The struggle of the Lebanese man
I met a good looking “famous” Lebanese artist at a wedding.
He insisted on charming me and tried stealing a kiss. Mind you a kiss that tasted like old cigarettes and overwhelmed my tiny mouth with too much saliva.
He continued to charm me since. He wrote me sweet Facebook messages. Caring notes. And was forgiving when I ignored.
A little under two years of digital efforts, I figured why not give him a chance. In real life.
After all, he is an artist, one of my people. Maybe we connect somewhere in this pain we turn into expression. Maybe we shared a childhood fate or two.
Mister of course took his charm offline.
He sent me a car, made me feel safe by introducing me to his childhood friends, sprayed more perfume.
I told myself I need to give him a chance, because I am controlling too much. I might learn something from this.
Oh did I learn but most importantly I relearned.
The artist ghosted. His desire went from sweating Beirut kind of hot, to harsh San Francisco cold summer days.
Before my 7 year stint abroad, I would have felt shame. Luckily, this time I was merely surprised. and instead sad. And not because he disappeared. I am not into him, and he surely made it definite when he called Freud, fraud.
I feel sad for him and many of the men, in my home country Lebanon, because they don’t know any better.
From the outside our men have embraced a very open Western attitude.
They drink, they party, do drugs, have girlfriends who show their asses (tiny shorts and skirts), they may have heard about Burning Man and want to go. They go to Mykonos, Ibiza and London. They read somewhere about open relationships, and have one sided ones (they can fuck anyone, their girlfriends can’t). They still don’t know how is it different from polyamory. But hey I still don’t exactly know either.
Yet despite this seemingly progressive attitude, many remain sexist, judgmental, and hateful. Why?
1- They do not know how to be vulnerable
In turn, they suppress their emotions, hiding behind a macho attitude.
They say they are fine when they are not. They pretend their life is under control, when it is a mess.
Quoting a male friend of mine: “Of course I won’t go to therapy, you think I am crazy. I am fine.”
They equate being vulnerable with being weak, which is anti-male.
Of course they do not know how to express their “weak” emotions. Their mothers did not teach them, because they did not know any better. They were scolded if they cried. They might have serious war trauma and abuse, that they never dealt with, and might never.
They have become world class avoiders of difficult emotions.
2- Social norms reinforce machoism
What binds many men together is fucking girls. And of course anything associated with testosterone: drugs, speed, guns, etc.
Their girlfriend is Virgin to marry, and mistress is a whore to brag about. Also coined as the Madonna-whore syndrome by Freud.
It is super cool for men to have one night stands, and shameful for women to make out with a stranger.
A man can cheat because it is acceptable. He becomes a hero of his group. It is out of the question for a woman to flirt when she is married. She is dubbed as a whore.
In my country, it is still legal to kill your wife if she cheats on you. Beating her is many times supported by the women in the family. Even the law promotes the macho attitude.
Our men want to respect gay rights, but deep inside they are boiling with homophobia.
Our men want to promote equality, but deep inside they are fuming with sexism.
Behind this conflict, lies a young boy who does not know and is not allowed to express his vulnerabilities. And it is for this young boy that I feel sad.
When the artist does not call back, it is him trying to numb his pain with compulsive sexual encounters. And society makes it easy, because this by-pass to intimacy, is glorified and becomes a shiny armor. We ignore that sex addiction is a thing. That needs to be treated.
Culture does not change in one generation or two it takes a long time and a lot of work.
And in a place like Lebanon that has been stuck between wars and economic devastation, it is even harder. No matter how many juice shops, yoga spots we have, we are still as equally backward as the Saudis we mock.
Until we decide to undo the generations of shaming, of sexism, nothing will change.
It is hard and will be hard. And will take courage.
But there is hope. The men and women coming out as gay or queer, or trans, in my country are that hope. The woman not giving a shit if they call her a whore because she wanted to meet her sexual needs, is my hope. The mother who chooses to call her son out for objectifying women.
So for better or for worse I am taking part of this. I am making space for my men friends to be vulnerable. I am calling them out on their BS when they brag about the girl they fucked the night before. And you should to. We owe it to the men who do not know any better because we know better. We owe it to our little girls too, and hopefully one day, no woman will feel shame if he did not call the next day.
