Manhood

By Ron Barton

 

manhood

ˈmanhʊd/

noun

 

  1. Past puberty we romanticise the rough and tough, the logical evolution from “boys will be boys”. Beard without shaping, flannelette without irony. Grease and oil like war paint on muscular bodies. Emotionless, impenetrable, conservative.

 

  1. An antiquated ideal breeding uncertainty in contemporary youth. Traditionalists cling to the patriotic patriarch, the disgruntled disciplinarian of the good old days and, as such, they live alongside the message that it’s ok to talk, to cry, to fail. The notion of manhood is a form of purgatory, neither one thing nor the other. It is the amalgamation of all and, thus, it is nothing. Who knows what it is to be a man today?

 

 

Image by Todd Quackenbush


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