Manly Advice to Manly Men: Are you trapped in the 'man box'?

Men are like gas cookers. A spark will light them up. Women are like jikos or ovens. You have to coax and take it slow, for the fire to rage on. That was the invaluable advice of RnB crooners when I was a teen. Thus, the enlightened young man who hoped for success with women had to master the recommended foreplay rituals.

Women live in their heads and before a man discovers that the biggest sexual organ is her brain, he may never understand that the better part of foreplay happens outside the bedroom with her clothes still on.

Unfortunately, the proliferation of pornography has created unrealistic expectations for randy male. Recurring movie scenes of women stripping off their clothes overwhelmed by lust has not helped the foreplay cause either. Experience is the great teacher that teaches a man the art of seduction, leading to a well-rounded character worthy of the title, ‘gentleman’.

The chase is a sieving mechanism that the targeted female uses to gauge the worthiness of her suitor. Mothers advise their daughters to demand proof of love from men expressed in a series of sanctioned gestures that culminates in a lavish wedding ceremony.

Therefore, the success of a man’s first interaction with the woman of his desires relies heavily on his performance. He has to live up to her expectations to avoid rejection. He soon realises that image and performance are assets in his quest for female admiration.

How he dresses, how he talks, how he looks and how he performs as a man are key to success with women. Somewhere in this mix, after a series of failed attempts, the young man starts to spot contradictions. The men, who seemingly have their way with women, are not the best looking, well behaved or gifted.

All they have is cash. Cash greatly increases a man’s sex appeal. From then on cash becomes the greatest seducer and equaliser, giving one access to places where one would not ordinarily belong and to women who were previously above one’s pay grade.

While money might create the illusion of success, the man soon realises that he is still stuck in a performance trap. Without it, he has nothing to hang his reputation on.

A man’s life is preoccupied with performance. What other people think of your performance as a man can become a cause for constant anxiety. Men are not encouraged to speak about these internal conflicts.

The rules are set early. Masculinity means to be stoic, in control and strong, all the time. Femininity means to be emotional, vulnerable and weak. From as early as five years of age, the young girl is allowed to cry while the boy child is told to be strong, hide his tears and man up. His sister can act like a boy but he can never act like a girl.

The typical male parent would be proud of his daughter climbing a tree but they suffer distress when the boy child is fond of playing with dolls. Both men and women punish men for embracing their feminine sides. In Kenya, we have the classic put down, “Wacha umama (Stop behaving like a woman)”.

A man who wants to spend more time raising his young kids has to factor in the loss of status of becoming a stay-at-home dad. Girls forget the wide range of options that they have for self-expression in these contemporary times. A girl can live through life as a tomboy, but a boy has to master extraordinary courage to live life as a ‘girly man’.

Women still prefer their men, manly. Manning up is about staying put in a man box that offers limited room for manoeuvre.

The rules are set in stone. Do not cry or express emotion, unless it is anger. Show no weakness or fear. Demonstrate power and control, especially around women. Be aggressive, possessive, strong and more importantly, heterosexual.

When the man steps out of this box, he loses status in his tribe of men. Since man is a social creature, the group’s approval is important in establishing his own identity. Even in the middle of your greatest challenges, respect follows the man who can hold his pain down and deal (say this after me) like a man.

We fight to be the exception in a world weighed down by unmanly men; the lousy lovers, absent fathers, inadequate providers and insensitive partners, who have failed at earning stripes in the ranks of real men. Masculinity is a performance and the majority of men I meet in my daily interactions are on a stage, living up to unfit roles that society demands of them.

As he works harder, in pursuit of elusive image of manhood, he neglects the other areas of his life.

The performance pressure of masculinity is not different from living in a cell. This idea that we must always be strong is what hurts a good number of us men. Men have to find peace with their inner truth by embarking on a deliberate journey of self-awareness or a man remains in danger of spending his whole life performing on the stage of masculinity.