{"id":19665,"date":"2015-03-12T11:14:42","date_gmt":"2015-03-12T18:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=19665"},"modified":"2015-03-13T14:19:01","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:19:01","slug":"my-reading-at-the-2015-international-conference-on-masculinities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=19665","title":{"rendered":"My Reading at the 2015 International Conference on Masculinities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"My reading at the International Conference on Masculinities, NYC, March 7, 2015\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nw8dXUJ1jOc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>ETA: There were some problems with the original version of the video. This one should be better. As well, the text of the poems, which\u00a0contain explicit descriptions of sex and sexual violence, appear below the fold.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On March 5th of this year, I was privileged to perform some of\u00a0my work, along with a group of other men\u2014including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.voicesofmen.org\" target=\"_blank\">Ben Atherton-Zeman<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bill-bowers.com\" target=\"_blank\">Bill Bowers<\/a>, Geof Morgan, and David Linton\u2014as part of the first <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stonybrook.edu\/commcms\/csmm\/conference\/General%20Conf%20Information.html\" target=\"_blank\">International Conference on Men and Masculinities<\/a>. (If you&#8217;re interested in the kinds of panels that were presented,\u00a0you can download the full program <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stonybrook.edu\/commcms\/csmm\/pdf\/ICMprogram2015.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.) Sponsored by Stony Brook&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stonybrook.edu\/commcms\/csmm\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities<\/a>,\u00a0which is directed by <a href=\"http:\/\/creativepromotionsagency.com\/mk\/\" target=\"_blank\">Michael Kimmel<\/a>, the conference&#8217;s tag line was &#8220;Engaging Men and Boys for Gender Equality.&#8221;\u00a0It was an energizing experience. The overall goal of the conference was to create a space where activists and researchers could come together and discuss\u00a0their needs, concerns, goals, ideas for collaboration, and more. I\u00a0am very glad, though, that the organizers also made room for the arts throughout the\u00a0conference\u2014not just at the session where I read, but at the conference banquet, at the opening plenary and more. I hope they will make some of that\u00a0video, if there is any, available publicly, because it is worth\u00a0seeing. Meanwhile, thank you for allowing me to share my small part in the conference\u00a0with you.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>The Silence Of Men<\/h3>\n<p>A man I\u2019ve never dreamed before walks<br \/>\ninto my apartment and sits in the green<br \/>\nchair where I do my writing. He carries<br \/>\nin his left hand a large erect penis<br \/>\nwhich he places silently on the floor.<br \/>\nThe phallus begins to waltz to music<br \/>\nI cannot hear, its scrotum a skirt;<br \/>\nits testicles, legs cut off at the knees.<\/p>\n<p>I want to know why this disfigured<br \/>\nmanhood has been brought to me. I look up,<br \/>\nbut my guest is gone. His organ, deflating<br \/>\nin short spasms like an old man coughing,<br \/>\nspreads itself in a pool of shallow blood.<br \/>\nThe silence between us is the silence of men.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/richardjnewman.com\/my-books\/the-silence-of-men\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The\u00a0Silence of Men<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>****<\/p>\n<h3>Working The Dotted Line<\/h3>\n<p>I don\u2019t remember what vacation<br \/>\nI was home for, or how Beth<br \/>\nmanaged to be in New York<br \/>\non the one day we\u2019d have<br \/>\nthe apartment to ourselves,<br \/>\nbut I think I recall<br \/>\nmy mother\u2019s hanging crystals<br \/>\nscattering the afternoon sunlight<br \/>\nin small rainbows that shimmied<br \/>\non the walls and on our skin,<br \/>\nand I can still see Beth stretching<br \/>\nnervous along the length<br \/>\nof the daybed\u2019s mattress,<br \/>\nand my fingers tracing<br \/>\nthe ridges of her ribs<br \/>\nas she tugged at my erection.<br \/>\n<em>I\u2019m ready.<\/em> <em>Let\u2019s do it!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It was her first time, not mine,<br \/>\nbut it was my first condom,<br \/>\nand I\u2019d forgotten to read the directions,<br \/>\nso I stood there growing soft,<br \/>\nsquinting at the print on the box<br \/>\ntelling me the step-by-step<br \/>\nI needed to learn<br \/>\nwas on the inside.<br \/>\nI ripped the cardboard open<br \/>\nand sat reading on the bed\u2019s edge,<br \/>\nthumbing the foil-packed<br \/>\nlubricated circle,<br \/>\ntrying to visualize<br \/>\nwhat I had to do.<\/p>\n<p>Beth reached into my lap<br \/>\nto ready me again,<br \/>\nbut when I tore along the dotted line,<br \/>\nour protection, like a goldfish<br \/>\ntaken by hand from its bowl,<br \/>\nslipped from my grasp<br \/>\nand landed under the desk<br \/>\nmy mother sat at<br \/>\nwhen she paid the bills.<br \/>\nWhen I picked it up,<br \/>\nit was covered with the dust<br \/>\nand small particles of dirt<br \/>\nthat settle daily into all our lives,<br \/>\nso I didn\u2019t put the next one on<br \/>\ntill I was kneeling hard<br \/>\nbetween Beth\u2019s open legs.<br \/>\nShe raised herself on her elbows,<br \/>\nsmiling that the second skin<br \/>\nwe needed to keep us safe<br \/>\nshould make me so clumsy,<br \/>\nbut once I let go<br \/>\nof what the instructions called<br \/>\nthe <em>reservoir tip<\/em>\u2014I thought<br \/>\nof the dams holding water back<br \/>\nin the mountains near where she lived<br \/>\nand what would happen if they broke\u2014<br \/>\nher smile disappeared<br \/>\nand bunching the sheet beneath her<br \/>\ninto her fists, she lifted<br \/>\nher butt onto the pillow<br \/>\nwe\u2019d heard would make things easier.<\/p>\n<p>I bent for a quick look<br \/>\nat where I had to go<br \/>\nand climbed up onto her,<br \/>\ntrying with one hand<br \/>\nto be graceful and accurate<br \/>\nand with the other<br \/>\nto balance over her<br \/>\nwithout falling.<br \/>\nAt her first grimace<br \/>\nI pulled back. <em>No!<br \/>\n<\/em>She shook her head, eyes<br \/>\nclamped shut and then<br \/>\nstaring wide, her voice<br \/>\na whisper through clenched teeth,<br \/>\n<em>Just do it! Get it over with!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>So I entered her again, trying<br \/>\nfrom the tightness in her face<br \/>\nto gauge how hard not to push,<br \/>\nbut when she cried out anyway,<br \/>\nI left her body one more time<br \/>\nand crouched over her,<br \/>\nmy latex-covered penis<br \/>\nnosing downward<br \/>\ntowards her navel,<br \/>\nand I placed my palms<br \/>\nagainst her cheeks,<br \/>\n<em>I cannot hurt you like this!<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Look, it\u2019s going to hurt,<\/em> she said.<br \/>\n<em>There\u2019s no other way.<br \/>\nAnd I\u2019ve chosen you!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And since I wanted so much to be her choice,<br \/>\nI kissed her eyelids and her mouth,<br \/>\nand with my eyes buried<br \/>\nin the hollow of her neck<br \/>\nmoved slowly in<br \/>\ntill I felt her flesh<br \/>\nstop giving way. Then,<br \/>\nwith one arm around her rib cage<br \/>\nand the other around her head,<br \/>\nholding her tight against my chest,<br \/>\nI pulled down and thrust up<br \/>\nin a single motion I breathed through<br \/>\nlike I was lifting heavy boxes.<br \/>\nShe screamed into the muscle<br \/>\njust above my collar bone,<br \/>\nbit deep into my flesh,<br \/>\nand, as she bled onto me,<br \/>\nI bled.<\/p>\n<p>We said nothing afterwards.<br \/>\nWe didn\u2019t cuddle<br \/>\nor smile at each other as we dressed<br \/>\nor walk hand in hand<br \/>\nto the train that took her home;<br \/>\nand I did not ask her<br \/>\nwhat her silence meant,<br \/>\nnor she mine, but if she had,<br \/>\nI would\u2019ve told her this:<br \/>\nMy wordlessness was shame.<br \/>\nI\u2019d no idea how not to hurt her;<br \/>\nand I would\u2019ve told her<br \/>\nI wanted it to do over,<\/p>\n<p>which is what I\u2019d tell her even now.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/richardjnewman.com\/my-books\/the-silence-of-men\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The\u00a0Silence of Men<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>****<\/p>\n<h3>These Words Are for Him<\/h3>\n<p><i>\u2014For my son, a kind of prayer<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Just before his mother pushed him through herself<br \/>\nhard enough to split who she was<br \/>\nwide enough for him to enter the world,<br \/>\nI touched the top of my son\u2019s head;<br \/>\nand after he was born, the midwife\u2014<br \/>\nVivian, I think it was\u2014<br \/>\nheld my wife\u2019s umbilical cord<br \/>\nin a loop for me to cut, which I did,<br \/>\nfreeing our new child\u2019s body<br \/>\nto enter the name we had waiting for him.<br \/>\nThen Vivian laid him<br \/>\nagainst the curve of his mother\u2019s belly,<br \/>\nlifted him to the breast<br \/>\nand into maternal embrace<br \/>\nhe would for years define his world by,<br \/>\nand once that first taste of love<br \/>\nwas firmly lodged within him,<br \/>\nshe bundled him tight,<br \/>\nplaced him in my arms<br \/>\nand, while I sang his welcome<br \/>\nin a far corner of the room,<br \/>\nturned to assist the doctor<br \/>\nsewing up my wife\u2019s birth-torn flesh.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t remember what song I chose,<br \/>\nand it\u2019s been a decade at least<br \/>\nsince I\u2019ve told anyone<br \/>\nabout my son\u2019s first moments<br \/>\nas my son, but they\u2019ve come to me here,<br \/>\nin this urologist\u2019s waiting room,<br \/>\nbecause I picked up from the coffee table<br \/>\nthis copy of <i>The Nation<\/i><br \/>\nanother patient must have left behind.<br \/>\nThe first article I opened to,<br \/>\n\u201cSilence=Rape,\u201d by Jan Goodwin,<br \/>\nintroduced me to Shashir,<br \/>\nsix years old and gang raped<br \/>\nin the Congo. When they found her,<br \/>\nshe was starving; and when they found her,<br \/>\nshe could neither walk nor talk;<br \/>\nand so they stitched together<br \/>\nthe parts of her the men had ruptured,<br \/>\nfed her, gave her clothing,<br \/>\nand that night she slept<br \/>\nfor the first time since no one knew when<br \/>\nin a bed that was not<br \/>\nthe bush the militia had left her to die in;<br \/>\nand maybe the tent walls<br \/>\nshaping the room she lived in<br \/>\nwhen Goodwin learned she existed<br \/>\nhad come to mean for her a kind of safety;<br \/>\nand maybe that safety was fertile ground,<br \/>\nwhere words for what those men had done to her,<br \/>\ndropped like seeds from the mouths of those who rescued her,<br \/>\ncould one day take root in her.<\/p>\n<p>I have not been gang raped,<br \/>\nbut a man much older than I was<br \/>\nwhen I was twelve<br \/>\nforced his penis into my mouth,<br \/>\nseared the back of my throat<br \/>\nwith what he poured out of himself<br \/>\nand sealed into silence<br \/>\neverything that took me<br \/>\nfifteen years of pushing<br \/>\ntill who I was split wide enough<br \/>\nthat who I am<br \/>\ncould speak his first true words.<\/p>\n<p>\/\/\/<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMr. Newman?\u201d The nurse,<br \/>\nwhite, blond, about my age,<br \/>\ncalls my name, one of the few<br \/>\nshe hasn\u2019t butchered, sitting as I am<br \/>\namong the men of Jackson Heights,<br \/>\nwhere names that would twist the tongue<br \/>\nof any English speaker are common,<br \/>\nbut I\u2019m not yet ready to stop reading.<br \/>\nMaria was seventy when the Interahamwe<br \/>\ntied her legs apart like a goat before slaughter;<br \/>\nand the women Goodwin leaves nameless,<br \/>\ntheir labia pierced and padlocked<br \/>\nwhen their rapists finished\u2014<br \/>\nmost of them dead or dying from infection<br \/>\nat the time of Goodwin\u2019s writing\u2014<br \/>\nthe story belongs to them as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMr. Newman?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I put the magazine down,<br \/>\nbear those women with me<br \/>\nas I rise towards the door I need to walk through<br \/>\nso I can place in this doctor\u2019s hand<br \/>\nthe left testicle I found a bump on three days ago.<br \/>\nA few of my fellow patients glance up as I pass.<br \/>\nOne of them, smiling, nods his head as if to say,<br \/>\n\u201cDon\u2019t worry. It\u2019ll all work out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I smile back, grateful for his small empathy,<br \/>\nnotice as I do that the flag pin on his lapel<br \/>\nand the name of the newspaper folded in his lap<br \/>\nplace his origin in, or at least his allegiance to,<br \/>\na country now making headlines for stories like Shashir\u2019s;<br \/>\nand I know this doesn\u2019t happen only over there,<br \/>\nand I know it isn&#8217;t only men<br \/>\nwith skin darker than mine<br \/>\nwho turn into a weapon<br \/>\nthis body we share,<br \/>\nand I know no man in this room<br \/>\nhas done enough, could <i>ever<\/i> do enough<br \/>\nto end that. So maybe<br \/>\nthis is where we&#8217;re supposed to be,<br \/>\na kind of purgatory<br \/>\npregnant with poetic justice,<br \/>\nwhere our penises are just penises,<br \/>\nand our testicles are glands, nothing more.<\/p>\n<p>\/\/\/<\/p>\n<p>The door shuts behind me.<br \/>\nThe nurse grins, \u201cThis way, please,\u201d<br \/>\nleading me in silence<br \/>\nto the room where I will wait.<br \/>\nA four-color poster of my reproductive system<br \/>\ndominates the wall. Its penis, I notice,<br \/>\nunlike mine, includes the foreskin.<br \/>\nThe plastic model sitting on the cabinet<br \/>\ndoes not. I try to remember<br \/>\nto ask the doctor about this,<br \/>\nbut when he arrives<br \/>\nmy only thought<br \/>\nresembles a prayer.<\/p>\n<p>He snaps on latex gloves;<br \/>\nI let my pants fall to my ankles,<br \/>\nmy underwear to just below my knees,<br \/>\nand I watch him handle<br \/>\nwhat in my wife\u2019s language<br \/>\nare called my <i>tokhm<\/i>, my eggs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s probably nothing,\u201d he nods sagely,<br \/>\nstepping back, peeling the rubber off his hands.<br \/>\nI pull my clothing up, tuck in my shirt.<br \/>\n\u201cStill,\u201d he continues\u2014I\u2019m fumbling with my zipper\u2014<br \/>\n\u201clet\u2019s check it again six months from now.\u201d<br \/>\nHe offers his hand for me to shake,<br \/>\nthen moves on to the next man in the next room.<br \/>\nI head back out the way I came,<br \/>\nwhere my friend smiles and nods again,<br \/>\nlifting his hand in a farewell<br \/>\nI answer with my own nod and smile,<br \/>\nthe reprieve I\u2019ve just gotten<br \/>\npredisposing me<br \/>\nnot to assume the worst of anyone.<\/p>\n<p>Outside, the wind rips the hood away from my head;<br \/>\nsnow-gusts slap back and forth across my cheeks;<br \/>\nand I am reminded how quickly<br \/>\nbeauty turns cold, how easily<br \/>\ndeath wears friendship\u2019s face.<br \/>\nI want to know how a man who loves his children<br \/>\ndoes not see their faces in the eyes of the girl<br \/>\nwhose vagina he is opening with a bottle or a bayonet;<br \/>\nI want to know why a woman\u2019s screams<br \/>\nbeneath the fourth or fifth or eleventh man in line<br \/>\ndoes not recall for even one of them<br \/>\nthe voice of a woman who loves him,<br \/>\nof a woman he has loved.<\/p>\n<p>My son will never know Shashir,<br \/>\nbut he will know men who could\u2019ve been,<br \/>\nwho\u2019d gladly be, among the ones who violated her;<br \/>\nand he\u2019ll know women,<br \/>\nand other men like me,<br \/>\nwho carry violation within them.<br \/>\nA time will come,<br \/>\nbecause it comes to all of us,<br \/>\nwhen he\u2019ll be forced to choose<br \/>\nwhere his allegiance lies.<\/p>\n<p>These words are for him<br \/>\non the day of that decision.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.richardjnewman.com\" target=\"_blank\">Cross-posted<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ETA: There were some problems with the original version of the video. This one should be better. As well, the text of the poems, which\u00a0contain explicit descriptions of sex and sexual violence, appear below the fold. On March 5th of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=19665\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,55,96,134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism-sexism-etc","category-men-and-masculinity","category-rape-intimate-violence-related-issues","category-sex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19665"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19678,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19665\/revisions\/19678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}