“Now that I’m older and more experienced, it’s tempting to act as if I’m above the fray, to fully indulge in being disdainful of sadsack guys that seem to enjoy wallowing in their self-pity and laziness (except when falling for get-rich-quick schemes). But there’d be a performative element to that, to pretend that I don’t completely get where they’re coming from lest I be tainted too. So that I can be the only boy in the world.”
You’re a good person for fighting this impulse. That impulse from other men is exactly why I’ve always avoided public vulnerability without anonymity. What I’m scared of isn’t the judgement of non-men, it’s other men using my vulnerability to aggrandize themselves. This is something I’ve seen my whole life in every male space from lunch tables, to varsity sports teams, to a fraternity, to social media. If you ever appear weak, others will loudly exclaim how they can’t relate and don’t understand to perform strength. What’s so annoying about it is just what you said: all these men obviously relate and know what you mean. It’s a stupid performance we’re forced to pretend we don’t do.
Yeah, that's why I think it's much harder for younger guys to write honestly and without anonymity. Once you get older and more assured, that kind of puffery you might encounter from other guys just doesn't affect you that much.
Such a fascinating survey of the personal essay landscape, Chris. Thanks for laying this out with such care and dissecting the dilemma that many male writers feel at the moment. I had to read it two or three times to begin to find my place in it all as 45-year-old writer who occasionally gets personal.
It takes bravery to speak up and expose yourself to judgment. I have been guilty of typing what I think people want to hear instead of dissenting on more than one occasion. Even worse, remaining silent for fear that people see me in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable or insecure.
Clearly, there are certain forces at play in culture and in 'the industry' that are deterring guys from sharing their thoughts and experiences on topics such as dating, relationships and masculinity. That is a loss, either resulting in a skewed impression of a situation or for those who speak loudest and most often to shape the narrative. Let's hope this platform helps to provide a new impetus for change.
Yes, some men might choose to vent anonymously on Reddit, make a podcast or start a video channel. But I always find the words that endure most are those that are written/authored and attributed. For me, there is a vacuum in that regard that I would like more writers to fill, particularly those of a younger generation across a wider range of backgrounds .
I have just been watching a video of Ursula K Le Guin's 2014 National Book Foundation Medal speech and this is the part that resonated: "We will need writers who can remember freedom. The realists of a larger reality. I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art."
How we do that has yet to be written. I think about words that are used to criticise this style of writing: wallowing, whiny, insular, cloying, self-indulgent. They could be pitfalls to writers of any gender but, yes, men are under greater scrutiny in this field.
I have little interest in a style of writing that's described as "sad boy literature" – a hatchet job of a sell – or reading anodyne prose, clipped and compliant. Vulnerability shouldn't be palatable or acceptable as Andrew pondered in his piece. It should be honest.
I implore writers to express themselves with less fear. That does not mean being reckless or insensitive in our choice of words and at whom they are aimed. Alex hit the nail on the head. Instead, let's use them to try and figure things out and convey a larger reality.
Yes, very well said. I think what's critical is a few experiences where you do get figuratively punched in the face and you realize you can take a hit. Like me and the Electric Literature incident. You learn that yeah, some people will get mad, but who cares and times can change.
I think the first person male essay rings the most true when the goal isn’t simply to spill your guts onto the screen, but to be in some way useful to the reader. Useful to women by offering insight into the male perspective, and useful to men by describing what you’ve experienced and how it impacted you, almost like a mentor would.
As an asian-american twenty-something who has been writing a weekly personal newsletter for a few years now, I hear you — it feels like I have few peers operating in the space that are similar to me in this way.
I reflect a lot on my relationship with vulnerability as well: it feels wrong to write with vulnerability unless I can tie it to a larger idea, something that's more universalizable or at least interesting from a craft perspective.
Great piece, Chris! Hadn't thought of how all this plays out in the personal essay realm, but I think you bring up some really good questions there Appreciate you shouting out my piece, as well. I'm glad to see this conversation unfolding right now, and to read the various perspectives out there.
Yeah, we all know about gatekeepers in publishing. But given that, why isn't there some thriving underground scene of outsider writers, especially male ones? It's a chicken-egg question, but at the very least, we have to provide the supply end of this issue.
Why does it matter if a male writer is gay or straight, other things aside? Not asking from a pearl-clutching POV. I’m curious if you feel like gay guys have more cultural permission to be vulnerable, or if it’s something else.
One could surmise it's because gay men outrank straight men on the less-privileged hierarchy. But under that standard, lesbian POVs should be the dominant female perspective, but women who write personal essays and novels tend to write from a very straight POV (or at most, so-called queer).
Given the fact that most people are straight, I think the vibes of a culture either lean straight male or straight female. And when it comes to things like personal essays that are primarily straight-female dominated, gay male perspectives are preferred because they don't upset straight women. The romantic lives of straight women and gay men are rarely messily intertwined like those of straight women and straight men, so the vulnerability of gay men is from an emotionally safer distance for straight women.
And of course, society puts less pressure on gay men to be stoically masculine and all that, so if they post Ls, they're not as derided as straight men are.
Right. It's unfortunate that the notion of interiority is female-coded in our culture. One thing I've learned from writing personal essays over the last year is that relatability is a super-power. It's tricky, though, not to give ammo to those who'd weaponize it against you — most often other men. On the other hand, my most masculine straight friends integrate masculine and female energy in a compelling way and are comfortable in their skin. The challenge is, I'm not sure these dynamics scale to the personal essay page vs in person.
This is a great piece, Chris. Ironically, this recent raft of essays about the absence of masculine writing reminds me of the mid-century feminist critic Helene Cixous, who coined the term "ecriture feminine" to delineate a proposed feminist mode of writing about embodied experience. I suppose I have mixed feelings about about the "confessional space" in general . This isn't because I think it's inappropriate or otherwise untoward for men to write "from the inside out," but I appreciate non-confessional intimacy in writing. Somerset Maugham, for instance, wrote poignantly about the experience of weakness in "Of Human Bondage."
As for the discourse surrounding the "unbound male psyche," sex, and vulnerability, it's such a fraught space. You and others have done yeoman's work exploring it. It's certainly gotten the ol' gears turning.
Ive been following this discussion a bit and the thing that seems to be assumed by most people is that men write stuff about men and women write stuff about women. I disagree. People can write about anything they want. Just by chance I’m reading Marguerite Duras’ “The Sailor from Gibraltar” (1952) at the moment and the main character is a man, first person point of view, and he does the sort of things people get upset at men for doing. But the book is written by a woman. Yes, I realize it’s a French book from the 50’s, so not exactly relevant to the discussion being had, but I think this whole topic is downstream from the idea that you can only write about what you know and can’t imagine other points of view, a position that’s become dominant in, I don’t know, the last 15 years, but that is an anomaly in the history of literature. I’m talking about literary fiction here, obviously it’d be different for a personal essay, but when it comes to novels, it’d be great if people just wrote whatever the hell they wanted. Ok, then there’s the publishing question, well…I have no answers there. I’m interested in writing, not publishing.
Let me also throw in a plug for Thomas Brown’s newsletter, which I think is the sort of autobiographical, confessional writing that some people are looking for. He talks about his dating experiences and is a great writer: https://thomasbrown.substack.com/
I think writers are indeed pressured to stick to what they know, but progressive ideology also says that only those that are lower on the privilege hierarchy can write about others. So white writers can't write about Asians, but Asian writers can write about white people. So women can write about men, but men can't write about women. It's obviously very limiting and hypocritical.
Also, you recommended Il Sorpasso to me, right? I recently watched it and enjoyed it a lot, so thanks!
I think you're right but that in this particular cultural climate people men not writing men, etc. can fall afoul of #Ownvoices and r/menwritingwomen, etc.
I was primarily raised by my mother. A brilliant and enduring woman, fraught with emotional abuse who buried it in alcohol. The majority of my childhood friends were girls, as I preferred their company, unless they didn’t have the same activity or hobby interests. I was playing tea time and mud wrestling with them before anyone else. My father was a construction worker and habitual smoker with hands tempered by hammer and wood. He was a reserved and introspective man, one who survived Catholic school and kept precious few friends. He was gentle, philosophical, and only opened his mind to those closest to him. They loved each other, despite separating for their own stubbornnesses.
I don’t buy that men necessarily try to “write like women”, whatever that means, unless they’re just writing in a way that’s less authentic to their interests and more as a means to exploit something for themselves. Men, straight men, don’t write confessional essays because there’s absolutely no capital in it. They were never invited to the party, they were bullied off the playground. In an industry where literary genres and scenes are alienated from each other, artistry is sidelined to prioritize commodification and consumption, and the pop culture of vacuous literati etiquette and fickle smug irony reigns supreme, how could any straight man willing to be vulnerable be expected to write about themselves seriously without getting laughed off the stage? Remember, they already had the spotlight of the past entire history of man.
Treating this as an issue of male vs female perspectives only serves to entrench harmful stereotypes, ones that confine what someone is said to be capable of expressing and relegates them to their predestined role that was constructed for them to fill. Straight men, make sure you stay away from intimacy, lest you dare to try and broach the perspective and terrain of a woman. And then where do they go to find solace? But we’re here asking questions about where their confessionals are, that these men don’t respect themselves enough ti write them?
Public shootings are the new confessional. Men who lack so much self respect that they must take it away from others to fill the void. Now THAT’S masculine.
I don’t get it. Anything done by a man is necessarily itself masculine, what else could it be? Why does anyone act surprised when deterministic contemporary narratives of “masculinity” and “femininity” tell young men that not only are their perspectives not wanted, not desired, and not valued, but that everything else dedicated to the realm of femininity is not for them and that most masculinity is toxic (followed by a myriad of legitimate, historic examples)?
My mother bestowed her “femininity” to me, even though she bore the brunt of the alcoholic parent trope. My father bestowed me with “femininity” even though he spent his entire life destroying his body with physical labor just to survive. Femininity is my birthright. But that birthright isn’t vogue, by virtue of my own body and mind.
If you want a personal recommendation from me on straight male confessionals, I’ve heard on good authority that Nietzsche left us a few good screeds.
I’m a 25 year old guy. New to Substack. I touch on masculinity a fair amount in my writing. I’ve found it challenging to get over the “You’re too much” thoughts when pouring my heart out.
Chris, between you, Andrew Boryga, and Alex Perez, my list of reasons to put off writing that masculinity piece is getting shorter and shorter.
Go for it
“Now that I’m older and more experienced, it’s tempting to act as if I’m above the fray, to fully indulge in being disdainful of sadsack guys that seem to enjoy wallowing in their self-pity and laziness (except when falling for get-rich-quick schemes). But there’d be a performative element to that, to pretend that I don’t completely get where they’re coming from lest I be tainted too. So that I can be the only boy in the world.”
You’re a good person for fighting this impulse. That impulse from other men is exactly why I’ve always avoided public vulnerability without anonymity. What I’m scared of isn’t the judgement of non-men, it’s other men using my vulnerability to aggrandize themselves. This is something I’ve seen my whole life in every male space from lunch tables, to varsity sports teams, to a fraternity, to social media. If you ever appear weak, others will loudly exclaim how they can’t relate and don’t understand to perform strength. What’s so annoying about it is just what you said: all these men obviously relate and know what you mean. It’s a stupid performance we’re forced to pretend we don’t do.
Yeah, that's why I think it's much harder for younger guys to write honestly and without anonymity. Once you get older and more assured, that kind of puffery you might encounter from other guys just doesn't affect you that much.
Such a fascinating survey of the personal essay landscape, Chris. Thanks for laying this out with such care and dissecting the dilemma that many male writers feel at the moment. I had to read it two or three times to begin to find my place in it all as 45-year-old writer who occasionally gets personal.
It takes bravery to speak up and expose yourself to judgment. I have been guilty of typing what I think people want to hear instead of dissenting on more than one occasion. Even worse, remaining silent for fear that people see me in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable or insecure.
Clearly, there are certain forces at play in culture and in 'the industry' that are deterring guys from sharing their thoughts and experiences on topics such as dating, relationships and masculinity. That is a loss, either resulting in a skewed impression of a situation or for those who speak loudest and most often to shape the narrative. Let's hope this platform helps to provide a new impetus for change.
Yes, some men might choose to vent anonymously on Reddit, make a podcast or start a video channel. But I always find the words that endure most are those that are written/authored and attributed. For me, there is a vacuum in that regard that I would like more writers to fill, particularly those of a younger generation across a wider range of backgrounds .
I have just been watching a video of Ursula K Le Guin's 2014 National Book Foundation Medal speech and this is the part that resonated: "We will need writers who can remember freedom. The realists of a larger reality. I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art."
How we do that has yet to be written. I think about words that are used to criticise this style of writing: wallowing, whiny, insular, cloying, self-indulgent. They could be pitfalls to writers of any gender but, yes, men are under greater scrutiny in this field.
I have little interest in a style of writing that's described as "sad boy literature" – a hatchet job of a sell – or reading anodyne prose, clipped and compliant. Vulnerability shouldn't be palatable or acceptable as Andrew pondered in his piece. It should be honest.
I implore writers to express themselves with less fear. That does not mean being reckless or insensitive in our choice of words and at whom they are aimed. Alex hit the nail on the head. Instead, let's use them to try and figure things out and convey a larger reality.
Happy to be part of the conversation.
Yes, very well said. I think what's critical is a few experiences where you do get figuratively punched in the face and you realize you can take a hit. Like me and the Electric Literature incident. You learn that yeah, some people will get mad, but who cares and times can change.
Oh yes, how much do you really know about yourself until you’ve been punched in the face?
I think the first person male essay rings the most true when the goal isn’t simply to spill your guts onto the screen, but to be in some way useful to the reader. Useful to women by offering insight into the male perspective, and useful to men by describing what you’ve experienced and how it impacted you, almost like a mentor would.
Agree, but it also should be able to stand by itself, as opposed to primarily being crafted for educational purposes.
Completely agree.
Great piece, lots to think about. And thanks for the mention.
You're welcome! Thanks for writing your piece too. I've also heard you read a couple of times this summer at Tense Mag. I'll say hi next time.
You should've said hi! Anyway, I'm sure we'll overlap soon.
Great piece!
As an asian-american twenty-something who has been writing a weekly personal newsletter for a few years now, I hear you — it feels like I have few peers operating in the space that are similar to me in this way.
I reflect a lot on my relationship with vulnerability as well: it feels wrong to write with vulnerability unless I can tie it to a larger idea, something that's more universalizable or at least interesting from a craft perspective.
Oh, didn't know you were in your 20s! Please keep writing.
Great piece, Chris! Hadn't thought of how all this plays out in the personal essay realm, but I think you bring up some really good questions there Appreciate you shouting out my piece, as well. I'm glad to see this conversation unfolding right now, and to read the various perspectives out there.
Yeah, we all know about gatekeepers in publishing. But given that, why isn't there some thriving underground scene of outsider writers, especially male ones? It's a chicken-egg question, but at the very least, we have to provide the supply end of this issue.
Agreed
Why does it matter if a male writer is gay or straight, other things aside? Not asking from a pearl-clutching POV. I’m curious if you feel like gay guys have more cultural permission to be vulnerable, or if it’s something else.
One could surmise it's because gay men outrank straight men on the less-privileged hierarchy. But under that standard, lesbian POVs should be the dominant female perspective, but women who write personal essays and novels tend to write from a very straight POV (or at most, so-called queer).
Given the fact that most people are straight, I think the vibes of a culture either lean straight male or straight female. And when it comes to things like personal essays that are primarily straight-female dominated, gay male perspectives are preferred because they don't upset straight women. The romantic lives of straight women and gay men are rarely messily intertwined like those of straight women and straight men, so the vulnerability of gay men is from an emotionally safer distance for straight women.
And of course, society puts less pressure on gay men to be stoically masculine and all that, so if they post Ls, they're not as derided as straight men are.
Right. It's unfortunate that the notion of interiority is female-coded in our culture. One thing I've learned from writing personal essays over the last year is that relatability is a super-power. It's tricky, though, not to give ammo to those who'd weaponize it against you — most often other men. On the other hand, my most masculine straight friends integrate masculine and female energy in a compelling way and are comfortable in their skin. The challenge is, I'm not sure these dynamics scale to the personal essay page vs in person.
Makes sense, thanks. Very true re: the privilege hierarchy and romantic entanglements.
Nice artwork!
Marvel at my techno-artistry
This is a great piece, Chris. Ironically, this recent raft of essays about the absence of masculine writing reminds me of the mid-century feminist critic Helene Cixous, who coined the term "ecriture feminine" to delineate a proposed feminist mode of writing about embodied experience. I suppose I have mixed feelings about about the "confessional space" in general . This isn't because I think it's inappropriate or otherwise untoward for men to write "from the inside out," but I appreciate non-confessional intimacy in writing. Somerset Maugham, for instance, wrote poignantly about the experience of weakness in "Of Human Bondage."
As for the discourse surrounding the "unbound male psyche," sex, and vulnerability, it's such a fraught space. You and others have done yeoman's work exploring it. It's certainly gotten the ol' gears turning.
Thanks, Ben! And yes, it's definitely a fraught space. But we definitely need some people to make their forays into it.
Ive been following this discussion a bit and the thing that seems to be assumed by most people is that men write stuff about men and women write stuff about women. I disagree. People can write about anything they want. Just by chance I’m reading Marguerite Duras’ “The Sailor from Gibraltar” (1952) at the moment and the main character is a man, first person point of view, and he does the sort of things people get upset at men for doing. But the book is written by a woman. Yes, I realize it’s a French book from the 50’s, so not exactly relevant to the discussion being had, but I think this whole topic is downstream from the idea that you can only write about what you know and can’t imagine other points of view, a position that’s become dominant in, I don’t know, the last 15 years, but that is an anomaly in the history of literature. I’m talking about literary fiction here, obviously it’d be different for a personal essay, but when it comes to novels, it’d be great if people just wrote whatever the hell they wanted. Ok, then there’s the publishing question, well…I have no answers there. I’m interested in writing, not publishing.
Let me also throw in a plug for Thomas Brown’s newsletter, which I think is the sort of autobiographical, confessional writing that some people are looking for. He talks about his dating experiences and is a great writer: https://thomasbrown.substack.com/
I think writers are indeed pressured to stick to what they know, but progressive ideology also says that only those that are lower on the privilege hierarchy can write about others. So white writers can't write about Asians, but Asian writers can write about white people. So women can write about men, but men can't write about women. It's obviously very limiting and hypocritical.
Also, you recommended Il Sorpasso to me, right? I recently watched it and enjoyed it a lot, so thanks!
I did! Glad you enjoyed it.
I think you're right but that in this particular cultural climate people men not writing men, etc. can fall afoul of #Ownvoices and r/menwritingwomen, etc.
I was primarily raised by my mother. A brilliant and enduring woman, fraught with emotional abuse who buried it in alcohol. The majority of my childhood friends were girls, as I preferred their company, unless they didn’t have the same activity or hobby interests. I was playing tea time and mud wrestling with them before anyone else. My father was a construction worker and habitual smoker with hands tempered by hammer and wood. He was a reserved and introspective man, one who survived Catholic school and kept precious few friends. He was gentle, philosophical, and only opened his mind to those closest to him. They loved each other, despite separating for their own stubbornnesses.
I don’t buy that men necessarily try to “write like women”, whatever that means, unless they’re just writing in a way that’s less authentic to their interests and more as a means to exploit something for themselves. Men, straight men, don’t write confessional essays because there’s absolutely no capital in it. They were never invited to the party, they were bullied off the playground. In an industry where literary genres and scenes are alienated from each other, artistry is sidelined to prioritize commodification and consumption, and the pop culture of vacuous literati etiquette and fickle smug irony reigns supreme, how could any straight man willing to be vulnerable be expected to write about themselves seriously without getting laughed off the stage? Remember, they already had the spotlight of the past entire history of man.
Treating this as an issue of male vs female perspectives only serves to entrench harmful stereotypes, ones that confine what someone is said to be capable of expressing and relegates them to their predestined role that was constructed for them to fill. Straight men, make sure you stay away from intimacy, lest you dare to try and broach the perspective and terrain of a woman. And then where do they go to find solace? But we’re here asking questions about where their confessionals are, that these men don’t respect themselves enough ti write them?
Public shootings are the new confessional. Men who lack so much self respect that they must take it away from others to fill the void. Now THAT’S masculine.
I don’t get it. Anything done by a man is necessarily itself masculine, what else could it be? Why does anyone act surprised when deterministic contemporary narratives of “masculinity” and “femininity” tell young men that not only are their perspectives not wanted, not desired, and not valued, but that everything else dedicated to the realm of femininity is not for them and that most masculinity is toxic (followed by a myriad of legitimate, historic examples)?
My mother bestowed her “femininity” to me, even though she bore the brunt of the alcoholic parent trope. My father bestowed me with “femininity” even though he spent his entire life destroying his body with physical labor just to survive. Femininity is my birthright. But that birthright isn’t vogue, by virtue of my own body and mind.
If you want a personal recommendation from me on straight male confessionals, I’ve heard on good authority that Nietzsche left us a few good screeds.
I'm a straight white male and I write personal essays disguised as Travel Pieces: https://blakenelson.substack.com/p/east-portland-2024-tinder-date
I recommend Blake’s stack as well!
Appreciate this one. Nicely done.
I’m a 25 year old guy. New to Substack. I touch on masculinity a fair amount in my writing. I’ve found it challenging to get over the “You’re too much” thoughts when pouring my heart out.
Finding a lot of good in the challenge, though.
Chris - I’m working on something I’d like your eyes on. What’s the best way to get in touch?
Awesome piece!