by Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

A sermon given October 27, 2002

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

OPENING WORDS

Good morning!

May we be reminded here of our highest aspirations.

May we know once again that we are not isolated beings,

But connected, in mystery and in miracle.

To the universe,

To this community, and

To one another.

Last week I began my sermon on "What Do Women Want?" with a disclaimer about how really impossible it is to speak on such a subject, given how many different kinds of women are out there before me in this congregation. And now this Sunday I’m speaking on something that even more impossible—if there are degrees of impossibility—and that subject is "What Do Men Want?" Here I stand in this female body, being so presumptuous. I have been helped, however, immeasurably by you men, some of whom met with me in a focus group, and others who have sent me e-mails. The e-mails I received were amazing—honest, often clever, moving and heart-felt. I am so gratified to have men like you all in this congregation—men who are searching, who have the courage to speak of their blunders and their needs, and men who love women and men who love other men. I am thankful for your presence here today and your presence in this church as we all, women and men, strive to become whole human beings.

I’d like to begin by owning my own beliefs about the differences in men and women. We are very different critters. Though I am a feminist, I have never subscribed to the notion of many feminists that differences between men and women are based merely on acculturation. I believe that men and women start off different, as soon as one life starts off with the XX and the other the XY chromosome. We are different physiologically, in terms of musculature, in terms of how our brains operate (something research has shown only recently), and in terms of our hormones. We’re not quite sure how hormones operate, and various studies have conflicting claims, but the kind of energy present in the male body is decidedly different from that in the female body. The fact that male genitalia are outside the body and female organs are inside makes a vast difference in how we relate sexually and I believe relationally.

And then there are the environmental influences, the acculturation. In this particular culture, we support and elaborate upon the biological differences. All races and tribes do not produce the level of aggression that we find in American culture. Now note please that I’m not saying that you, John Doe, sitting in the pew, are aggressive. I’m saying that our culture encourages aggression in men—in sports, in business, and in battle. In this country, men are still asked to be warriors, warriors in the bedroom and in the boardroom—that is, they are pushed to compete rather than to co-operate, still needing to prove that they are men.

These differences often show up in frustrating ways when men and women attempt to enter intimate relationships. One of my favorite humorists, Dave Barry, gives women helpful hints in a piece entitled "Tips for Women: How to Have a Relationship with a Guy." The piece is chock-full of stereotypes, but in stereotypes is always some truth. Decide for yourself how much truth you find here.

Barry begins: "Let’s say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.

"And then, one evening when they’re driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: ‘Do you realize that, as of tonight, we’ve been seeing each other for exactly six months?’

"And then there is silence in the car. To Elaine, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: Geez I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he thinks I’m trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn’t want . . .

"And Roger is thinking: Gosh. Six months.

"And Elaine is thinking: But, hey, I’m not so sure I want this kind of relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space . . . I mean, where are we going? . . . Are we headed toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really know this person?

"And Roger is thinking: . . . so that means it was . . . let’s see . . . February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer’s, which means . . . lemme check the odometer . . . Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.

"And Elaine is thinking: He’s upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I’m reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed—even before I sensed it—that I was feeling some reservations. That’s why he’s so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings: He’s afraid of being rejected.

"And Roger is thinking: And I’m gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don’t care what those morons say, it’s still not shifting right . . . this thing is shifting like a <damn> garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieving cretins six hundred dollars.

And Elaine is thinking: He’s angry. And I don’t blame him. I’d be angry, too, but I can’t help the way I feel. I’m just not sure.

And Roger is thinking: They’ll probably say it’s only a ninety-day warranty. That’s exactly what they’re gonna say, the scumballs.

"’Roger,’ Elaine says aloud.

"’What?’ says Roger, startled.

"’Please don’t torture yourself like this,’ her eyes beginning to brim with tears. ‘maybe I should never have . . .’ (She breaks down, sobbing.)

"’What?’ says Roger.

"’You think I’m a fool, don’t you,’ Elaine says.

"’No!’ says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer.

"’It’s just that . . . It’s that I . . . I need some time.’ (There is a fifteen-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one he thinks might work.)

"’Yes," he says. (Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand. . . <She> turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes.)

"’Thank you, Roger,’ she says.

"’Thank you,’ says Roger.

"Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he has never heard of."

Sounds as if many of you have found some truth in this little story—I know I certainly did. Men thinking about things, women about feelings. Men externalizing, women internalizing. As Barry says, men and women seem to be not just on different planets, but in entirely different solar systems.

But many of us are changing, are fighting the stereotypes, are wanting to be more genuine ourselves and not subject to the gender roles we were taught as children, the ones too often reinforced by the culture. From what I can discern, the "new male," if I may call him that, often feels misunderstood and confused, especially in regard to how to relate to non-traditional females. Should I hold the door for her, or not? Does she expect me to pick up the check?

Men are changing, but there is not a single men’s movement—there are several, ranging from the Promise Keepers, who promise to be faithful and loving patriarchs to women if the women will just stay in their traditional roles, to Robert Bly’s mythopoetic movement, articulated in his book Iron John, where he focuses upon father loss and the need to escape from the dominance and control of the mother, thus releasing the "wild man" within. I have some trouble with Bly’s interpretation of the mother role, and the wild man pounding drums in the woods, but his emphasis on the boy’s need for strong male role models, strikes me as powerfully true.

Bly also speaks of the "new male" as sometimes becoming the "soft male." The feminist movement forced men to become conscious of women’s concerns, women’s suffering, and as men began to develop more of a feminine sensibility, they became more thoughtful, more gentle, but in the process, Bly says, they gave up some of their masculine energy. They lost their edge, their vitality. They became passive. Certainly such a state would be a loss to both male and female.

So I see men today often being confused about when to own their masculinity and how that masculinity should be expressed. Many of the e-mails that were sent to me voiced this kind of longing and questioning. Longing for understanding and patience from women as men work through their questions about what it means to be a man these days. I wish I had time to read from all of these letters I received from you men. I thought every one of them was interesting, and some were so beautiful that they brought tears to my eyes. So, a sampling:

"Men want the same thing women want: love, compassion, understanding, respect, romance, sex—in short, partners in life."

"I want my beloved to know that sometimes, contrary to popular mythology, I don’t feel like having sexual relations with her. It’s not her, it’s me. There’s something on my mind."

"My ideal companion is my intellectual and sexual equal. And while I value my masculinity and physical strength, it is not to be dominant or threatening but rather to offer comfort, security, or the simple ability to do physical work. As for abs, they are simply one measure of the inevitable physical decline."

"I want a woman who loves to touch and be touched—physically and otherwise. A woman so filled with her own essence that she dances through her days and nights. Of course, if I lived with such a woman, I’d probably run and hide."

"I have problems picking up the phone to call anyone, and when I do spend time with male friends it never seems to be for the sole purpose of sharing anything but a beer and a movie . . ."

"I lost my father to cancer two weeks after my daughter was born. My memories of him are very precious. Men want to remember everything their fathers taught them, good or bad. Practical or not. Fathers teach their sons by going about their daily routine—plumbing, whittling, setting up a tent, repairing something . . . It is the connection to my father that I fear losing."

"While pondering your ‘query’ (pun intended!), ‘What do men want?’ I came to realize that I have what I need. Someone who supports me in all that I do. Someone who holds me each night as I drift into slumber. In short, someone who stays through it all and loves me in spite of myself. It saddens me that I cannot walk hand in hand with the love of my life without some asshole screaming ‘faggots!’ I want to walk hand in hand in the park."

"I want what it is hardest for me to ask for—intimacy—which is also one of the hardest things for me to give, even to my wife."

"Aggression by men bursts out of a sense of inadequate worth and self criticism. What men want is to feel that someone is looking at who they really are and respecting that person. Once that substantial approval is experienced, that man begins to love himself without feeling he has to prove himself over and over."

"Alone now in the twilight of my life, I am reminded of the words of Gabriel Garcia Marquez: ‘I would show men how very wrong they are to think that they cease to love when they grow old, not knowing that they grow old when they cease to love.’"

"We want to know how you feel about us after we spill cranberry sauce on your white blouse during Thanksgiving dinner. Are you mad? Are we friends? Do you love me? We want understanding."

"Men want sex. As much as he tries to control or manage it, everything a man sees and thinks and does and says must first be filtered through the lens of sex."

"I want Sexual Freedom. I want to express my freedom to have sex, seek sex, and celebrate sex. I want Sexual Freedom for everyone. Good luck on Sunday. My suggestion will probably not make the cut."

"It is very difficult to express the essence of the ambiguous position of the African-American male in this society or in this church. I think the general (white) culture is immune and perhaps indifferent to the reality of the negative things that happen to black men and women on a daily basis. Police harassment, disrespect shown in stores or restaurants—so what. It’s easy to trivialize others’ pain. All my experience in this church has been great! I am very happy to be a UU and a member of this church."

"The most important thing I seek in life is safety. Being free from fear . . . Fear of being judged. Fear of being thought to be weak. Fear of not being a man. Competition is the most grave manifestation of male self-oppression. Not being coordinated enough to play soccer, baseball or football well, I felt so shamed that I would not quit. It was pure fear. Worse than being a bad catcher was being a bad catcher that quit. Male self-oppression goes further into our sexuality. Why are there so few role models for men that are neither violent, nor womanizing but are considered manly? I am tired of all of this. I am tired of the fact that I have only felt safe enough to let down my barriers in the arms of a woman."

(From an older man who is biracial.) "I’ve lived most of my life struggling with my personal identity. I want meaningful activity, and I’m finding I need a significant relationship with a woman. Even at my age, it’s very important. My partner and I have discovered a loving relationship in the best sense of the word and in ways that neither of us experienced previously. We both have said that we did not expect to have such a good physical relationship at our ages."

"In light of our nation rattling its collective swords, the subject of male warrior energy comes to mind for many of us, I’m sure."

(From a gay man.) "[When I was a young child, my father] would return like clockwork each evening around 6:00 p.m. . . . He would swoop me up off the floor, and I would hug his neck and kiss him on the cheek. Then he and I would go into the living room, and I would snuggle against him as he read the ‘funny papers’ to me. I remember the scent of his after shave, the roughness of his cheek after a day’s growth of beard, the strength of his body as he held me close. One evening when I was, oh three or four, I ran to meet him as usual, and jumped into his arms, and planted a kiss on his cheek. Then something happened which totally altered my world. My mother said, ‘You know, Honey, you’re getting too old to be kissing your father. Big boys don’t do that sort of thing.’ I remember feeling a wave of shame wash over me . . . Until the day he died, I never kissed my father again. I never hugged my father again . . . My father and I never regained the fragile foothold of a relationship we had during those first years. Never. Though he was physically present in the house, he was totally absent to me, a shadow who went to work and paid the bills. I spent the next 45 years of my life in search of ‘a man’ who would hold me, and let me hold him . . . make me feel safe, let me kiss his face, tell me he loved me."

I cannot match the eloquence of these letters, for they are written from the hearts of these men, who feel these sentiments deep within, who have lived into these conclusions. But let me just say in closing that I believe, yes, both genders must be free, else no one is free. In the 1970’s, newly aware of male oppression, I wore at T-shirt, briefly, that proclaimed, "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." Before too long I realized, "Wait a minute, I do need men." We all need one another.

It’s not easy to move beyond the messages that many of us grew up with, the stereotypes that limit and confine. But our spirits don’t want this deadening, these limitations. We want to be fully who we can be, and to be accepted for all that we are. As a woman in this church community, as a Unitarian Universalist woman, I have been allowed to lead. And you have allowed me to be a woman, in spite of the robes. This is a free church, where the freedom to be extends to both women and men, extends to those of various sexual persuasions, racial identities, political beliefs, and theologies. Are we perfect in supporting these freedoms? No, but we are trying and we are learning. That is all you can ask of human beings. Let us vow to go forward together, holding one another in this caring and safe community, as each of us moves to become what we were always meant to become. So be it. Amen.

PRAYER

God of life and God of love, we ask today that you would set us free—free from learned behaviors that would imprison our spirits and the spirits of others. We ask that you would help us to listen, the one to the other, that we might try to feel what it is like to walk in another’s shoes. Forgive us, we pray, when we fail to be our best selves, when we hold back for fear of rejection. May we be loved for who we are, and may we in turn love freely and boldly, that others may feel that power and themselves grow in their own power to love and to serve. Amen.

BENEDICTION

As you go from this place today, walk in freedom. May your spirit never be tied down by convention, and may you grow ever more fully into the person you were meant to be. Amen.

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Copyright 2002, Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell.  All rights reserved.