I've seen a lot of writing about the 'real man', and I don't particularly like that. It makes it sound like there is such a thing, as an unreal man by contrast, and that, to me, is just ridiculous. Far too often, these essays about "What is a real man" are written by women, or people highly influenced by women, who are all too willing to make those definitions for us.

The masculine itself is hard to define, but I think there are certain qualities that men as whole possess, and other qualities that are very important for men to recognize and perhaps develop. There are a lot of traditional male values, such as being autonomous, courageous, having a sense of justice, being chivalrous, having good character and so on. What about honor? Respect? The willingness to do what is right in spite of opposition?

Are all of these even worth accepting, or should they be abandoned?

But what about family values? Our expression of feelings? And perhaps one of the most important ones, because they are assumed to be so innate: Our sexual desires, and how we deal with them? The male sexuality is often considered very harsh, brute, raw, and often even agressive in nature. But these are not the definitions of free-thinking men, they are just prejudices of society. What is male sexuality really like? Firm? Fanciful? To what extent are we attentive and careful about our sexual desires? Why do we talk so much about conquests? Why is so much of our supposed 'masculinity' tied up in how many women we've slept with?

I'd love to discuss a lot of these things. Because as a man, I feel that I have grown up in a world that has told me exactly what I am supposed to be, and exactly what I am supposed to think about my own gender. I've spent time questioning these male identities, sure, but I've never actively tried to define what I think a man is. So what do you think it means to be a man?