Dusty Wentworth

  Modern masculinity is caught between conflicting messages. At one extreme, men are offered a loud, performative version of manhood built around aggression, dominance, wealth, physical appearance and the need to be seen as powerful. At the other, traditionally masculine qualities are treated with such suspicion that strength is confused with aggression, restraint with emotional repression, authority with oppression and protectiveness with control. Neither extreme offers men, particularly young men, a useful model by which to live. One tells them that manhood must be constantly proved. The other can leave them wondering whether manhood itself is something for which they should apologise. Perhaps that is why an old saying continues to carry so much weight: Manners maketh man. The language belongs to another age. The principle does not. The wisdom behind old words Many traditional sayings contain ideas that remain relevant even when their wording needs updating. “A man’s word is his ...

One of the hardest parts of my recovery has not been PTSD, fibromyalgia, Functional Neurological Disorder, or even surviving a ruptured brain aneurysm. Those things are visible enough. They can be named, diagnosed, measured, medicated, explained. The real fight has been with masculinity. Not in the abstract, but in my own life, my own body, and my own sense of self. That fight came in two parts. Waking Up in the Future After my aneurysm rupture, I regained consciousness with significant memory loss. Doctors, nurses, and family kept telling me I was fifty years old. In my head, I was still in my mid thirties. I had not aged into this stage of life. I had arrived in it without warning or preparation. It felt less like recovery and more like waking up in the future. If someone had asked me in my thirties whether I would like to time travel fifteen years forward, I would probably have said yes. You expect things to improve. You assume progress. Instead, I woke into a reality th...