Unmasking Maskulinity for Love

If life's a masquerade, love is the unnecessary element that best adds verve and colour. When man loves he does so irrationally, with reckless abandon lest he has come to awareness of love itself. On his quest to discover and learn love, he knowingly and often unknowingly engages ploys and structures and props to exert control again; to cause love to last, to bar love from hurting, to make love simple. And in his bid for control, man then dons masks as he acts in the show called Life, in this (godly) play, as love permeates his animalistic existence making him human. In this amphitheatre, man is but the actor, love is the score that animates the scenes that moves the man. Masks are worn to keep things plain, to hide the impact on the man that participating in these games produces (in him) … it is artificially controlled, a permanent poker face… the delight and the agony, the full gamut of emotion is screened out by the mask one chooses to wear. Without the mask man as actor in the domain of the stage is transparent which sometimes gets ugly. It allows to be seen the ugly along with the good, the bad alongside the curated, the ecstasy along with the sculpted features a mask exhibits. It covers vulnerability. And whilst sameness and predictability (and reliability) is gained reality with all its messiness is lost to the eye, whitewashed and veiled, leading to distended experience where the gap between the soul of the man and what is seen of him is never bridged leading to frail failing connections ergo loneliness, loss of understanding, miscommunication and an out-a-timing (uncoordinated) dance between man and his fellows and especially between the sexes. Men are from Mars, women are from Venus they say, while men in masks hide even that which is heartical about them…women don’t get to really see the Martian nor does hardly anyone. What is Love? Baby don't hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more.

Shot through the heart by boyish, flighty, blinkered Cupid, son of Venus--god of love-- and Mars--god of war-- any man of Mars who delights in conquest becomes undone by a newfound preoccupation-- his lover’s personage. His whole identity is upended as what was his greatest obsession is usurped and his desires take on a different bend. The man smitten by love is no longer the rational, self-interested marauder inexorably crushing everything in his path and bending everything to his will, master of destiny. Instead, he will have become the opposite, a loyal dog compliant to the whims of love his new master.

Now I wouldn’t call myself a conquistador and much less a meek dog. If anything, I've straddled the line as meek christian who unwittingly collided with the world bending the light that reflected back to my eyes affording me vision such that my worldview was authenticated. That was until I met Jenelle and the world changed. She became a muse that woke abilities that had lain dormant. I was poetic, I went against the grain of my soul to be entertaining, even comedic. I was sneaky--reaching hands to fondle just out of sight in public places or just behind a closed door that could be opened at any moment in this public space where we robbed moments of privacy. And then there was the kissing. A new world to me. The altar boy was overflowing with anointing, effusively energized and glowing with energy for this that and the third…various sports and societies and studies all engaged with at levels that required oceans of energy and was still left vim for lengthy free nights talks and texting before a few hours of sleep and the dawn to a new day. What is love? Is this not love?

What is Love? Baby don't hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more. Love oft construed in today’s day/popular culture as being treated in a way that makes the me feel valued, validated and seen. It’s about being loved in accordance with how My love languages are ordered and, later, loving you according to your set up of love languages. It’s about what is to be done for the self and we get after this by the hook or the crook including feigning, acting, masking up. Let’s hear how mommy tells one love story.

Excerpts from Dat A Love Bredda John by Christine A. Blake (Mommy)

Dat a love Bredda John?

Dat a love?

Yuh give har sweet chat

She tek it seh a dat

But when she come a yuh yaad

It’s a different thing

Cause is a box or a kick

When she hum or she sing

Dat a love breda John?

Dat a love?

Every day Jane cry and cry

“Mi nuh know how mi tek up dis ya ole hige

Him is a wicked ole serpent

Satan own self

If mi follow him, mi guh strait a hell

Lawd!

Breda John nuh know seh mi feel pain Him dis a hag mi and a drag mi

Dis a lick mi an’ a kick mi

Like mi a him pickney

Meen tink a love Breda John

Meen tink a love!”

This is but a modern-day take on love. This is a common contemporary story. Woman finds man’s mind and motives impenetrable; man lashes out hurting after posing with a sweet, chivalrous mask at the outset of wooing. What is love then really? Here’s how I describe it.

That earliest attraction is akin to the vertigo felt when on the topmost platform at the diving pool.

The dive is the plunge, the falling in love.

Sailing through the air, hitting the water, and sliding through to it's depths at high speed with grace are darn estatic.

And whether you hit the bottom or no (how long the dive (honeymoon period) lasts) you have to start swimming.

Sooner or later twill be the glorious journey of two bodies in nude slicing through the water in harmonious rhythm.

For with time the naked truth will take off the coverings of modesty, bikinis and all other diving gear will be stripped… (Adapted from A Reflection on Eros)

And how do we hack this love? How do we cut and come back with the formula instead of living with a blackheart (Alkaline). Though a woman may ask us to lie to her as Nikki Giovani did in conversation with James Baldwin, how do we assuage the friction caused by wearing masks, how do we stay consistent, still be kind, still sacrifice and yet not damn ourselves, only loving others as much as we love ourselves even when our posture becomes deeming others more highly than ourselves (christian ethic --Paul)? Cause as Baldwin says in response to being asked to fake it, to put on and wear a mask at home with the family and with the woman he loves, “ I’m not sure that’s a human possibility…I can’t give a performance all day on the job and come home and give a performance all night in the house” Nikki rightly pointed out and James was willing to accept that though it means boxing ourselves in (morally) we must arrange our lives, finding ways to thrive and survive that does not involve sacrificing showing love to loved ones. I posit that it is making it a practice to not don the mask with those we love that is the foundation for creating this hoped for dream of living well, of living in love!

My mother was a poet--princess and poet as my ode in song runs--a heartical woman. She lived with her mask hung on the dresser, dusty from disuse. With her sleeve unprotected by ribs and pectoral muscles, she perpetrated (portrayed) love unfiltered and sprinkled creativity into our hearts with a liberal dousing in the fountain of her songs and poems. One husband, six children were infected by her contagious philosophy and gift and the following reflection on how wanting control and a fear of vulnerability both infect love is a bi-product of that legacy.

Maskulinity

I wore the mask they gave me--at least I tried

I wish I never took it off, exposed

Don't take it off, exposing you lack guile

For the true emperor has no clothes

Oh, the true ruler is naked

That's me, that's you, no shame but yes, there's fear

We shan't be ashamed. Yet, what of fear is wise?

Cause now they know your real face, no more to hide

Showing your real face stops the hiding

Jack has popped out of the box, mystery dead

Now Jack is the beanstalk climbing, flees to heav'n.

What other choice, stand and fight? Real face slogged, dragged?

So my real face is safe should I stand and fight

I wore the mask they gave me--at least I tried.

Now, this is a plight shared by many men, (me and my bros and my dad included). Talking in the live discussion forums of the Jamaican poetry scene it is often insufficient to say “Oh, maskulinity is a thing too” without giving a fuller explanation. A poetic response like this is often more impactful, even when it's a few months or years in coming. I love the richness and colour dialogue like this espouses but would rather, when prodded by instant gratification, run a podcast and have the standout poets come in and lay out their thinking. But gratification is a dish best served cold, and so the epicures and connoisseurs of whose number I strive to make myself will fully value the exquisite nature of such fine philosophical dining.

Still, as I write here, an essay expository, I relish the opportunity to further this conversation with an extended artwork label as opposed to an ekphrasis. Prose has its hallowed, helpful place.

The problem at hand is endemic to the human condition and specifically so for us martian men who tie our worth to our ability to bring order to the chaos of existence. Our ability to plan and our ability to say that we know what we are about relies on our capacity to prove that we understand the landscape, especially that of the present and future, and that we have a map for how to navigate it. Dora the Explorer must have nothing on us. We are to chart our own paths, that of our families and that of our societies. At least, we are to be standing at the prow or at the wheel of the ships of discovery and exploration that is taking us and those of our community to the Promised Land (Vinland). And we mustn’t falter in this lest we invite mutiny. Oh, how we identify with Columbus in this sense.

In effect, we become tethered to fronting being in control. Whether we, in our hearts, have it figured out or no, we find ourselves duty bound to know how things are going and to being able guides for the journey. If life is a trip up mount Everest, we are to control the risks as well as have supplies for all contingencies. All told, we are duty bound to provide safety in danger and uncertainty, and the way we make it clear that we are up to the task is by exerting and expressing that we have things all under control.

This is a heavy burden. And to hide the cracks, the doubts, the fear as we navigate the unknown, we develop a front that brooks no questioning. To survive holding up our stress we paint on a mask that says I’m set, I know what’s going on, I know where we're going. This is our mask of control.

We hide away our vulnerability, the recurrent cracks in our facade, to invite respect. The antifaz says “He’s consistent, he doesn’t waver, at least he knows what’s going on. He gets after it.” The cracks that show up as inconsistency, as uncertainty, as befuddlement are veiled so that this respect, once earned, stays intact. We fear that should the cracks be seen those that look to us will be thrown in disarray as their confidence in our declarations seeps away. We are convinced that this is how they will see and interpret a projection of us that isn’t all confidence and control.

Netizens laughed at Jordan Peterson for crying as often as he did in public when he got very emotional, questioning his expertise and masculinity, questioning the truth and strength of his advice as a result. It’s as if we cannot show any softness or element other than perfect control and poise. It is why Hitler shot up on heroin.

Can’t the story of strength be expanded in our common psyche? Mustn’t the story of control be told with the threads of moments of weakness and doubt woven in? Given the truth of it all, mustn’t we tell and embrace that true control and leadership and masculinity over time experiences and deals with these cracks in perfect control? This requested/suggested story of control has greater depth and truth and facilitates men leading maskless…leaning into love maskless, an ambit in which man is categorically expected to take the lead. Pursuer, protector, provider, priest is his name. Let him waver and find his feet again without losing respect or be cast down from his pedestal. Let him keep his glory and name though he falters or fails. He’ll love realer and truer and harder for it because he won’t have to spend energy framing his faults and failings for fawning eyes instead of eyes that see him, all he is, and honours his leading all the same. So in life and so in love!

Now, I have a Spotify playlist called Lonely and that's the title for one half of the songs in the seven-track collection. The lyrics tell of new encounters looking to come to roost, old loves soured and poignant reflections and declarations about the violence of dirty relations that make loneliness a preferred reality from the Cool Ruler himself. It's the background music as I write this section. All hits on the Billboard Hot 100 or classics of reggae, the ballads decry the loneliness epidemic faced by us men when it comes to relationships. They tell stories of how loneliness came to be a thing and, spoiler, it’s never how things are at the start of becoming bonded in these relationships.

Regardless of the quality of the definitions of love that proliferate, the experience of loving romantically is fraught with the risk of falling into the bog of loneliness and flailing there. Aside from the deception and disappointment that often leads to the enactment of this unpleasant reality, the gap between that perception of us which exists and how we see ourselves is one main contender for what leaves us facing loneliness by our lonesome.

Everybody knows my name now

But somethin' 'bout it still feels strange

Like lookin' in a mirror, tryna steady yourself

And seein' somebody else

And everything is not the same now

It feels like all our lives have changed

Maybe when I'm older, it'll all calm down

But it's killin' me now

What if you had it all

But nobody to call?

Maybe then you'd know me

'Cause I've had everything

But no one's listening

And that's just f**king lonely

I'm so lonely

Lonely

Lenny Blanco and Justin Beiber wax eloquent about this calamity. His image wrought by fame so conflicts with how he sees himself he feels unheard, overlooked and so f**king lonely. More often still, the image or perception that exists of us is one we’ve helped to curate and maintain and which by our actions we’ve gone on to sanction. Yet, it is this discrepancy between the outward mask he puts on (whether foisted onto him or all of his own making) and a man’s inner world that leads to a sense of loneliness and isolation. Since true emotions and vulnerability are concealed behind the public facing facade we go to sleep and wake up in, connections with others—especially romantic ones—become shallow and strained.

This mask is meant to protect from hurt. It ends up preventing others from truly seeing the version of us that’s all encompassing and who we perceive as the real us. This leads to the suppression of both positive and negative emotions, making relationships unfulfilling and superficial. The ugly, messed up, unheralded portion of our souls gets blotted out and they no less need to be testified to than the great, pristine and beautiful parts of us that make it into our masks.

Let’s switch up the playlist for good, let’s be so vulnerable we can say “Said I loved you but I lied, this is more than love I feel inside.” Mask off. Let’s unveil our heart. As Labrinth’s ballad, ‘Jealous’, confesses to jealousy and longing so too should we be bold to open up about our ugly, unpristine, smooth emotions. Or as R. Kelly opens up about failing his lady and seeing that pattern play out around him in “When a woman loves” . Even Akon admits to this in his take on Lonely showing how his own actions ended up with him being lonely, wearing a mask that left him mistreating the woman he really cared about .

Labrinth makes it as explicit as it can be in his duet with Emeli Sande, begging her to take off the mask Beautiful and is in turn pleaded with to do the same so love can flourish . These are all songs that form parts of other playlists in the library and it is aspiring to and enacting these examples of openness, of letting the mask down or removing it completely that will see resolution for loneliness and a more and more barefaced relationing from men, including towards women.

What is Love? Baby don't hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more. Love oft construed in today’s day/popular culture as being treated in a way that makes the me feel valued, validated and seen. It’s about being loved in accordance with how My love languages are ordered and, later, loving you according to your set up of love languages. It’s about what is to be done for the self and we get after this by the hook or the crook including feigning, acting, masking up. Let’s hear how mommy tells one love story.

Excerpts from Dat A Love Bredda John by Christine A. Blake

Dat a love Bredda John?

Dat a love?

Yuh give har sweet chat

She tek it seh a dat

But when she come a yuh yaad

It’s a different thing

Cause is a box or a kick

When she hum or she sing

Dat a love breda John?

Dat a love?

Every day Jane cry and cry

“Mi nuh know how mi tek up dis ya ole hige

Him is a wicked ole serpent

Satan own self

If mi follow him, mi guh strait a hell

Lawd!

Breda John nuh know seh mi feel pain Him dis a hag mi and a drag mi

Dis a lick mi an’ a kick mi

Like mi a him pickney

Meen tink a love Breda John

Meen tink a love!”

Is this not a modern day take on love? This is a common story. Woman finds man’s mind and motives impenetrable; man lashes out hurting after posing with a sweet, chivalrous mask at the outset of wooing. What is love then really? Here’s how I describe it.

That earliest attraction is akin to the vertigo felt when on the topmost platform at the diving pool.

The dive is the plunge, the falling in love.

Sailing through the air, hitting the water, and sliding through to it's depths at high speed with grace are darn estatic.

And whether you hit the bottom or no (how long the dive (honeymoon period) lasts) you have to start swimming.

Sooner or later twill be the glorious journey of two bodies in nude slicing through the water in harmonious rhythm.

For with time the naked truth will take off the coverings of modesty, bikinis and all other diving gear will be stripped… (Adapted from A Reflection on Eros)

And how do we hack this love? How do we cut and come back with the formula instead of living with a blackheart (Alkaline). Though a woman may ask us to lie to her as Nikki Giovani did in conversation with James Baldwin, how do we assuage the friction caused by wearing masks? How do we stay consistent, still be kind, still sacrifice and yet not damn ourselves, only loving others as much as we love ourselves even when our posture becomes deeming others more highly than ourselves (christian ethic --Paul)? Because, as Baldwin says in response to being asked to fake it, to put on and wear a mask at home with the family and with the woman he loves, “I’m not sure that’s a human possibility…I can’t give a performance all day on the job and come home and give a performance all night in the house.” Nikki rightly pointed out, and James was willing to accept, that though it means boxing ourselves in (morally) we must arrange our lives, finding ways to thrive and survive that does not involve sacrificing showing love to loved ones. I posit that it is making it a practice to not don the mask with those we love that is the foundation for creating this hoped for dream of living well, of living in love!