but truthfully both should have that label. Neither is serving society or evolution well anymore. But what can we do? Sexual attraction is an innate, unchanging aspect of what it means to be man and woman. It isn't going to be removed from our genes anytime soon.
Not entirely. Not every woman is attracted to the strong silent type, and not every culture has always favored that form of masculinity. Historically, the amount of emotion and intellect a man was permitted to display has depended more on social status and class than genetics. "Gentlemen" and "men of breeding" used to write poetry and sonnets and kiss one another on the mouth and women would still swoon over them. Letters written by soldiers to their wives during wartime often display a great deal of tender emotion and passion.
Also, not every man is primarily attracted to looks. While it probably is true that men are more focused on that than women, it's certainly the case for women as well, and often for men it's a sign of immaturity, but men do mature.
What can we do? First, accept that we're not mere automatons running sexual algorithms - sexuality is far more subtle and variant than the stereotype of "men like strippers, women like cowboys." I don't know at what point some men seem to have decided that "masculinity" is entirely biological and immutable and that they are doomed to be slaves to their primate urges, but it simply isn't true. Almost everything about the human condition is fluid, and masculinity like femininity and gender is at least in part a social construct and internalized complex, both of which can be changed.
I have found they are attracted to the idea of that, until they get it. Understand there are consequences and approach objectively.
The same idea of a lot men liking the chase more than actually being with a woman.
Let them chase an idea of a man sharing feelings, let them chase the idea they can change a man into sharing. But be aware there are often consequences that don't involve them being interested in you any longer if you actually share.
No its # not all women, no its not collaborative or mature. But I guarantee you can keep the sexual companionship of many more women for longer if you shut up and dangle an emotional string just out of paws reach. If you’re looking for a more mature life partner? Keep looking! But if you like consistent sex with people that think they’ll change you into a life partner that they wont be attracted to, be aware of what is happening and understand a lot of the relationship power imbalance in your favor comes from this and continuing it. A lot of women don't consciously know they do this, just one day after you open up or do something less masculine, they don't see you the same again.
Enjoy a satire on this concept that many might find relatable but never had spelled out for them:
https://local.theonion.com/girlfriend-changes-man-into-someo...
No, no. Women love it when men share their feelings. But they've gotta be the right feelings. A man should be brave and confident and supportive and strong and happy and secure. Maybe he worries about things a little, sometimes, but then he's OK again and he always has a plan.
He's unafraid to open up and be vulnerable, of course, but what he's being vulnerable to is never anything that would be a burden on anyone else or reduce his usefulness to the woman.
there must be something about pop evolutionary psychology that appeals to your typical hacker news poster, because i've seen this comment in various forms in several places now. maybe it's hubris or something.
Citation needed.
And being afraid to express one's emotions is anything but security.
This is obviously false. Just as our preferences for food have changed over time and according to culture (yet we all must eat), attitudes towards what is and isn't considered attractive have also changed. While it may be true for any given individual one cannot change the attractions they feel (or maybe it isn't true, I don't know), you ruined whatever point you were making when you mentioned genes, as if genetics dictate that (1) women (as in, all women, after all, you said it's "unchanging" and "in our genes") prefer men who don't express their emotions (2) the primary consideration for men is looks.
That has absolutely not been my experience.
If only there were a way of approaching these problems in a clever and playful manner.
You can almost imagine a forum full of such problem solvers helping each other work around the seeming limitations of our physical hardware.
Almost.
Sources?
In terms of leadership, who do people follow? The guy who's got good ideas but is not quite sure of himself, or the guy who tells you it's going to be insanely great?
Look at the character assassination of Stallman last week. He shared his feelings with some women, and look at what happened to him. If he had not communicated his desire to date some of these women, and not communicated his feelings about the confusing ethics (in his mind) surrounding sexual norms, he'd still be the leader of the FSF.
Instead, he (stupidly) did share how he was feeling about something, and did it publically, and look at what happened to him.
I'm sure every single man posting on this website has an example of a time when they shared how they were feeling, or were vulnerable, to some women, and had it blow up in their face. I have.
These articles, written by women, telling men to be more self destructive are ridiculous, and certainly feel like they have an agenda.
I don't think he shared any feelings - he expressed his views. Very orthogonal to sharing feelings.
Is it crappy that you can't express your views without showing empathy and then be judged for it? Definitely. But this is nothing new, and not unique to our age. Wishing for things to be different is wishing for humans to be otherwise.
Is it crappy that in an academic setting one cannot discuss things objectively without invoking feelings and get burnt because of it? Yes. But this wasn't that situation. One side was very clearly not having an academic conversation, but a very emotionally loaded one (protesting). It was Stallman's mistake in treating that situation like any other academic one.
Demonstrating empathy[1] is a key aspect of a relationship. Validating someone's feelings (without agreeing with their narrative) is central to demonstrating empathy. Unfortunately, the common mistake people make is assuming that validating one's feelings means you agree with the story in their heads - it doesn't.
I would often be upset with the way the world was. My having a discussion about X doesn't mean I agree with X or advocate for it. Yet people may view me as a horrible person for it. I'm just trying to have an academic discussion, and exploring ideas, damn it! Isn't that what fiction does? Etc.
But once I learned the dynamics behind all this, I couldn't help and look back at my earlier life and realize I did not behave all that different. Indeed it was easy to find examples where I listened more to one side because of their behavior (showed empathy, discussed instead of debated, etc). It wasn't that I didn't weigh different perspectives objectively - it was that I didn't listen as much to one side as the other. And I've realized I haven't met anyone who is perfect at dispassionately looking at all sides regardless of who is advocating for them. Understanding the factors that go into play will make you better at being able to listen to all sides so you can evaluate them objectively.
Showing empathy with the person whose view you find offensive/wrong is going to make it easier for you to understand their perspective and not let your own emotions get in the way. It will help the other person not be defensive, sarcastic, etc. These are things that bring about strong emotions and eliminating them from the other will help them explain their perspective better.
So yes, it does suck - but it's the same type of suckiness as the existence of bacterial diseases or the fact that I'll starve if I don't eat. Dwelling on it is futile.
[0] Note I said demonstrating empathy, not feeling or having empathy. I don't doubt Stallman has empathy for the trafficked person. Sadly, it's not what you know but what you can show.
Yes, but you're not allowed to talk about it, lest you be branded some sort of MRA or incel terrorist. Best bet is to keep your head down and ignore reality. "Lived experience" is only a valid data point for them, not us. For us, citation is needed. And sociology departments won't bother investigating.
Put another way: The well-known and obvious phenomenon of women losing respect for a man who shows weakness is Broscience - true, accurate, correct, corroborated thoroughly through tens of thousands of stories and lived experience, but because there's no PubMed listing, your arguments are useless.
I'm completely out of the loop. Do you have any sources?
Edit: Nevermind, found it [1]
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/richard-stallman-and-the-fall-of...
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Almost everyone in society would castigate me if I actually went ahead and did that, some going so far as to call me a pedophile but definitely labeling me a creep going after children.
Don't confuse the laws with what people think.
The point (in this discussion about talking about feelings with friends and supportive others) is not to discuss sex with underage people. The point is that you can hash things out with your friends and get some perspective on how widely you feel you need to share. Somehow I have friends with whom I can discuss my thoughts on who should have sex with whom, and thus I do not need to bring it to a public stage or a professional stage. This saves me a lot of trouble.
It gets the UK entry pretty seriously wrong. The age of consent is 16, unless one of the people is in a position of authority over the other (where authority is defined in law and covers things like teachers) when it's 18; prostitution is legal in England but definitely not if the person is under 18.
> Any person who engages in sexual intercourse with a person under the age 16 could be prosecuted. However this therefore means that even sexual intercourse between willing people of a similar age (i.e. A 16 year old and a 15 year old) could result in the older person being liable for prosecution for committing a sexual offence. Because of this, when the Sexual Offences Act 2003 was created, separate sections of the act were put in place to be used on how to appropriately prosecute a person who had sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16, depending on exactly how young a person under the age of 16 was at time the sexual intercourse took place. This therefore maintained a "two-tier" cut off age system regarding sexual intercourse when it involved a person under the age of 16. Currently this depends on whether a younger person was Under 16 or Under 13 at the time of the sexual intercourse taking place, with the latter being automatically overall illegal, and the former still being illegal, but with defences due to the younger person's older age, more flexibility in sentencing and flexibility overall whether to prosecute or not based on individual case
This is incorrect.
The different ages exist in law because too many abusing men were claiming that they honestly thought that the 12 year old they had abused was a willing 16 year old.
The law removes this dishonest defence by adding this 13 year limit. We want the law to adequately capture the seriousness of the offence of rape of a child.
The reason we don't prosecute 15 year olds who have sex with each other has nothing to do with this two-step age limit: it is because our crown prosecution service has to ask two questions: "Is there a reasonable prospect of a conviction?" and "is it in the public interest to prosecute?". It's not in the public interest to prosecute children for having sex with each other so long as there's no element of coercion or force.
The CPS guidance to prosecuting sexual offences is here: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/rape-and-sexual-offenc...
> The overriding public concern is to protect children. It was not Parliament's intention to punish children unnecessarily or for the criminal law to intervene where it is wholly inappropriate. During the passage of the bill, Lord Falconer said:
> "Our overriding concern is to protect children, not to punish them unnecessarily. Where sexual relationships between minors are not abusive, prosecuting either or both children is highly unlikely to be in the public interest. Nor would it be in the best interests of the child ..."
The guidance on youth offenders contains more detailed descriptions: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/youth-offenders