Voice Male Summer 1999

Inside: • School Boys and the Killing Fields • What We Can Do to Avoid Another Littleton • Portraits of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Families • Becoming a Man: The Big impossible?

• Men as Survivors: A Silent Majority

,. ~rom

By Rob Okun

the Editor

Men Learning "Emotionalese"

The Big Impossible? or many men, childhood was marked by incidents of violence and abuse, leaving us to lead emotionally restricted, narrow lives, lackmg any expression of empathy. But it needn't be that way.

When I was in the fifth grade. Van Denson (not his real name) jomed our class m the middle of the year. Van was a nice kid, a fair athlete. bigger than average, somebody who by all accounts should have fit m. But Van had a physical condition that prevented him from controlling his urge to urinate. I don't know how h1s family was treatmg the problem, but it wasn't working. Van almost always smelled of urine and, naturally, was the target of the painful slings and arrows of his (male) classmates.

My reaction was different. I felt tremendous compassion for Vans situation and couldn't believe how cruel some of my classmates could be . He can't help it, I thought, but I never dared say so. I'm sure now that I wasn't alone in how I felt, but the code of silence that boys adopt early prevented me from talking about my feelings with anyone. Except maybe at home, and then only sometimes.

As the weather warmed up and we were outside more often, I witnessed more examples of Van being taunted. As I did so , I became increasingly distraught about his situation, began having trouble sleeping and eating, and felt pretty helpless. My parents noticed something was wrong with me and, with some prodding, I began to open up. One school day, · about five o'clock in the morning, I climbed in between them in their king-sized bed and started crying, heaving sobs. choking out words of helplessness and hopelessness about Van. "It's not fair ... It's not fair," I kept repeating. I felt hollow inside, empty, a little boy scared and confused about why sad things happen and how cruel people could be.

But why was I so obsessed with Van's plight? He wasn't my best friend , wasn't someone I hung around with all that much. Over the years I've come back to that time in my life and my strong feelings about Van, puzzling to uncover its meaning. What I've come to believe is this: I was trying to establish an emotional

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vocabulary for myself, a way of being that allowed me to fully feel. To their credit, my parents gave space and voice to my confusion and pain, my dad allowing me to feel sad about Van, my mother comforting me while rightly focusing on trying to prevent her little boy from becoming a nervous wreck.

Maybe, being 10, there wasn't a way for me to fully understand what I was experiencing; maybe, it being the 1950s, there weren't the words. In either case, while I sensed approval at home, that support was challenged on the playground. The times I played with Van at

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recess put me at risk of being ostracized by my regular bunch of guys . So those times became fewer and fewer, and my empathy for Van's plight had no outward expression. It burrowed into my heart space , sank into my churning stomach, erupted as bile, stinging my .throat.

On some mornings I awoke gripped with anxiety, sobbing into my pillow, not wanting to go to school. I didn't want to have my heart tom open again witnessing Van's humiliation as the odor of his urine-soaked pants filled my row. Thankfully, at such moments my parents didn't deride me with harsh words of "consolation"-"Toughen up! 'fhat are you crying about?"

Instead, I remember my father holding me, listening, while my mom rubbed my back, their little boy trying to find the words to match his feelings . With the passage of time, I felt as if I'd been taking a Berlitz course in a foreign language called "Emotionalese ."

About a week before the horrifying massacre at Columbine High School, I'd started reading

Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, by child development therapists Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson. They believe emotional literacy is the most valuable gift we can offer boys, and emotional connectedness the sturdiest bridge between boyhood and manhood . "Individually, and as a culture , we must discard the distorted view of boys that ignores their capacity for feeling, the view that colors even boys' perceptions of themselves as above or outside a life of emotions," they write.

From such a vantage point I can much more clearly understand my own experience with Van nearly 40 years ago. I wanted to speak "Emotionalese" but was afraid none of my peers would join the conversation. And I have to wonder, how proficient were the Littleton perpetrators, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, at expressing themselves in the-for many males--foreign language of feelings?

Among the Fox Indians of Wisconsin, manhood was characterized as the "Big Impossible."

How apt. For no matter what rite of passage, competition, vision quest, or deprivation we endure, without an outlet for emotional expression, the true definition of what's possible for man,hood will continue to elude us.

Those of us concerned with boys developing strong, flexible emotional lives and growing to become empathetic adult men must look for solutions to raising boys that go beyond gun control, MTY, the Internet, or Hollywood. We need to help our sons navigate the passage into their inner lives, to help them discover the road markers along the way, and offer them love and support to fortify them on their journey.

TABLE OF CONTENTS REGULAR FEATURES From the Editor From the Director Mail Bonding Men @Work Mythopoetics and Politics: The Stories We Tell Ourselves

2 3 4 5 13

By Michael Dover Fathering: The Sword and the Shield

14

By Michael Burke Men&: Health: National Mens Health Week

15

By joe Zaske Notes from Survivors: Going Home from the Hospital

16

By Steven jacobsen Thank You MRC Programs &: Services Resources Calendar

22 23 24 ::2.6

ARTICLES & OPINION 8

School Boys and the Killing Fields

By jackson Katz and Sutjhally Seven Things We Can Do to Avoid Another Littleton

9

By Russell Bradbury-Carlin Love Makes a Family: Portraits 10 of Gay. Lesbian and Bisexual Families Interviews by Peggy Gillespie Photos by Gigi Kaeser Laughter and Tears on Monday Nights 12

By Michael Greenebaum Book Review: Neal King's

Speaking Our Truth

By Steven jacobsen

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Cover Photo by Gigi Kaeser The mission of the Men~ Resource Center of Western Massachusetts is to support men and develop men~ leadership in challenging all forms of oppression in our lives, our families , and our communities. Our programs support men to overcome the damaging effects of rigid and stereotyped masculinity, and simultaneously confront men~ patterns of personal and societal violence and abuse toward women, children, and other men.

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236 North Pleasant Street • Amherst, MA 01002 413.253.9887 • Fax: 413.253.4801 ISSN 1092-4795 • Email: mrc@valinet.rom Web Site: www.mrc-wma.com

Voice Male

By Steven Botkin

From the Director

Men as Survivors:

A Silent Majority Administrative Staff

Executive Director - Steven Botkin Associate Director - Rob Okun Business Manager - Carl Erikson DUlce Manager- George Moonlight Davis Outreach Coordinator - Steven Jacobsen Development Associate - Tim Van Ness Men Overcoming Violence

Directors - Russell Bradbury-Carlin, Sara Elinoff Clinical Supervisor - Steven Botkin Partner Services Coordinator - Sara Elinott Group Leaders - Juan Carlos Arean, Steven Jefferson, Rob Okun, Steve Trudel Intake Coordinator - Tim Van Ness Youth Education

MARS Program - Russell Bradbury-Carlin, Javiera Benavente Springfield Programs

Director - Juan Carlos Armin Voice Male

Editor - Rob Okun Senior Editor - Steven Botkin Managing Editor - Michael Burke Production - Mark Bergeron Ad Sales Director - Steven Jacobsen Copy Editor - Michael Dover Support Groups

Director - Juan Carlos Arean Board of Directors

Chair - Michael Dover Vice-Chair- AI Sax Clerk/Treasurer 路 Peter Jessop Members 路Jenny Daniell, Nancy Girard, Thom Herman. Sean Hutchinson, Ty Joubert, Yoko Kato.

Tom Kovar. Brenda Lopez, She/lie Taggart Editor's Note Tne opinions expressed may not represent the views of all staff, board, or members of the MRC. We welcome letters to the editor. articles, news items, article ideas, and news of events of interest. We encourage unsolicited manuscripts. but cannot be responsible for their loss or delay; manuscripts will not be returned or responded to unless accompanied by a self-addressed. stamped envelope. Send to: Editor.

Voice Male, c/o the Men's Resource Center.

Membership The MRC is funded by individual and organizational contributions. and by tees tor services. Please join us in our vision of men healing, growing, and ending violence. Annual subscription and membership is $25.

Send to-MRC, 236 North Pleasant St., Amherst, MA 01002.

Advertising For rates and deadlines call Steven Jacobsen

Voice Male

am a survivor of childhood abuse .. No, my parents did not beat me. I was sexually abused on several occasions by a male babysitter when I was about seven years old. I was not physically injured or threatened, and I told no one until I was well into adulthood.

I am a survivor of childhood abuse. One of the smallest kids in my class throughout elementary and junior high school, I was a target of regular teasing and physical harassment, especially from the bigger boys. When the quickness of my wits and physical agility weren't enough to avoid the abuse, I learned to play the game of obsequious submission to give the abuser what he wanted: a sense of power and control. I was never physically injured beyond minor bumps and bruises , and I talked about it with no one.

I am a survivor of childhood abuse. In elementary school, in addition to fire drills, we would regularly practice filing into the hallways to kneel , facing the wall with our hands over our heads. I learned how twenty years earlier my relatives, along with millions of other jews, were killed in concentration camps.

Later, night after night, well into my high school years, I watched in silent horror scenes of war, assassinations, riots, caskets unloaded from airplanes. I was told that, as a man, I could soon be forced to be a soldier. I was not physically injured, and I knew I was not supposed to talk about my pain and fear.

It is a sad and underestimated truth that boys and young men are regularly abused-in our families, in our schools, on our streets. We are abused with physical violence, sexual violence, intimidation, and harassment. We are abused by distinctly male forms of ageism, homophobia, racism, classism, and ableism.

We are abused by war. We are abused by parents, other adults, and other children.

We are profoundly affected by both overt and direct violence, and by seemingly subtle and "mild" violations. The legacy of a dominating, patriarchal masculinity is inherited through all of this abuse.

We are then doubly violated by hav-

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ing to pretend that what happened wasn't really that bad. We are taught that this is "normal," "part of growing up," "the real world." It certainly seems to be going on all around us. We stifle our natural feelings of violation and outrage. We quickly come to understand that we are not supposed to "complain"-in other words, talk about it. We begin our careful practice of silence and denial, telling ourselves "I don't really hurt," ''I'm not really scared," "I don't really need any help ," and trying to prove it to othersand ourselves-over and over again.

The practice of silence and denial can also prevent us from recognizing when others are experiencing abuse-even when it is those we love, even when we are the ones being abusive. We have become so numb to the reality of violence and abuse in our lives and in our culture that we now may no longer see it for what it is. Naming abuse can open up a Pandora's box of our own experiences.

As men learn to tell the truth about our full range of childhood experiences, we recognize how the vast and mostly silent majority of us are survivors 路of abuse. As we learn that we are no longer bound by the codes of silence and denial we can reclaim the full truth of our experiences and our feelings . We can remember our ability to speak out in response to all forms of violation. We can become natural allies with all others who have been victimized by violence or abuse. We can take our place with other men and with women as part of a great uprising of the human spirit to throw off the stifling legacy of silence and denial.

This is the mission of the Men's Resource Center. We invite you to explore the pages of this magazine, visit us at our offices in Amherst or Springfield, and drop in on one of our support groups. Your participation is encouraged-write to us, volunteer with us , become an MRC member.

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WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU Wnte us 1 Please send typewntten, double-spaced letters to: VOICE MALE MRC 236 North Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA 01002 or FAX us at (413) 253-4801 ' ' E-mail- mrc@valinet.com, include address and phone. Letters may be edited for clanty and length.Deadline for the Fall '99 issue is August 10.

Pushing Against the Tide I am much impressed with what you have done with the MRC. The willingness to take on these huge issues and to push agamst the tide 1s heartwarmmg. 1 ei1Joyed the range of VIews brought together m V01ce Male. I am reminded how much there is to learn and unlearn.

Best of luck.

Chris Brett Bath, Marne

Reassembling the Fragments The foll owing letter was received after a recent "Talk Bach" presentation on domestic violence at Amherst Regwnal High School

by Nancy Girard and Scott Girard of the ¡ MRC Speakers' Bureau and Rob Ohun MRC associate director and a group le~der in the Men Overcoming Violence (MOVE) program.

Thank you again for your thoughtful presentation and generosity of spirit.

Comments on student feedback forms certamly reflected that students felt enriched by the experience. Personally, I was impressed by how balanced Nancy and Scott are-not to get the least bit "thrown" by the questions raised . What a fantastic example of the strength and depth of the human spirit!

Congratulations on your work with the Speakers' Bureau.

Student comments included: "The experience gave me incredible insight into abusive relationships."

"I pretty much thought that abusive men are unchangeable. I'm glad to know that there is a men's group [MOVE] that really is effective."

"I really appreciate the way Nancy and Scott were honest and open about their lives. It helps others to be open about the subject and make it less taboo." _"It helped to see where I was as a man concerning how I feel with anger."

"It helped me sort out some stuff that I'n been dealing with."

"It was really interesting and I liked listening to a real story instead of just facts."

Finally, I'd like to share a quote l recently read that seems very relevant to your experience: Break a vase, and the l;ve that reassembles the.Jragments is stronger than that which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole. -Derek Walcott

Adrienne Talamas Amherst Regional High School Amherst, Mass .

Change Is Possible Your center sounds like a wonderful organization and it appears you are doing some great work. I work at a parent-child center in Burlington, Vermont, and among the things I do is to facilitate a weekly fathers and children group . The articles in Voice Male concerning raising boys were useful topics for discussion among the dads.

I also work at Spectrum Family Services facilitating groups for men who batter. I shared the excellent article by Sara Elinoff ("Believing That Abusive Men Can Change," Winter 1999) with my co-workers ; it boosted my belief that change is possible. Keep up the good work.

Stephen Mojica jericho, Vt.

We Need You , MRC Your request for donations for your youth programs arrived the same day as the school shooting in Colorado. Here is my contribution-! wish I could give more. Thank you for the work you are doing. We need more organizations like you. You will always have my support.

Susan Fountain Poughkeepsie, N.Y

SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR THE MEN'S RESOURCE CENTER Yes! Please send me: _

T-shirt(s) Teal_ Beige_ Size: _ Medium _Large_ Extra Large Mugs: Indicate # __ Mouse Pads: Indicate # Enclosed is $__ for_ (T-shirts) _(mugs)_ (mouse pads) Remember to add $2.50 postage torT-shirts, $2.00 tor mugs, $1.00 for mouse pads. Total enclosed: $ ' - - - - - Please Print Name _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ___

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Order MRC T-Shirts, Mugs, and Mouse Pads. p_rin~ed wi~h MRC credo: Supporting Men • Challenging Violence Durable T-sh1rts m teal w1th black lettering or beige with navy blue lettering Sizes: Medium, L~rge , Extra Large. 100% heavy, pre-shrunk cotton- $12 plus $2.50 postage Handsome ceram1c mugs in turquoise with MRC logo in black- $6.50 Custom-made teal colored Mouse Pads with MRC logo (7" X 9") -

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Send orders to: MRC Essentials 236 No. Pleasant St. Amherst, MA 01002 Please allow four weeks for delivery.

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Voice Male

MEN(@WORK Give

~~Bud"

a Call

Maybe you don't drink Bud Light.

Maybe you don't even drink beer. That's OK-but you might want to give the people at Anheuser-Busch a call applauding an unprecedented action: they ran an ad in a gay and lesbian magazine showing two men holding hands , with the tagline , "Be yourself and make it a Bud Light." 路 The ad, which may be the first of its kind from a major national advertiser, ran m the April 22 issue of EXP, and also noted that Bud Light is a "Proud Sponsor of the St. Louis PrideFest '99." refernng to an annual gay and lesb1an festival held in June.

Already Anheuser-Busch has been getting calls both for and against the ad.

Gay community leaders have urged people to call in support, while Jerry Falwell has reportedly issued a call to his followers to denounce the ad .

You can weigh m, too. To simply record your support, call the Bud Light folks at (877) 233-7725 and leave 路a message. To talk to a real live person , call 1-800-DIAL BUD.

God, Sex, and Money For some men God, Sex and Money are the Big Three-like Roosevelt, Churchill , and Stalin. or GM , Ford, and Chrysler. The brainchild of three prominent men~ work leaders, "God, Sex, and Money" is an intriguing new workshop for men that will be presented for the first t1me in New England this fall .

The workshop grew out of a weeklong Wilderness retreat held in northern Minnesota in 1997, where 36 men explored the issues that touched them most deeply. According to the workshop facilitators , the subject of God came up on the very first day-men's hunger for God, disbelief in God, anger toward God, and other powerful and conflicting feelings.

On the second day God rested , and male sexuality came to the forefront with an open discussion of sexual morality, wounds , and wonders.

The third day brought up money: how men's sense of self-worth can be tied to their net worth, how the wealthy can lose what matters most and the 1mpovenshed can be rich in friends.

Given the importance of these issues to men, the three retreat leaders-John Voice Male

not on spending money, but on spending time with a child. The time a Big Brother spends with a child can make a positive difference in that child's life-and it's only a few hours a week.

To learn more about becoming a Big Brother, call Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Hampshire County at (413) 253-2591.

Peace of Mind jeffrey Duvall, john Lee, joe Laur

Lee, Joe Laur, and Jeffrey Duvall-decided to hold a workshop devoted to just these three themes. Lee is a founder of the Austin Men~ Center and author of Flying Boy and other books; Laur is a training leader and former executive director of the New Warrior Network, now known as the ManKind Project; Duvall is associate director of the Men~ Council Project in Boulder, Colorado.

"God, Sex, and Money" will be held Friday through Sunday, October 1-3, 1999, at the Sirius Community Conference Center in Shutesbury, Mass.

To register or for more information contact Stephen Stem at (508) 376-9544 (office) or e-mail SstemRAM@aol.com; or Jedd Miller at (413) 549-5585 (office), e-mail JeddMiller@aol.com.

A Few Good Men Big Brothers/Big Sisters is looking for men to be Big Brothers in the Hampshire County area of western Massachusetts.

Big Brothers act as mentors and role models for boys who need a caring adult friend-someone who will listen with an uncritical ear, who will give advice if asked and encouragement when needed , and who will help put things into perspective. Ultimately, the guidance of a Big Brother can help a child grow into a confident, competent, and caring individual.

What are the benefits? Men who volunteer to be Big Brothers have a chance to reconnect with youth, to make a good life even better, and to have a sense of giving something back to their community. The feelings of growing and learning are shared by both the child and the volunteer.

Big Brothers and children do things that any friends might do together: watch movies, ride bikes in the park, sit and talk, even run errands. The focus is

Traprock Peace Center and Mt. Toby Friends Meeting are cosponsoring a weekend worksh op entitled. "Creating Peaceful Relationships in a Dominator Culture," led by Bill Moyer of the Social 路 Movement Empowerment Project in San Francisco. The workshop will be held at the Mt. Toby Friends Meeting in Leverett, Mass., on the weekend of June 19-20.

The workshop is designed to help participants learn methods for transforming behaviors such as competing, arguing , blaming, and playing victim, as well as power plays, control, coercion, putdowns , judgments and the like into ones that are empowering and peaceful. The idea is also to help participants become more effective as activists and more fulfilled in their personal relationships .

Bill Moyer has been an organizer and trainer in social and personal change for 35 years in the United States, Canada, eastern and western Europe, and Australia. He has worked in the civil rights, anti-Vietnam War, anti-nuclear energy and weapons, and anti-domestic violence movements. Thousands of people have attended his worksh ops-but organizers caution that he is not Bill Moyers of PBS- TV! To register for the workshop , contact Traprock Peace Center, Keets Road, Deerfield , MA 01342 . Call Mary Link, (413) 628-4695, or Traprock, (413) 7737427, to discuss scholarships.

Bullard Farm Bed and Breakfast and Conference Center

978-544-6959 400 acres of woods, fields and rivers prime accessible location

New Salem Men's Retreats Welcome 5

MEN(®WORK New Support Group Opens in Northampton Thanks to the generosity of Hampshire County Community Action Commission, which donated the space, the MRC has expanded its weekly open men~ drop-in group to Northampton.

The group meets on Tuesday evenings from 7 to 9 PM at 218 State Street. Eight new trained facilitators have been invited to join the MRC's Support Groups program. For more information about the Tuesday night group or support groups in general, contact the MRC at (413) 253-9887.

MRC Opens Satellite Office in Springfield The MRC has opened its first satellite office at the South End Community Center in Springfield. Located in an impressive 100-year-old former Armory building at 29 Howard Street, the space includes a private office and bathroom and a group room for meetings and gatherings. "This is a good example of turnmg swords mto plowshares," said Springfield programs director juan Carlos Arean. "We will be running our

Men Overcoming Violence (MOVE) groups here-one of which already exists-a youth group, and support groups."

Additionally, the MRC is running a youth group and a Spanish-speaking MOVE group in Holyoke. For more information on Springfield area programs, contact Arean at (413) 253-9887.

United Way Head Joins MRC Board Ty Joubert, president of Community United Way of the Pioneer Valley in Springfield, has joined the MRC Board of Directors. Ty joins Brenda Lopez, domestic violence prevention coordinator for the City of Springfield, in providing a voice and perspective from the state's thirdlargest city. A native of Texas, Ty has spent most ,of his career in United Way organizations, moving to our area six years ago from Sari Francisco. "Ty has been a tremendous supporter of our Springfield initiative for the past two years," said Michael Dover, MRC board chair. "As we continue to develop programs for the Springfield area, we are especially pleased that he and Brenda are available to advise, counsel, and encourage us ."

The Power of Positive Eating Otganic Fmits & Vegetables • Bulk Grains and Beans {iJ M ole Grain Bakery • Delicatessen • Cafe ~ J. Organic Wines • Microbrewery Beers ) ~ Natural Meats • Sparkling Seafood V Nafurtil Health & Body Care • Fresh Flowers

Bread & Circus WHOLE FOODS MARKET Russell St (Rt 9), Hadley, MA 413.586-9932

Hours: Monday- Sunday: 9am- 9Pm 6

MRC Workshop Program Expands Reach The MRC has begun marketing its broad range of workshops, training programs, and presentations to schools, agencies, and businesses, and will soon begin offering in its facilities a regular schedule of workshops and lectures for the general public. These workshops will cover a broad range of gender issues. .

"This new program pulls together in a marketable way the workshops and training the staff has up to now done ad hoc," says Carl Erikson, MRC Workshop and Training (WAT) coordinator. "And it gives us an opportunity to serve amuch broader range of men and men's issues."

The outside workshops and training programs the MRC currently offers will continue and be expanded. "They'll be only a part of what we offer, though," Erikson says. "For our in-house workshops, we want to increase significantly the number of subjects we offer-ones of interest to men and boys in particular."

Proposals for workshops to be offered inhouse at the MRC should be submitted by july 30 to Erikson. For more information on submitting program proposals, or to get your name on the mailing list for the in-house catalog of programs, contact Erikson at (413) 253-9887, ext. 13.

Making Summer Camps Safe for Children Although summer camps are usually seen as places of fun and relaxation for children, information about sexual assaults in summer camps is prompting consideration of a new protective bill in the Massachusetts legislature. Dr. Richard Rice of Northampton, who has been spearheading this campaign, has gathered data about dozens of child sexual assaults at summer camps in Massachusetts. On the basis of this information a bill was filed by Representative Ellen Story of Amherst to move the oversight of summer camps from the 3 -person Division of Community Sanitation (DCS) to the 173person Office for Children (OFC).

Although Bill4259 was supported by hundreds of letters and personal stories from parents across the state, the camp industry opposed it, warning that increased costs would close them down.

Instead, the DCS amended its regulations Voice Male

to require CORI (criminal record) checks on some camp staff.

Dr. Rice believes this is not enough.

"Last summer less than half the camps in Massachusetts did any COR! checks, and even those were not reqmred to check kitchen or maintenance staff," he says.

"Since neither DCS nor the Department of Social Services keeps records of children raped in camps , how will we know if the new DCS regulauons are working or not?" To demonstrate the need for stncter summer camp regulation, Rice is now once again collecting data. If you are aware of any children who have been sexually molested in a Massachusetts camp or if you are willing to assist in gathenng this mformation, please contact Dr Rice at (413) 586-6866.

Who Are the Abusers?

Extensive data about child sexual abuse perpetrators have been collected over the past four years by Stop It Now. Based m western Massachusetts, Stop It Now's mission IS to call on all abusers and potential abusers to stop and seek help, to educate adults about the ways to stop sexual abuse, and to mcrease public awareness of the trauma of child sexual abuse. Stop It Now's new report, Who Are

the Abusers, soon to be published by the Centers for Disease Control, will describe the responses of 1,034 abuse survivors gathered through mailed surveys and a web site.

The large majority- 83 percent- of the perpetrators were people who were immediate family or close to the family (such as close friends or babysitters).

Thirty-six percent were fathers or stepfathers. Five percent were mothers. Ten percent were brothers. Of the total, four (0.4 percent) were identified as camp counselors. Ninety-one percent of the perpetrators were male. Nine percent were female. Fourteen percent of the survivors identified as male. Eighty six percent identified as female.

"Because of the anonymity of our survey methods this is the first time, as far as we know, that data have been collected about people who are perpetrators who have not already been reported," said Fran Henry, executive director of Stop It Now. "Since we know that 90 percent of all abuse is not reported, this new information will help us get a better picture of the problem."

For more information contact Stop It Now! at PO. Box 495, Haydenville, MA 01039. (413) 268-3096. Helpline: 1-888PREVENI

Looking to uonneut~ Try the MRC's Drop-In MEN'S SUPPORT GROUPS IN NORTHAMPTON Open to all men.

Every Tuesday at HCAC, 218 State St. , 7-9 PM. Doors close at 7:05. Please be prompt.

IN AMHERST Open to all men.

Every Sunday evening at the MRC, 7-9 PM. Doors close at 7:05. Please be prompt.

FOR GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDERED AND QUESTIONING MEN Every Monday evening at the MRC, 7-9 PM. FOR MALE SURVIVORS OF CHILDHOOD ABUSE AND TRAUMA Every Friday evening at the MRC, 7-8:30 PM. FREE-FACILITATED-CONFIDENTIAL

236 NORTH PLEASANT STREET, AMHERST ' (413) 253-9887

ManKind Project New England

presents

God, Sex & Money an experiential conference for men This p owerful event focuses on critical passages in a man's life where many of our core issues, deepest wounds and greatest potentials reside.

October 1-3, 1999 Sirius Community Conference Center Shutesbury, MA For more information contact: Jedd Miller at 413-549-5585 e-mail: JeddMiller@aol.com Stephen. Stern at 508-376-0801 e-mail: SsternRAM@aol.com Voice Male

7

Overcoming Violence

By jackson Katz and Sut ]hally

School Boys and the Killing Fields How the National Conversation About Littleton Has Missed the Mark he events at Columbine High School have plunged us into a national conversation about "youth violence" and how to stop it. Proposals came last week from all comer~-the Oval Office, Congress, living rooms across America. That we are talking about the problem is good; but the way we are talking about it is misdirected.

It is tempting to look at the murderous attack in Littleton as a manifestation of individual pathologies, an isolated incident involving deeply disturbed teenagers who watched one too many VIdeo game. That explanation ignores larger social and historical forces, and is dangerously shortsighted. Littleton is an extreme case, but if we examine critically the cultural environment in which boys are being socialized and trained to become men, such events might not appear so surprising.

Political debate and media coverage ' keep repeating the muddled thinking of the past. Headlines and stories focus .on youth violence, "kids killing kids," or as in the title of a CBS 48 Hours special, "Young Guns." This is entirely the wrong framework to use in trying to understand what happened in Littleton-or in j onesboro, Ark. , Paducah, Ky., Pearl, Miss. , or Springfield, Ore. This is not a case of kids killing kids.

This is boys killing boys and boys killing girls.

What these school shootings reveal is not a crisis in youth culture but a crisis in masculinity. The shootings-all by white adolescent males-are telling us something about how we are doing as a society, much like the canaries in coal mmes, whose deaths were a warning to 路 the miners that the caves were unsafe.

Consider what the reaction would have been if the perpetrators in Littleton 路 had been girls. The first thing everyone would have wanted to talk about would have been: Why are girls-not kidsacting out violently? What is going on in the lives of girls that would lead them to commit such atrocities? All of the expla-

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nations would follow from the basic premise that being female was the dominant variable.

But when.the perpetrators are boys, we talk in a gender-neutral way about kids or children, and few (with the exception of some feminist scholars) delve into the forces-be they cultural,

historical, or institutional-that produce hundreds of thousands of physically abusive and violent boys every year. Instead, we call upon the same tired specialists who harp about the easy accessibility of guns, the lack of parental supervision, the culture of peer-group exclusion and teasing, or the prevalence of media violence.

All of these factors are of course relevant, but if they were the primary answers, then why are girls, who live in the same environment, not responding in the same way? The fact that violencewhether of the spectacular kind represented in the school shootings or the more routine murder, assault , and rape-is an overwhelmingly male phenomenon should indicate to us that gender is a vital factor, perhaps the vital factor.

Looking at violence as gender-neutral has the effect of blinding us as we desperately search for clues about how to respond.

The issue is not just violence in the media but the construction of violent

masculinity as a cultural norm. From rock and rap music and videos, Hollywood action films , professional and college sports, the culture produces a stream of images of violent, abusive men and promotes characteristics such as dominance , power, and control as means of establishing or maintaining manhood.

Consider professional wrestling, with its mixing of sports and entertainment and its glamorization of the culture of dominance. It represents, in a microcosm, the broader cultural environment in which boys mature. Some of the core values of the wrestling subculturedominant displays of power and control, ridicule of lesser opponents, respect equated with physical fear and deference-are factors in the social system of Columbine High, where the shooters were ridiculed, marginalized, harassed, and bullied.

These same values infuse the Hollywood action-adventure genre that is so popular with boys and young men. In numerous films starring iconic hypermasculine figures like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Bruce Willis, and Mel Gibson, the cartoonish story lines convey the message that masculine power is embodied in muscle , firepower, and physical authority. . Numerous other media targeting boys convey similar themes. Thrash metal and gangsta rap, both popular among suburban white males , often express boys' angst and anger at personal problems and social injustice, with a call .to violence to redress the grievances. The male sports culture features regular displays of dominance and one-upsmanship, as when a basketball player dunks "in your face," or a defensive end sacks a quarterback, lingers over his fallen adversary, and then, in a scene reminiscent of ancient Rome , struts around to a stadium full of cheering fans .

How do you respond if you are being victimized by this dominant system of masculinity? The lessons from

continued on page 19

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Voice Male

Overcoming Violence

By Russell Bradbury-Carlin

Seven Things We Can Do To Avoid Another Littleton n my role as coordinator of the Mentor/Advocates for Respect and Safety (MARS) program, I work with many young people from middle school age to college age. I interact a lot with the "adult" world, too-teachers, school administrators, and parents. My own reactions to the violence ·at · Columbine High have been influenced and colored by what I have heard from the young people and the school systems I interact with as well as the community as a whole. At times I have felt hopeful and encouraged by what I have seen and heard; at others I have felt hopeless and incredulous at the lack of acknowledgment-and even the denial-of this incident and others within our own community. There is a lot of misunderstanding and mistrust between the world of youth and the world of adults. There are many misconceptions, and a lack of real communication.

So what is to be done? The following list is just a beginning; it arises out of some of my frustrations in working in this field and in light of the terrible events at Columbine High School.

It is far from exhaustive, but I hope its a constructive start.

I

Education Reform-Let's Get Personal Education should include more about the personal. Teachers are pushed to pack a certain amount of curriculum into a limited amount of time. What is left out is time for the students to digest and relate the material to themselves.

The personal also includes more time to let students talk about pertinent events · in their lives. It is one thing for students to be given facts about drug abuse and another for them to be able to talk openly and nonjudgmentally about drugs in their own lives. Doing so can allow real learning to occur.

Education Reform-Educate the Educators There are many great teachers out there who understand the issues young people face and are able to speak about them in their classrooms. But many are not able to facilitate discussions about Voice Male

such topics as drug abuse, violence, sexual harassment-things going on right in the schools. Part of education reform must include training teachers to deal with these topics in their classes-to at least be able to address an issue if it shows up. lt is also important that teachers deal with these issues on their own. I have heard too many stories about teachers who make inappropriate sexual innuendos or who bully students.

It is one thing to talk about nonviolence and nonharassment, and another to model these behaviors.

Education Reform-Educate Everyone This should be obvious. We need to provide more anti-violence education in our schools and throughout our communities. Educate everyone: young people, parents, teachers, school administrators, your neighbors ...

Don't Succumb to Denial I know of a school principal who told an educator not to use the word "sex" in a presentation on relationship violence.

Why? The principal explained, "because my students don't have sex." This is either denial or ignorance. Some local school systems didn't come up with any school-wide response to the massacre in Colorado. This amazed me, because I know that many parents have talked about feeling some fear in sending their children to school. I'm sure many teachers must wonder about their own safety in school. And, of course, young people are confused, scared, and truly want to discuss the impact of this on their lives.

Several area schools developed responses

to the Colorado incident, but how could so many have chosen to ignore it?

Offer Young People Things to Do A lot of young people don't have anything .to do after school.

Their parents aren't home, and unless they are athletic or academic, they don't have anyplace to go. Let's create programs in the community that will give young people things to do that interest them-art classes, skateboarding parks, etc. And lets support true youth centers that young people create and run. Also , young people need jobs-and not just minimum wage , boring "grunt" jobs; there aren't many employers willing to even hire anyone under the age of 18.

Many adults believe that young people are irresponsible and not committed.

Would you be committed to a job where you were only told what to do , where it was boring and/or demeaning, and where you only received minimum wage?

Listen to Young People I heard from a lot of teens that some teachers and parents did talk to them about the incident in Colorado, but in most cases it was either an adult telling them what was wrong with young people or adults asking them, "Why are young people so violent?" Adults, understandably, have felt overwhelmed by this

continued on page 18

Anger Problem? Discover Fair Fighting Intimacy Problem? Discover Merging

Richard H. Martin, D.Min. Psychotherapist, Couple & Family Therapist Editor: A Manual for Support Group Facilitators (MRC) Co-Director of A Center for Transforming Relationships Free initial consultation • Sliding Scale available 8 River Drive, Hadley

(413) 584-7770, (413) 253-3353 9

Family D i v e r s i t y - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Interviews by Peggy Gillespie

Love Makes a Family

THE COOPER FAMILY J

1

n il

"There are forces out there that are opposed to gay rights and to the very concept of gays adopting. The battle lines are drawn, and I see ourselves as soldiers fighting that battle. I'm sure if the American people were educated by looking at all the facts , they could put aside the stereotypes and see what gay families are really like."

-]on Cooper

"It's very important for people to understand that love makes a family. Without love, there's no family. Gay families do the same thing straight families dowhich is to love. Gay parents have the same power of love as anyone else."

-Rob Cooper

\\

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THE WATSON/HUTCHINS FAMILY "I think its important that people know that being a gay parent is no different than being a parent in a traditional family. We have the same feeling of love for our children, the same feeling of sadness when our children have problems, and the same feeling of pride when our children do well."

-Ken Watson

3 10

Voice Male

Photos by Gigi Kaeser

Portraits of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Families "I hope my children grow up to be open-minded and accepting of everybody. I don't want judgmental kids. I don't care whether somebody is gay or of a different color or a different religion or has a handicap; I just don't want my kids judging anyone for those reasons. I want them to only care about who people are inside."

-Lisa Watson "Kids in my old school teased me because they didn't know the full definition of 'gay.' I don't really blame them because they didn't really know what 'gay' means. I hope someday that kids will look at it in a different way."

-Ashley Watson

THE ELSASSER/ROBINSON FAMILY "If you want a child, you have to accept the fact that you're going to be out.

Children bring you out. They tell their friends, classmates, teachers , doctors and the cashier at the supermarket. They tell everyone, 'I have two daddies.' You don't want to tell your child that they have to hide or be silent, because you don't want your child to be ashamed."

-Michael Elsasser

WINCHESTER/GAFFORD FAMILY "I was teased a lot when I was kid . but not because anyone assumed I was gay.

Kids can be quite cruel towards other kids. When you look at the overall problems kids face, the gay issue isn't going to be that much larger than the others our kids will probably face. The problems we face as a family are more typical of the problems any heterosexual family faces. l thmk our children have some Vo1ce Male

definite advantages growing up in a gay family. Our kids are being raised to love people for who they are and not for who they love."

-Durwood Gafford "In our family, we don't tolerate jokes or negative statements about people of other races or other backgrounds. We . don't allow the kids to do any namecalling. We know how much it can hurt."

-Leonard Winchester

"I always draw parallels between my experience growing up in the fifties and sixties as an African-American, and being gay in America in the nineties ... The most important thing is for every gay person in this country to come out. Straight people would be really shocked to see how many of us there are, and where we are.

We are their neighbors ."

-Doug Robinson For more information about Family Diversity Projects, contact them at PO. Box 1209, Amherst, Mass. 01004, (413) 2560502. E-mail: famphoto@aol.com

11

Gay Bisexual I s s u e s - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - By Michael Greenebaum

Laughter and Tears on Monday Night

A

n observer passing by the large group room at the Men's Resource Center at nine o'clock on a Monday night would notice a gathering of 6 to 15 men 路 engaged in a group hug. I fear that from the observer's vantage point, this might look more like the "Dance of the Hours" from Disney's Fantasia; some of us are rather broad of beam (like the hippos), others slender and sleek (like the alligators). (None of us , I hasten to add, resembles the ostriches.) We differ in many other ways as well. There is often a 50-year age span among participants, and we are together for many different reasons. We bring anxiety, hope , nervousness, bravado, 路 lonelmess, humor, crisis, and love with us. We are the Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Questioning Drop-In Group.

Try saying that fast five times. I myself would much prefer just to call it the Queer and Curious Drop-In Group ; for me, "queer" embraces all whose sexuality does not fit neatly mto the official version of sex and gender. A typical Monday evening discussion would reveal that participants differ from one another as much as we, as a group, differ from that official version. Our differences are precious to us; they enrich our friendships and they allow us to be sensitive and responsive to new members, whether queer or curious , who frequently join us.

But I get ahead of myself. The Monday night drop-in group was begun by the Meri's Resource Center to join the Sunday night group (for all men) and the Fnday night group (for survivors of childhood abuse) as safe havens for men to share issues , to give and receive support. There had been a perception among some m the community that the MRC was basically for straight men, and even though this was never really the case, it was important to everyone that this perception be corrected.

The Monday night group shares a basic structure with the other drop-in groups. It begins with a few minutes of quiet, for meditation and for centering. A 12

"check-in" allows participants to introduce themselves with first names, talk a little bit about their week, mention any issues that they would like to discuss later in the evening. The discussion, facilitated by one or two trained members, addresses these issues, and others, which come up in the course of the discussion. As the clock nears the end of the session, a "check-out" allows a final opportunity for members to speak. Or not. It is always OK to "pass." And then the unique, fabulous Monday night hug.

Cit is always OK to pass that up, too .)

Although it is a drop-in group, a bunch of men have become regulars because we enjoy one another!> company.

The regulars include gay men and bisexuals , men in committed relationships and others seeking relationships. Some are or have been married. Most of the regulars are "out," although not necessarily to everyone who matters to them.

For some regulars , the group provides an important social outlet, supportive and safe. For .others, the group is a step in dealing with personal crises, sometimes related to sexuality but sometimes not. Some use the group as part of their healing process after the loss of a beloved partner. Laughter and tears are themselves common partners on Monday nights.

Over time, some of us have come to know one another, our issues and our idiosyncrasies, pretty well. This is wonderful, but it is also a problem. It is , after all, a drop-in group. There is a risk that a new person may feel that he has stepped into a club of which he is not a member. We talk about this from time to time. Are we in danger of becoming a closed group? Would we like to? Can we carry off the challenge of being regulars in a drop-in group?

Whenever we discuss this , we reaffirm our commitment to the drop-in format and we reemphasize our desire to welcome newcomers, especially questioning men. All of us remember, and some of us still experience, the loneliness of being queer. We realize that both hiding and coming out take courage and

energy. We want to affirm the dignity and worth of all who wonder about their own sexuality and to support them in the journey of discovery that wonder initiates. We realize that entering the large group room for the first time on a Monday night can be awful/wonderful, important/impossible, breathtaking/ nerve-wracking. We want to be sure that , two hours later, newcomers leave as friends . Some may not return; others may become regulars.

It is a good, strong group. We are human service providers, artists, clerks, teachers , merchants , craftsmen, retired and unemployed. It doesn't matter. Some of us have postgraduate degrees , others have not made it through high school. It doesn't matter. Some of us are well over 60; others have not yet turned 20. It doesn't matter. Most of us are men , but we have had transgendered members who identify as female. .

The generosity of the Monday night group seems limitless. Some come in great pain, others in prolonged depression, still others in great confusion. For many, the Monday night group is the only place they have to talk about pain and confusion, knowing that there will be support and kindness in return. We are especially sensitive to the special problems of older and younger queer and curious men. Men questioning their own sexuality find others who have been there, done that. We remind ourselves that we are not therapists, but that, through sharing our own experiences , we can offer something important to those who imagine that they are alone.

Some Monday nights , though, we seem to bring nothing but the joy of being together. We can laugh about movies, TV shows, books. We tell jokes.

We share our autobiographies , which once seemed unique but now resonate remarkably among us. At such moments we relish the final hug , which seems to be a physical manifestation of our oneness .

I keep returning on Monday nights because I feel both honored and humbled to be a member of the group.

Listening to the stories of my friends and those of newcomers, I feel路 that I am in the company of heroes, of people whose

continued on page 18 Voice Male

Mythopoetics and Politics - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - --By Michael Dover

The Stories We Tell Ourselves en we hear the word myth" we picture the rand epic-clashes of gods and titans, fantastic tales of magic and monsters. "Story" evokes images of tellers capturing the imagination of their listeners, weaving intricate tales of adventure and mystery.

In fact, though, most of the myths and stories by which we live are of a different sort.

These days, we don't sit around listening to our elders tell stories about gods and goddesses or knights and dragons. But we constantly tell our-

W

selves and each other that the world is a certain way, that th1s person belongs to that group , that this concept is right or wrong, that our labels for thmgs represent some absolute reality. These don't feel like stones to us, just the way things are , unquestioned assumptions or beliefs that we're certain are true. The stories come from parents and peers, media , teachers, strangers. They come in the form of casual conversation , children's games and fantasy play, teasing, taunts.

TV and movies, advertising, newspaper headlines, parents' behavior, popular songs: anything, any time , anywhere.

They are contained m a gesture here, an expression there, a word or two at some unnoticed moment.

Our European-American myths tell us that we are distinct, independent individuals , that "society'' is something outside us. even opposed to our individuality.

And they equate strength, vmue , courage, etc. , with mamtammg that individuality.

There are other cultures whose stories emphasize community and everyone's role m the commumty. In some of these , people, animals, plants, and rocks have equal stature in the order of thmgs. Where some peoples come to see sirnilanties and equality among beings, in our culture we often learn to see differences and hierarchies.

Gender is an especially ripe area fo r seemg difference. After all, male and

female appear so obviously and naturally dichotomous . Our "plumbing" is so clearly opposite and complementary. It seems such a small and logical step to say that personality, character, and behavior are equally dualistic . And our experience seems to support the notion that males and females are inherently different: it just seems so natural, so real. We Westerners are so accustomed to experiencing the world in either/or terms that it never occurs to us that the differences we see so clearly might just be one way of viewing the world. The fact that other cultures may think of gender in dramatically different ways from ours doesn 't usually enter our consciousness; we continue to act as if the gender identities we notice and practice are intrinsic to our bodies, our hormones, our essences.

And as we treat these stories about gender differences as real, they have very real consequences. The doctrine of biology is destiny has been used to imprison women in second-class status for centuries, but also has consigned men to the role of soldier, fo r example, and has biased courts against divorced fathers in custody disputes. Every time someone tries to show this or that supposedly inherent trait in men or women, the other gender is devalued for the absence of that trait. Don Unger's commentary in the last issue of Voice Male ["Turning the (Changing) Tables," Spring 1999] pointed up the disparity between the words "mothering" (nurturing) and "fathering" (inseminating). I think of the times I've heard adults say of a physically active boy that he is so very much a boy. Rarely if ever have I heard such a comment about a pensive, quiet boy, or a gentle, caring boy, even when such characteristics are respected. Is he any less of a boy when he exhibits those traits?

I once heard a participant at a conference of women business owners talk about how women were naturally more nurturing than men and therefore had better relationships with their employees.

At the time , I was working very hard to

create a humane working environment in the office I managed , and in one simplis. tic statement this woman seemed to dismiss everything I was trying to do . To hear her tell it, I couldn't hope to succeed in humanizing my workplace because I was the wrong sex.

I am father to a daughter, and her mother and I have raised her to understand that there are no limits to what she can choose to do in her life based on her gender. (I've always said I hope she never joins the military, but that's because I'm a pacifist!) I want the same thing for myself as I want for her: to be recognized for the strengths (and weaknesses) I have, without labeling them masculine or feminine.

Constructing an opposite story-that human character is infinitely malleablehas its pitfalls as welL We do come into the world with certain predispositions, most of them individual, inherited traits.

But it is not unreasonable to say that, like all species, we have an evolutionary history that includes natural selection for different capabilities. Some of those capabilities were almost certainly differentially favored in men or women, such as average size and upper-body strength, and possibly some precursors of behavioral characteristics. Whether sex differences are biological or social in origin, it's clear that some of them are deeply ingrained.

Absolute insistence on the story that all gender difference is socially constructedand therefore socially changeable-can lead to feelings of shame and guilt if one is not sufficiently elastic in one's gender identity. When my daughter at three or four wanted to dress up ~n frilly things and play house , I was not obliged to insist that she wear denim coveralls and play with trucks.

When a friend's son at five loves to play ball or to duel with swords, she needn't feel guilty that he isn't cuddling a dolL If a broader picture of gender identity is going to arise in our children, it won't come about because we force them to abandon a sense of self that works for them, but because they feel secure enough in that selfhood to enlarge it.

The world of sex and sexual identity is full of nuance and seeming contradiction.

Apparent opposites coexist happily (or unhappily) in societies and within

continued on page 21

.路

路..,

Voice Male

13

Fathering

-------:------------------By Michael Burke

The Sword and the Shield ike many men today, I find myself at times trying consciously to live my life in a new way, sloughing off old patterns I learned as a child. But often it's hard for me to know in what direction this "new way" leads; the dark wood of error Dante wrote of (describing his own midlife crisis?) is not always distinguishable from the path upward, into the light.

It's in my role as a father that I feel the tension between old and new ways at its most acute. I have a four-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl, and every day I seem to be striving to do something that is impossible, or at least paradoxical: to treat both children the same, and yet to respect their obvious differences.

In our eight years of parenthood, my wife and I have worked hard not to impose more traditional gender expectations on our kids. Nonetheless, despite our earnest efforts, as their personalities have developed, their chosen pursuits have fallen into some "typical" patterns. Emma has little interest in sports or physical games, loves Barbies and china dolls, and favors books featuring wholesome young-girl protagonists. Isaac plays with cars, trucks, trains, and other vehicles, is always ready to roughhouse, and lately carries a "sword" wherever he goes, brandishing it expertly to the accompaniment of the requisite Zorro-like slashing sounds.

This isn't quite the way we imagined it when we embarked on the Great Gender-Neutral Parenting Enterprise.

So have we failed already? Should we be worried? I'm not thrilled about the Barb1es, for all the usual reasons-their inhuman dimensions, their emphasis on looks and being "pretty"-but Emma:S friends have them (peer pressure having long since raised its ugly head) and the doll play seems natural and relatively innocuous as far as it goes. As to the swordplay, I'd like to say the same

L

14

thing, but it seems to raise issuesmen who slal!ightered their classmates, a about boys, about violence-~hat the teacher, and themselves in Littleton, Barbies don't (though clearly the issues Colorado , come to mind, and make me Barbies raise are no less queasy. According to serious in the lives of reports , they hated athgirls). letes and minorities, were obsessed with the Isaac's "sword" is self-constructed, out of Nazis, dressed like Legos or Tinkertoys, "Goths" in dark clothes and we're. not about to . and trenchcoats, and buy him a toy sword, somehow got their much less. a gun. We've hands on an enormous set limits on swordplay amount of firepower. indoors, such as "no They had plans for waving it in anyone's even larger, more face and no poking or hideous acts of viapointing at anyone's lence, and all the body," and so far as I while, their parents am aware Isaac has evidently noticed only never hurt his sister or Isaac "Zorro" Burke, 4, the author's son. a "slight tension" in anyone else with it. Mainly he likes to their sons; nothing too unusual. just carry it about and make the approAm I off-base to connect this, even priate sound effects. tenuously, to my four-year-old's fascinaI believe in the limits and occasional tion with sword-thrusts and explosions, stem injunctions we've imposed, yet I which he may well have inherited from brood with guilty pleasure on all the my own treacherous genes7 I hope so. I mock fighting and war games my know that we monitor, as much as we friends and I played as boys. I can can, everything he takes in from the vividly recall marching alone through a world around him, and we keep tabs on stand of trees cradling a rifle-shaped what he puts back out. The news that stick, alert for "the enemy." I remember he threw leaves at another child in his crouching with my friend Danny under preschool is sufficient to send me into a a large cedar, hiding out as we fought frenzy of finger-wagging and somber lecturing. the Vietnam War. (Our re-creation of events took on a rather skewed, . And in truth the sword-posturing is Finne.&ans Wake-like quality, as we didn't just one part of Isaac:S persona. He likes know whose side we were supposed to to play "dress-up" when Emma's friends be on or what we were fighting for ; come over, and even wears Emma's turns out many adults were in the same cast-off dresses to bed (his favorite is a quandary.) Recently, watching the purple one with flowers) . Recently he movie Toy Story, I was reminded of how chose a pink toothbrush over several other colors, and when he:S not packing I and other boys used to play with our squads of little green "army men," buryExcalibur, he's as likely to be carrying around "blue blankie," along with his ing them in avalanches and explosions, chewing on their plastic limbs until other talismans , a small green alligator they were gnarled and disfigured, and named "Aunt Heathie," after his favorite aunt who gave it to him, and the drowning them in "lakes" we dug out of the ground and filled with tapwater. diminutive orange dragon Mushu from Mulan, a movie featuring a wholesome, Seemed harmless at the time, but was it? Thoughts of the alienated young continued on page 22 Voice Male

Men & Health

------------By joe Zoske

• Do You Want Generation Boys?

• Are you an . ..

Support : ., · If you answered yes to these questions then you are a natural to become a member of the Men's Resource Center.

For $25 a year ($40 for families ; $18 for students and those on limited incomes) you can become part of a dynamic organization that has as its credo-Supporting MenChallenging Violence.

YES! 0 I want to become a member of the Men's Resource Center.

Enclosed is my check for:

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continued on page 2 7 Voice Male --------------------------------------------------~~------------ 15

Notes from Survivors - - - - - - - B y Steven jacobsen

A Survivor's Recovery Story

Going Home from the Hospital Change your mind change the world - Charles Potts

A

s a male survivor of abuse, including chronic sexual abuse and rape extending over a period . of l4 years, I have a vested interest not only in changing my life for the better, but in literally changing the world.

I am not just a survivor of sexual abuse, but a survivor of what can only accurately be called torture . Both carry significant, even profoundly damaging, features into my life to this day: for instance , I wanted to attend an Easter service in church with a woman (also a ; urvivor) for various reasons that might have been quite important and revelatory for me. Now, that's a fairly simple desire to you, perhaps. But to me it was unprecedented and almost impossible ,路 and in fact it did not occur. One reason it could not occur is that when I was four I was awakened on Easter morning by my father, poking his head inside the doorway to my bedroom. My father was a very handsome man in a cowboy kind of way, and virtually everybqdy who ever knew him describes him as having been quite intelligent and charming.

"Get up , quick!" my dad said to me.

"The Easter Bunny$ come, and left all the candies and eggs for you! Quick! jump out of bed right now!"

Well, being a four-year-old and still believing in things like the Easter Bunny and being very excited and happy about hunting for eggs , I did just that-I jumped out of bed.

And I landed on a floor that had been covered with thumbtacks by my dad. My feet slammed hard on the floor and were impaled by dozens of tacks, and I screamed and jumped back into bed, holding my feet into the air, crying "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." Then I started pulling the thumbtacks out of the soles of my feet, watching the blood drip down between my toes.

Daddy was still in the doorway to my room. Daddy was bent over, laughing and laughing and laughing.

"Happy Easter," he giggled.

When my father died some thirty-odd years later, I experienced what is commonly called a nervous breakdown. For three years I struggled against all of the pain, every-instant depression , the lost days, the indescribable fog that wrapped itself around me constantly. But I figured I was not only a man, but a really tough man. I'd wait this episode of sadness and pain and craziness out, and I'd win. Because I knew just how strong I was, and I'd always won before.

But I wasn't strong enough. No one is.

So after three years of not understanding why it was suddenly Aprill995, when my last memory was stuck in a Sunday of 1956, I took my then-wife's suggestion: I went and got some help .

Her name was Margaret Gosselin. She was a therapist. To be completely honest, I only went to see her to get my wife off my back. My wife had this odd problem with me, just like I had this odd problem with her-I'd wake up in the morning and she'd be furious with me . She'd often say things like "How could you say something like that?" or "How could you do something like that?" I had no idea what she was talking about, and I'd ask her something cogent like "Like what?" And she'd answer as best she could.

"Last night you looked at me, and I swear to God you didn't see me. You saw someone else. Then you took all your clothes off and went into the closet and curled up into a ball, crying like a baby.

When I tried to touch you, your whole body convulsed and you screamed.

"And then you jumped up and scared the shit out of me. You ran to the bathroom and got a razor and cut yourself, and I was shouting , 'No! No! No! ' And then you ran back to the bedroom and said, 'I'm gonna throw myself out of the window! ' And then I tried to stop you , whoever you were , and then you looked at me and said, 'Out of my way, bitch, or I'll throw your worthless ass out of the window, too.'

"What is happening to you, you bastard!" my wife would say. I'd answer, "You're lying!

None of that happened! Are you crazy?"

continued on page 20 16

Voice Male

Book Review

--------------------- BySteven jacobsen Horror Stories:

Male Survivors Speak Their Truth

A

s an introduction to the horrors that male survivors of childhood sexual abuse have endured, Neal King's Speaking Our Truth succeeds meritoriously.

Similar m format to the remarkable Multiple Personality Disorder from the Inside Our (Barry Cohen, Esther Giller, and Lynn W, editors) from Sidran Press, Speaking Our Truth is a short compilation of brief comments, stories, drawings. and poems from more than three dozen men. The reader is given a good feel for how banal and widespread such deforming histories are , and the book 路 underscores the truth of how such trauma carries with it a very long shelf life.

Somewhat couched within a neo-jungian framework, the book invokes, but never fully explicates, a theory of abuse/survival hinging upon notions of spirit, soul, and shadow.

King wisely informs his readers at the beginning that "this is disturbing material to read ... get some help to understand and integrate what you've read." That sort of candid responsibility is always welcome and refreshing.

As its title suggests, one of the major suppositions of this book is that "healing ... begins with speaking our truth."

But the power and value of shattering silence carries with it an equally powerful and necessary consequent- we, as survivors, need you to bear witness with us. Speaking is relatively useless if no ones listening: and I wish that listening and hearing were both more conspicuous words in this book.

While it is vital to any man wishing to transform himself from a victim into a Voice Male

survivor to speak and be heard, one of the weaknesses of this book is that ultimately, it is little more than an anthology of horror stories-all with their particular variances, certainly. But the sheer conformity of these tales and comments by the men underscores bleakness rather than hope, and inertia rather than growth. It rapidly becomes difficult to hear each individual man's voice, because of the uniform blur of their stories.

The focus seems to me to be lamentably backward, rather than forward .

There is very little in these snippets of experience that is not fixated on the past; there is not nearly enough here that says "I have this problem now, in the present, because of that in my past." King's interspliced moderator's notations-where he makes suggestions as to "what we can do about it," or "understand it"-while spiritually sound, are nonetheless so relentlessly vague that they provide little or no help in getting a survivor from point A to point B. For instance, in one of the final chapters, "Beginning Recovery," King says, "There's no one road to recovery. Travel on any road takes great courage. We each need to start out on the road that's right for us. " But how is it that anyone can figure out what is the "right" road, for us or anyone else?

By contrast, when male survivors get together, we quite quickly relearn how to focus on the present, for the express purpose of discovering and developing ways we路 can feel better, and live more successfully, in the future . A predicate to this is reclaiming, understanding, sharing, and honoring our own past horror stories- all of which prepares us for change. So Bob may say he's had extreme difficulties sleeping in his life; at which point Pete might say "Me, too. Then I noticed that when I turned the vacuum cleaner on, it helped put me to sleep."

Another man then mentions that he turns the tap路water on to lull him to sleep. And on it goes, until finally the men collectively recognize that the common thread between our home remedies is that they all involve forms of white

noise. Which means that the next time either Bob or Pete meets another survivor, they have useful information to pass on: droning sounds may help your sleep.

By definition any survivor is a very resourceful person; you get a room full of them together, and they'll quickly get to the task of identifying good roads, bad roads, roads with potholes, etc. We have innate talents for mapmaking, and we should take great pride in that ability.

Speaking Our Truth is a valuable primer on what typically happens to male survivors of childhood sexual abuse and, to a lesser degree, on how our past injuries continue to damage us in the present. But I'm still waiting for a "Survivor's Cookbook," chock full of nuts-and-bolts tips that have worked for others, and so might work, also , for me and you- in the present and the future.

Steven jacobsen is community outreach coordinator at the MRC and a founding facilitator of the MRC support group for male survivors of childhood abuse.

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continued from page 9

Seven Things We Can Do incident Turning to young people to answer your questions is fine , as long as there is room for young people to be able to turn to adults to speak about their fear, their lack of answers.

Sometimes I get the feeling that many adults are afraid to truly talk to and listen to young people because they don't communicate "like adults do." Young people are intelligent. They are creative, growing human beings trying to figure out how the world works , often with little guidance. What may appear to be chaotic and inconsistent behavior is actually the work of energetic, active minds trying to figure out their place in the world.

路nemember, You May Have Had to Walk Fifteen Miles in the Snow Uphill to Get to School, But Kids Today Have It Harder When I was in school, my biggest fear was that the bully would beat me up after school, and when it came to sex, there was pretty much more talk than action. Today, young people have to worry about the possibility that the bully might pull a knife or a gun on them, and

sex in the age of AIDS/HN can also be a life-or-death proposition. Young people today have to deal with weighty, adult topics at a very young age. Further, there is an overall lack of true mentoring happening, whether from parents, teachers, or any adult in young people's lives. I believe this is most notable in young men. Fathers , male adults in their lives, and healthy role models are largely absent. How else is a young male supposed to figure out how a man should be? Action films and television stereotypes seem to be the main model.

It is important for me to add that, as an adult, I myself am continually challenged by the implications of the items on this list. Following these suggestions isn't necessarily going to stop incidents like the one in Colorado from happening in the near future, but what it can do is work to reduce the chances of more youth violence occurring in the long run. And if it does, we won't find ourselves asking once again, "What is wrong with young people today, and why are they doing this?"

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bravery and compassion define and underscore what is best about human beings. But I am also in the presence of men who are not afraid to be gentle, loving and caring.

We welcome men who drop in to find out what the group is like or what they are like. Everything we talk about is confidential and stays within the group.

Coming once is just as appropriate as becoming a regular member. Newcomers can talk when they are ready to do so, and no pressure is exerted on them to talk before then. We get to know each other on a first-name-only basis. Many of us will "be there this coming Monday night; if it sounds right for you, please join us.

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18

Voice Male

continued from page 8

The Killing Fields Columbine High-a typical suburban "jockocracy," where the dominant male athletes did not hide their disdain for those who did not fit in-are pretty clear. The 17- and 18-year-old shooters, tired of being ridiculed or marginalized, weren't big and strong and so they used the great equalizer: weapons. Any discussion about guns in our society needs to include a discussion of theu function as equalizers. In Littleton, the availability of weapons gave the shooters the opportumty to exact a twisted and tragic revenge: 15 dead, mcluding themselves , and 23 wounded.

What this case reinforces is our crying need for a national conversation about what it means to be a man, since cultural definitions of manhood and masculimty are ever-sh1ftmg and are particularly volatile m the contemporary era.

Such a discussion must examine the mass media in which boys (and girls) are immersed, including violent, interactive video games, but also mass media as part of a larger cultural environment that helps to shape the masculine identities of young boys in ways that equate strength in males with power and the abihty to instill fear- fear in other males as well as m females .

But the way in which we neuter these discussions makes it hard to frame such questions, for there is a wrong way and a right way of asking them. The wrong way- "Did the media (video games , Marilyn Manson, The Basketball Diaries) make them do it?'' One of the few things that we know for certain after 50 years of sustamed research on these issues is that behavior is too complex a phenomenon to pm down to exposure to individual and Isolated media messages. The evidence strongly supports that behavior is linked to attitudes and attitudes are formed in a much more complex cultural environment.

The nght way to ask the question is: "How does the cultural environment, including media images, contribute to definitions of manhood that are picked up by adolescents?" Or, "How does repeated exposure to violent masculinity normalize and naturalize this violence?"

There may indeed be no simple Voice Male

explanation as to why certain boys in particular circumstances act out in violent, sometimes lethal, ways. But leaving 1 aside the specifics of this latest case, the fact that the overwhelming majority of such violence is perpetrated by males suggests that part of the answer lies in how we define such intertwined concepts as "respect," "power," and "manhood ." When you add on the easy accessibility of guns and other weapons, you have all the ingredients for the next deadly attack.

jackson Katz wrote, and Sut ]hally directed, the soon-to-be-released film Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity. Katz is a writer and lecturer on men's issues who lives in the Boston area. ]hally is a professor of communications at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

This story originally appeared in the Boston Globe "Focus" section on May 2, 1999, and is used here by permission of the authors and the Globe Newspaper Company. CopyrightŠ 1999 by The Boston Globe.

Take This Quiz: If you can answer yes to one or more of these questions, you may have a problem with abuse. At Men Overcoming Violence, we can help you evaluate your situation. Call us to schedule a confidential appointment with one of our trained staff.

We can help.

Men Overcoming Violence

(413) 253-9588

19

continued from page 16

Going Home from the Hospital And those were our mornings.

And Margaret Gosselin began receiving strange phone calls from my house. Some of the people who called her from my hbuse were four years old. Some of them were 16.

Some of them were 46. Some were men.

Some we,re girls. They all had different names.

And all the calls came from my house.

One call she received from my house left this message on her answering machme: "Trouble. trouble, trouble. Help. Our father

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used to rape us. Lotsa other people did, too.

We've lied to you . Sometimes we use drugs or drink a lot. We want to die. You must hate us. You must hate us, too." And then the caller hung up.

About 15 minutes later, Margaret called me at home. She said, "Steven, do you know you just called me?"

"No, I couldn't have just called yol}. I wasn't even here until just now" · "Where were you, Steven?" she asked.

I thought about it. I thought about it very hard, because I liked and respected Margaret very much, and I didn't want to lie to her.

"I don't know, Margaret," I said.

"I think I do," she said. And that was the most amazing and hopeful comment anyone had ever made to me; someone believed she knew where I was. Maybe if she knew where I was, she could help me find me again, too.

"Whats happening to me, Margaret?" I asked. "Whats wrong with me?" .

"There:S nothing wrong with you," Margaret answered. "You've just been hurt, in ways that would injure anyone."

"What happened?"

A long silence on the phone. "You were raped."

So my true therapy began. It was very difficult, at first, to accept myself as a man with Multiple Personality Disorder, because initially I thought the diagnosis meant that I was thoroughly insane. My first response was to get suicidal, and there were many attempts.

But survivors are strong. We are not known as survivors for nothing, after all. n~e second thing in therapy that struck me was how long I'd felt so completely isolated.

Margaret kept assuring me that there were "lots of men like you," who had been sexually abused as children. I kept asking her who those other men were, and how I could find them. I needed, desperately, to find them. ·But she didn't have an answer to that question. So I set out on a search for the other men on my own.

At the end of my search I wound up at the Mens Resource Center, initially as a vGlunteer. Why was I at the MRC? &cause the supports I needed did not exist, and in order to keep my ass alive. I needed to help create those supports. But even the MRC did not have any programs for male survivors at that time. So Sam Ferniano, Steven Botkin, and I set out on an. amazing journey: to create a support group for men like · me. It was hard, emotionally ehallenging work, but the three of us got it done.

Although it was entirely selfish on my pan, there was an additional factor: I figured if I needed to meet other male survivors, those other men might need and want it, too.

I've been at the MRC for nearly three

years, and theres not a day that goes by now that I don't hear from at least half a dozen other male survivors. I also hear from female survivors, other multiples of each gender, trans-G's, trans-S's, batterers, other victims of domestic assault of both genders and all orientations, gays, bis, lesbians, blacks, whites, Latinos , and on and on. I hear from them because I need to listen and learn, and they need-we need-! need-to change the world. &cause as long as the mean streets and the killing homes of our culture can break every bone in your body, the world is safe for no one. True, when our bones get broken the proper place to be is in a hospital, so we can mend and heal. But I don't wish or choose to live my life inside a hospital. I want to walk the streets, have picnics in the park, and go home feeling happy, not frightened and endangered. Someday I hope I'll meet someone whom I love, who loves me too, and we can share our lives and loves and hopes and fears with each other, within the couched embrace of safety and respect.

My deepest hope is that we can build a loving, healthy home together. And I hope I never, ever need to go to a hospital again.

So to avoid the hospital I have to change the streets. To me it is nothing less than a necessity of life-in order to heal and stay healed, I must help change the world with every drop of my strength and ability.

Sometimes my strength is very meager, but I · never refuse to listen to another survivor, regardless of my personal circumstances.

Sometimes the best I can do is simply listen to anothers comments and questions and say, "Let me think about it, and I'll call you back tomorrow." But lots of times I can do much better than that.

When I facilitated the first Male Survivors' Peer Group in 1997, there was no one else immediately available to cofacilitate with me. Then Bob Mazer of the Synthesis Center became a co-facilitator (and one of my dearest friends). For over two years it has been Bob and me, every Friday night.

Today, five men, brave survivors of abuse and trauma, have been training with us and others over the last six months to become facilitators of Male Survivors' Groups themselves. They seek to help themselves and offer support to others. And they will all succeed, because they're ready to leave the hospital. We all prefer to stop the breaking of bones, the destruction of hearts. We all choose to go on beautiful, lovely walks with one another. We want the sun to smile on everyone, the wind to kis_s our faces. We choose love over hatred, knowledge over fear. We choose hugs over hits, truth over terror.

We're going home. And we're ready to change the world. And we'll win, too.

Voice Male

continued from page 15

continued from page 16

The Stories We Tell Ourselves individuals. Men and women who are in long-term heterosexual marriages "suddenly" come out as gay or bisexual.

Women and men challenge and sometimes reverse long-held roles in work and the home, manifestations of cognitive skill and emotional range, expression of sexual energies, and other assumed "givens." At the same time, optimistic visions about the disappearance of gender differences are giving way to an understanding of how fundamental some of those differences seem to be. The human character is clearly not the blank slate that some would hope. ln her landmark book You just Don't Understand, sociolinguist Debra Tannen was startled to see in pre-schoolers many of the gender differences in conversation patterns that, she showed, can be so problematic between men and women. (She made no claim, however, that these differences are biological in origin.) Many people who identify as gay feel deeply that their sexual orientation is so essennal to their being that it must be of biological origin, pointing to preliminary evidence of a possible genetic basis for homosexuahty.

Stories are necessary and helpful for navigating the human world. They help us

sort out what we know from what we don't know, give us a sense of direction and purpose, guide us toward goals and give us ways to assess how we're functioning in this huge crazy quilt that we call life. But we need to remind ourselves that they are stories, that they attempt to represent reality, not take the place of it. When we think that the stories are the same as reality, when we cling to our stories no matter what we turn into stone or, worse, we turn ~thers into stone. Gender is real, and gender is imaginary. Differences are deepseated, and they are ephemeral. We are all basically the same, and we are all incredibly different from one another. Myth not only teaches us about difference , it teaches us about universality. It teaches that whatever we think is simple is complex, and that whatever we think is impossibly complex has an underlying simplicity.

Most of all, learning about myths and stories helps us understand that they are everywhere and that we can choosesometimes with great effort-to change our stories. Perhaps we may then be able to enlarge our world, break down barriers and , above all , become more compassionate and accepting toward ourselves and others.

Michael Dover is a volunteer and MRC board chair.

On Your Healing Journey Bring a Therapist consequently, it is useful to have someone who understands this process. Most often, that will be a man who has worked through his own identity issues and understands the pitfalls and advantages of malehood and is comfortable with being a man. Men too often seek out women for their healing because they feel emotionally safer with women.

Comfortable as that may seem, it may not always be the best route to follow. On the other hand, if your perpetrator was a man, the closeness of the therapeutic relationship could be scary. It might also be an important part of your healing.

The beginning of a healing journey, like other journeys, is always an exciting and fearful time. It is only in beginning, however, that we can hope to arrive.

Sam Femiano, Th.D. ,Ed.D., is a psychotherapist in private practice in Northampton.

MRC PRESS National Organization for Men Against Sexism

NOMAS

ANNOUNCES THE PUBLICATION OF

Pro-Feminist- Gay Affirmative -Anti-Racist Enhancing Men's Lives The 24th National Conference on Men & Masculinity in Pasadena, California July8-ll, 1999

Re.allt~M and 'lmaaes The M&M conference is an occasion for straight and gay/lesbianlbi/trans women and men, activists, academics, practitioners and anyone else to gather, to learn, and to cross-pollinate toward ending the many forms of oppression. Three pre-conference institutes will run from 9 am to 5 pm on Thursday: Men Who Batter, White Racial Awareness, and the proFeminist Men's Studies Association. The M&M conference itself will begin Thursday evening at 7 pm. A total of more than forty Pro-Feminist, Gay-Affirmative, and Anti-Racist workshops which enhance men's lives will take place over those four days . Workshops are still being accepted! Come add to us !

Register by mail or at

Voice Male

www.nomas.org

THURSDAY DAY INSTITUTES (Thursday 8 am-5 pm): I) White Racial Awareness Process $45 stand alone, $30 for M&M attendees 2) Men Who Batter & Community Commitment to End Domestic Violence $80 stand alone, $50 student, $45 for M&M attendees 3) Academic pro-feminist Men's Studies Association $55 stand alone, $45 for M&M attendees CONFERENCE REGISTRATION INFORMATION: Full Conference (Thursday 7 pm through Sunday I pm) $125 registration prior to June 8; $200 thereafter $25 High School students (full conference only) Single Day Attendance: $75 HOUSING arrangements range from $40 a night motels/motor inn~ to $150 a night hotels (Doubletree, Hilton style) (accommodaUons are walki ng distance or shuttle to site)

Be sure to include your name, mailing address, a contact (day) phone, and your email (if you have one).

Make checks payable to M&M 24 and mail to Allen Corben, FTS Box 128, Pasadena, CA 91 I 82 Call (626)796-4083 for any questions.

Available through the Men's Resource Center, 236 North Pleasant St., Amherst, MA 01002, and at many bookstores.

21

THANK YOU

continued from page 14

In-Kind Donations Peter Acker, Cowls Building Supply, Rod Gizick, Henion Bakery, Thorn Herman, Erik Muten, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Valley Bicycles

T

he Men's Resource Center is truly a community organization. We have grown to where we are now because hundreds of people have shared our inspiration and commitment, and contributed their time, services, and money toward a vision of personal and social transformation. As our programs and services continue to grow in size and scope, we see that the size and scope of our community support also expand. We are filled with deep gratitude at the outpouring of your support. We hope the following acknowledgments give everyone mvolved a sense of being part of a growing community of support.

The Sword and the Shield

Recent Grants Amherst Rotary Club, Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation, Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Women's Fund of Western Massachusetts

Finally, we want to express our gratitude to the MRC Board of Directors for the ongoing guidance and support they give to this organization and all who are a part of it.

Office and Recep tion Volunteers Holli Chmela, Kate Dixon, Jerry Garofalo , Faith Kares, Bok Oh, Maurice Posada, Gabriela Saralyn, Tom Schuyt, Gary Stone MOVE Interns Rebecca, Peterfreund, Mark Ribble, David Schlafman Support Group Facilitators Paul Abbott, Bruce Bokor, Michael Burke, Douglas DaRif, Michael Dover, Philip Fitz, Jerry Garofalo, James Gordon. Tim Gordon, Michael Greenebaum, Ken Howard, Steven jacobsen, Walter Lesure, Gabor Lukacs, Alex MacPhail, Rick Martin, Bob Mazer, Nathan McCaskill, Jim Napolitan, Sheldon Snodgrass Mentor/Advocates for Respect &: Safety (MARS) Volunteers Vafa Ansarifar, Laila Berstein, Elena BotkinLevy, Holli Chmela, Meredith Dimola, Ali Feely. Faith Kares, Marisol Lopez, Bethany Smyers. Steven Theberge. Dominick Usher Springfield Steering Committee Tom Digby. Kevm Maxwell, James Moratto.

Dan Williamson Donated Space Hampshire Community Action Commission, Northampton; Old First Church, Springfield; Open Pantry, Springfield

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courageous young-girl heroine (and, I confess, some violence, both by and against the caricature-evil "Huns").

Initially I was bothered more by the dresses than by the swords (which probably shows just what an unreconstructed Neanderthal I am at heart), but I'm over it now. I've seen other boys with similar cross-dressing habits, and I know there's no harm in it. The sword stuff feels more familiar to me, like a comfortable old baseball glove , yet in light of what I know about boys and men and violence , it makes me uneasy.

I don't want to be a censor or a killjoy to either of my kids. But in light of Littleton, in light of Kosovo , I've had to think harder about what I want my kids to learn. Emma has asked about Yugoslavia, about Vietnam, about both world wars and the Civil War. Teachers have talked about Littleton at her school.

When she asks, I tell her what I know.

She's against violence, and doesn't understand why people are being bombed and driven out of their homes.

Isaac remains oblivious as yet, happy to wave his Tinkertoy saber in the air and continue being Peter Pan, the boy who never grows up.

Yet he is growing up ; and already I feel the impulse to intervene in his play and his video viewing, to try to find the "teachable moment" that will show him that violence is real, and has real-and terrible-effects; that when someone is killed, you can't just rewind the cassette and see them in action again . I want him to learn that there are ways of solving problems and mediating disputes without resorting to violence; that wordscommunication between people-can help. The catastrophe of Kosovo, perpetrated by adults, undercuts this effort.

The slaughter in Littleton, perpetrated by two teenage boys, gives parents and teachers everywhere cause for grave concern. But we can't just be concerned, and we must not lose hope; we have to do something. We have to talk to our children, we have to teach, and we must lead by our example. In this way only .can we hope to shield them from violence, to make sure that they are neither perpetrators nor victims.

Michael Burke is Voice Male's managing editor; and a freelance editor and writer.

Voice Male

MRC PROGRAMS & SERVICES SUPPORT GROUP PROGRAMS · Open Men 's Group - 7- 9 p.m. Sunday evenings at the MRC Amherst office, Tuesday evenings 7-9 p.m. at 218 State St. , Northampton. A facilitated drop-in group for men to talk about their lives and to support each other. · Survivors of Childhood Abuse - 7- 8:30p.m. Friday evenings at the MRC. Specifically for men who are survivors of any kind of childhood abuse. · Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, & Questioning 7-9 p.m. Monday evenings at the MRC. Discussion group on issues of sexual orientation.

FATHERING PROGRAMS A variety of resources are available - lawyer referrals, parenting guidance, workshops, educational presentations and conferences.

Group and individual counseling for new and expectant, separated/divorced, gay, step, adoptive and other fathers/father figures .

YOUTH EDUCATION PROGRAMS (YEP) · Mentor Advocates for Respect and Safety (MARS): In collaboration with the Everywoman's Center, we train college and high school males to be mentors to junior high males with a particular focus on sexual assault prevention education.

MEN OVERCOMING VIOLENCE (MOVE) MRC state-certified batterer intervention program serves both voluntary and court-mandated men who have been physically violent or verbally/emotionally abusive. Fee subsidies available. · Basic Groups: Groups for self-referred (20 weeks) and court-mandated (40 weeks) men are held in Amherst, Ware, and Springfield. · Follow-up: Groups for men who have completed the basic program and want to continue in their recovery are available in Northampton, Amherst and Belchertown. · Partner Services: Free phone support, resources, referrals and weekly support groups are available fo r parmers of men in the MOVE program. · Prison Groups: A weekly MOVE group is held at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Corrections. · Teen Groups: A 10 week MOVE group for young men (ages 14-19) who have been violent or abusive to others. · Community Education and Training: Workshops and training on domestic violence and clinical issues in batterer intervention are available. · Speakers' Bureau: Formerly abusive men who

want to share their experiences with others to help prevent family violence are available to speak at schools and human service programs.

WORKSHOPS AND TRAINING, Available to colleges, schools, human service organizations, and businesses on topics such as "Sexual Harassment Prevention and Response," "Strategies and Skills for Educating Men," "Building Men's Community;" and "Challenging Homophobia," among other topics. Specific trainings and consultation available.

ALTERNATIVE FAMILIES PROJECT A 60-page manual, Children, Lesbians, and Men: Men's Experiences as Known and Anonymous Sperm Donors, which answers the questions men have, with first-person accounts by men and women "who have been there."

RESOURCE AND REFERRAL SERVICES Information about events, counselors, groups, local, regional and national activities, support programs for men. Our library and resource files are available to all MRC members.

VOICE MALE Published quarterly, the MRC magazine includes articles, essays , reviews and resources, and services related to men and masculinity.

INTEGRITY DEVELOPMENT AND CONSTRUCTION RESIDENTIAL AND COMMERCIAL CONSTRUCTION CALL US FOR A FREE CONSULTATION 413-549-7919

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RESOURCES Men's Resources AIDS CARE/Hampshire County (413) 586-8288 Transportation, support groups and much more free of charge to people living with HIV. The American Cancer Society (413) 734-6000 Prostate support groups, patient support groups, nutritional supplements, dressings and supplies, literature, lowcost housing, and transportation.

Chil dren's Aid and Family Service (413) 584-5690 Special needs adoption services. Counseling for individuals, families and children, with a play therapy room for working with children. Parent aid program for parents experiencing stress.

Interfaith Community Cot Shelter 582-9505 (days) or 586-6750 (evenings) Overnight shelter for homeless in dividuals123 Hawley St., Northampton. Doors open at 6 PM.

HIV Testing Hotline (800) 750-2016 GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered) Counseling & Therapy Referral Service (413) 586-2627-16 Center Street, Northampton, MA 01060. Free group for people 15 to 20 who are gay, lesbian or questioning their sexual orientation. Meets in Springfield Friday afternoons.

The Gay & Bisexual Men's Program (802) 254-.4444 Brattleboro, VT. Weekly/monthly social gatherings & workshops, and volunteer opportunities. Contact Carey Johnson.

Gay Men's Domestic Violence Project, Cambridge, Mass.

Information and support for gay and bisexual men suffering from relationship violence.

Phone (617) 497-7317, email: GMDVP@JUNO.COM

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Individual and group psychotherapy Therapy groups for male survivors ofchildhood abuse

25 MAIN STREET- NORTHAMPTON, MA 01060

GLASS (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Society) - GLBT Youth Group of Franklin County.

Meets every Wednesday evening in Greenfield. For more information, call (413) 774-7028.

Lite Course Counseling Center (413) 253-2822 Individual, couples and group counseling for all gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. Website, www.valinet.com/- lifecour, Email: integsol@valinet.com Men's Divorce/Separation Counseling (413) 253-7918 Contact: Rob Okun Men's Drop-In Group First and third Tuesday 7-8:30 pm, Athol (MA) YMCA (978) 249-9926 Men Against Violence First and third Tuesday 5-6 pm, Athol (MA) YMCA (978) 249-9926 Men's Therapy Group (413) 586-7454 Reed Schimmelfing, MSW Men in Relationships Group (413) 586-4802 Peter Corbett, LICSW For heterosexual men in committed relationships Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) (800) 749-6879 Referrals available for 12-step groups throughout New England.

The Stonewall Center (413) 545-4824 University of Mass., Amherst.

A lesbian , bisexual, gay &transgender educational resource center.

Valley Gay Alliance (413) 746-8804 P.O. Box 181 , Northampton, MA 01061-0181 . Western Massachusetts' gay social and service organization.

Brattleboro Area AIDS Project (802) 254-4444; free, confidential HIV/AIDS services, including support, prevention counseling and volunteer opportunities.

TRY Resource/Referral Center for Adoption Issues Education and support services for adoptees, adoptive parents, professionals, etc. Support group meetings first Wednesday and third Sunday of each month. Ann Henry - (413) 584-6599.

Toughlove International~ is a self-help program for parents troubled by their children's behavior. Parent-led support groups combine philosophy and action that can help change behavior and support the family. New group forming in Amherst. Contact Robin MacRostie at (413) 549-6403, email: srmacrostie@yahoo.com. To contact local groups elsewhere, call (800) 333-1069.

Valuable Families Gatherings and newsletter for everyone who supports, cherishes and respects our lesbian, gay and bisexual families of origin and of choice. PO Box 60634, Florence, MA 01062; Valfams@crocker.com Pride Zone-GLBT Youth Group of the Pioneer Valley Meetings 1st and 3rd Thursday of every month at Kidsports, Hadley for socializing, discussions, and games. (413) 586-0633.

Voice Male

RESOURCES Out Now! - GLBT Youth Group of Greater Springfield For confidential information about weekly meetings call (413) 739-4342.

Internet Resources Men's Resou rce Center of Western Massach usetts: www.mrc-wma .com National Men's Resource Center National calendar of events, directory of men's services and a listing of books for positive change in men 's roles and relationships. www.menstuff.org The Men's Issues Page: www.vix.com/pub/men/index.html 100 Black Men, Inc.: www.100bm. org Pro-feminist men's groups listing: www.feminist.com/pro.htm Pro-feminist mailing list: http://coombs.anu.edu.au/-gorkin/profem.html Fathers At Home Dad: www.parentsplace.com/readroom/athomedad The Fathers Resource Center: www.slowlane.com/frc National Fatherhood Initiative: www.cyfc.umn.edu/Fathernet The Fatherhood Project: www.fatherhoodproject. org Magazines Achlles Heel (from Great Britain) : www.stejonda.demon.co.uk/achilles/issues.html XY:men, sex politics (from Australia): http://coombs.anu.edu.au/- gorkin/XY/Xylntro.htm Ending Men's Violence Real Men: www.cs.utk.edu/-bartley/other/reaiMen.html The Men's Rape Prevention Project: www.mrpp.org/intro.html Quitting Pornography, Men Speak Out: www.geocities.com/CapitaiHill/1139/quitporn.html

Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Hampshire County (413) 253-2591 Bangs Community Center, Boltwood Walk, Amherst, Massachusetts.

Men's Re,source Center (413) 25.3-9887 Variety of needs for volunteers at the MAC office.

Gay Men's Domestic Violence Project, Cambridge, Mass.

Seeking volunteers for the nation's first safe home network serving gay and bisexual men and transgendered people. In need of safe home providers and other volunteers.

Extensive training and stipend provided.

Phone Mark Green at (617) 497-7317, email GMDVP@JU.NO.CClM

Volunteers Needed at the MRC! Staff the MAC Reception Area Help out at Special Events Distribute Voice Male Magazine Become a Support Group Facilitator

Want to learn more?

Call the MRC at (413) 253-9887

MEDIATION Jon E. Kent Divorce. Family. Business

"Transforming Conflict Into Opportunity" 413-586-0512 JonK@igc.apc.org

Coun~eling 81fd

Proce~

014entd '"godywork

Int~at"~~J ~~JifJLY{i;

Volunteers Needed AIDS CARE/ Hampshire County (413) 586-82898 Help make life easier and friendlier for ou r neighbors affected by HIV or AIDS. Men are especially needed .

]t:iMIC~III

413.773.7226

Robert Mazer psychotherapy for men in transition, .men seeking movement in their lives free initial consultation I flexible fees staff member at the Synthesis Center in路Amherst Voice Male

25

CALENDAR june !9-20 Creating Peaceful Relationships in a Dominator Culture Led by Bill Moyer of the Social Movement Empowerment Project. At Mt. Toby Friends Meeting, Leverett, Mass. Saturday. 9:30-6:30 and Sunday, 1:00-6 :00. For more information, call (413) 628-4695 or (413) 773-7427.

(See news story.) june 20 Dads .Make a Difference: A Celebration of Fathering and Families Boston Common, noon-5:00PM . Sponsoring

by The For Fathering Project. For more information, call (617) 451-0049, Ext. 811. june 20-25 Men's Wisdom Council Rowe Conference Center. Rowe, Mass. (413) 339-4954. june 25-2 7 Y2K: A Blessing in Disguise Weekend workshop with Gordon Davidson

& Corrine McLaughlin

Rowe Conference Center, Rowe, Mass. (413) 339-4954.

july 8 Tough Guise: Men's Images in the Media Special film screening and discussion, 7-8030 at the MRC. August 2-'-4 Youth Violence: Creating Alternatives Coalition 1999 Conference Sponsored by Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel. Location to be announced. For rriore information, contact the D.A.'s office at (413) 586-9225, Ext. 103.

August 7-8 Eighth Annual Conference, International Coalition Against Sexual Harassment: Creating Change: Sexual Harassment Research, Training, and Advocacy for the 21st Century Chicago, Ill. Papers, workshops, panels, and discussion groups on all aspects of sexual harassment .

I have a deep belief that everyone should build beliefs and truths that are truly their own. Unfortunately we are thrust onto this plane to flounder around on our own, looking for answers to our many questions about truths and beliefs that will support and comfort us through this journey.

I have a love of helping others find the tools to build their own beliefs and truths.

As an Aries industrialist gearhead, I have lived Life in the Fiery Lane.

"Nothing in moderation, all or nothing, and why isn 't it done right now! "

For most of our lives, we work for things that we cannot take with us . I have a love of helping others find the tools to build their own beliefs and truths through Intuitive Counseling and Dreamwork, so they can work on the things that we can take with us.

For further information and registration material contact james Gruber Qegruber@umd .umich.edu), 313-593-5611, University of Michigan-Dearborn, or Susan Fineran (sfineran@bu .edu) 617-353-7912, Boston University.

October 1-3 God, Sex, and Money An experiential weekend conference for men with John Lee , Jeffrey Duvall, and Joe Laur, Sirius Community Conference Center, Shutesbury, Mass. $300, including meals. For more information, contact Stephen Stern (phone 508-376-9544, email: Sstern@aol.com) or Jedd Miller (phone 413549-5585, emai!JeddMiller@aol.com).

(See news story.)

Send calendar listings for the Fall1999 issue to Voice Male Calendar, MRC, 236 North Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA 01002. Deadline for listings is August 16.

I am available for Intuitive Counseling and Dreamwork.

Cody Sisson Northfield, MA (413) 498-5950

Email: cody@dragon-heart.com I host a web site designed to encourage individuals to seek out a higher level of awareness of their true inner emotional selves.

This encouragement comes in the form of cultivating their free form of artistic expression by providing a forum to publish their form of artwork to share with the world.

Please feel free to visit us @ www.dragon-heart.com

REACH 10,000 MEN (AND THEIR ADVERTISE IN VOICE MALE

FAMILIES)

The magazine of the !\len's Resource Center of Western l\lassachusetts Published quarterly, Voice Male is distributed in 25 states and throughout Western New England from the Massachusetts-Connecticut border into Southern New Hampshire and Vermont.

Either send camera-ready ads to us , or utilize our in-house design and production services.

For sizes, rates and deadlines, contact Sales Director Steven jacobsen at (413) 253-9887, Ext. 14. FAX (413) 253-4801.

VOICE MALE 236 No. Pleasant St., Amherst , Mass. 01002 Email: rnrc @valinet.com

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Voice Male

continued from page 15

National Men's Health Week

ANOTHERMRC PRESS PUBLICATION

r

way So, whether at home, at schools, at work. or at a health club, consider: holding informal discussions; having a book group session on a male health topic; inviting speakers to talk on hot topics (anything from AIDS to baldness, from infertility to sports safety; from sunscreen use to smoking cessation); asking community agencies to provide free health screenings; or sponsoring formal investigation/study of a particular local male health concern. National Mens Health Week also offers a bridge to related mens issues such as parenting or violence, and has the potential to become a multifaceted community event.

Male health is a family issue, and a community issue. It is also a topic with which we can celebrate the male body. So while we focus on the public health agenda of risk factors, illness, and injury, let us not neglect to affirm the beauty and capability of the male form. A healthy man, after all, is more than a body without disease. He is a man who appreciates, cares for, and enjoys his physical self.

Cbildren, Lesbians, and Men

Men as Known and rm Donors Anonymous 5pe

Geoff Lobenstine I

available through the Mens Resource Center 236 North Pleasant St., Amherst 243-9887 for $8.00 plus $2.00 S & H

Joe Zaske is Voice Male health columnist.

The Valley's Biggest & Best Indoor Play Area!

The Area's Most Complete Adult Fitness Center

586-0633 Rt. 9 Hadley www.kidsportshadley.com

l/

LOVE MAKES A FAMILY Portraits of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Parents and Their Families P H O TO GR APHS BY GIGI KAESER ···EDITED BY PEGGY GILLESPIE Foreword by Minnie Bruce Pratt- Introduction by Kath Westcm - Afterword by April Martin

" This is a beautiful, beautiful book and exhibit. Many of the photos brought tears to my eyes. To look into the faces of these families is to see courage. strength, joy, commitment and most of all. love."

-Leslea Newman author, Heather Has Two Mommies

Celebrate the Book Publication See the New Photo-Text Exhibit Free and open to the public Unitarian Society • 220 Main Street • Northampton Sponsored by Beyond Words Bookstore and Family Diversity Projects

National Book Tour PAPERBACK $19.95, CLOTH $40.00 AT BOOKSTORES OR DIRECT FROM:

University of Massachusetts Press P.O. Box 429, Amherst MA 01004

MasterCard NISA (413)545-2219 www.umass.edu/umpress

Voice Male

Exhibit on Display June 11-July 9, 1999 ----·- 9AM-5PM, Weekdays For information contact Family Diversity Projects: 413-256-0502 • email: famphoro@javanet.com • www.lovemakesafamily.org

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Printed on Recycled Paper