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- [00:00]
Geico Advertiser
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- [00:27]
Sean Ehling
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- [00:31]
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- [01:14]
Sean Ehling
Most of the discourse about American men is focused on what's wrong with them. Why are they lonely? Why are they falling behind? Why are they retreating into the manosphere? But those conversations don't tell us much about the subjective experience of being a man today. They don't tell us what it's like to grow up absorbing all of these conflicting ideas about what a man is supposed to be and then realizing that that's not you or it is you, and it's still not enough. Any discussion about the masculinity crisis, regardless of where you land in that debate, is incomplete without looking at the problem from this perspective. I'm Sean Ehling, and this is the gray area. Today's guest is Jordan Ritter Kahn. He's a journalist and the author of a genuinely great book called American Men. It's about four very different men trying to live with competing visions of manhood. And what I most appreciate about it is that it doesn't reduce them to any theory and it doesn't make any grand judgments about what kind of men they or the rest of us have to be. The result is a book about masculinity that's very human and very honest. And it feels less like an argument and more like a portrait of actual people navigating some of our Deepest cultural contradictions. Jordan Ritter Kahn, welcome to the show.
- [03:13]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
Thank you so much for having me, Sean.
- [03:16]
Sean Ehling
You know, there's a. There's a lot of stuff in the discourse right now about what's wrong with men. That's the big question. It's a little exhausting, but this book seems to be doing something different. Is that about right?
- [03:33]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
I would say so, yeah. You know, I, I started this book in 2020 when the what is wrong with men? Question had, you know, it was, it was bubbling up in parts of, parts of our culture and parts of the discourse, but it wasn't, it hadn't gotten nearly as loud as it's gotten right now. And when I started it, I wanted to kind of examine questions that feel a little bit, you know, feel kind of eternal, that don't really feel tied to kind of a particular moment in time. Questions about kind of men's experiences kind of make meaning how we're kind of shaped by the expectations of, of our gender, how we kind of navigate, you know, inadequacies that we come up against.
- [04:24]
Sean Ehling
And you felt like a better way to do that as opposed to another book making a big abstract argument about masculinity and manhood and what it is or what it shouldn't be. A better way to do this was to just simply tell four stories of, of actual men.
- [04:41]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
I've always found myself, like, kind of drawn to, like sinking into other people's experiences and, and telling their stories in a really intimate way. And you know, there's the cliche that all, you know, I know all journalists are taught it. I imagine, you know, fiction writers are taught it as well. The show don't tell cliche, and it exists for a reason. And I wanted to kind of through the lens of these four guys, be able to show the ways in which kind of their lives have been shaped by certain ideas around masculinity, certain ideas around who they are supposed to be, show the ways in which that at some point those expectations fail them and those expectations fail some of the people around them can push them toward, you know, toward decisions that are self destructive in some ways or harmful to others in some ways. And rather than just kind of like, you know, I think our culture has gotten pretty good at saying the ways in which kind of, you know, patriarchal expectations have failed a lot of people. I think we're good at making that argument, but not necessarily as good at really looking at the ways in which kind of those ideas that we inherit are shaping us from the time we're really really young kids and how they play out over the course of a life. And that's what I wanted to do here.
- [06:03]
Sean Ehling
Yeah, expectations is the word there. And that's a good segue into what feels like the bedrock insight of the book. You say that our relationship to masculinity comes to be defined by how we navigate the gap between the men we think we should be and the men we actually are. Why is that the defining gap?
- [06:24]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
We're not always conscious of the ways in which we're kind of being taught who we're supposed to be. We're not always aware of the ways in which we are, are learning a standard and then inevitably failing to live up to that standard. And that standard can look a little bit different depending on kind of your cultural context or your family or the particularities of your experience. But it looks pretty similar, I think, across a lot of our experiences. We're taught to be kind of emotionally reserved. We're taught to aspire to be, you know, dominant over, over others, particularly over other men in some way, usually physically, but. But also any other ways in which we can kind of find our way toward, toward dominance. We're taught that we should be sexually attractive and. And we're taught that we should be able to kind of provide economically for, for ourselves and for, for others, for a family. And at some point we all don't do one of those things. At some point we all fail to kind of do that in the ways that we think that we should, or we're kind of failed by those expectations. We might reach them and find that they're actually quite limiting or that they kind of push us into ways of living that don't really kind of allow us to kind of access our full humanity. And so I think that in terms of going back to that gap, like you can be the 5 year old kid getting bullied, getting off the school bus, like Ryan, one of the men in this book is who kind of quickly realizes, like, there's something about me that is not like other boys. There's something about me that has been kind of seen as weaker or inferior. Or you can be someone who kind of typifies, who typifies every single one of these ideals and goes through your life kind of feeling like almost never having to think about this stuff because it all comes so easily to you. But then at some point, like Gideon, another one of the men in this book, like those expectations fail you or you first, for the first time in your life, kind of bump up against kind of the limits of who you are against that standard and find that you don't really have a sense of who you are. You don't really have a sense of your identity outside of the ways in which you've kind of been trying to fit into this mold.
- [08:58]
Sean Ehling
I think we. We want masculinity to function like a positive, healthy identity for men. But I think something you're exploring here is how what it often ends up being is a bunch of different responses to perceived inadequacy. And I emphasize the word perceived. I mean, is that a lot of what this ends up becoming? I mean, is that what you saw in these four lies and we will get into them in various ways?
- [09:28]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
Yeah. You know, I think that. I mean, I just think of masculinity as just kind of like the water that we're swimming in. It just exists. It just. Masculinity just is. Is there whether we want it to be or not, and it's shaping us whether we want it to shape us or not. And. And yeah, it does ultimately lead to some feelings of inadequacy. It does ultimately. Like, you know, I spent all this time working on. On this book and, like, trying to think about, you know, trying to think in a more enlightened way about kind of my. My own relationship, other people's relationships to. To these. These definitions. And yet, you know, still, I'm like, sitting here, like, should I be on creatine right now? Should I be, like, in the gym, like, trying to, like, what can I do with my lifts to, like, get stronger? I'm, you know, like I. I'm like, I have my own feelings of inadequacy that. That kind of are measured against, like, these. These specific definitions of who men are supposed to be. And I think that's kind of okay. Like, you know, it's like everyone is going to feel inadequate in some way, shape or form, regardless of gender, regardless of, like, what other kind of cultural expectations are shaping your sense of yourself?
- [10:43]
Sean Ehling
One thing I really dig about the structure of the book is that, you know, you have these four guys, and they all, on the surface at least, are living very different lives. Ryan, who you mentioned already, he becomes an MMA fighter. Gideon, who you also mentioned, is like, the conventional image of male excellence. Joseph is the protector provider type, or at least that's what he's trying to be. And then you have Nate, who is a trans man who is just trying to figure out how to be seen. And once he's been seen, then he has to figure out, well, what the hell does it even mean to be a man like everyone else. Right. You know, like, he's. Are they all sort of, in their own ways, trying to bridge that gap or close it or just resolve all the contradictions?
- [11:34]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
I think so. You know, and I mentioned Ryan and Gideon first, because I think they're the two who you most obviously see that in. You know, Ryan, when we eventually meet him in the book, he's in his early 20s, and he's struggling to come out as gay, and he's finding himself getting into a lot of bar fights. And he kind of is holding onto a lot of anger over the fact that growing up, he was bullied, pretty relentlessly bullied by boys who could kind of could tell that something about him was different. I mean, and, you know, he would now think of it as, like, they could tell he was gay before he could tell that he was gay. And. And so he is very keenly aware from an early age of the ways in which he kind of fails to live up to a certain standard. He's very aware of the gap between, like, who he is and who his culture, his setting is telling him he's supposed to be. And then when he's an adult, he finds that violence is a way to, like, in some ways, quickly bridge it. In some ways, like making other men feel weak, inflicting pain on them is a way to feel, you know, powerful and safe. And, like, for at least a moment, he has bridged that gap. He has become, you know, he has fit the definition of who a man is supposed to be. That he had always been kind of off limits to him when he was a young child. And then, you know, Gideon, like you mentioned, is the one who just fits all of it pretty effortlessly. He's a West Point graduate. He's a baseball star. He's tall, he's handsome, he's charming, he's smart. But he reaches a moment when his wife has an affair. And it's kind of his first sense of, oh, there's someone out there who is better than me. At least in this. At least is more desirable to the person I love most in the world for this particular moment in time. And that leads to kind of an unraveling of sorts that really takes him years. But then Joseph is a man who. He's a law student. He's trying to hold his marriage together in its earliest days while he's dealing with the effects of pretty severe childhood trauma. But he has in his mind that providing economically is kind of the way forward. He'd grown up Poor. He'd grown up watching. His household was very unstable in part because there were a lot of arguments over money. And he had this horrific trauma that happened to him that he kind of connects to some of that instability. And he just has this sense of like, as he's dealing with all of this stuff, if I keep my head down, if I keep working hard, I get through law school, I start making money, then everything's going to be okay. And then, you know, Nate, it's a little bit different because, you know, being trans, he doesn't inherit the same script in the same way as the other guys do. He kind of grows up with a different set of expectations and he comes to his sense of masculinity in a way that has a bit more intention to it. But as he begins to transition in adolescence and into his early 20s, he's kind of acutely aware of the ways in which just physically, I mean, he's five foot one, he's very small and slight, and he's kind of trying to find ways to be really intentional about finding ways to kind of, you know, bridge that gap and come to kind of embody masculinity in a way that feels, you know, feels to him a bit more like kind of the ideals that he has seen kind of set out before him.
- [15:20]
Sean Ehling
Let's stick with Ryan for a second for I guess, a few reasons. That's one that maybe I connected with more than the other stories for reasons actually I'm not, I don't entirely understand. Maybe I will by the end of this. But there's a, there's a scene where you're talking about, you know, he, he comes home from school, he's being beaten up, called anti gay slurs. And you know, his dad takes him down to the basement and teaches him how to hit a punching bag, teaches him how to fight. And to be honest, I don't quite know what to do with that scene. Right. And maybe that actually reflects some of my own uncertainty about masculinity. You know, like fighting and martial arts were part of my childhood and I have a soon to be seven year old son. And you know, if he came home after being bullied in that way, I would do the same thing that Ryan's dad did. In fact, to be totally honest, I have. And after reading about that in the book, I just kind of wrestled with that for a little bit, thinking, am I doing the right thing? Is that enough? Should I have done something else first? Should I have done more? I'm just curious how you Relate to that scene because you're also a dad with a son. And what did that scene mean to you? What does it kind of reflect about that story and just all of the stories, really.
- [16:55]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
Yeah, it's kind of a. It's a tough one to sit with because, you know, you have this moment where. Where Ryan has been beaten up and his dad's. Yeah, like. Like you mentioned, his instinct is like, let's put on the gloves. Let's start hitting the bag, and you're gonna learn how to fight back. And he's, in some ways, still. He's unsure of kind of how. How to handle it because he, you know, later in life comes to feel really, like, powerful getting into fights and comes to find, through mma, this kind of channeling of aggression and this, like, just the. The. I don't know, something really, really freeing and thrilling about just, like, owning his physical power in a way in adulthood. But in that moment, he wanted someone to comfort him in that moment. When he's a little boy, he goes home and he's desperate to see his mother, and she's not there. His dad is there. And so instead of getting kind of comfort, he gets this lesson. And to be honest, it doesn't really turn him into a boy who is capable of fighting back. He remains someone who kind of wilts when faced with those kinds of situations for many years. And it's not until early early adulthood that he, for the first time, kind of snaps and fights back and begins to kind of unleash a lot of this aggression. And it's a scene where I think you're kind of. I think a lot of people can both, like, empathize with the father who is like, I'm gonna teach you how to. How to handle yourself. I'm teach you this lesson. And with the son who is like, all I want is for someone to hold me and tell me it's going to be okay.
- [18:45]
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- [18:57]
Sean Ehling
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Jordan Ritter Kahn
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Sean Ehling
Yeah, they all do one. Huh?
- [20:37]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
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- [20:40]
Sean Ehling
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Jordan Ritter Kahn
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Sean Ehling
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- [20:51]
Sean Ehling
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- [21:24]
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- [21:33]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
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- [21:34]
Sean Ehling
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Sean Ehling
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- [21:43]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
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- [21:44]
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- [21:49]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
Did this parking lot have a waterfall?
- [21:51]
Geico Advertiser
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- [21:53]
Sean Ehling
It feels good to find what you're looking for. It feels good to GEICO. The role of the father is kind of hovering over a lot of these stories, you know, and in so many ways, like, the father is sort of the figure in a boy's life that sort of teaches him what emotions he's allowed to have or not have or what emotions he's allowed to show or not show and still be, you know, a man, whatever the hell that means. Right. And like my, you know, my son is so much more kind and sensitive than I was. And I love that about him. Like, I want to preserve that spark, but then the other part of my brain wants to teach him about the harshness of the world and what's coming for him without losing that part of him that I think is incredible. And it's. Yeah, I'm just living in that tension like everyone else. I don't. It's not easy, you know, I don't really know.
- [23:00]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
As boys, I mean, we learned everything in a lot of ways from our fathers, whether from their presence and the way that they're actually engaged in our lives or in some ways kind of from their absence. You know, another one of the men in the book, Nate, the trans man, his father is, and he's trans in a town just outside Youngstown, Ohio, a place where it's tough to be. To be trans. His father's, you know, a blue collar man who, who's tough, like pretty, you know, hyper masculine in all the ways you would imagine, has no problem whatsoever with. When Nate comes out as trans, is really loving and accepting of him, but then it's just not there. He's just not a consistent part of his life. And Nate kind of feels, feels that void in, in a lot of ways, you know, I think, think about myself like my. You mentioned specifically that fathers kind of show us what emotions it's acceptable for us to show. I happen to have a dad who's very comfortable with a lot of emotions, who's very comfortable kind of crying when watching movies. And I remember as a kid because I was learning from so many other places in my life that that was not okay. And yet now I'm so incredibly grateful for it because, like, I, I mean, not only am the same way, but also so much of my work is like, I want to tell stories that provoke in people, you know, a strong emotional reaction. But then, you know, my dad is someone who, he's a very successful neuroscientist and kind of, I think when I've talked to him about kind of how he defines like, kind of that, like, masculine kind of ideal it's like in his family it was just excellence, just like achievement and excellence. And it's something that's driven him. I mean, he's retired now and I think there's still some part of him that's like he's kind of chasing new things to accomplish that are kind of outside of his work. Like this one way that he kind of channeled that impulse to achieve for so many years. And it's something that I find myself kind of wrestling with because I have in me that. That kind of ambition, that kind of like measuring my own self worth through certain kind of measures of achievement and excellence. And yet, you know, so much of, kind of the way I want my life to be structured is in a way that kind of makes space for so much else besides kind of the single minded focus on that kind of achievement.
- [25:31]
Sean Ehling
You'll hit the wall if you go far enough down that road. Right. I mean, which is sort of what happens with the West Point guy, Gideon. Right. So this, this dude is someone who on the surface seems like he should be the least insecure guy ever. Right. For all the reasons you mentioned. Right. I mean, tall, athletic, good looking, married to a beautiful woman, all of that. And then his wife has an affair in his whole psychology just falls apart. Like his whole self image just collapses, which says something about the fragility of all that bullshit. But like, are you, are you surprised at how quickly he fell apart? Because in many ways he becomes like the most insecure character in the book
- [26:14]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
in a lot of ways. Yeah. And, you know, I think I was surprised to a degree. And yet like, looking back on it, it makes a ton of sense. And I think he now looks back on that period of his life. And I mean, not that he doesn't still to this day kind of struggle with a lot of that stuff, but like, he looks back on a lot of that time in his life and is like, oh yeah, of course. Like I was kind of like subconsciously just like defining himself by all of this stuff. And he, you know, he tried to like through this process, he was like, what was I learning when I was a little kid that was like kind of shaping me in this way. Like what? Like, like trying. He's like trying to think of like, ways in which like his parents may have like kind of, you know, failed him in some meaningful way. And he's just like, I kind of got nothing. It was just like life just came very, very easily to me. I got very addicted to the constant praise and reinforcement. He kind of existed within his family as just the golden child, the one that kind of the entire family revolved around. He's the oldest of four, and he just goes through life just thinking, like, people are constantly telling me how great I am. I'm addicted to that feeling. And I have realizing later on, like, I've never really had to kind of define myself apart from what will allow me to continue feeling that thing, what will allow me to continue being praised. And, you know, he has, when, when he, after his wife's affair, they, they go and see, see a marriage therapist who's, who's kind of contracted through the army and, and, and, and sees them both. And, and the therapist is like, pretty quickly just, like, you have absolutely no idea who you are. Like, I'm, I'm trying to talk to you about, like, what, like, your sense of yourself, and all you're doing is listing your accomplishments, and you. None of it is really tied to, like, any, like, intrinsic sense of your own worth.
- [28:26]
Sean Ehling
Well, Joseph's story is a little different. It's not really about, you know, proving manhood is not really tied up with sex or violence in the same way. Right. Like, he, so he's dealing with abuse that he never really processed, and then that starts to blow up his marriage. What did that, what did that story add to this for you?
- [28:50]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
Yeah. So, you know, Joseph's story. Joseph experiences sexual abuse as a boy when he's 8 years old at the hands of an older boy, a teenage boy. And yet, even though, you know, the experience of being abused in that way is not, is not like, universal by any means or enormously widespread, what I think is more universal is the way that Joseph kind of deals with it when he is kind of facing this crisis in adulthood. And so he, this memory of the abuse he experienced, like, kind of comes back to him in a really visceral way that's just, like, wreaking havoc on his entire life, just like, totally derailing his ability to be intimate with his wife, his ability to focus in law school, his ability to really function in any way, shape, or form. And he does what I know I've done and what I think many, many, many men have done, which is you're facing some sort of crisis and you just say, I'm good. Like, I, I got this. Like, I, I, I don't need to talk to anyone about it. Like, I, I don't want to burden my wife or my friends with it. And like, yeah, I definitely, definitely don't need therapy. Yeah. And he's like, you know, I'M really like, I know a lot of therapists. They're. They're great people. I'm glad they exist. I'm glad they're helping people. But, like, you know, the people they're helping are way more messed up than I am. Like, clearly I'm. I'm fine until like, eventually that kind of. That becomes untenable for him. And so I felt like it was important to kind of show that experience of just how difficult it can be for us to admit that we're not okay. How difficult it can be for us to admit that we need some sort of help.
- [30:41]
Sean Ehling
In a lot of the discourse I opened with sort of rolling my eyes at about masculinity or men, you know, loneliness is, is something that comes up a lot. Right. But not in this way. Right. Like, hiding so much of yourself in this way means that you're really cut off from the people around you. Right. And it's like a lot of the, the men in this book, they're not literally alone.
- [31:07]
Geico Advertiser
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- [31:07]
Sean Ehling
You know, they have wives, friends, lovers, teammates, family, whatever. But they're lonely because there are parts of themselves they can't really share. I mean, is that, that's like a particularly unnecessary male form of loneliness? I feel like.
- [31:24]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
Yeah. And it's something that is, you know, we. I don't know. So much of the, the conversation right now around like the, the male loneliness epidemic, quote unquote, is. I mean, to me, like, there are multiple things. One is just that, like, I think everyone's increasingly lonely because of like, technological and cultural factors that, that are kind of pulling us all apart from one another. And. But then at the same time, you know, men today are sometimes ill equipped in ways that I think men have been kind of ill equipped for. For a long time. Ill equipped to kind of just let people in and to kind of invite each other kind of into, you know, into those, those pieces of our lives, like inviting each other to, to open up. You know, I recently, I wrote a story in the, in the build up to this book for, for the Ringer where I work about fantasy sports and male friendship and the role that it has played in kind of sustaining a lot of male friendships over the years.
- [32:30]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Yeah.
- [32:31]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
And I talked to so many guys who have these, you know, some have these like, fantasy leagues with friends who they went to college with or high school with or knew from work or a certain chapter of their lives. But a lot of others just played with strangers and had these like, kind of like decade plus long friendships with these strangers who they'd maybe met once for like a fantasy draft or something, or in many cases had never met at all and somehow found it easier to open up to them than to the men in their actual lives. Like something about kind of the distance, something about it being kind of mediated through a screen made it feel a little bit safer to them. And I think that's great in many, many ways, like finding someone who you can kind of show those pieces of yourself to. But I'm also. It also just struck me, like, why is it so hard to just do this with the people who you're actually seeing on a regular basis? Why is it so hard to do this with your, your father, your brother, or, you know, the dads from, from the playground or from your kids school or, or whatever else? And it really is like, kind of like a self imposed loneliness.
- [33:49]
Sean Ehling
No, I think that goes back again to vulnerability, intimacy. Right. Like, male friendships are so awkward and weird about this, right. The things you're allowed to do and not do. Right. Like dudes can be. Know each other so well or be, or spend so much time together and be friends, but not really know anything about each other. Right. It consists of fantasy football and like swapping Instagram reels. Right. Which is why, like, you know, you open the book with this story about a Christian Bible study group that you were part of as a teenager. And at this group, you know, everyone's sitting around and confessing whether they masturbated that week, right? Now the theology around that is kind of weird and probably damaging, but, you know, that's not really the point, Right. The point, I think, is whatever you think about the religious part, the male intimacy in the group, the vulnerability was very real and I think very important.
- [34:44]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
Yeah. You know, I. So yeah, it was this Bible study I was a part of where we would ask each other a series of questions about how we had sinned in the previous week. And believe it or not, this is how we spent our Saturday nights my junior and senior year of high school. We were very cool, but, you know, I. And one of the questions, the first question every week was, did you masturbate this week? And for me, that led to like a lot of shame around sex in my body that it's taken me a long time to kind of unpack.
- [35:15]
Sean Ehling
But it also damaging part.
- [35:17]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
Yes, yes, yes. There's this directness of, of those questions, this directness of like getting straight into like, you know, how are you like navigating, trying to be a good person through this definition that we all have of what it means to be a good person or in that case, a good Christian. And I lived my last two years of high school were in Philadelphia, and I only lived in Philadelphia for those two years of my life. But those friends from that Bible study there in Philadelphia, I'm still very, very close to this day. These guys are some of my closest friends in the world. And it's because of I've never been able to recapture what we had then, having these kinds of conversations. And so my feelings I unpack in the book and are complicated, but I have a lot of warm feelings toward what that experience was, despite all of the shame. But I think the thing that I've really taken away from it and that I also take away from kind of the interviewing process for this book is how men often just really need directness. We really need someone to very specifically ask us the question because we are constantly telling our ourselves, it's not okay to open up about this. It's not okay. Yeah, yeah. And just simply asking, like, how are you doing around this? Whether it doesn't have to be, did you masturbate this week? It can be like, hey, your dad died six months ago. I haven't checked in with you on that in a few months. Like, how are you doing? Where's your grief? Because we will tell ourselves so many things about why we shouldn't open up, why we shouldn't talk about these things. And just like directly asking your friends those questions, usually they want to answer, usually they want to talk about this stuff and often they will respond in kind.
- [37:27]
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- [38:09]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
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- [39:21]
Sean Ehling
You don't arrive at some ideal doctrine of masculinity, which is to the book's credit. It is not the point to me asking, you know, what does it mean to be a good man? Is like asking what it means to be a good person. I don't know. I mean, you can be a good person in an infinite number of ways, right? Like, on some level, you just have to value the right things and then live in alignment with those values. That's at least an authentic life. But is it good? I don't know. I guess it depends on what you value, you know, I mean, not being an asshole is a good start. Probably not sufficient. Yeah. You know, but necessary.
- [39:51]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
Yeah. But I mean, it's.
- [39:52]
Sean Ehling
There's clearly not one way to be a man. And anyone who thinks that there is is frankly, like, that's part of the problem. Right. Like having a box or a few boxes. We do. We do not all fit into a few boxes. And if you insist upon it, then you're just going to have a lot of people who are. Who are torn up internally because they don't fit and they shouldn't, but they think they're conditioned to believe that they should. And so, you know, that. That produces all of these, you know, internal contradictions. Absolutely.
- [40:24]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
And even the ones who do fit, eventually they're going to be ways in which you don't. Or eventually there are going to be ways in which, like, your desire to continue fitting limits you and cuts you off from so much else of what you might want from life. You know, I. At one point late in this process, I asked. I asked each of these guys, can you point to anything that you like? What do you like about being a man? Because I was just kind of curious. I was like, I don't know how I would answer that question. But so much of what we hear about masculinity is about kind of what's wrong with it. And some of them were pretty game for it. Nate had some interesting answers about Just the ways in which he's kind of felt at home in his body since he, since he transitioned, you know, Ryan, like, you know, Ryan works out a lot. Like, being strong, being tough, you know, as a gay man, like embodying some of those more like traditionally kind of masculine expectations is something that he really finds a lot of meaning in. Joseph was just kind of like, what's wrong with you, man? Like, why are you asking me that question? Like, I, you know, I am a man. That is who I was a boy, and now I am a man. That is part of my experience. But like, beyond that, I am just truly trying to be a person in the best way that I know how. And like, I don't need to like, kind of define what it is I do and do not like about being a man in any way distinct from what it is that I do and do not like about being a person. You know, I like my marriage, I like my friends, I like the work that I do. I like drinking a beer and watching soccer and talking about politics with my friends. Like, those are the things that I like. Whether they're a part of being a man or just part of being a person, I don't know. But, you know, that's who I am.
- [42:21]
Sean Ehling
There's always this question, you know, and this is not really about men. This is anyone. There's always this question about what do you do with the parts of yourself that are causing you harm, right, that are like not serving you? You know, do you, do you try to wipe them away, become a different person? Or do you accept that maybe that's not really possible and instead just change your relationship to those things so that they're, you know, less destructive, less toxic? Which I think maybe is partly what Ryan does, right, by becoming an MMA fighter and a self defense teacher, right? He turns that pain into something, you know, more constructive. But I don't know, I, I don't, I don't really have the answer. You know, some things maybe we can't change, but a lot of things we can. And a lot of the problems we have are because we're conditioned in the ways that we are. And there's a lot of involved with that and kind of separating that from, you know, the real is, I guess, just, you know, part of living.
- [43:21]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
You know, sometimes we just have to give ourselves a little bit of grace and like, kind of like forgive ourselves some of the tendencies that we have that are not always the healthiest and, you know, kind of recognize the ways in which they're not Serving us, but also, you know, not like spiraling when we, you know, when we kind of give in to them. And you know, Ryan. Yeah. In particular. Yeah. He's someone who does a lot of damage in this book. I mean, he, he harms people. He gets into. These are largely fights with strangers outside bars, but he, he really hurts people and he, he doesn't quite know what to do with the fact that he is doing this harm and that there's something electrifying about the fact that he is doing this harm. When he comes out. Like, he almost like revels in being this gay man who can beat up the kind of men who remind bullies when he was younger. And eventually over time, I think in large part really just due to just age and time and just kind of slowly realizing some of the destructive ways in which choices he's made in the past have not been good for him or for others. He finds that, okay, it's okay that I like hitting people. It's okay that I want to feel like someone who, when I walk into a room, if there is a threat, I know how to neutralize that threat quickly. Because that's ultimately kind of what a lot of this comes down to for him is like wanting to feel like he has access to power through, like his body is something that can deliver him power and control over a situation because he knows how to, how to beat people up. And MMA becomes a way in which he can, he can do that in a place that is, is controlled, that is organized, but is brutal. And that does become a place, A, where he finds community, B, where he like, kind of finds even more acceptance of kind of his own sexuality, and C, where he can kind of like channel some of this stuff that is just going to be a part of who he is, you know, in some way, shape or form, probably for, for most all of his life, like has,
- [45:41]
Sean Ehling
has the experience of, of reporting and writing this book really changed how you relate to your own masculinity.
- [45:50]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
You know, it has certainly changed the ways in which I engage with other men in my life. It has certainly, I think, like realizing this is something I think about as a journalist a lot and I imagine comes up for you a good bit like the realizing how people respond to the directness of these kinds of conversations, these kinds of questions, realizing that, oh, I can take that over into my day to day life. I can be the person who just asks my friends more direct questions about what's going on in their lives. I can be more intentional about that kind of Stuff also because of the fact that this book is, you know, it's not really about male loneliness, but it enters a moment where it's going to be tied to the male loneliness discourse. I did have this moment of like, I've been working on this book for five years. I have a full time job at the Ringer. I had, you know, became a parent during the years I was working on this book. I did kind of look around and I was like, oh shit. Like, I've kind of led a lot of my friendships, you know, atrophy a little bit. I do not want to be publishing a book that gets into male loneliness and I am the lonely man. Uh, and so I've, I've been really intentional about like trying to like build new friendships and put effort into, into old ones. Um, but then also, you know, a little bit more on like kind of a. More just like my own sense of my identity kind of level. I think that it's being okay with the ways in which, like, I'm going to struggle with the feelings of inadequacy that we're talking about. Like, being okay with the fact that like, that is going to part of my experience. Again, being mindful of the ways in which an overemphasis on those expectations might be limiting or might not serve you. But also being okay with the fact that it's even okay if. Sometimes I don't want to cry. I cry pretty easily sometimes I just don't feel like it. And that can be okay too. Being okay with the fact that I have been shaped by these scripts and expectations. I do not have to be like the most enlightened version of what a man can be like. I can still struggle with all of this stuff. I can still have these feelings of inadequacy and not explain them away.
- [48:18]
Sean Ehling
We are all truly ridiculous creatures. I also wonder because you became a dad while doing this and I'm about to have my second son and so fatherhood is very much on my mind. It was while I was reading this book for damn sure. Has it, has it changed in any noticeable way how you're raising your son or how you're thinking about raising your son? I know he's still very young, but
- [48:44]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
still being mindful of the fact that he's going to be inheriting. He's going to be absorbing so many messages from so many corners around all of this stuff or around like who he's supposed to be as a boy, the kind of man he's supposed to grow into. And I think trying to make the home a place in which he does not feel a particular kind of. Particular kinds of pressures that are only tied to the fact that he is a boy. You know, particular sets of expectations that are. That result from his sex and like the home being a place where if he deviates from, you know, certain scripts, you know, just making space for. For that, like letting, Letting the home not be a place where there's any sort of, like, punishment, like, even just like emotional, like flickers of emotional punishment or disappointment. Should he kind of, you know, act in a way that maybe kind of bumps up against my own kind of internalized sense of like what I've expected from myself once when I was a boy and later as a man, just let. Trying to make it a place where he can feel. Feel, you know, just. Just fully comfortable with. With. With who he is.
- [50:06]
Sean Ehling
Well, you sound like a good dad, and I think he's lucky to have you. So that is.
- [50:11]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
That is very kind of you to say. And, and same to you, Jordan Ritter Khan.
- [50:15]
Sean Ehling
This is great. I. I really appreciate you coming on the show. And once again, the book is called American Men. It's. It's really worth your time. So check it out, people. Thanks, Jordan.
- [50:25]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
Jordan, thank you so much, Sean.
- [50:32]
Sean Ehling
All right. Thank you for listening to this episode. Jordan was great. He is such a good and thoughtful writer. It is such a good and thoughtful book, and this to me, was such a good and thoughtful conversation. I hope you got as much out of it as I did. As always, we do want to know what you think. So drop us a line at the gray area@vox.com or you can leave us a message on our voicemail line at 1-800-214-5749. Please also rate, review and subscribe to the podcast. This episode was produced by Thor Neur and Beth Morrissey, who also runs the show, engineered by Shannon Mahoney. Fact Checked by Melissa Hirsch and Alex Overington wrote our theme music. Our executive producer is Miranda Kennedy. The Gray Area comes out on Monday, Sundays and Fridays. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts. If you watch podcasts while you listen, you can do that too. Go to YouTube.com Vox for video versions of the Gray Area. The show is part of Vox. Support Vox's journalism by joining our membership program today. Go to Vox.com members to sign up and if you decide to sign up because of this show, let us know.
- [51:53]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
When I got a new car, I
- [51:54]
Sean Ehling
thought my insurance premium would increase and
- [51:55]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
empty my bank account.
- [51:57]
Sean Ehling
Like, if fatween won the lottery, I'VE
- [51:59]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
invested most of my winnings in chicken tenders because they're bomb. But bro, I bought a house and it's sick, bro. I'm thinking the floor is going to be all trampoline, bro, with the helipad on the roof. The contractor said it's structurally unsafe. They're just being babies.
- [52:14]
Sean Ehling
But switching to Geico saved me hundreds so my bank account is safe. It feels good to save some hard earned cash. It feels good to Geico.
- [52:23]
Jordan Ritter Kahn
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- [52:49]
Sean Ehling
Spotify advertising, you're among fans.