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Do you know someone who you think might benefit from my services? Let me know and I will get in touch with them!

I don’t believe in strong arm sales techniques or pushy salespeople, but I do love talking life strategies, and working with people who genuinely want and are willing to do what it takes to make life changes.

Contact me to see if we can collaborate - things2cal@gmail.com

Our success won’t just happen. It is the result of a strong commitment to our relationship and with your goals.

I'd like to also thank those of you, who have taken your time to refer to me, someone you know who you felt these services can benefit.   I value your trust and appreciate your confidence.

Calvin

‘Man Up’ - More About Change Rather Than More of the Same

By Calvin Harris

The Power of The Masculine Aspect

The masculine aspect of one’s nature gets a bad rap these days. This needs to be cleared up by those of us that have become enlightened on the subject of Gender Expression. You know that concept of one’s external expression of identified gender, through one’s attire, how they act and other factors, generally measured on the barometer scale between masculinity and femininity.

The fact is all humans, to a degree, exhibit mental and physical traits of both masculinity and femininity.

The phrase “Man Up'“ gets its power to become an insult when directed to people that are embodying it but are unsure of what the masculine end of the spectrum should be. They somehow believe Masculinity is an “achieved status” that needs to be continually proven.

Historically, “manhood” was achieved culturally by the 3-Ps ritual: provide, protect, and procreate, a ritual of going from puberty to adulthood which typically meant demonstrating a capacity to provide, protect, and procreate, or some combination thereof. It showed a delineation or shift in status from juvenile to adult. In looking at these words closely - ‘providing’, ‘protecting’, and ‘procreating’ - we can see that these words have a lot to do with the response of maintaining a family unit. 

In current day America and other post-industrial nations, these traits of providing, protecting, and procreating have also become a woman’s descriptor. We can see in homes today that the 3-Ps are a  shared responsibility of husband and wife, or partner and partner, and this masculine trait is more obvious in the female in the case of the single mother who is the sole supplier - providing, protecting and in some instances artificially procreating in the family.

Therefore, 3-Ps basic delineator as a masculine aspect of male adulthood is no longer the standard for masculinity and thus has been evolving within the last few decades.

Masculinity: It has become precarious, so much so that an insecure guy of the species feels he must have his masculinity proven, and if challenged this must be upheld with an immediate answer.

The Pieces of Masculinity

In order to prove - or defend - his masculinity, a guy needs to act in ways that will readily be recognized as masculine. But “readily recognized” behaviors are often enacted in archetypal stereotypes of masculinity, particularly aspects of masculinity such as violence (i.e., fighting), risk-taking (e.g., excessive alcohol consumption) and forms of hooking up and promiscuous sexuality (it does not matter the sexual orientation, just as long as he can hide his own feelings except for anger). Our guy holds conversations with friends that are sexist, misogynist, or homophobic, as long as these conversations serve his purpose of appearing masculine; these aspects of masculinity are sometimes labeled “hypermasculinity” or “hostile masculinity” on the gender scales.

Within the last few decades, Masculinity has taken on new definitions and rituals that are more positive and self-sustaining to the person and his community. Action words highlight leadership, decisiveness, intelligence, perseverance, and problem-solving. Measures assess these aspects of masculinity and encourage the revealing of authenticity within the Masculine dynamic.

“What it means to be a man varies with ethnicity, nationality, age, and generational cohorts, as we move through life stages.”

Cultural men’s groups within the U.S., have added to the conversation:  African American male groups have added to their definitions on masculine identity with such terms as responsibility and accountability, autonomy, respect, and spirituality as important components of masculinity. Latino-American men’s groups include concepts such as familismo (family), personalismo (personality), simpatia (cordiality), and respeto (respect). Similar themes, I am sure can be identified in other multinational studies, with participants identifying the primary components of masculinity as being a man of honor, being in control of one’s own life, having the respect of friends, having a good job and coping with problems on your own.

These are the new watchwords when you find yourself being asked to ‘Man Up.’ Yes, it is more about the change of perspective rather than more of the same.

Where to Go From Here

By utilizing an investigation of your own comfort level with your masculinity through your interactions with others, this should give you the ability to examine what these power dynamics mean to you. How comfortable you are with these new definitions is inherent in your words and actions. This is a way to educate yourself about the various potential meanings of masculinity, and for you to come up with an understanding of masculinity that embodies your authenticity. Give yourself the space for decisions to create beneficial social interactions and habits – so that they create an outcome that you can honor.

To Optimize Your Purpose

To Optimize Your Purpose Is It Effective Or  Efficient?

Many times, when people seek me out it is because they are at some kind of a crossroads either in their career or life in generally. It is because of some decision they want to make about their Life purpose. This articles focuses on two key factors to making change.

At a recent cocktail party, the conversation got around to favorite Iconic Movie Stars. Audrey Hepburn was one of the names that came up. It’s strange how I latched on to what some of the “older” cocktail guests had to say about her story.

Young and fresh-faced Audrey rose to fame in the 1950s, in fact to become one of the most celebrated actresses of her time. In 1953, Audrey Hepburn became the first actress to win an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards for a single performance: in her leading role performance of Roman Holiday. a ‘romantic comedy’ leading role in the film.

Matter of fact, over half a century later, she remains one of only 15 people to earn an "EGOT" that is a person winning all four major entertainment awards: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. This group is small, yet as diverse as John Gielgud, Whoopi Goldberg, Mel Brooks, Rita Moreno, Andrew Lloyd Weber, and John Legend, to name a few, all different, yet iconic – but excuse me, I digress.

By the 1960s, Audrey Hepburn averaged one new film per year and was on a trajectory to being a Hollywood Legend.

But then in 1967, at the height of her popularity she stopped her career as an Actress. Now I want you to image someone in this position, only 30 years of age and has put the brakes on a life course.

We find her making a life path change and a switch in careers, we see Audrey spending the next 25 years working for UNICEF, you know that branch of the United Nations that provides food and healthcare to children in war-torn countries. Her performances now are as a volunteer worker throughout Africa, South America, and Asia.

I think you are now wondering what this story has to do with our title Optimizing Your Purpose Efficiency or Effectiveness? Let’s put away Audrey’s story for the moment. Let me build a kind of framework  from which to make this all clear.

Efficient vs. Effective

Let’ start with you. We can all agree with the concept that You get one, lifetime on this plane of existence. How do you decide the best way to spend your time? Professional Productivity Expert’s will advise that you focus on being effective rather than being efficient.

What is the difference? Efficiency is about getting more things done. Effectiveness is about getting the right things done. Peter Drucker, an educator, management consultant, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation once encapsulated the differences in this quote, "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."

That makes plain the idea that making progress is about being productive on the right things. But how do you decide “the right things"? One widely used approach is the Pareto Principle, which is more commonly known as the 80/20 Rule.

The 80/20 Rule was introduced by 20th century economic sociologist, Wilfried Fritz Pareto, (who I paraphrase,) stated “that, in any particular domain, a small number of things account for the majority of the results. For example, 80 percent of the land in Italy is owned by 20 percent of the people.” Or, 20% of drivers cause 80% of all traffic accidents. The point is that the majority of the results are driven by a minority of causes.

The Upside of the 80/20 Rule

When applied to your life and career, the 80/20 Rule helps focus you to separate the vital few from the trivial of the many.

In your own life, this strategy can be useful to find your time-wasting actives or to look at the sources of  some of your problems. You may find that the majority of your complaints come from a handful of problem situations. The 80/20 Rule would suggest that you can clear out your logjams or backlogging circumstance by identifying and stopping the engagements within them.

The 80/20 Rule is like a form of Martial arts that teaches self-defense, improves confidence and self-esteem for your life and work. By finding precisely the right area to apply action, you can get more results with less effort.

Like many things it is a double edge sword, there is a downside to this approach, which many times  is overlooked. To illustrate let’s return to Audrey Hepburn.

The Downside of the 80/20 Rule

It is 1967. Audrey Hepburn at the prime of her career finds herself trying to decide how to purposefully spend her time.

Hepburn's first career, acting on stage and screen. Her next career, acts of service and thus in December 1992, she’s awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her efforts, this is the highest civilian award granted by the United States.

If  the use of the 80/20 Rule  had been part of her decision-making process, her life may have been very different. Let’s say she followed her trajectory to stardom, what would she do,  the clear answer is: do more romantic comedies. They gave her large audiences, earned her awards, and was an obvious path to greater fame and fortune.

Setting that aside, scenario two, we would take into account her desire to help children through UNICEF, the 80/20 Rule could have pointed out that doing more romantic comedies was still the best option because of her maximized earning power and she could have donated more of her earnings to UNICEF.

Here comes the rub, that would have been all well and good if she wanted to continue acting. But she didn't want to continue her career life as an actress. This reveals the perceptual bias that many of us have but one which contradicts the reality of  the life lived.  

You see her perception of herself was that of one in service  to others, and no reasonable analysis of the 80/20 Rule would have in 1967  suggested that volunteering for UNICEF was the most effective use of her time.

This is the downside of the 80/20 Rule, when applied to the start of a new path, it will never look like the most effective option in the beginning.

Optimizing for Your Past or Your Future

James Clear, Life Coach and the author of Atomic Habits, which advocates “small changes that will transform your habits.” gives us this insight: “Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, worked on Wall Street and climbed the corporate ladder to become senior vice-president of a hedge fund before leaving it all in 1994 to start the company.

If Bezos had applied the 80/20 Rule in 1993 in an attempt to discover the most effective areas to focus on in his career, it is virtually impossible to imagine that founding an internet company would have been on the list. At that point in time, there is no doubt that the most effective path—whether measured by financial gain, social status, or otherwise—would have been the one where he continued his career in finance.

The 80/20 Rule is calculated and determined by your recent effectiveness. Whatever seems like the "highest value" use of your time in any given moment will be dependent on your previous skills and current opportunities.

The 80/20 Rule will help you find the useful things in your past and get more of them in the future. But if you don’t want your future to be more of your past, then you need a different approach.

The downside of being effective is that you often optimize for your past rather than for your future.”

Where to Go From Here

James Clear talks a lot about changing habits, creating better habits, making better decisions, equaling  living a  better life.  I agree with him on these points. He speaks of giving enough practice and enough time, so the thing that previously seemed ineffective can become very effective, and you get good at what you practice. I have found that to be true in my own life.

When Audrey Hepburn changed course in 1967, from acting to volunteering, this may not have seemed nearly as effective a career choice. But three decades later, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom—a remarkable feat, a satisfaction she is unlikely to have accomplished by acting in more romantic comedies.

The process of learning a new skill or starting a new course or taking on a new adventure of any sort will often appear to be in the beginning, an ineffectual use of time compared to the other tools and abilities you already know when applying 80/20 Rule analysis The new project or endeavor will seem like a waste of time. But that doesn't mean it's the wrong decision only a change in the focus of perception, and the Conscious decision to optimize your Past or your Future.

FOOTNOTES

Did you enjoy that article? Here are two more things you might like:

• Online course: My Cultural History Course that speak to unconscious and conscious societal programs that dictate our actions and decisions.

• Prosperos Assembly 2020: That speak to you, your inner most being, community, about unconscious habits innovation, and motivation.

Self Care Making Time For You

Making an ally and friend of yourself unlocks a state of well-being.

If you have an ally, that is someone on your side. Ally comes from the Latin word alligare, meaning "to bind to," — an act of coming together, a protection of one.

Rene Böhmer Photo

Yet, as a Life Coach, I find there are those who rather than being an ally to themselves,  are instead their own worst enemy. Most of the time they are unconscious of doing it to themselves until they have come undone. Often it is unconscious, the shadow side of themselves and acting without knowledge of what one really wants to accomplish. I am reminded of the quote: “The most reliable friend you have is your shadow.” – Matshona Dhliwayo

It comes later, as a revelation to them, to discover that self-awareness must be a key component for well-being and therefore success. To have success is to have communication with yourself. In other words, you are always in a relationship with yourself, the question is what kind is it?  Not to sound weird, but this relationship with yourself should be arguably one of the most important relationships that you have.

This Self-relationship is a foundation for everything else. Having said that, this self-relationship is not to be confused with negative compulsions of narcissism, nor on the other hand with overwhelming blame and shame about ourselves, rather it should identify traits that focus our being in a good place, to organize our self so that things happen in effective ways that allow for good interpersonal skills, and as a byproduct, produces success according to the individual’s own definition of success.

In other words, for you to focus on yourself in such a way to produce crucial development for a healthy sense of self. It is about gaining knowledge and having an understanding of how you operate and liking what you see in that process.

This establishes a baseline for you from which to work that can extend beyond yourself to others in ways that are altruistic and advantageous to all.

 This is going to take being a good friend to yourself first, by  developing and sustaining your relationship with the self.

One way to start, is by checking out how you speak to yourself. Remember everything you say you hear as well. No matter if talking to a room full of people or by yourself. This would include not only the words you say out loud but also the words you think. Words have an emotional imprint. Check yourself to see if you tend to speak harshly to yourself (either in your spoken voice or in your thinking voice).

If you catch yourself negatively impacting yourself with your self-talk, find a way to stop and observe. Try and see the emotional atmosphere you find yourself in — is there anger or agitation, is your heart rate up, are the words criticizing? Take a breath, slow it down and consciously reappraise the situation, in an effort to be gentler with yourself before continuing with any more outward action.

reappraise the situation,  in an effort to be gentler with yourself before continuing with any more outward action.  

Some life coaching clients find it helpful to practice conversations out loud with themselves— under the right conditions, doing so can be very useful. By consciously  using  the thoughts you’ve assembled  you have the capacity to unearth feelings buried within the words  to make possible clear differences in your discourse of what is advantageous and that which does not promote or contribute to personal or social well-being.

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That said, know that it takes time to develop a new habit. It will require your desire and your motivation to build this skill.

Journaling is another good practice to capture, record reactions, and keep track of your progress with self-talk. It is a place to start getting to know more about you. Journaling as a habit becomes an invaluable way to acquaint oneself with and to change personal experiences for the better.

Journaling seems easier to accomplish if you will begin by setting small manageable goals, such as writing for just 15 minutes a day. Once in the routine, beginners will gain a new slant or perspective on their behaviors, while for seasoned chroniclers these insights provide motivation to continue.

You are in essence creating a new habit, one that by sticking to it keeps you conscious of and befriending yourself.

 In the beginning, as I mention, it may require some effort. Fortunately, if you keep at it and can eventually practice it daily, the process will become easier for you and eventually become an automatic part of your daily routine

Calvin’s Learning Circle’s

 More on Journaling in upcoming articles. For my readers asking for deeper work, may I suggest a small group or one on one session that can be arranged with me? In addition, The Prosperos School of Ontology offers two seminars that are extremely useful: Translation and Releasing the Hidden Splendor. The classes offer tools for reaching change, a change in consciousness, not a change in “things.” You can contact me at my email address for more information about these classes, small group activities, or one on one mentoring services by going to the Contact Page.

Let me conclude with these words:

 “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Thanks for reading

Calvin

A Challenge to Male Roles In U. S. Since 1937

Another Conversation on Masculinity, Society, and Change. by  Calvin Harris H.W., M.

 

“Rationalization was much easier than recognizing the gravity of what was lost: an innocent, healthy childhood and an introduction to sexuality on my terms” - Concepción de León

This is a powerful quote from New York Times writer, Concepción de León.

I have spoken before about the necessity of sexuality, and  gender preference be defined by the individual, coming from their innate self, expressed outwardly decided by the  person in their own terms.   

I have mention before how this innate process has been derailed through  children’s storybooks, affecting  children’s gender and sexual behaviors from centuries past. So, today I would like us to look at a tenacious  twentieth century  American comic strip, that has speed seemed to act as an equalizer of bad behaviors (if for only one day), a chance for the young female adults of the last era to enact behaviors befitting their male counterparts. and  how this American folktale may have the underpinning for new sexual roles and yet again poor marks regarding Males and Masculinity in the twenty first century and beyond.

The Sadie Hawkins Day Race

The Comic Strip was created by cartoonist Al Capp and called Li'l Abner. The Encyclopaedia Britannica reported that Li’l Abner, ran in American newspaper from 1934 until 1977, chronicling the absurdities of daily life in the fictional Appalachian town of Dogpatch.

The comic strip abounded in stereotypes of Appalachia. Its title character, Abner Yokum, was a handsome, muscle-bound hillbilly, as lazy as he was dull witted. Like Abner, most of the men of Dogpatch were cast as essentially useless to society; all the real work was done by the “wimmenfolk.” One such woman was the curvaceous and beautiful yet hard-working Daisy Mae Scragg, who was hopelessly in love with Abner and pursued him fruitlessly for years before they finally married in 1952; they produced a child, Honest Abe, in 1953. Another was Abner’s mother, Mammy [who to me looked like Popeye the Sailor], She was the unofficial mayor of Dogpatch, who smoked a corncob pipe and kept the Yokum household running while her lazy, illiterate husband, Pappy, did little more than lie about.

Capp used Li’l Abner to comment satirically on American life and politics, spoofing ruthless capitalists in the early years before turning his wit on hippies and antiwar activists as his views grew more conservative later in life. He retired his creation in 1977, two years before his death. Since then, Li’l Abner has been reprinted at various times.”

In its wake, this comic strip has had a profound influence on the way the world viewed the American South, Men’s  & Women’s roles. and a notable celebration in Dogpatch called, Sadie Hawkins Day, on which the women of the town were allowed to marry any bachelor they could chase down and capture; annual on that  day of role reversal. Females asked males to dances, have sex, or marry. The enormous popularity of the Sadie Hawkins Day  had Capp obligingly  making it a comic strip tradition every November, lasting four decades. The Sadie Hawkins Day phenomena went from being  a pseudo-holiday  November 15, 1937 to gaining in popularity in 1939, two years after its inauguration, the celebration warranted a two-page spread in Life Magazine, who reported that on “Sadie Hawkins Day, Girls Chase Boys in 201 Colleges." By the early 1940s the comic strip event had swept the nation's imagination and acquired a life of its own. By 1952, the event was reportedly celebrated in various venues around the world. It became a woman-empowering rite at high schools and college campuses, long before the modern feminist movement gained prominence.

The practical side of Sadie Hawkins day was simply one of gender role-reversal. Women and girls take the initiative, make decisions in preparation to go out with their  invite  man or boy of choice — almost unheard of before 1937.

Yet the Male paradigm, the persona of the male counterpoint in Dogpatch  depicts a protagonist, “who is handsome, muscle-bound and as lazy as he was dull witted. A character essentially useless to himself, to his family and to society.  

A character, that we can only hope will not take hold in the American male psyche, as the roles of men and women begin to balance each other out, no longer  men vs women but equal in opportunity.

Book Unspeakable by Daum

Meghan Daum, author of “The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion”,  an occasional, Los Angeles Times oped columnist. www.meghandaum.com

On a topic of women vs men causes and movements,  Meghan said [these movements] “will live or die by the degree to which it’s willing to let people in. Until it makes room for examinations not just of toxic masculinity but also toxic femininity—and, even better, dispatch with these meaningless terms—it will continue to tell only half the story. Until it admits that women can be as manipulative and creepy and generally awful as men, the movement will continue to send a message that we’re not really whole people.”

I’m wary of any language that defines people ‘only’ based on what was done to them, as opposed to an identity they chose.  I would not want people’s life story to be overshadowed by notions of popular culture.

Yet so many men have felt isolated and unresponsive by what was misread as to how they should act and be by their culture. Decisions in life and sexually counter to their nature, that they just freeze up, or succumb to that which can only be described as trauma.

Dr. van der Kolk a psychiatrist specializing in post-traumatic stress disorder, working with  veterans to sexual assault survivors, wrote a book called: “The Body Keeps the Score”  which hinges on his idea that trauma is stored in the body and that, for therapy to be effective, it needs to take into account the physiological changes that occur. He says, “Many people also experience dissociation, which can manifest as literal desensitization in parts of the body or the inability to describe physical sensations.”

Men’s identities must change to be able to let go of painful isolation.  Let go of fragmented storylines,  images, sounds and emotion that must be processed as belonging to the past.

The Re-Imaging of Masculinity in the 21st Century and it’s role model for the coming youth, must be vigorously overhauled and fiercely optimistic of a person’s place in the world, for example:

Masculine youth needs to learn to be rigorously honest about what he knows and what he needs to know, and what he feels. To express constructive emotions that exposes the past and lets it go. He knows how to rage without hurting others. He knows how to fear and keep moving. He knows joy, and shares gratitude. He seeks self-mastery.

The 21st Century and beyond male youth has to learn to let go of childish shame. Feeling guilty when they have done nothing  wrong. He is kind to men, kind to women, kind to children. He teaches others how to be kind.

He stopped blaming women or his parents or men for his pain. He creates intimacy and trust with his actions. He stopped letting his defenses ruin his relationships. He stopped letting his libido run his life. He has learned self-respect comes from telling the truth. He has men who he trusts and turns to for support.

He confronts his limitations. He knows how to take conscious chances makes things happen. He knows how to learn from his mistakes and roll with it. When he falls, he gets back up. He practices compassion, for himself and others.  He is disciplined when he needs to be. He is flexible when he needs to be. He has high expectations for himself and those he connects with and finally He knows how to listen from the core of his being.

S. F. Pride 1986 Snake Man

He knows he is an animal and part of nature. Yet he knows his spirit and the connection to something greater. As a whole person, he looks for ways to serve others. He knows he has a higher purpose. He loves with fierceness. He laughs with abandonment because he lives fully.

These are some descriptions of the Re-Imagined Masculinity, a reality that means a revolution/evolution of the holders of the future, that means a change in you, A call for a rethink of the stories you tell about yourself, a rethink of expectations of yourself and others, and a focus on tomorrow.

If these words speak to your heart, learn more  

mentoring and training that offers powerful opportunities for men’s personal growth at any stage of life.

Calvin has been facilitating men’s work for over a decade.

A credo for the new masculine. a New Conversation with Men,

Reclaiming Male Role Models,

Advertising, Gender, and A New Masculinity

A poem by a man, a mechanic by trade and  poet/writer  by vocation Jim Storm, his poem  says a lot about the month of October and the uncovering of the new masculinity within all people: “October is about leaves revealing colors they have hidden all year. People have an October as well.”

In a blog that I wrote (April 2018 - SOC) entitled “Masculinity Is It the Problem or A Programed Expectation?”   What is Masculinity? How is it measured? What are its demands? And how is that person meant to look, think, act, and feel? and should that be according to the mores of society?

This is a continuation of that conversation, and to somehow navigate  that  storm of debate on the subject of Masculinity successfully using a compass with an edge, and that edge is composed of paying attention, and preparation gathered from how the storms behaved in the past, there in is the edge.

We looked at how common nursery rhymes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from Europe and America had negative descriptors of Masculinity, and the male gender described as slugs, snails, snips, and frogs depending on where in the world the rhyme was told.

In today’s society, Advertising has played one of the important roles of carving out either negative or positive representations of gender and masculinity of late. But with a focus on women’s empowerment dominating the  cultural landscape, Producers keen on selling their brand and products are forgetting their role in shaping male identity as a consequence.

Suzy Bashford, international journalist in her article for the online European business  marketing website called The Drum (July 2016) wrote:

“A growing global ‘boy crisis’ suggests that we could be, in fact, empowering the wrong sex…. The difference is that we are all now familiar with the narrative around [women’s issues] and tackling these issues, thanks in no small part to groundbreaking campaigns such as ‘Like A Girl’ by Always, Sport England’s ‘This Girl Can’ and Dove’s ‘Real Beauty ’ [ad campaigns]…..

We are much less equipped to talk about the issues affecting boys. There’s an unconscious bias that males should simply ‘man up’ and deal with any crisis of confidence themselves…Yet, the reality is that men commit suicide more than women, and are more likely to drop out of education and get involved in crime, drugs and binge-drinking. Moreover, as women are increasingly empowered, many men feel increasingly dis-empowered, accentuating these social problems.”

Vintage Advert remixed

Unilever known as Lynx, owner of “[Axe] deodorant brand who wants to become the number one male grooming brand in the world. Had to realize that their marketing strategy failed when sales slowed dramatically from when they’d first entered the market with the “alpha-male” concept. Lynx/Axe admits it had been relying on assumptions before its repositioning. It was only when sales growth slowed that the brand decided to invest in some proper research, leading to a 10-country study of 3,500 men, and consultation of experts such as neuroscientists, to find out what men are really thinking. The results shocked the brand explained Stephanie Feeny, head of strategy at 72&Sunny Amsterdam’s An Advertising Agency used by Lynx to research and reform marketing strategies. “Ideas of masculinity had changed and it recognised it wasn’t quite keeping pace with culture. Lynx/Axe found men are craving a more diverse definition of what it means to be a ‘successful’ man.”

One of the sectors most impacted by this insight is FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer daily used Goods). With analyst from FMCG buying practices, gender role assumptions were most challenged. It was found the person who wins the bread and the person who buys the bread isn’t down to gender these days, for example,

It is often now that the advertiser discovers that in some country’s men are doing 40 per cent of the supermarket shopping. That in the US men have been running household budgets. If producers of goods don’t recognised this, they are going to lose out because they’re increasingly ignoring their potential biggest audience. We hear a lot about women’s voices needing to be heard, but when it comes to men, it becomes strangely silent.

Campaigner David Brockway, who manages the Great Initiative’s Great Men project, urges the industry to be “more revolutionary”,

The Lynx /Axe global brand repositioning had been a “difficult”, steep learning curve admits Fernando Desouches, brand development director, he argues that he learned “men are actually more emotional than women” and that they need more empowerment than women. Desouches says, “you’ve got to ‘set the platform’ before you explode the myth.”

the Argentinian’s voice is tangible when he says” “Women have feminism. But men don’t even know they are sick. This is why we need to put men alongside women, not move them to the side to give room to women. Both genders need to be in the center.”

The Gender divisive issues are certainly at the center of the storm, and will subside through guiding principals of compassion and compass points like attention, and preparation to steer you through the storm. At the end a truly equal future, when sex becomes a far less defining characteristic than it is today.

Suzy Bashford puts it this way:  “After all, you cannot fully empower either gender if by empowering one you are creating divisions and disempowering the other.

As Nobel peace prizewinner Malala Yousafzai puts it ‘we cannot succeed when half of us are held back.’ A statement that is equally true of women, as it is of men.”

Tools for the Self Directed Life

Activating Your Mission, Meaning, and Mastery

by Calvin Harris H.W., M

I suspect the College education model as practiced today, as the best means to secure wealth and fame, is fading as a goal for many young people. Even the famed ‘SAT’, or other IQ Tests used as barometers of intellectual superior advantage and the indicator that one is on the fast track of wealth and success, may not be holding up factually as better living.

A Wall Street Journal correspondent and author of the bestselling book “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.”- Dan H. Pink has been quoted when asked of what portion of our career success does IQ account for? His answer: “between 4 and 10 percent.” Which has been backed up by Researcher Daniel Goleman and the Hay Group.

The first step in gaining the tools for a self directed life is then to begin activating your mission, and getting clarity on some of the contradictory data that we have. Data that acts as models or guides to what you believe to be better living or success and how to get it.

IQ testing for some when going through school became a worry and an impediment to setting a life course decision and a delay in trying to craft their innate mission. A struggle waged over would they be good enough to achieve the outcomes in life they set out to do? A struggle waged in the mind.

I feel we all live in our heads so much of the time that when we are faced with the circumstance that forces us to acknowledge that we also operate in a three-dimensional world and navigate through it by our somatic body, a body many times driven by unconscious decisions, this can be a shock to us.

We look to models as the guidepost along our journey in life to help point our way through. One guidepost often forgotten, but that has the propensity for success, is how we spend our time. If we would observe, we would find we spend most of our days in random thought and to a lesser degree imagining outcomes to situations that may or may not take place. In fact this process is the mechanism for life long learning. This process of our consciousness, is an alchemy of emotions, rational mind and our analytical capacities that act both as our allies and as obstacles. In our endeavors to live successfully, they can greatly move us forward in life, if focused with clear accurate data, barring that, then an acute observation and courageous adaptability must be developed. These qualities move us forward without trying to second guess ourselves or worse diverting ourselves away from our mission-meaning in life.

A second model or concept that needs reviewing is the idea of Education and the potential of learning. We are life long learners. Education is not a series of memorized pieces of data that we recite back for a short time and then forget. Nor is it the striving for the goal of coming up with a high test score from an intelligence test.  Education is learning and engaging with information useful to our life, that when implemented, moves our life course forward. So many think of their education as acquiring a piece of paper that says ‘Degree’ on it, thinking this is the magic key to immediate success and fortune. So many, because of buying into just getting that paper, that degree, and perhaps not comprehending all of its variables, are left with a Degree, debt, and having feelings of disappointment and /or betrayal.  

I am reminded of Chad Grills, the writer of the book “College or Not” when he was purported as saying “It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that if we don’t have a high IQ, brand name college degrees, or a high GPA, we don’t have a propensity for meaning. Or, we worry that because we don’t have a sufficient degree of these (old) measures of intelligence, our ability for growth and service will decrease (an impediment to meaning). The reality is, science and research increasingly show that these old credentials and measures of intelligence don’t matter that much.”

To gain meaning in your life today, one must overcome outworn definitions and measurements of yourself.  Your task is to see yourself in a whole new way, creating a new narrative beginning with the idea of you as a Conscious Observer, you want to observe those concepts that seem to control, drive, and sometimes divert your life. It’s not necessary that you completely discard information found within concepts, but it is important that you examine the messages you accept from the information, especially those with a negative bent, thereby lessening negative effects to your talents and your overall success or mission. ⁠

Researcher Daniel Goleman and the Hay Group have shown that IQ placement accounts for a baseline of intelligence, therefore for a person to have mastery in life, would be more a matter of that person working with that baseline to create a mindset, and exercise  the ability to do critical examination and the agility for correction on faulty conclusions. Allowing them to hone and strengthen their natural abilities and talents to consciously move in the direction of their innate and chosen path in a way that leads to the intersection of where preparation, talent, and opportunity meet.

So, if the old Learning-to-Success model components are changing, what does one use as guidepost or indicators of attributes and skills needed in the new model for success? What traits, abilities, and skills can you emulate that can activate your quest toward meaning, success, and mastery now?

I suggest the concepts of Grit + Imagination + Skills as basic components of the new model. We are at a time in history were some of the world’s most innovative companies are looking for people driven by the new model to drive their missions and success. Why not use them to drive your own mission and success?  What do these new skills or traits look like?

Grit

Wikipedia defines grit as:

“A positive, non-cognitive trait based on an individual’s passion for a particular long-term goal or end state, coupled with a powerful motivation to achieve their respective objective. This perseverance of effort promotes the overcoming of obstacles or challenges that lie within a gritty individual’s path to accomplishment and serves as a driving force in achievement realization. Commonly associated concepts within the field of psychology include ‘perseverance,’ ‘hardiness,’ ‘resilience,’ ‘ambition,’ ‘need for achievement’ and ‘conscientiousness.’⁠”

We talked earlier about 'courageous adaptability.' Call it a short hand to describe  Grit.

Grit has in its makeup, conscious regulators,  such as patience and a unique attitude perspective in any given situation. Victor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, founder of logo-therapy, and author of Man’s Search for Meaning, flushes out for us a key perspective on 'attitude,' with his words: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

If we can become conscious of our 'spaces between', our ‘timing’, and patience, as we endure what life throws at us, we’re well on our way to building grit, and from those experiences to make us stronger and also more compassionate of others.

Imagination

Imagination is that alchemy between our emotions, rational mind, and our analytical capacities, aka Creativity: once harnessed it is unmatched as a talent. Creativity harnessed is one of the most sought-after commodities in the world today. It has become a innovative and integral component of the new technologies that is needed to evolve, and propagate the many new products and services on the horizon. The alchemy of creativity becomes the futures great bastion of human expertise to perfect and master.

Building creativity skill can start as simply as by writing down ideas every day. Harnessing it can take longer. Needed then is the conscious awareness, the perception, and emotional balance brought into action during development, and implementation, of new ideas and products. Creativity coming forth as ideas are worked from good to desirable, to beneficial, and on to lucrative. Strategic thinking becomes then part of the blend in the creativity equation to produce better solutions and resources to problematic situations.

Skills

The one skill that will be prized above others will be the mastering of our emotions. Emotional mastery can be tricky for it is the practice of observing our thoughts and feelings as they arise and determining from what sources they spring. Choosing the ones that serve us and dismissing the ones that cause pain or frustration.

This is necessary in setting a life course and move us to our innate mission. Along the way, we find we produce marketable skills and our creativity builds value, in some cases where none previously seemed to exist. These marketable skills of the future may fall into one of the categories for: Art, Business, Engineering, Design, and Science. 

The beauty of these new skill sets is that they’re all self-reinforcing. That means that if you’re willing to build grit by operating in uncertainty, you naturally start to develop ideas to solve your challenges. This leads to a boost in imagination. As our imagination increases, we’ll have to find an outlet. Searching for an outlet to channel our energies will lead us towards wanting to build our skills. These three areas begin to strengthen each other, and the process of increasing this new type of intelligence becomes seamless. Once we are self-taught in one skill or field of study, we can repeat the process again and again. When we’re growing and improving, it becomes easier for meaning to manifest in our lives.

So in conclusion, I want to give you some insights from one of the ‘New’ industry leader’s thinking on the ideas of the new models of  Learning-to–Business success by Lazlo Bock.

Laszlo Bock is currently the CEO and Co-Founder of the Company named Humu, in Mountain View, California. He is the author of "WORK RULES! Insights from Inside Google to Transform How You Live and Lead", (which has been named one of the top 15 business books of 2015). He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and on the PBS Newshour 

Bock's marketing slogan for Humu is: “Making work better for everyone, everywhere, through science, machine learning, and a little bit of love.”

Bock's previous job was as the man in charge of hiring at Google, and this is what he had to say about the skills he looked for when they wanted to hire under his watch:⁠

“For every job, though, the #1 thing we look for is general cognitive ability, and it’s not I.Q. It’s learning ability. It’s the ability to process on the fly. It’s the ability to pull together disparate bits of information.”

Laszlo went on to say “the second most important thing they’re looking for: …is leadership — in particular emergent leadership as opposed to traditional leadership. Traditional leadership is, were you president of the chess club? Were you vice president of sales? How quickly did you get there? We don’t care. What we care about is, when faced with a problem and you’re a member of a team, do you, at the appropriate time, step in and lead. And just as critically, do you step back and stop leading, do you let someone else? Because what’s critical to be an effective leader in this environment is you have to be willing to relinquish power.”

We’ll uncover more about these attributes and traits in-depth in future articles. In the meantime think on these words

I've learned that making a "living" is not the same thing as making a "life". - Maya Angelou

So if you need to get a handle on this or in moving forward drop me a note. We can go over or discover activities, habits, and techniques, without harassment or harsh judgment that is advantageous to a solid re-invention of a successful you. 

The (missed) Perceptions that Leads to Penis Envy in Men By Calvin Harris, H.W.,M.

It seems that sooner or later that within a conversation about masculinity the subject of the Penis will pop up and rear its head. Since all things Masculine has been a subject of conversations, reading, and writing with me lately I am not surprise the subject of Penis came up. Since this is a difficult subject to discuss, some levity has been added in this post as "puns" disguised as  "Freudian Slips." We learn through humor as much as through struggle. 

Neptunes Penis bologa, Italy

I am not new to the subject of men and their relationships to their penis, but in this context, of Penis envy, two situation occurred that tip the balance and moved me to write. One situation is a repeating occurrence that happens, and the second situation occurred in a relax few friends at lunch gathering. I was taken aback by the rise of emotion and  in heat of the conversation over the despair at the lost of foreskin and the possible pleasure missed as a result of that. At the time, I felt pieces were missing to the dialogue presented at the lunch conversation and needed to be put in a larger context along with Health, Love, Sexuality, Sensuality, and Relationship.  

I am not surprised with the notion about the penis and its importance in receiving pleasure in some men's lives (it is the most interesting thing they do), yet I am surprise as to the absence of any mention of other components to pleasuring oneself such as through other erogenous zones about the body, or to healthy relationships either with the self or anyone else? Well back to my story.

The latest instance for me in the Penis envy scenario occurred three weeks back at this pub, when an associate I don't know well, turns to me and says: “How" lucky I was to be born African American!, with that look of envy on his glassy eyed face, and you know that he didn't mean I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. As I looked at him, you could just picture, in his minds eye, him in that 1974 scene as the Monster with Madeline Kahn, from the  Young Frankenstein Movie – He sees himself toting an enormous schwanzstucker. You can hear Marty Feldman saying to him - “You are going to be very Popular.”  Unfortunately, I am looking at him and thinking maybe, He should sober up before meeting his date, that sexual encounter he describes he wants with such vigor ( upturn  shot glass after shot) and yet his fear of self prophecy of being dissipated, failing  his date, by being a rudely inebriated mess that has repeatedly fallen asleep mid coitus.  Personally I am thinking she declines sex with him, and considering an android companion that talks, learns and satisfies sexual desires on que.

Sizing each other up

The second instance of professed envy came during a lunch meet up of several friends, when  the discussion turned to an article by Van Barrett, an author and blog writer. He had written a blog on the envy of the uncircumcised penises.  One of the men felt a strong need to defend Barrett's  position, for it turn out, that he too longed for and desired foreskin.  A wish not to have been circumcised.

Van Barrett blog had come about due to one of his fictional book. his feeling  was so prevalent in the book that a reader wrote to question his sexual gender. The article he wrote in  response is found at the end of this blog. 

As to Mr. Barrett and the Lunch partner,  bemoaning lost of foreskin - It sounded like "the grass is always greener." To give the other side of the coin, we turn to - Hayley MacMillen, who did an article on the problems that Uncircumcised men face in the U. S. in her article in Cosmopolitan Magazine, Oct 5, 2016. The magazine titled - 9 Things Uncircumcised Guys Want You to Know.
Cosmopolitan quoted one interviewee, named only as Henry, as saying: “that while he’s open about not being circumcised with his partners, it’s a different story with his guy friends. "I never talk about it with other guys," he says, and even though "guys talk about their dicks all the time ... fear is absolutely a factor because being different is stigmatized."

What is key here is  'Perception' - "What are men focusing on when it comes to  pleasurable sex?"

Most times Male banter is about  “getting off,” not about having an experience that is a satisfying sensual-sexual experience.  This maybe due to Porn, or the speed of living life, or the unwillingness of men to make time for themselves to create an environment for true sexual pleasure. There is a large majority of men that  have concluded that all sexual pleasure is encapsulated in the manipulation of the skin that surrounds their penis, and they want to work it until, in the jargon of the day, you bust a nut - i.e. get off.

Given how much symbolic baggage this body part carries, it’s no wonder the misconceptions about it. To enlarge this conversation, as difficult as it is, it is  yet worthwhile.  Beginning with the misperception that your penis is '"The" Sex Organ', if you think that is so, you have completely missed out on your Biggest Sex Organ experience, which is the Skin that covers your entire body coupled with the creativity  of the Consciousness of the Mind …. roll that around for a while, you may find that statement to be correct. Now that being said, think then how much sense- satiable pleasure you have missed out on, if you are not activating your whole-body/mind experience? 

Dr. Debby Herbenick, a sex researcher, educator, and author as wells as the Co-Director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington & the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction.  From her research findings, she states: “Often when people think about the pleasures of sex, they think about genital arousal (e.g., erections or vaginal warmth or lubrication) or orgasm. While I certainly wouldn’t argue these, I would add that one of the most pleasurable parts of sexual intimacy is the experience of touching and being touched all over.

Decades of research have shown that humans.... need touch…. not only to survive, but to thrive. Touch can have a biological effect that releases oxytocin (which has often been referred to as the “Cuddle Effect”) Touch can have psychological effects of helping people to feel loved, happy, accepted, calm or reassured.

In sex, we have the uncommon opportunity to touch and be touched all over our bodies. ... press bodies against each other in a hug or, while kissing or in one of many possible sexual positions, they get to experience an enormous amount of skin closeness. They may touch cheeks, lips, chests, legs, and feel... hand along their back, thighs, or stomach. There is, after all, something qualitatively... intimate in the experience of being exposed – physically, and often emotionally.” [sexual dilation].

From that point of view then the almighty penis becomes just another body part, vital but still one among many body parts in a mind body- somatic sexual dilation.  I’d like you to entertain the notion of making time for the sex experience (or putting sex on maximum drive).  Think of sex as something you gift to yourself be it alone or with a partner. Permit yourself to be mindful of being naked, of touching all over as much you can. To relax into an exploration that promotes sensual enjoyment, an inner awareness of intimacy and dilation.  Have an experience of sexuality that does not start nor stop (uncircumcised or circumcised) with those few centimeters of skin that extends over an Erect Penile Length and Circumference but engages a full mind-body (somatic) experience.  Then and only then can the identity of Sexuality be disengaged from the notion that it is a control of genitals. You can begin then to stop comparing or lamenting about genitalia, what you have or do not have and start enjoying the mind-body (somatic) wholeness that you truly are.

I recommend the following four books, they can be helpful in your striving for control and perception of a healthier, loving, and more pleasurably experience during sex. 
 

“The Penis Book: A Doctor's Complete Guide to the Penis―From Size to Function and Everything in Between” by Aaron Spitz MD. 

“Manhood: The Rise and Fall of the Penis” by Mels van Driel, Paul Vincent (Translator)

 “Sex Made Easy: Your Awkward Questions Answered—For Better, Smarter, Amazing Sex” by Dr. Debby Herbenick.

“Anal Pleasuring (A Good in Bed Guide)” by Dr. Debby Herbenick.
 

Now here is the article that created weeks of discussion, debate and finally my blog.  I would be interested on your take on this,  so jot me a note. 

Van Barrett, Are You Really A Man?

 An article by Van Barrett  July 28, 2016 vanbarrett.com

I had an e-mail recently from a reader of my book Seven Nights who was quite convinced that I am secretly a female, hiding behind a male pen name — and they were not too happy about it, either!

I must be a female, they wrote to me, because I write about men with circumcised cocks and men with uncut cocks — therefore, it’s a given that I’m writing about something I can’t possibly know or have firsthand experience of. Right? From there, it’s surely a small leap of logic to assume that I actually know nothing about what it is to have a cock, how they work and what they feel like, because I’m just a woman making crap up as I go. Insert eye roll here.

So? What say you, Van Barrett?

I’ll give you the answer to this burning question in a moment! But first I wanna share a personal anecdote.

I was in the seventh grade when I first had to take a ‘lifestyle’ class. I forget the exact name of it — something like “health and lifestyle” — but whatever, you get the gist. It’s the sort of course where you learn about balancing a checkbook and how to eat healthy and oh, oh gosh, (*cheeks blush*) human anatomy and sexuality. So that was the first time, age 13, that I’d had any sort of formal sex education.

And here’s where I should point out that some form of sex-ed probably should’ve come a lot sooner, as I remember riding the school bus home in the 4th grade with my best friend. Curious about sex, we looked up the word ‘sperm’ in the dictionary. We’d both heard this term, this magical sperm before, and we knew that it was related in some way to sex. When we read the definition, we looked at each other with puzzled expressions. Embarrassingly, I concluded that a sperm must be the head of your cock, and it detached from the shaft when the moment was right. Cough. We had trouble wrapping our brains around how there could possibly be some ~100 million more cock-head sperms just waiting around in our nuts to be ejaculated. Fun image, right? Clearly, something didn’t add up, and we still had no idea what a sperm was.

… Anyhow, I digress.

It was because of this lifestyle class in 7th grade that I first learned of the concept of circumcision. I’d never heard it before. I think we glanced over it and class and I didn’t give it much thought. It wasn’t until a couple days later, when I was hanging with a friend of mine, that it came up again.

My friend was uncircumcised. He gloated about being intact, he bragged about how uncut men statistically are said to have better orgasms and better sex and their partners report being more pleased. He asked me if I was uncircumcised. I had no idea! Again, I’d never heard this word before our class and even then, it didn’t seem like it applied to me. My penis seemed to work fine, and it didn’t look cut up, so why bother, right? But based on all the stats he told me, I sure hoped I hadn’t been cut!

But I wasn’t sure. I asked my friend to describe what a circumcision looked like. There were no suitable pictures or illustrations in our textbook for me to get the idea. He kept saying something along the lines of, “c’mon, this isn’t hard — it either looks like a bell or like it has a turtleneck that can cover the whole thing up! Which one is it?”

And still I was truly stumped. But more than that, I was a little frazzled. This idea that I might have been altered as a baby … without my knowledge or consent … that resulted in a less fulfilling sex life?

“No way,” I protested. “It looks fine. It’s totally natural. It doesn’t look like it was hurt.”

He wanted to see it: he said he’d tell me if it was or not. A shy kid in my youth, I said no way. So we opted to look at my newborn baby pictures instead.

“Dude,” he laughed. “You’re circumcised, alright. See that? That’s the head of your dick and it’s not covered. That’s a circumcision, Van.”

So it was. The realization set in immediately: I had a circumcised penis.

Was I crushed? Was I disappointed?

I’m sure I was — on some level. But not a consciously-available level. That would probably require more self-awareness than a 13-year-old possessed. Instead, I adopted a psychological tool more fitting for a teen: indignant anger.

“Yeah, well, everyone says a circumcised penis looks better!” I gloated right back at him. “And it’s cleaner, too!”

Then we’d argue back and forth about who had the better and the best pleasure-giving penis. It got pretty heated — and we even wrestled and threw punches over the debate. Yeah … 13 year olds … what can you really say?

Okay, to give some perspective as to why I’m sharing this story with you — it took years for me to process the emotions I’ve had over the fact that I was circumcised. As I aged and became an adult, I thankfully dropped that self-defense mechanism of “nah nah nah boo boo, my cock is better than yours!” and I started to think of it differently.

It was kinda fucked up, after all, that I’d been robbed of some level of sensitivity down there to the tune of 20,000 nerve endings! I’d never asked for it and I probably wouldn’t have, if given the chance. I also began to see uncut cocks in a different light. Hell, they started to look kinda pretty — and that foreskin sure looked fun to play with. I was sad, angry, and depressed over what had been taken from me.

*Lifts needle from the record*

I just want to stop here and say that I don’t want to make any parents out there feel bad — that’s not my goal at all! I understand why my parents did it, and I don’t begrudge them for it at all. There’s just so much information out there, and societal customs and so on — it’s hard to make any sense of it sometimes.

But future parents, please do educate yourself about this topic before you make the decision! And if you still choose to circumcise your kids, that’s fine, that’s your choice and I wouldn’t give anyone a hard time for it. But just educate yourself because there’s a lot to learn and it’s one hell of an interesting area to research. E.g., did you know that John Harvey Kellogg, the doctor who pushed for circumcisions in the US [and yes, the cereal man], also wanted females to be circumcised? Yup — he wanted to pour carbolic acid on the clitorises of newborn girls. Lucky for all you ladies, that one didn’t catch on.

Thankfully, this story isn’t all sadness and depression. So, it was back in 2010 when I discovered that a man can actually restore his foreskin. It’s not a surgical procedure — it’s done through applied tension to the skin over a long period of time (2-5 years). It can be as simple as using your hands to tug and stretch the skin. Stretched to its physical limit, cellular mitosis takes over and the skin cells begin to duplicate. It takes a while, but you can absolutely grow your foreskin back.

Okay, so you’ll never be exactly the way you were prior to getting cut, of course. Some nerves endings are permanently lost. But it’s a big improvement, with a fuller spectrum of pleasures and sensations that simply weren’t available before.

So, yes, I write characters with cut and uncut dicks, because I’ve personally been both. I know what it’s like to be cut — the contrived sense of superiority over what is actually our natural form, the repressed anger, the jealousy, etc. I also know what it’s like to have a foreskin now — and it’s made me so much more sensitive. I also know how this topic is taboo, and a lot of people don’t like to think or talk about it at all. I’ve been called names just for going on this journey of restoring. Clearly, there’s a lot of emotional trauma swirling around this topic. It’s not an easy one for people to deal with. I get that.

So you’ve probably figured by now that in my book Seven Nights, Austin’s ‘jealousy’ and fawning over Cedar’s uncut cock comes from a deeply personal place for me. (Let’s just add an unofficial line to the epilogue: Austin, inspired by Cedar, began the journey of restoring his foreskin. Yay!)

If anyone wants more information about this, feel free to leave a comment or drop me an e-mail. Obviously, it’s something I’m personally invested in and passionate about, and believe me, I have a lot more to say.

For any guys out there, who want to get started on the journey of restoring, I’d recommend starting with the Foreskin Restoration forum on reddit. I say journey because it takes time — and it will require you to be dedicated and patient. But it’s worth it, in my experience.

Sooo, to answer the original question that prompted this blog post — yes, I’m actually a man. Shocking plot twist, eh?

SiteofContact can be reached for comments, information, or appointments at calvin2talk@gmail.com