Be aware - ear buds easily leak sound.

If you’re like me and you take public transit, you’ll know how irritating it can be when someone nearby is listening to music at a high volume through headphones that leak sound (ear buds, especially). An example to illustrate: one time not long ago, I was riding a bus. A guy sat down beside me wearing old-style over-the-head headphones with speakers that sat outside his ears, BLARING what sounded like 80s metal. I asked him to please turn down the volume. Instead of turning it down, he got up, moved to a seat a couple of rows behind me and turned it up, an action equivalent to giving me the finger, I figured. (As you may guess, I did not take too kindly to that.)

Honestly, I like loud music as much as the next person (really, it’s true)  but I’m very aware of how the sound escaping from my ear buds can irritate people around me. Because I’m aware of this, I turn down the volume when I’m in closed public spaces so that I don’t annoy anyone who might be trying to concentrate on a book or a newspaper, or someone just chilling in the quiet.

If this means anything to you, and I hope it does, here is a trick that I devised to check how loud my headphones are to other people:

Keeping the volume at the same level it would be if you were outside, take the headphones out and hold the little speakers in your fists (don’t squeeze too tight – we’re only trying to emulate buds that sit in your ears). Hold your arms out away from you – this is what everyone around you can hear. How loud is it? What do you think of this idea?

Remember that the music you’re playing on your portable device is for you and only you, so please do us all a favour and turn down the volume while you’re in an enclosed public space, then when you’re back outside, turn it back up and keep on grooving – an easy action that makes the world a better place for us all – thank you!

Wouldn't it be weird if this man was actually an insurance professional?

A business contact that I have a lot of faith in sent me a link to a sales tip blog by a salesman who has been working in sales for decades and has influenced thousands of people with his sales tactics. I went to the blog site and there on the first page, before any text, before any sales tips, was a picture of the author – a man easily 56-years old but probably a lot younger, skin pale, hairstyle dated, wearing rectangular tinted eyeglasses and a plain white collared shirt. I saw a middle-aged science teacher from the 70s. I did not see a sales guru.

I kept his web page up to read for about a week with the intention of reading it but in the end, I just couldn’t do it. I just didn’t have faith in him.  The man had absolutely no presence.

You only get one chance at a first impression

Now, some of you will be chastising me for not giving this man a chance, but this is exactly the point. We only have one chance to make a first impression, and to me, I saw a disconnect between what this man does for a living and the way he projects himself; the two together just didn’t add up. This man did not look like a “sales guru” let alone a professional, so I decided that his advice was probably as dated as his haircut. In other words, I felt that his credibility was questionable because his messages were confused.

When I’m talking about politicians to the media, we often discuss what visual cues promote believability and trustworthiness. I tell them that when there is a disconnect between what a politician says, how he looks, and his body language, he affects people’s opinion of him. The same goes for any one else – when we send mixed messages, our integrity is compromised and we become suspect.

In your personal life and in business, a fragmented image isn’t going to be doing you any favours. Here are some more examples to help you understand how this works:

–> I know a fellow in the insurance industry who insists that he is warm and understanding. He could very well be warm and understanding, but the sight of a thin, pasty-skinned man with long wiry hair and large glasses makes him look rather like a mad scientist, not anyone particularly “warm”. I’m not sure how many people could get past this first vision of him and accept him as a “warm” person because he certainly doesn’t project that feeling. The disconnect between what I see and what I hear throws me into confusion and I doubt what he says.

–> If I had a meeting with a person I only knew from his picture on the web, and he looked about 35 with a full head of hair, and the man I met was actually 55 and balding, I would certainly be confused and I might decide to not trust him (if you’re using a 20-year old picture, this could be interpreted as a little something called “dishonesty”). People recognize and trust genuine and honest people, and if people perceive that you’re not being open and honest with them, you may have to kiss the business/kiss the girl/boy good-bye. This happens a lot with internet dating. It’s in your best interest to maintain an honest and up-to-date online web presence.

–> I volunteer for a cultural organization in Toronto and we are in the process of updating our website. The woman in command and I met with a fellow who raved about the websites he’s created and was sure that we would be convinced that he was our man for the job. When we met with him, he was dressed in dusty clothes and his skin was rough. This vision was immediately confusing to us because we expected to meet someone who looked like a web designer, not a drywaller. On top of this, the man did not prepare anything for our meeting – I came to the meeting with more ideas than he did. What’s wrong with this picture? He looks and behaves opposite to the way he came off during telephone and email contact, and guess what? He didn’t get the job.

–> About 10 years ago, I was buddies with Andy. Andy was a computer geek and had a lot of friends. I got to know one of his friends who helped me with some internet something-or-other and we exchanged some friendly emails. I thought he was a nice guy. A couple of weeks later, I had a party. Andy and his friend were supposed to come together, but Andy couldn’t make it in the end. I suggested that his friend come anyway.

Party night. Andy’s friend buzzes in from downstairs. I open the door to a tall, scruffy man wearing a ripped Ren & Stimpy t-shirt, and reeking of body odor. I sensed something menacing about him. I was so thrown off by what was in front of me that I questioned his identity to make sure that he was Andy’s friend. He was. Dang. Being a polite Canadian, I let him in but I wish I hadn’t. He unleashed himself upon my guests, overpowered them with his stink, bombarded them with his conspiracy theories, and creeped them out by his general demeanor. What an awful experience.

Sending, or not being aware of sending inauthentic messages, might cause you to lose out. I’m telling you this, men, because I don’t want you to make the same mistakes as the fellas in our examples. We’re looking for honour here, gentlemen, an awareness of who we are and the messages we send out to the world about who we are. Are you aware of the messages you’re sending? Are they true and balanced, or are they inconsistent and unclear? How do your messages affect your relationships?

During Christmas week, I attended a long, lovely Christmas choral concert with a friend. We left feeling uplifted and calm, and walked through the cool, humid night to the condo building where the party was happening.

The party room was large with pockets of people scattered everywhere. I really only knew the birthday boy and his husband, so my friend and I hung around the bar, vainly attempting to catch up to the rest of the party-goers who had a few hours of celebratory drinking on us already.

I found myself next to a very handsome man who I noticed earlier. He was on his own at the time but I had already seen him with his girlfriend and knew that he was not available. Hands off. No problem. We struck up a conversation and chatted for a while until his girlfriend, quite drunk, appeared out of nowhere.

In uncoordinated drunken aggression at the sight of her boyfriend talking to another woman, she lashed out – the palm of her hand connected with my cheek but she wasn’t able to deliver the stinging slap she intended, instead  pushing my face off to the left. I wasn’t hurt but  I was shocked, and so was her fella.

“What is this?!” she wailed.

The boyfriend and I, stunned, looked at each other in gaping confusion. Within seconds, I moved away from them, he hauled her out, and the party resumed. It was surreal.

Conflict management

I shared a radio interview with communications expert, Ric Phillips, of 3V Communications last year and I met with him this week. I always like talking to Ric because his background in social psychology and coaching gives him an interesting perspective.

During our visit, I told him about the intended bitch slap. We discussed what my options could have been, and Ric said that when conflict arises, there are really only four possible choices:

Jealousy

Psychology Today describes jealousy as

…encompassing feelings from fear of abandonment to rage to humiliation. It strikes both men and women when they perceive a third-party threat to a valued relationship… Conventional wisdom holds that jealousy is a necessary emotion because it preserves social bonds, but it more often destroys them. And it can give rise to relationship violence.

Ric says, “Jealousy is directly linked to a lack of self-confidence,” and of course, he’s correct. Confident people don’t fret over whether their mates are being faithful or not because they trust their partner and their partner trusts them. People in unstable relationships would not feel confident due to the instability of the partnership that co-exists with that person’s lacking self-esteem.

Jealousy is a one-sided, ego-based reaction that begins in self-doubt and can eat away at any of us and sabotage our relationships (if we’re the jealous type, that is – I do not believe that all people are). I feel that the woman in question reacted not to me personally, but to me as a threatening figure to her relationship, and she violently protested. If she were not the jealous type and presumably more comfortable with herself and her relationship, she might have come over, introduced herself, chatted with me a bit to get the sense of who I am, and looked clearly into my eyes to see that I wasn’t out to pick up her boyfriend at all, just making conversation with him. Unfortunately, she made a different choice.

Dramatic jealous scenes can wreak havoc. If you’re the type to get jealous, Askmen.com offers five points to counter jealousy and keep it in check before we do anything we’ll regret:

1. Learn from past experiences: look at how your behavior affected past relationships and use that to help you behave better.

2. Deal with reality: focus on what is really happening, not what you perceive to be happening… Don’t let your imagination dictate the kind of person [your partner] really is.

3. Respect yourself: realize that [he/]she chose you for a reason and there is no need for her to be so easily tempted elsewhere.

4. Get a third party’s opinion: ask a friend to take note of your behavior around your [boy/]girlfriend. It may help you to fully understand the extent of your actions (as well as [theirs]) by getting a neutral party’s perspective.

5.  Set some rules early on: try establishing some general guidelines as to what is and isn’t acceptable for you [and your mate].

Empathy

Of course the news of the slap went on Facebook the next day. A friend called me when she heard about it explained that she had a couple of really good-looking boyfriends in her life, and these relationships were difficult – not because of the men in question, but the women who reacted to them. She said that when they were out at bars, women would step in front of her to engage the boyfriend, and other women actually gave the boyfriend their phone numbers right in front of her. How terrible that must have been for my friend!

I don’t know who the woman was who assaulted me but seeing as though her boyfriend was so drop-dead handsome, she may have experienced other women behaving in less-than-respectful ways too, and when I think about the situation this way, I feel empathy toward her (and him –  I can’t help but wonder how this made her boyfriend feel and how the outburst affected their relationship).

“I try my best to empathize with the other person or people, and I give them permission to be a flawed human, just like me. Through empathy I connect with them and calmly work at resolving the issue, one way or another,” Ric says.

“Empathy is the key to communication. We must try to listen, read body language and see the issue from the other person’s perspective. We do not need to fight, or run away, or apologize, or get riled up with defensiveness. We instead should practice self-control and empathy first.”

Empathy is putting ourselves in another person’s shoes in an attempt to understand where they might be coming from and why they react to situations the way they do. She reacted to me the way she did for reasons only she could (or perhaps could not) understand – I don’t know who she is or what she’s been through and I don’t know what it’s like to date a gorgeous younger man, but it mustn’t be easy. In fact, it probably sucks, or she wouldn’t have tried to maim me. I imagine that a lot of energy is wasted fighting to maintain her status as the woman with the handsome beau, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

I think it would be great if this woman gets to the point of accepting and appreciating herself for who she is so she won’t have to get aggressive when she perceives that someone is out to get what she’s got – i.e. changing her attitude, as Ric suggests – changing her attitude about herself.

A change in attitude will bring better relationships with others and with the self, strengthen personal confidence, and ultimately, it will save someone the shock of being on the receiving end of a bitch slap.

I was lucky enough to be given a bottle of bourbon for my birthday last month. Not just any bourbon, Maker’s Mark bourbon, one of the best Kentucky bourbons around. It’s strong, no question, but it is lovely with warming caramel notes and a little spice. Makes my chapped winter lips tingle. I’m not a big drinker but I appreciate the complexity of amber liquors and I drink them straight. That’s right.

It’s the sweet sting of an Irish whiskey or a bourbon that does it for me, you see, and when I tell people I like bourbon, even men call me “hard core”, but I just like the taste of it. It isn’t a popular alcohol among people I know - I can only think of one friend who likes bourbon (we sampled some bourbons before the holidays were over – super fun, super yum). I think people might be scared of bourbon due to a popular misconception that confuses it with another hard and notorious  whiskey, Jack Daniel’s, the drink of the rebellious.

Bourbon is an American whiskey that is made of corn and aged in charred, oak barrels. I’m certainly not an expert of bourbon but I know that I like the “straight” bourbons – bourbons of themselves without additional colour or flavours. Higher end bourbons are a pleasure to sip, like a fine scotch which is meant to be savoured. (For those hard-core bourbon fans who are able to travel, there is a bourbon tour called the Kentucky Bourbon Trail with tours of the best straight bourbon distilleries in the state: Maker’s Mark, Woodford Reserve, Jim Beam, Wild Turkey, Four Roses, and Heaven Hill.)

Jack Daniel’s is not featured on this fine bourbon distillery tour because it isn’t bourbon and it’s not made in Kentucky. It’s Tennessee sour mash whiskey. I believe that people confuse JD with bourbon (easy enough to do) and because of this, bourbon has taken on the associations of Jack Daniel’s drinkers as hard-drinking, ass-kicking rock + rollers and bikers, but it isn’t necessarily true.

Jack Daniel’s

American whiskeys are made of basically same stuff but are processed differently and not all are considered true bourbons. Jack Daniels is an example of this. This famous Tennessee whiskey is sugar maple charcoal-mellowed, relatively cheap, and easily accessible in many parts of the world. Jack Daniel’s is also the signature drink of rock + roll and this 80 proof bad boy booze has been the liquid drug of choice for the world’s heaviest bands.

There is certainly an attitude about Jack. I remember getting two bottles of Jack for my brother and I for a rental viewing of The Doors movie – a stinging drink well-suited to watching a film about Jim Morrison. By the end of the movie, we were messed up on Morrison and the bottles were empty. We went out looking for more. I can’t explain it but I can appreciate that rock + roll and Jack Daniel’s strike a perfect balance.

So what is it about Jack?  It seems like a good drink for a guy, strong and honest. It is the hard-drinking liquor that separates the boys from the men; it’s the type of drink that could grow hair on your chest. Jack Daniel’s is the stuff of legend, like the musicians who favoured it.

Keith Richards, Rolling Stones

I think that Keith  Richards that started it all. Keith made drinking Jack Daniel’s cool amongst rock + rollers, guzzling it on stage, in limos, studios, and on planes. As a member of the original bad boy group, Keith Richards had the freedom to do/drink/smoke/snort/inject whatever he wanted. And he did. And he’s still alive to talk about it.

Steven Tyler, Aerosmith

“I kept my medicine cabinet on stage, in a 14-inch drum head, the bottom of which contained… one Dixie cup with a straw and blow [cocaine] in it and the other with Coca-Cola and Jack Daniel’s in it.”

Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin

Rock god Jimmy Page was another heavy JD drinker as seen here in 1975. Again, being in a super group like Led Zeppelin gave Page license to do as he pleased, including getting a good buzz on with his favourite Tennessee whiskey before the show – hey, you would too.

Lemmy, Motorhead

“I’m not completely fixated on Jack Daniel’s – it’s just that it’s the one with the best distribution system worldwide.”

Great interview with Lemmy from The Guardian here.

Bon Scott, AC/DC 

AC/DC’s Vince Lovegrove, in an interview with Adelaide Now, talks about the night when their singer, Bon Scott, got into a horrible road accident where he was “smashed to smithereens”. Guess who else was there?

“About 11pm on May 3, 1974, at the Old Lion Hotel in North Adelaide, during a rehearsal with the Mount Lofty Rangers, a very drunk, distressed and belligerent Bon Scott had a raging argument with a member of the band. Bon stormed out of the venue, threw a bottle of Jack Daniels on to the ground, then screamed off on his Suzuki 550 motorbike.”

This happened before AC/DC became famous. It is likely that JD was present the night of Scott’s death in 1980, caused by pulmonary aspiration of vomit due to acute alcohol poisoning.

Van Halen

Van Halen bassist, Michael Anthony, shamelessly adored JD to the point of having a Jack Daniel’s bass guitar made. Get your replica here.

During research, I found a really weird 8 minute video of VH singer, David Lee Roth, spewing out drunken drivel on stage until the arrival of a little person in a suit who delivers a tray of JD for the singer to pound before the band breaks into Janie’s Crying:

Venom

Here’s a JD endorsement from the heavy-speed-black-thrash metal band from northern England, Venom. If this doesn’t make you want to drink Jack Daniel’s, nothing will.

Slash, Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver

Slash is the modern rock god guitarist who favours Jack. Especially in G N’ R’s early days, the band smoked and drank heavily. If you have a copy of Appetite for Destruction, the back cover shows the boys in all of their rock + roll glory, sitting around with guitars, beers, sneers, and the mandatory bottle of Jack.

Given that Jack Daniel’s compliments the devil-may-care rock + roll lifestyle, would you believe that Jack Daniel’s can do more than get you @$%*!& up? It supports charities too!

Yes indeed, during the 2011 Sunset Strip Music Festival, Motley Crue received an award for contributions to the Sunset Strip music scene, and Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskey donated a specially-chosen barrel of hooch, bottled it, and made it available for a recommended donation to support the to the Skylar Neil Memorial Foundation, an organization to support the people doing breakthrough work to find cures for cancer, AIDS, and other diseases.

Skylar Neil is the late daughter of Vince Neil, singer from Motley Crue, another band notorious for swilling JD and sucking hard at the teat of rock + roll. Shown here is the cover of their 2001 tell-all book, The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band. That bottle looks mighty familiar, doesn’t it?

So ultimately, Jack Daniel’s is a split personality casting a dual image: the kick-ass and the charitable, but mostly the kick-ass. Curiously, or perhaps not, I found no female musicians who were into Jack, which suggests that women either don’t like it or don’t like it’s image (though I’m sure there are plenty of exceptions that we just don’t hear about). JD is a drink that only the strong will survive, and some of them don’t.

As one of the rare women who likes straight bourbon and has had her share of Jack Daniel’s in the past, I take full responsibility for the image this conjures and I’m more than cool with it. Like the clothes I wear or the way I speak, my choice in spirits reflects who I am as a person, but contradicts the image that is associated with these hard liquors. I’m here to deconstruct and analyze after all and I’m blessed to be conscious of it. Straight up.

They are closer to the truth than adults are.

That's me in the middle.

Childhood

I was brought up with boys, namely, my two boy cousins, one of which was born 5 days before I was (we just had our birthdays over the last week). My cousins influenced me greatly, and when my younger brother came along, I was surrounded by boys, playing “boy” games, playing with “boy” toys, talking about “boy” things. I always had more boy friends than girl friends (still true). Consequently, this influenced my way of thinking and understanding,  and I went out of my way to be accepted by boys and try to fit in with them, and I suppose this is where my interest in males in general began.

Clothing

I can’t explain why, but I have always been fascinated with men’s clothing. During my late teens, I started understanding my build and found that men’s pants fit me better than women’s pants did (being 5’2 in the 80s, when women’s pants were high-waisted, was a recipe for disaster – pant waists went half-way up my back which made me look ridiculous).  With a simple alteration to take in the waist, I found that men’s trousers were a much better fit, giving a roomier thigh and a better fit in the rise because I am short-waisted (“rise” is the measurement from crotch to the top of the waistband). I also liked the deep pockets. I really came to appreciate the simplicity and fit of men’s clothing by wearing men’s garments.

Back in those days, I guess I was an artsy kid who stuck her nose in philosophy books and listened to the original “alternative” music that was mostly British and definitely underground. I shopped at second hand stores that had a lot of clothing from the 1960s and loved to wear men’s sport coats from that era (with the sleeves rolled up of course).

In 1986, I graduated from high school and rented a tuxedo to wear to my graduation. I made a gold sleeveless top to go under the jacket and found a black matte satin shoe with pointed toes and a low heel. Most of the girls in my class wore puffy, ruffled satin dresses to the grad – many in white for some reason. I loved my outfit, the substantial feeling of the tail coat, the smooth look of the cummerbund, and the ease of the trousers.

The same year, I got a job in the men’s department at a prominent Canadian department store. This is where I learned a tremendous amount about men’s clothing, textiles, and care of fabrics (I wonder if anyone invests in training for their staff like this anymore). I was fascinated by the items in the “men’s furnishings” department – tie clips, hankies, socks, ties, Arrow dress shirts, underwear, and robes, much more so than the women’s stuff on the upper floors.

It took a long time, but eventually I got to wearing more women’s clothing than men’s and by the late 1990s/early 2000s, I got quite girly about it. Now that I work exclusively with men, I’m veering back to my love of menswear  and having suits made at men’s tailors. I love the comfort and the ease of men’s clothing, and often wear shirts and ties with suits and heels to work.

Curious

One of the things that drives me is that I’m curious. Curious about most things, but not all things – math and hockey are the immediate examples that come to my mind. I did a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Theatre design (costume) and started doing a double major in psychology until I hit the point when I would have to take a statistics class, and I was terrified of this idea. (Now I wish I had taken that class so I could understand the statistical information in the research I look at.)

The psychology classes really opened my eyes and helped me understand the social aspect of humans. Social psychology plays a large role in the masculine research I do, explaining the influence of nurture and how it affects us. This has helped me understand the ways in which men have existed in the past, how they exist in the present, the issues that face them, how society expects them to deal with these issues, and the consequences of social imposition.

The last time I took a science class was in grade 10, which I failed and had to re-take in summer school. Other than that, I just passed my natural science class in university (I took geology for some reason), and once I got through that, I abandoned the subject for several years. Now I find myself driven to understand WHY, and I look to science, social and natural, for answers (it’s much easier to digest now that I want to understand it and can choose the way it is presented to me). Since my favourite topic is the masculine condition, I like to read about neurology and endocrinology to understand how my favourite subjects operate in the world. Looking at men from scientific and social angles helps me understand them, communicate with them, and ultimately, helps me help them.

ACT

Another thing about me is that I’m not afraid. I like to do things that have never been done before. Becoming the first woman in Canada to specialize in men’s image is certainly among my trailblazing efforts and I’m quite proud of this.

I am also proud of the work that I have done with the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) , where I volunteered for several years. I had a very dear friend in the 1990s who was HIV+ and a client at ACT who introduced me to volunteer work.  I loved the experience and dove deeply into volunteering, learning about HIV and AIDS, the stigma around the illness, and the issues that gay men face. I was the first “volunteer extraordinaire” recognized by ACT in 2002, and was the first woman in the history of the agency to volunteer for gay men’s outreach program, where I helped to mold the program, trained outreach volunteers, facilitated workshops, and spent 5 years out on the front lines handing out condom and lube packages at gay bars in they gay ghetto of Toronto.

It was here that I learned something about myself. During my time in outreach, I constantly engaged men about safer sex and social issues, and I was a good listener. On so many shifts, I was humbled by men opening up to me and pouring out their feelings and experiences because, I decided, they had no one else to talk to. Evidently, this didn’t happen to any of the other volunteers in the outreach program and I understood that I had something that could help people.

One of the best things I learned at ACT was about judgement, or what it is to judge and why we shouldn’t. I learned that as humans, we judge; it’s natural to us. If we didn’t judge, we probably wouldn’t have made it this far (as in, is the ice on the river solid enough to hold my weight, or is this week old milk safe to drink?). We have to be able to estimate how things will effect us, to form an opinion based on what we perceive, and move from there. So this type of judgement is fine, but acting upon our judgements of other people without fully understanding them is not.

ACT taught me that it is impossible to know everything about other people – the mental, emotional, and physical condition they might be in, where they come from, what experiences they have shaped them, etc., and without this information, our brain fills in the missing bits with assumptions that we so seldomly check out to get a better understanding of that person. For example, if someone rushes by and bumps into you on the subway platform, we might automatically swear at that person because of the way they have affected us without knowing why they rushed by without saying “sorry”. For all we know, that person could be on the way to the hospital to see their best friend who was just in a car accident, or perhaps they are ill and need their medicine, and this is affecting them in some way. The point is, we don’t know why that person bumped into us and we can’t possibly know why until we ask them, but we don’t often take the time to find out, relying instead on our preconceived notions that are often incorrect. Understanding this, I always like to give people the benefit of the doubt. It certainly makes things better for everyone.

Empathy, non-judgement, a history with menswear, and a strong masculine influence has helped shape my career and has fed my fascination with men, their clothing, and their condition; I am absorbed and rivited by you fellas. But now it’s time to rest – onto the holidays!

Ms Blatchford writes that men and boys need to “toughen up” and take on an antiquated gender role, destined to die by the next generation. Her article seems to look at the world through the eyes of the controlling class that was in place during her youth – the days when uptight white men controlled everything from religious views to industry to social practices, and of course, women and women’s sexuality.

It was a time when women, who competently operated everything when men were away at war, were expected to settle into the gender role of the happy, obedient housewife and mother, when the men, returning from the war brave and stoic, got back into the driver’s seat and took over with military sharpness.

The post WWII period was a time of rebuilding countries and social systems, when men and women were segregated into gender roles in order to regenerate the population. Even clothing reflected this – Christian Dior’s “New Look” of the late 1940s sculpted women into hourglass figures, and according to my costume professor in university, symbolized the regeneration properties of women – the rounded puffy skirts of Dior’s line represented and exaggerated women’s hips, thus drawing men to them and thus begetting an increased population – hello baby boom generation.

It seems to me that Ms Blatchford chooses to remain living in an old school world where women were thought of as girls  and both sexes lived under strict gender expectations, and they were not allowed to cross the line. As the 50s mentality dictated, acting anything remotely feminine was a boy’s ultimate sin (for reasons that I still can’t put my finger on).

Ms Blatchford proclaims she is tired of men being in touch with their feminine sides because they have lost their handle on masculinity. She is “mortified and appalled” at the sight of school-aged boys greeting each other with hugs, instead of having a switchblade rumble, I guess.

Humans showing their humanity evidently makes Ms Blatchford uncomfortable, so please stop it, you’re causing the black and white gender lines to blur!

Behaviour expectation is about controlling the masses so the masses conform to the wishes of the ruling class. The most effective way to control people is to keep them in fear – fear of punishment, fear of ex-communication, fear of pain, fear of shame, and so on. Fear is a very potent behaviour modifier. We are controlled by threats of fear and consequences communicated to us in various ways, one of them being language.

“Toronto, City of Sissies”

Each generation has its own language that defines it and every generation has its own arsenal of derogatory language to keep people in line with the ways of the ruling class and generally keep them feeling bad about themselves. Queer, stupid, fag, lezbo, dork, geek, and fairy are the ones my Gen X friends and I remember, for example. None of them are cool; all of them hurt.

In keeping with her era, Ms Blatchford chooses “sissy” as her insulting term. “Sissy” (American, 1840-50) is one of those generational terms that we don’t hear much these days, but it has several meanings. It started out as a term of endearment towards one’s sister, or a diminutive of Cecelia, Frances, or Priscilla, but turned to something derogatory to describe an effeminate man, a man who does not conform to the traditional masculine role, a man who is interested in feminine pastimes or clothing, a man who is afraid, or a man who cries. “Sissy” is used in subversive sexual cultures involving erotic humiliation and bondage. Interestingly, the term sissyphobia is thought to be a combination of prejudice of women and homosexual males.

Knowing this, “Toronto, City of Sissies” seems rather an odd title because Ms Blatchford practically falls over herself  gushing about how much she loves gay men (…”as a downtowner, I live surrounded by gay men, who, like most women, I adore as a group”).

So if this is true, how is it that Ms Blatchford, a solid representative for the generation that demanded strong, silent men’s men, betrays her 50s mentality not just liking but adoring gay men? Surely gay men are sissies too, Ms Blatchford!

Violence as communication

I agree with Blatchford when she says, “the onus for stopping bullies lies not with the people being bullied, but with those who see it happen.” However, I don’t agree with her idea that “taking the bully out for a short pounding” is a solution.

“This has been true for centuries,” she insists, “and it is still true, and it works equally well in the locker room, the office, a bar, and on the factory floor or street.”

Pain, like fear, is another good motivator. A punch in the chops (or “assault” as it’s known nowadays) is a good way to get someone to see your way. Corporal punishment kept people in line during these darker days of modern masculinity when men and boys were not allowed to talk about their feelings (only girls do that!); they talked with their fists instead, in the hopes of teaching wordless lessons, symbolic of the ridiculous masculine stoicism of the generation.

What I think Ms Blatchford overlooks here is that “short poundings” don’t do well helping people understand why they’re getting pounded, and I expect that arbitrary poundings are painful, possibly maiming, and surely confusing, producing anger and/or depression in the pounded. Doesn’t she know how this works? Hasn’t she read Bukowski’s Ham On Rye? Humans are reasonable when they’re treated reasonably,  I find.

Action!

In her generational wisdom, Christie Blatchford understands the way boys and men are “supposed” to be. She offers us “a few reminders of the way it was once upon a time and really always should be,” recommending that boys engage in  ”killing”, “whacking”, “shooting”, “kissing”, “farting” (on cue, no less), and “making the sound of a train in a tunnel” (hello Dr. Freud). ”Hugging is not” on this list.

I’m just plain sick of hugs, giving and getting, from just about anyone, but particularly man-to-man hugs.

Not sure why this bothers her, or why she’s letting it get to her. She could simply turn her head away from the sight of a man expressing his warmth, fellowship, and affection to his friends.

Ms Blatchford says, “I know men have feelings too. I just don’t need to know much more than that.” This makes me think of emotionally immature males who are squeamish hearing about the inner workings of the female reproductive system – they just don’t want to know about it.

The people of Toronto have got into a bit of an uproar about Blatchford’s article, so much so that someone started a Facebook group, Christie Blatchford Needs A Hug. One member wrote, “…our whole society could definitely use more hugs. Affection makes us stronger, isolation only weakens society.”

In response to Blatchford’s “Sissies” article, Jeff Perera, of The Good Man Project, wrote The Invisible Gun of Manhood, saying,

Every one of us was meant to embrace our whole, full humanity. Yet, enforced ideas of what being a man is leaves every boy and man wrestling to suppress themselves. We are raised to value an unattainable standard and devalue anything “less than,” which is any aspect of our humanity labelled “feminine.”

Men are left feeling that they are not given permission (from others or from our own self) to discover our handcuffed array of emotions. Denying or being forced to deny sides of our selves, we are the walking dead, numb and emotionally illiterate. This leaves us numb to the very fact of the gun pressing on our soul. The sound of the resulting trauma inflected on the world is muted by a silencer, but the impact resonates like an endless echo of gunfire on women and men worldwide.

I’m not getting too excited about the Blatchford article because it originates from a place of obsolete thinking, and the world has changed too much to return to such a rigid existence. Toronto, next time you see Christie Blatchford walking her bull terrier around Rosedale, stop, embrace her, tell her you love her, and bring her up to speed about the modern world. Tell her about the internet and digital communication, about newly discovered species and advances in medicine, and don’t forget to break the news that Elvis Presley died 35 years ago.

Gerry's barber gave him a David Niven look and I rocked a fancy airbrushed Mo!

Many guys had already shaved by then but I was delighted to see how many got into the spirit of the moustache and came in character – there were cops, highway patrolmen, firefighters, a gang of bootleggers, general Mo freaks, and a very dashing French revolutionary soldier complete with bicorn hat and period uniform. Gerry had his Mo reshaped one more time and we did him up as though he were striding onto his yacht, so I matched his costume and we both had a look of nostalgic glam.

Mo-goers were given bags o’ swag containing men’s grooming products – deodorant,  shave gel, and a 5 – yes, 5-blade razor. I put my swag away with the rest of my men’s grooming stuff when I got home and didn’t think about it.

Then I started noticing something. When I walked into my living room, I could smell something odd, something I couldn’t identify. I decided that someone walked past my door wearing too much cologne. However, each time I walked into my living room, I could smell it again, so I hunted around and discovered that it was my bag of swag from the gala that was causing the stink! I was able to distinguish which grooming product was giving off the strong scent – the culprit was Mennen Speed Stick. Welcome to today’s topic.

Now, I want you to understand some things before I continue, readers:  1. I don’t want to sound like an ingrate because I appreciate that large companies are sponsoring Movember and promoting the fight against prostate cancer, and 2. I only use natural and unscented grooming products on my skin, therefore, I am highly sensitive to chemical fragrances, thus my picking up on the swag smell.

Ingredients: salt and gas

I’m going to share some of the research I have done on common men’s grooming products with you so as to educate you on the products you’re applying to your skin because whether you realize it or not, your skin is absorbing it.  Some of these ingredients may cause you to question the products you use because the ingredients themselves are questionable.

My information comes from websites that scientifically test grooming products: Good Guide, Cosmetics Info,  Skin Deep Cosmetics Database, and the David Suzuki Foundation.

Because I have taken from different sources, the ingredients listed below may or may not be present in the 2011 version of Speed Stick:

• Water
• Cyclomethicone: silicone oil
• Denatured Ethanol: ethanol with chemical additives
• Tripropylene Glycol: colourless, viscous liquid derived from petroleum
• Dimethicone: anti-foaming and emollient agent, suspected environmental toxin
• Propylene Glycol: colourless viscous liquid derived from natural gas
• Phenyl Trimethicone: derived from silica, a natural component of quartz and opal
• FDC Blue #1,  FDC Yellow #5 : synthetic dye produced from petroleum
• Sodium Carbonate: sodium salt of carbonic acid
• Sodium Chloride: salt
• Sodium Stearate: salt of stearic acid, a naturally occurring fatty acid and cleansing agent (surfactant)
• Sodium Sulfate:  sodium salt of sulfuric acid
• Tetrasodium EDTA: used to decrease reactivity of metal ions that may be present in a product
• Stearyl Alcohol: compound produced from stearic acid, a naturally occurring fatty acid; stabilizer, surfactant, fragrance
• Dimethicone Copolyol: silicon-derived, used as a low-odor ingredient to mask other scents
• Fragrance: not listed – more trouble ahead

Many of
 these 
unlisted ingredients 
are 
irritants
 and
 can
 trigger
 allergies, migraines, 
and
 asthma
 symptoms. In laboratory 
experiments,
 individual
 fragrance
 ingredients
 have been 
associated
 with 
cancer 
and 
neurotoxicity 
among 
other
 adverse
 health
 effects. – David Suzuki Foundation

Movember is the month-long moustache-growing event to raise awareness and funds prostate cancer, an inititiative continuously gaining popularity and raising more funds to combat this men’s cancer.

This year, I wanted to look at Movember as a process, step by step, a week at a time, just to try to understand what it’s like to grow whiskers over your top lip. For some guys, the experience is an ordeal because not all men can grow a ‘stache and they end up walking around with patchy, generally unkempt things on their faces. For others, like my friend, Gerry (shown here),  it’s good times with a new facial feature because they can grow a moustache.  This year’s Movember post is meant to be something of a guide, perhaps an inspiration, for growing next year’s Mo, based on Gerry’s Movember experience. Let’s begin!

Day 1: Gerry starts the 'stache from scratch

November 1, 2011: Nature takes its course and Gerry lets ‘er rip on day 1, where he starts clean-shaven.

Week 2: the smudge of a Trucker looms

Gerry has a heavy beard and by the second week, his ‘stache is taking shape and making its presence known. He followed the nasolabial folds between his nose and his mouth as a shaving guide, but otherwise let it “grow wild”.

But it starts to itch; he starts touching it. Gerry says that when he eats, he forgets about the moustache but can feel something on his lip and assumes that it’s food. It’s the old cookie duster living up to its name.

By the time he got to week 3, Gerry’s ’stache had become “important”, as if it were an entity of its own. He began taking care of it, grooming it, getting meticulous about it, and decided he could do with some help and wandered into Garrison’s Barbershop on Queen West for a shave and a moustache re-shape.

These are the steps Gerry’s barber took:

Is that a corpse? No, it's Gerry in the hot towel portion of his hot towel shave.

1. Oil applied to beard to soften the whiskers. (Oil makes shaving easier – softer whiskers = less drag. Try it yourself with shaving oil from The Real Shave Company, available at drugstores.)

2. Hot towels applied to face for 5 minutes. (Opens the pores, refreshes the skin.)

3. Shave cream applied with shaving brush. (Easier shave – whiskers are raised by the brush and suspended by shaving cream.)

4. Face shaved with a straight razor.  Visions of Sweeney Todd danced through Gerry’s head as he lay there with his throat exposed to the unknown barber holding a bare blade over him.

The relationship between a man and his barber is a unique one indeed, as Gerry noted. This intimate, 45 minute man-on-man relationship must be grounded in trust. Gerry’s experience with the barber was ”relaxing and gentle”, and he felt pampered and cared for. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?

Arial view.

(There were actually 2 shaves involved here: the first one with the shaving cream using a clean blade that lightly scrapes the surface of the face, and the second one with a clear shaving gel to see missed patches and even the shave.)

5. Skin bracer applied to freshly-shaven skin. (“Pleasant and invigorating!”)

6. Cold towel applied to face to close pores.

$25 later, Gerry’s got a fresh face and a newly-shaped moustache. He’ll be back to Garrison’s for future shaves.

Week 3: Post-moustache re-carve.

Week 3: Gerry and his moustache are looking much better with a reshaping, even to the point of being attractive! (Oops, there goes my bias: I do not like the look of moustaches.) It is really amazing  how a trip to the barber can make your Movember so much more bearable – cool, even! A proper shave and shaping is a good step if you want to actually enjoy the whiskers instead of waiting for the end of the month when you can shave the bastard off.

Week 4: Gerry's moustache is a force to be reckoned with and getting scraggily again. Moustache maintenance is important and not for the lazy.

Week 4: Gerry’s ‘stache is getting unruly again!

Lucky thing this week concludes the moutstache-growing event, but not before another re-shape for Gerry and the fabulous Movember gala on Friday, where I hope to see some fabulous facial hair, but somehow, I’m sad to say, I doubt this.

Though guys are beginning to take their ‘staches seriously now, I’m still seeing Toronto men looking embarrassed every Movember. But lads, there’s no reason to walk around looking ashamed, you just have to learn to take care of your whiskers. It doesn’t have to be torture – iIf you’re going to grow a ‘stache for a month, have fun with it!

I’m seeing a lot of men who are emulating professional hockey players during the playoffs. Movember is not a reason to not shave for a month.  - Gerry

So let’s get into the spirit, men. Try investing $25 into yourself and visit a professional barber to help you rock a great, groomed Movember moustache next year instead of fighting with it, and be proud of your new little buddy.

Gents, let’s keep it simple. I understand that some of you don’t pay attention to your skin in the winter (and sometimes the summer) because it may be something of a hassle, you don’t have time, or perhaps you may not be conscious of the importance of skin care. Fair enough. But knowing that skin is our largest organ that protects our internal organs and otherwise holds us together, it seems wise to take care of it. When it comes to our image, skin properly taken care of will make a better impression on people and it will also feel better to you, plus it is easier to shave over. This week, I propose three easy ways for a fella to avoid dry and possibly uncomfortable skin during the winter.

1. Avoid hot water

Though a hot shower will feel good if you’ve got a chill in your bones, it may wreak havoc on your skin. Hot water dries the skin and seems to tighten it as I well know, having what seems the most sensitive in the land. My skin is so sensitive that if I take too hot a shower in the winter, my entire body, including my face, goes red and splotchy and there isn’t anything I can do about it. This isn’t a welcome sight if I have to go out in public, so I take showers at night or early in the day to allow my skin to return to its natural colour.

The hot water concept applies to other tasks besides bathing, like doing dishes. Sensitive types especially should wear rubber gloves when washing the dishes because sensitive hands wet with hot water can make your life miserable. At the moment, I’ve got 4 scaly red patches on my knuckles that will split if I don’t take care of them. If the skin does split, I’m then open to viruses and germs, but besides the invasion of unwelcome foreign bodies, raw, red skin hurts!  If you have to wash the dishes with bare hands, dry them thoroughly and apply a hand cream afterward to combat the reaction.

2. Exfoliate

I don’t want to sound like a nag, fellas, but I want you to start exfoliating if you haven’t started yet. It will make your skin feel better and look better. For those of you who aren’t hip to the concept, to exfoliate is to slough off dead skin cells that sit on the surface of our skin, making skin feel dry (to the point of feeling papery), and depending on what colour you are, these dead skin cells, depleted of melanin, the cell protein that gives us colour, turns to a pale dust on the skin’s surface. Exfoliation may also help you to look younger as you clear away the layers of spent, grey cells that make facial lines appear deeper.

There are many types of facial exfoliators (several men’s lines carry facial washes or pre-shave scrubs with exfoliating spheres), but it’s nice to exfoliate the whole body. An easy way to lose the spent cells en masse is to wash with exfoliating gloves from a drug store or an exfoliating towel available at the Body Shop. Soap or shower gel them up and use all over your body, though you might want to avoid even a light scraping of the jewels – use with caution in this area. No need to press the material against the skin, just use with the same pressure that you would with a wash cloth and presto! your skin is fresh and smooth again! Keep your fresh skin supple with the next step in our simple program.

3. Moisturize

Some guys are not into moisturizing, I know, but it makes a huge difference in the winter. A nice (and hopefully natural) moisturizer will soothe your skin and make it less dry, less itchy, and more comfortable.

If you know me personally or perhaps you read this blog regularly, you’ll know that I’m not into commercial chemical personal products. This isn’t just because I’m sensitive, but because I don’t like the idea of having petrochemicals seep into my system via commercial moisturizers AND I don’t buy brands that test on animals. I don’t think anyone willingly wants a dog or a bunny injected or swabbed with potentially painful or maiming chemicals, so it’s a good idea to check behind the scenes and educate yourself – for a health, environment, and social rating of personal care products, check out the Good Guide for product ratings and decide for yourself.

I asked Kristen Ma, co-owner of Pure + Simple Beauty in Toronto, and author of  Beauty, Pure and Simple, if she had anything to say about moisturizing for men.

I advocate men use natural skin care and moisturizers because they are more hydrating (no petroleum that doesn’t properly penetrate) and less pore-clogging.

Also, natural moisturizer and shaving products help prevent shaving irritation and post shave break outs because they are gentler on the skin and free of chemical irritants. I noticed a dramatic difference when my fiance began using our Pure + Simple soothing shaving cream. He never gets shaving irritation bumps anymore.

(Have a look at Kristen’s excellent and informative blog, Holistic Vanity, and check out the wonderful natural products that her spa carries especially for men here.)

Another natural line that I like, produced in Ontario, is Green Beaver. Green Beaver is organic and biodegradable and best of all, they have a great moisturizing line especially for winter!

It doesn’t actually take long to fix up and maintain your skin in winter and it doesn’t make you any less of a man.  I think that men who groom well and take care of themselves are much more appealing and nicer to be around than men who turn away from self-care. To me, taking care of one’s self and one’s skin is a reflection of our self-esteem, and gents, I know you’re worth the bother.