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Last week, I had a bad fever and was really sick. As I lay in bed, I started to think about how vulnerable I was in both specific and general terms.
Being alone, I didn’t really have any way to get help unless I was willing to wake somebody up or call 911. If I asked for help, it felt a little like I was admitting weakness…that I had failed as an adult or as a man.
I know this is irrational, but it was something to consider in those early hours…
Being ill means being vulnerable. If you can get to a doctor, there’s the question “are you sick enough to need help”?
It’s really crazy.
If you aren’t sick enough to be incapacitated, then you should “suck it up” and be a man. If you are so sick you are unable to care for yourself, you are humiliated.
The problem, this Catch-22, is that there are no clear standards for “Male Vulnerability” in our American society. Given that masculinity is defined as “not female” or “not child-like” or “not whatever”, there is no positive definition of how to be both vulnerable and masculine at the same time.
Am I wrong about this? Can anybody point me to a positive example of “male vulnerability” in American culture?
2 Comments
Matt, you’re assuming that you (or other people) really care about whether you appear vulnerable - or somehow think less of you because some people may think you are “vulnerable”. I say that if you are sick, seek help. It’s the smart thing to do. : )
Perhaps there are different kinds of vulnerable.
It seems to me both a simple and complicated word. I think the simple definition applies for what one might call ‘accidental vulnerability’.
And I think the complicated definition applies for what you might call ‘intentional vulnerability’.
When I think of ‘male vulnerability’ I think of intentional vulnerability.
Accidental vulnerability is something that happens to us. Something that is just a part of being human. We get sick. We fall down. Fortune is a strumpet: sometimes she gives, but sometimes she takes.
I do not see any shame in accidental vulnerability, and I don’t think that we should feel, as men, shamed by it; but pretending to be invulnerable, even when the world can clearly see that you are not invulnerable, is somehow wrapped up in the idea of being a man.
But I would say that this false invulnerability is not ‘male vulnerability’.
Instead I would say that true ‘male vulnerability’ comes from intentional vulnerability.
I think intentional vulnerability is a word that runs parallel with trust.
I think opening up some part of yourself in a way that makes you reply on another, rather than relying on your own strength, is to make yourself vulnerable — is to trust.
The more vulnerable we allow ourselves to be, the more we trust.
We are born dependent, we grow independent, then perhaps with luck - we become interdependent. Greater than the sum.
But that’s just one man’s opinion….
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