Mental Health

                In Part 1 of the “Evolution of Sex,” I described a few of the major problems facing boys and men said that what boys and men need more than anything else is to reconnect with the community of life on planet Earth. The admonition to “know thyself” is a philosophical Delphic-maxim which was inscribed upon the Temple of Apollo in the ancient Greek precinct of Delphi. Understanding the biological roots of maleness is a key to knowing the essence of who we are as males and being guided by that wisdom.

                To make sense of our biology, we have to understand something about how life evolves. Theodosius Dobzhansky was a prominent Ukrainian-American geneticist and evolutionary biologist, and a central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the modern synthesis.

                He said, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”

                In their book, Gender Gap: The Biology of Male-Female Differences, evolutionary psychologist David P. Barash, PhD. and his wife, Judith Eve Lipton, MD, who is a medical doctor and psychiatrist say,

                “When it comes to human nature, the differences between males and females must be acknowledged as real, important, and downright fascinating. Moreover, when it comes to understanding those differences, there is no better guide than evolution.”

                Understanding the biological and evolutionary basis of our maleness in no way discounts the fact that there are also psychological, social, and cultural differences that are important as well. Nature and nurture can never be separated. They are now, and forever, united.

            Let me be clear. What I will share about males and females are generalizations. A generalization, by definition, applies to the majority within a population, allowing plenty of room for individual exceptions. If I told you that men are taller than women, you would recognize that this is not true of all men. As a 5’5’’ guy, I’m very aware that this is a generalization — though I still wish I could magically become an undersized 6’5” basketball forward.

                Yet, the generalizations can tell us a lot about who we are and why we evolved the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that make us who we are. Because men tend to be a certain way does not mean that men are better than women or that these qualities are fixed and can’t change.

                Biologists have a very simple and useful definition of what is male and what is female, whether we are fish, ferns, or human beings. An individual can either make many small gametes (sex cells) or fewer but larger gametes. The individuals that produce smaller gametes are called “males” and the ones that produce larger gametes are called “females.”

                Since it makes biological sense to have the smaller male cells to move toward the larger female cells, it is usually the male that seeks out the female and the female who chooses which males she will allow to mate with her.

                In the past, it was assumed that the egg was passive, just waiting for the male sperm to penetrate her membrane. More recent studies have demonstrated that the egg is far from being a passive recipience, but actually “chooses” which sperm to allow entrance.

            In Part 1, I described the work of cosmologist Dr. Brian Swimme and historian Thomas Berry. In their book, The Universe Story, they described the first male organism, they call him Tristan, and the first female organism, they call her Iseult, and their coming together in the ancient oceans of planet Earth. This billion-year-old story takes us back to the emergence of the first sperm, the beginning of maleness, and our first male ancestor.

            This is the first love story and the beginning act to a play that continues to unfold today. But as evolution continued, and the first multicellular animals appeared 700 million years ago, we started on the long journey to becoming the unique men we are today.

                In the world of biology, size and numbers matter. Most of us are not aware of the difference in size and number between a sperm and an egg. A human egg is 85,000 times larger than a sperm. Each man produces 100 to 300 million sperm per ejaculate and must compete for access to that one precious egg produced by the female. Over a woman’s lifetime, approximately 400 to 500 eggs are released during ovulation.

                Dr. Stephen Emlen is Professor of Behavioral Ecology at Cornell University and a world authority on the social behavior of animals. He says,

                “Because of all the resources a female will put into each egg, it makes sense, in most cases, for her to be choosy about whose genes she allows to combine with it, and to continue to invest in its growth and survival after fertilization. For the male, it usually pays best to compete with other males for access to as many eggs as possible. This tends to give rise to the more traditional male/female sex roles.”

                Our different genetic heritage also helps us better understand the biology of maleness. David C. Page, M.D., is professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and director of the Whitehead Institute, where he has a laboratory devoted to the study of the Y-chromosome. He says,

                “There are 10 trillion cells in the human body and every one of them is sex specific.”

                He goes on to say, “It has been said that our genomes are 99.9% identical from one person to the next. It turns out that this assertion is correct as long as the two individuals being compared are both men. It’s also correct if the two individuals being compared are both women, but the genetic difference between a man and a woman are 15 times greater than the genetic difference between two men or between two women.”

                Dr. Page concludes by saying, “We’ve had a unisex vision of the human genome, but men and women are not equal in our genome and men and women are not equal in the face of disease. We need a tool kit that recognizes the fundamental difference on a cellular, organ, system, and person level between XY and XX. I believe that if we do this, we will arrive at a fundamentally new paradigm for understanding and treating human disease.”

                In the past, some believed that when we acknowledged biological differences between males and females, it would encourage the belief that women were inferior to men and their biology precluded them from being in positions of power. However, more recent research has demonstrated that our biology does not have to preclude men and women from entering certain professions or being capable of exercising leadership. It does not demonstrate male superiority, but, actually, the opposite.

                Melvin Konner, M.D. is one of the most respected experts in the field of Gender-Specific Health. In his book, Women After All: Sex, Evolution, and the End of Male Supremacy, he says,

                “Women are not equal to men; they are superior in many ways, in most ways that will count in the future. It is not just a matter of culture or upbringing, although both play their roles. It is a matter of biology and of the domains of our thoughts and feelings influenced by biology. It is because of chromosomes, genes, hormone, and nerve circuits. It is not mainly because of what your mother taught you or how experience shaped you. It is mainly because of intrinsic differences in the body and the brain.”

                We will explore more about the evolution of sex and the biological differences between males and females in future articles. If you have not already subscribed to my free weekly newsletter, I invite you to subscribe here.

The post The Evolution of Sex Part 2: The Biology of Maleness appeared first on MenAlive.

                There has been a lot written lately about the needs of boys and men. Two of the most important experts are Richard Reeves and Scott Galloway. Richard is the Founding President of the American Institute for Boys and Men, and author of the book, Of Boys and Men: Why The Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It. Scott Galloway. Scott is professor of marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business and author of the book, Notes on Being a Man.

                My recent article, “Scott Galloway, Richard Reeves, and Jed Diamond on the Future of Man Kind,” detailed some important facts that are becoming increasingly significant in today’s world including the truth that boys are struggling at school and men are losing ground in the labor market.

• “The data around boys and young men is overwhelming,” says Professor Galloway. “Seldom in recent memory has there been a cohort that’s fallen farther, faster. Why? First boys face an educational system biased against them — with brains that mature later than girls,’ they almost immediately fall behind their female classmates.”

• “The gender in college degrees awarded is wider today than it was in the early 1970s, but in the opposite direction,” says Richard Reeves. “For every 100 bachelor’s degrees awarded to women, 74 are awarded to men.”

• “The wages of most men are lower today than they were in 1979, while women’s wages have risen across the board,” says Reeves. “Men account for almost three out of four ‘deaths of despair’ either from suicide or overdose.”

               Neither Scott Galloway or Richard Reeves minimize the truth that there are significant problems that continue to undermine the health and wellbeing of girls and women. Their goal is not to pit males and females against each other, or determine who has it the worst, but rather to recognize that men’s problems and women’s problems are opposite sides of the same coin and must be solved by bringing men and women together.

What Boys and Men (as well as Girls and Women) Need Most

                After more than eighty years of life and sixty years as a healthcare provider, I believe our major problem is our mistaken belief that we are separate from nature and the community of life on planet Earth. According to Robert Waldinger, M.D. professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School,

                “We live our lives as if we are separate islands — distinct, independent, bounded by our skin. I wake up each morning as the protagonist of my own story, moving through a world of other separate things: my coffee cup, my neighbor, the tree outside my window. This perception feels so obviously true that we rarely question it. Yet what if this most basic assumption about reality is fundamentally mistaken?”

                In many ways our modern life is an illusion of separation, an illusion that is causing boys and men and all humanity to suffer and sicken. It is time we woke up and embraced the truth.

                The truth says Dr. Waldinger is that: “Nothing exists in isolation. Nothing is truly independent. You exist because your parents existed, because the food that sustains you exists, because the sun exists to make that food grow, because the conditions that formed our solar system billions of years ago existed. Nothing can be ‘ripped out of the fabric of being’ because everything is thoroughly woven together.”

                Our failure to understand the truth of our interconnectedness is not only at the core of our failure to thrive but is endangering our very survival. Historian Thomas Berry offered this reality check and call to action.

                “We never knew enough. Nor were we sufficiently intimate with all our cousins in the great family of the earth. Nor could we listen to the various creatures of the earth, each telling its own story. The time has now come, however, when we will listen or we will die.”

Our Biological Roots and Evolutionary Journey

                When I attended U.C. Santa Barbara between 1961 and 1965, I had the good fortune to meet the preeminent philosopher Paul Tillich, whose words moved me then and have stayed with me through the years.

               Tillich said, “Every serious thinking must ask and answer three fundamental questions: What is wrong with us? With men? Women? Society? What is the nature of our alienation? Our dis-ease? (2) What would we be like if we were whole? Healed? Actualized? If our potentiality was fulfilled? (3) How do we move from our condition of brokenness to wholeness? What are the means of healing?”

               I also had the good fortune of learning from biologists, psychologists, anthropologists and others who helped me begin a lifelong search for answers to the questions Tillich challenged us to address.

               I am an only child, raised by a single mother when my mid-life father took an overdose of sleeping pills because he felt he was a failure as a man when he couldn’t support his family doing work he loved. I grew up wondering what happened to my father, when it would happen to me, and what I could do to keep it from happening to other families.  I wrote about my father’s healing journey and my own in my book My Distant Dad: Healing the Family Father Wound.

               When I interviewed Richard Reeves and read Scott Galloway’s book Notes on Being a Man, I realized what all three of us had in common was the importance of the birth of our sons. I believe that all of us, regardless of whether we have children need to connect with our evolutionary lineage. We all had a father and each of our fathers had a father.

               I wondered how far back does this lineage go? I discovered that our sexual evolution is ancient. Getting in touch with the roots of our maleness is the key, I believe, to what we need in order to survive and thrive.

Embracing Our Billion Year History of Maleness

                To understand and heal our boys and men, as well as all humanity, we need to get back to the roots. According to mathematical cosmologist, Dr. Brian Swimme and historian Dr. Thomas Berry, in their book, The Universe Story, life first evolved on Earth about four billion years ago.

               Prior to the evolution of sexual reproduction, cells divided into individual sister cells. Swimme and Berry call this first living organism Sappho. But one billion years ago, a momentous change occurred. The first male organism, they call him Tristan, and the first female organism, they call her Iseult, were cast into the ancient oceans.  Here’s how Swimme and Berry poetically describe this first sexual adventure:

               “These special cells were then released by Sappho into the currents of the enveloping ocean. They were cast into the marine adventure, with its traumas of starvation and of predation. Able to nourish themselves but no longer capable of dividing into daughter cells, such primal living beings made their way through life until an almost certain death ended their 3 billion-year lineage.”

               But Tristan and Iseult possessed great fortitude and were willing to face adversity and danger in search of a potential lover, no matter the odds of failure.

                “A slight, an ever so slight, chance existed that a Tristan cell would come upon a corresponding Iseult cell. They would brush against each other, a contact similar to so many trillions of other encounters in their oceanic adventure. But with this one, something new would awaken. Something unsuspected and powerful and intelligent, as if they had drunk a magical elixir, would enter the flow of electricity through each organism.

                “Suddenly the very chemistry of their cell membranes would begin to change. Interactions evoked by newly functioning segments of her DNA would restructure the molecular web of Iseult’s skin, so that an act she had never experienced or planned for would begin to take place — Tristan entering her cell wholly.”

               This billion-year-old story takes us back to the emergence of the first sperm, the beginning of maleness, and our first male ancestor. Think about the fortitude and courage it took for the first male to overcome the adversities of life in the primordial ocean to find a female who would allow him entry into her body. This is the first love story and the beginning act to a play that continues to unfold today. But as evolution continued, and the first multicellular animals appeared 700 million years ago, we started on the long journey to becoming the unique men we are today.

               I will be writing more about our need to understand the biological and evolutionary truth about who we are. If you would like more articles like these, please let me know. I appreciate your feedback and support. If you are not already a member of our community and receiving my free weekly newsletter, please sign up here.

The post The Evolution of Sex: What Boys and Men Need to Survive and Thrive appeared first on MenAlive.

                Those who receive my weekly newsletter know that I write a new article each week that I send out for free to those who subscribe. The articles are my way of connecting with my community and sharing information that fulfills my commitment to help men and their families to live fully, love deeply, and make a positive difference in the world. The articles also address issues that help me improve my life for myself and my family.

                Not every article is helpful for all 12,000 current subscribers, but some articles speak to many, and a few go viral on the web and are read by millions. That was the case with an article I wrote on February 3, 2017 titled “The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex Is The One Thing Women Find It Hard to Give.” Within a few months after it was published it was read by more than three-million people.

                The article began this way:

                “How many times have we heard the phrase, ‘All men want is sex?’ When I was 17 years old I was sure it was true. When I was 37 years old, I suspected it might not be true. And now that I’m 73 years old, I know it’s not true. Now don’t get me wrong, sex can be wonderful at any age, but there’s something that is more important than sex, but it’s something that men have difficulty admitting and women have difficulty giving.”

                “This understanding has dawned on me slowly and became most evident to me in my men’s group. I’ve been meeting regularly with six other guys for thirty-eight years and sex has been a topic that has run through our discussions over the years.”

                The men’s group has now been meeting for forty-six years. Four of the seven guys have died and only three of us are still on the earth and able to meet live. When we began meeting in 1979, there were three guys older than me and three guys younger. I am the oldest now and I’ll be 82 in December. The other two guys are approaching eighty. We met yesterday and one of the guys shared that he had been asked by a friend: “If you died tomorrow, is there anything you would regret?”  

                He thought about the question and admitted that there were probably a number of things, but one there was something he knew for sure.

                “The time I have spent with you guys in the men’s group gave me the gift of a life-time knowing that I am safe — that nothing I say or do will ever cause the guys in the group to reject me.”

                That’s exactly what I had written about in the original article:

                “So, what do men want more than sex? We’ve all heard that women need to feel loved to have sex, but men need to have sex to feel loved. Let’s look more deeply at what it is exactly that men are getting when they get sex. Sure, there is the physical pleasure, but there is a deeper need that is being satisfied. I call it the need for a safe harbor.”

                When people visit my website, they see my welcome video “Confessions of a Twice-Divorced Marriage Counselor.” One of the seventeen books I’ve written was titled Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places. It captured the challenges I had finding real, lasting, love. My present wife, Carlin, will tell you that one of the main reasons she and I have been married for forty-five years now is because I have been in a men’s group for forty-six years.

                We live in a world where most of us do not feel safe. The environment that is our life support system continues to deteriorate, and our relationships often feel fraught with danger and conflict. During my forty-six years in the men’s group, I found the safe harbor that I believe we are all looking to find in our love lives.

                Ultimately, the safe harbor we all crave is inside each one of us. We must learn to love ourselves unconditionally, to know that we will accept ourselves despite the mistakes we all make being imperfect human beings. To do that, I believe we must be surrounded by family, friends, and communities that are healthy and supportive.

                AI, or artificial intelligence, has become a significant presence in everyone’s lives. Like a great deal in the world today, the response to AI polarizes people. There are those who believe at AI will solve all the problems that humans have created and lead to a world beauty and wonder. Others believe AI will kill us all.

                One of the true experts I have learned to trust is Mo Gawdat, author of a number of books including Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You can Save Our World. Mo is the former chief business officer of Google X, a serial entrepreneur, and host of a successful podcast, Slo Mo, where I had the pleasure of being interviewed.

                In Scary Smart, Mo says,

                “This book is a wake-up call. It is written for you and for me and for everyone who is uninformed about the approaching pandemic — the imminent arrival of artificial intelligence.” He goes on to say that “this book will be criticized by experts, but it is not experts who have the capability to alleviate the threat facing humanity as a result of the emergence of superintelligence. No, it is you and I who have that power. More importantly it is you and I who have that responsibility.”

                In a recent article on MenAlive, I wrote an article highlighting the work of two colleagues, Scott Galloway and Richard Reeves, who have taken that responsibility seriously. Though Scott, Richard, and I have very different professional backgrounds, we are also fathers of sons, and we share a concern for the well-being of all children everywhere.

                Scott Galloway is a professor of marketing at NYU’s Stern School of business and a serial entrepreneur. He credits Richard Reeves as “my Yoda and expert on boys and men.” (Reeves is the Founder of the American Institute for Boys and Men and author of the book Of Boys and Men: Why The Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It).

                In his recently released book, Notes on Being a Man, Galloway devotes a chapter to “Sex, Love, and Marriage,” and warns about the dangers boys and men are experiencing as a result of the increasing use of online search for sex, love, and intimacy.

                “We used to meet potential mates at school, at work, through friends, and out in the world,” says Galloway. “No longer. Online dating shares the flaws with other technologies that scale our instincts. Algorithms are indifferent to social interests, and that, coupled with human nature, gave us January 6 and QAnon.”

                In his No Mercy/No Malice article, September 5, 2025, Galloway noted “Loneliness is lucrative” and cited the following:

                “Leonid Radvinsky, the secretive owner of OnlyFans, received a $700 million windfall last year, while the platform’s top tier of content creators — mostly women — earn millions annually. With $7.2 billion in annual gross revenue and just 46 employees, OnlyFans may be one of the most profitable companies on the planet. The site is viewed as a porn-centric hub where men pay women for sexual content.”

                Galloway concludes saying,

                “While OnlyFans is known for its subscription model, one-off transactions are driving 88 percent of the revenue growth. These ‘tips’ are an arbitrage on the disparity between the biological impulse to mate and the lack of mating opportunities.”

                And males pay a high price in money spent and emotions manipulated through on-line hope to find someone to satisfy our human needs for connection.  

                But it isn’t just a site like OnlyFans that concerns Galloway. In Notes on Being a Man he looks more broadly at the online world that attracts so many boys and men.

                “Dating apps sort potential partners into a tiny group of haves and a titanic group of have-nots,” says Galloway. “On Hinge, the top 10 percent of men receive nearly 60 percent of the ‘likes;’ the comparable figure for women is 45 percent. The bottom 80 percent of male Tinder users, based on percentage of likes received, are competing for the bottom 22 percent of women. If it were a country, Tinder would be among the most unequal in the world.”

                Galloway encourages boys and men to take risks to meet people in the real world, not the artificial world on-line.

                “Look up and around you when you’re out, to see if anyone catches your eye. Talk to strangers. Be open to possibility.”

                That may be easier said than done. I have learned that it is easy to become addicted to the online world. As I described in my book, Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Overcoming Romantic and Sexual Addictions. We need to support boys and men in re-learning the skills to look for love in all the right places.

                I appreciate you reading my articles, sharing them, and offering your comments or questions. You can write me to Jed@MenAlive.com. I read all emails and respond to as many as I can. You can subscribe to our free weekly newsletter here.

                “Will AI make us smarter or just faster fools? I’m betting heavily on the ‘faster fools’ outcome unless we get very, very smart about designing these systems to counteract our worst instincts, not just cater to them.” Vivienne L’Ecuyer Ming

The post The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex: Part 2: The Promise and Dangers of AI appeared first on MenAlive.

 
            When I was growing up most all the caregivers in my world were women. The early memories I had of our family when my mother, father, and I enjoyed life in our little home in the San Fernando Valley town of Sherman Oaks, ended when my father was hospitalized. I was told he had suffered “a nervous breakdown,” which made little sense to a five-year old child, but I felt secure knowing my mother was there to care for me.

                There were women caregivers in the nursery school I attended and my teachers in kindergarten and first grade were women. My pediatrician was a caring male, Dr. Minton, but the nurse in his office was a woman. Being raised by a single mom growing up, I met and interacted with other moms taking care of younger children. It seemed clear that caregiving, particularly for younger children, was primarily a woman’s job.

                When I grew up, I vowed that I would find the right partner, we would get married, have two children, preferably a boy and a girl, raise them well, and live happily ever after. It didn’t quite work out that way. I did meet and marry the young woman I met in college. As planned, we had a son, then adopted a little girl. But the challenges of life pulled us apart and we divorced.

                We both wanted to be primary caregivers for our children, but the court system favored the mother. Like many fathers, I became the secondary caregiver. But that changed when our daughter became more of a problem for my ex-wife and eventually she came to live with me.

                Back then, it was unusual for a man to be caring for a young child. When I would take Angela to the local park to play, there were many single moms with young kids, but I was the only male. When I volunteered to help in her classroom in elementary school, there too, I was the only male. This was a time when many male caregivers were viewed with suspicion. I was aware of the looks I was getting from women. Why would a man want to be in a classroom with young children?

How Did Father Knows Best Become Father Knows Less or Father Molests?

              Dr. Warren Farrell has been chosen by the Financial Times as one of the world’s top 100 thought leaders. His books are published in over 50 countries, and in 19 languages. They include The New York Times best-seller, Why Men Are the Way They Are and his most recent book, The Boy Crisis co-authored with John Gray.                

In The Boy Crisis he asks,

               “So how did Father Knows Best become Father Knows Less—or Father Molests? As divorces broke families apart, the 1950s forces of the era of Father Knows Best morphed into the forces of the era of Father Knows Less. The bumbling Homer Simpson inspired the longest-running prime-time sitcom in American TV history, with over six hundred episodes to date, bridging the presidencies of Reagan through Trump. Perhaps second place in the Father Knows Less contest goes to the clueless dads in Everybody Loves Raymond.”

Father Time: How Dads Are Being Called to Change the World for Good

                Dr. Sarah Hrdy is an anthropologist and primatologist and one of the world’s leading experts on the evolutionary basis of female behavior in both nonhuman and human primates. Dr. Hrdy has recently turned her attention to men. I had a good fortune to meet Dr. Hrdy and interview her for a series of articles on male caregiving.

“It has long seemed self-evident that women care for babies and men do other things,” says Hrdy. “When evolutionary science came along, it rubber-stamped this venerable division of labor: mammalian males evolved to compete for status and mates, while females were purpose-built to gestate, suckle, and otherwise nurture the victors’ offspring.”

Hrdy admits that it took her a long time to recognize and appreciate the potential for males to be caregivers. In her book, Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies, Dr. Hrdy destroys the myths that have kept men disconnected from our evolutionary, God-given–rights to care, nurture, and hold our sons and daughters from the moment of their birth until…forever.

                “My unexpected finding,” says Dr. Hrdy, “is that inside every man there lurk ancient caretaking tendencies that render a man every bit as protective and nurturing as the most committed mother. It is a journey that has forced me to rethink long held assumptions about man’s innately selfish, competitive, and violent nature.”

               I concur. I have been an engaged father from the time I held our son shortly after he was born and made a promise that I would be a different kind of father than my father was able to be for me and to do everything I could to help create a world where fathers were fully involved with their families throughout their lives. That was November 21,1969 and our son, Jemal, will be fifty-six shortly. I took time away from work when he was born and shared in the direct care of diaper changing, holding, and getting up in the middle of the night to answer his cries. I loved being fully engaged in caregiving, not just fund raising.

                When my wife and I fell in love in college in 1965 and made plans to marry, we decided we would have a child, then adopt a child. We felt the world was getting crowded and we wanted to parent a child who might need our loving care. When we brought our two-and-a-half-month-old African American daughter home, we were overjoyed and felt our family was complete.

               As all parents know, children are a great gift and a great challenge. Our daughter, Angela, was born with a cleft palate which required surgery when she was a year old. She also has suffered from developmental disabilities. Over the years I was called upon to provide increasing care and for a time was the primary parent.

                Being a care-giving father has been one of the greatest challenges and joys of my life. My wife and I now have six grown children, seventeen grandchildren, and four great grandchildren. We’ve both been involved with caregiving for our parents as they aged, dealt with illness, and eventually died.

                I will be eight-two years old in December. We will celebrate Carlin’s 88^th birthday in July. Three years ago, Carlin slipped on wet sidewalk and broke her hip. During the surgery she a mild stroke. Since then, I have become a full-time caregiver and have taken on many of the responsibilities that she carried through most of our married life including—paying bills and doing the taxes, preparing meals, and cleaning house.

                I never realized how much women often do as the primary caregivers for children and aging adults until I began doing more myself. I also didn’t realize the great gift it is to be a caregiver and how important men can be in the lives of our children, parents, spouses, and families.

                I realize that male caregivers are still a minority. I also realize there are more of us every day and we play an increasingly important role for our families and communities. But too many of us feel isolated and alone, not realizing there are other guys out there just like us.

                If you are a male caregiver, I’d like to hear from you. I believe that more of us need to share our stories and explore ways we can give and receive support. Together we can change the world for good. November 19^th is International Men’s Day and an opportunity to connect with what is good about men everywhere in the world.

                Drop me a note to Jed@MenAlive.com. Put “male caregiver” in the subject line. Please share your own caregiving experiences. Come visit me at MenAlive.com. I send out my free weekly newsletter every Sunday and share my experiences and offer guidance for men and women looking to improve their personal, interpersonal, and relational, lives.  

The post Calling All Male Caregivers: We Are Needed Now More Than Ever appeared first on MenAlive.

 
            Scott Galloway’s new book, Notes on Being a Man, arrived yesterday. My wife, Carlin, got it first. She had just seen an interview with Scott on the talk show, The View. I had been on The View when Barbara Walters was the host following the publication of my book, Male Menopause, and very much enjoyed the lively discussion. There was a similar engagement I recognized when Scott was interviewed which I watched this morning. I thought Scott was particularly vulnerable as he described the impact his absent father had on his life.

            I have followed Scott’s work since 2022 when I read his book, Adrift: America in 100 Charts and was particularly interested in these charts:

• Marriage Rates Are at Record Lows
• Women Value Earning Potential in Male Partners
• Men’s Share of College Enrollment at Record Lows
• Online Dating Apps Are More Inequitable Than Almost Anywhere on Earth
• Mass Murder Is a Uniquely Male Crime

I also have followed his podcasts and newsletter, No Mercy/No Malice, and happy to see his increasing interest in the state of boys and men, which he credits to his colleague Richard Reeves, who he calls “my Yoda on this subject.” I have long admired the work of Richard Reeves since reading his 1997 book, Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That is a Problem, and What to Do About It.

When Reeve’s book, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About, was published in 2022 and he founded the American Institute for Boys and Men, I felt it was a real game-changer in our work to improve the lives of males and their families.

When Reeves co-wrote a book with Jonathan Juravich, the 2023 National Elementary Art Teacher of the Year, Yes Boys Can! Inspiring Stories of Men Who Changed the World, I interviewed Reeves and Juravich for my podcast. I also wrote an article, “Men Can Heal: Getting Men Into the Jobs of the Future.”

My professional engagement with men’s work began following the birth of our son, Jemal, in 1969. When I held my baby boy shortly after his birth, I made a vow that I would be a different kind of father than my father had been able to be for me and to do everything I could to help create a world where fathers were fully involved with their families throughout their lives. When our daughter, Angela, was born in 1972, it became increasingly clear to me that there were significant differences between males and females.

Talking and writing about male/female differences has always been controversial. I had difficulty finding a publisher for my first book, Inside Out: Becoming My Own Man. I was told by many publishers that “men don’t read books on health.” Others told me the personal stories I shared “weren’t appropriate for a professional to be writing about.”  I learned about self-publishing and founded my own company, Fifth Wave Press. I finally got an offer from a reputable publishing house, but by then I decided I wanted to do it myself and the book was published in 1983.

Inside out was controversial from the beginning because I didn’t hold back from sharing my personal feelings and experiences. I described the challenges of growing up with an absent father and being raised by a mother who was obsessed with death. In the first chapter I described the fears that had driven me for most of my life:

• My feelings will destroy me if I let them out.
• I will go crazy like my father.
• There is something dangerous and violent in me waiting to destroy the people I love the most.
• Women will appear to love me, but when they learn the truth about how confused and weak I really am, they will leave me.

I also described what I called the Ten Commandments that drive me:

1. Thou shalt not be weak, nor have weak gods before thee.
2. Thou shalt not fail thyself, nor fail as thy father before thee.
3. Thou shalt not keep holy any day that denies thy work.
4. Thou shalt not express strong emotions, neither high nor low.
5. Thou shalt not cry, complain, or ask for help.
6. Thou shalt not be hostile or angry towards loved ones, no matter how they treat thee.
7. Thou shalt not be uncertain nor ambivalent.
8. Thou shalt not be dependent.
9. Thou shalt now acknowledge thy death or thy limitations.
10.  Thou shalt do unto other men before they do unto you. Its every man for himself.

The journey to heal old wounds and beliefs colored by trauma never ends. My children have been my greatest teachers. I have had the great fortune of being part of a supportive men’s group. My wife, Carlin, will tell you that one of the main reasons she feels we have had a successful forty-five-year marriage is because I have been in a men’s group for forty-six years.

                Scott Galloway, Richard Reeves, and I come from different backgrounds and bring different experiences to what we believe is important to know about boys and men. The one thing we have in common is what changed for us when our sons were born.

                Scott introduces his book, Notes on Being a Man this these words:

               “In 2007, late in life, I became a dad for the first time, looking on unsteadily as my son was born, I didn’t fall in love immediately, though soon enough I did. Three years later, our second son was born. More unconditional love, shadowed a few years later by worry about what I was seeing and hearing online and off.”

                Richard Reeves shares these words in his book, Of Boys and Men:

                “I have been worrying about boys and men for 25 years. That comes with the territory when you raise three boys, all now grown men, George, Bryce, Cameron: I love you beyond measure. That’s why, even now, I sometimes worry about you. But my anxiety has spilled over into my day job…It has become clear to me that there are growing numbers of boys and men who are struggling in school, at work, and in the family. I used to fret about three boys and young men. Now I am worried about millions.”

In my book, 12 Rules for Good Men, I shared more about the birth of our son, Jemal:

                “When the time came for my wife to go into the delivery room, the nurse smiled and turned to me. ‘Okay Mr. Diamond, you can head for the waiting room,  and we will let you know as soon as the baby arrives.’ I knew the rules that didn’t allow fathers in the delivery room. I kissed my wife as she was wheeled towards the room where our child would come into the world.  I walked the other direction to the waiting room. But as I got ready to push through the doors something stopped me. I heard the voice of my unborn child whispering in my ear, ‘I don’t want a waiting-room father. Your place is here with us.’ I turned around and walked back down the hallway and pushed my way into the delivery room. There was no question of my leaving if asked. My child called and I knew where I had to be.”

               I know the three of us feel blessed to be fathers and wanting to do everything we can to be the kind of men who will be worthy of this great gift of fatherhood. I’m glad that we can share what we have learned with the world. There will be more to come. I write a new article every week. I invite you to join our community and subscribe to our free newsletter with tips about love and life and articles that will introduce you to other friends and colleagues.

                I appreciate your feedback and comments and read each one, though I don’t always have time to answer personally. You can always reach me at Jed@MenAlive.com

The post Scott Galloway, Richard Reeves, Jed Diamond On The Future of Man Kind appeared first on MenAlive.

 
               I have been a marriage and family counselor for more than fifty years. One of the primary problems that people have come to me for help involves issues with sex and love. In my book, Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places, I said,

                “When we find that our romantic relationships are a series of disappointments yet continue to pursue them, we are looking for love in all the wrong places. When we are in a committed relationship but find the sex and love we once had has disappeared and we are looking elsewhere, we are looking for love in all the wrong places.”

                The subtitle of the book was Overcoming Romantic and Sexual Addictions. I quoted Dr. Stanton Peele, an authority on addiction who said,

                “Many of us are addicts, only we don’t know it. Interpersonal addiction — love addiction — is just about the most common yet least recognized form of addiction we know.”

                When Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Overcoming Romantic and Sexual Addictions was published in 1988, I became a sought-after expert, and many men and women come to me for counseling. Yet, things have changed dramatically in recent years. Like all animals we have a biological drive to mate and raise children to do the same, but humans, unlike other species, seem to be having problems even connecting with others to do what other animals do naturally.

                A new report by the Kinsey Institute and reported by DatingNews.com, “State of Us: National Study on Modern Love & Dating in 2025,” headlined: The Great Dating Deficit: U.S. Singles Averaged Fewer Than 2 Dates Last Year. The study was led by Dr. Justin Lehmiller and Dr. Amanda Gesselman. I recently spoke to Dr. Lehmiller and was surprised to hear some of their significant findings:

• U.S. singles averaged just 1.74 in-person dates last year, revealing a dating deficit.
• While women said they went on 1.40 dates last year, men went on 2.08 dates.

                “That number may not seem significant on the surface, but it suggests that men are going on 48% more dates than women,” says Dr. Lehmiller. “These findings reveal a contrast in how men and women have approached dating. It’s a tale of two stories. While men seem to be raking in slightly more dates, women have shown a higher likelihood of pulling back from dating altogether. However, the gender difference in number of dates could also reflect a difference in how men and women define what ‘counts’ as a date.”

• Singles are having less sex, with most reporting partner intercourse of 2-3 times/year.

                From my own experience working with men of all ages, I know that many men are turning to “fantasy sex,” including masturbation while watching pornography or have an erotic chat with an Artificial Intelligence bot.

• 40% of singles consider themselves celibate. “Half see this as a voluntary choice,” says Dr. Lehmiller, “but the other half see themselves as involuntarily celibate.”

• 37% of Gen Z adults (18-28 years old) identify as celibates.

                “For many young adults, the decision to opt out of sex is deeply intertwined with socioeconomic issues like inflation, political instability, and threats to reproductive rights,” says Dr. Lehmiller. “Gen Z isn’t necessarily avoiding sex due to a lack of desire, but more so because they feel like they have to protect themselves, for they simply want to focus on themselves for a while first.”

                According to an Institute for Family Studies (IFS)/YouGov survey, Generation Z and Millennials interact more often with generative AI. Survey results show that one in four young adults — 28 percent of men and 22 percent of women — say AI can very likely replace traditional human romantic partners.

Unexpected Surprises:

                Most people are surprised that young people are dating less and enjoying very little sexual pleasure with a partner. I remember in my younger years I felt totally inept and inadequate, but I still managed to date and had an adequate sex life during my youth. You don’t have to be a wild-life biologist to see that in most of the animal kingdom — the birds, bees, bears, beavers, and other living things; are all actively engaged in finding mates, having sex, and raising babies who grow up to do the same. Humans, not so much.

                Another surprise is that many assume that young people are using the latest technologies to find a date and a partner for sex, love, and intimacy. But that is not the case. Dr. Lehmiller told me,

                “Contrary to what people assume, singles of all ages want to connect, ‘the old-fashioned way’ person-to-person with real humans.”

• Only 15% of those surveyed used on-line dating apps to meet people.

• Males used dating apps almost twice as frequently as women (20% for males vs. 11% for females.)

                Both males and females felt that dating apps didn’t offer the results they were looking for and men felt particularly frustrated. Dr. Lehmiller said that males are at a real disadvantage with on-line dating.

                “Tinder is an online dating where people swipe right if they like the profile of a person or left if they don’t. Many other dating sites use a similar initial screening. If you are a female on Tinder your chances of being liked are 1 in 10. If you are male your changes are 1 in 100.”

                It’s not surprising with those kinds of odds that men feel frustrated.

Back to the Future: Getting Help Today for a Successful Sex and Love Life

                According to dating statistics from eharmony, around 80 million people in the U.S. are now using dating apps or websites — or about 30% of the adult population. There are more than 8,000 dating sites to choose from. Yet, several studies show that dating app success rates are less than 10%, while skilled coaches and matchmakers show success rates as high as 80% in delivering what people want, not just a date, but a relationship brings love, sex, intimacy, and a true partnership for life.

                When I wrote Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places in 1988, I recognized that there were millions of men and women who were hungry for love but were not getting their needs met. The needs haven’t changed. People still want to improve their love lives, but the challenges are even greater now than in the past.  

                People who visit my website, MenAlive.com see my welcome video, “Confessions of a Twice-Divorced Marriage Counselor.” I shared with my community that even with all my expertise as a successful marriage and family therapist I was still having problems in my personal life. I also talked about my commitment to finding answers to the question, “How to I find the right partner and have a great marriage that lasts a lifetime?”

                In my book, The Enlightened Marriage: The 5 Transformative Stages of Relationships and Why The Best is Still to Come, I described what I had learned, how I found the woman of my dreams, and how we have had a successful marriage for 45 wonderful years and still going strong. I still offer counseling and coaching services for clients and usually have a waiting list for my services.

                I recently had the opportunity to meet and interview Adam Cohen-Aslatei, CEO of Three Day Rule, a personalized and modern matchmaking service for high-intent singles seeking meaningful connections. Since launching in 2010, Three Day Rule has been on a mission to show successful singles that matchmaking can be modern, affordable, and accessible.

                I was pleased to see that there are more opportunities for singles who still believe in love, but don’t have a lot of time to waste. Matchmaking in U.S. has grown over 40% just in the last year, according to Three Day Rule.

                We need more experts who are real people offering real support. In Dr. Lehmiller’s study they noted the following:

• Only 4% of the singles (3% of women and 5% of men) reported using dating or relationship coaching.

• Only 3% of the singles (2% women; 5% men) used professional matchmaking services.

                For those who want to find out more about the survey, you can link to this story, which covers many of the things we discussed in our interview: 
 
               https://www.datingnews.com/daters-pulse/the-great-dating-deficit-survey/

                If you want to link to Dr. Lehmiller’s other work you can do so below:                
  
              https://www.sexandpsychology.com/

                I always enjoy your feedback and comments. You can get my free weekly newsletter with new articles and information about my work below:
 
               https://menalive.com/email-newsletter/

The post Why Humans Are the Only Species Who Needs Help Dating and Mating appeared first on MenAlive.

                It began as one of those common annoyances we often ignore during our busy lives. One moment my hearing was fine. The next, I couldn’t hear out of my left ear. I had experienced a similar thing in the past when one of my ears filled with wax. I used to fix the problem myself by using one of those plastic bulbs to squeeze a stream of warm water into the ear. It would take multiple squeezes, but eventually a little plug of wax would come out, and my hearing was back to normal.

                My doctor told me that it wasn’t safe to do it myself since it could injure structures in my ear and he told me, “You shouldn’t put anything in your ear smaller than your elbow. Come into the office and we’ll remove the wax safely.” Over the years, I had come into the office on occasion and agreed the office visit was quicker, easier, and safer. Since I had an appointment scheduled with my doctor in two weeks, I thought I would just wait until then to have the wax removed. My right ear was OK and while the hearing loss was annoying, I figured I would just wait until a convenient time to see the doctor.

                But my intuition offered different guidance. I had a strong feeling I shouldn’t wait, but to get an appointment right away, even if it wasn’t with my regular doctor. As is often the case, my intuitive knowing was right on. I was seen in the clinic by another doctor who examined both my ears and told me there was no wax in either ear. She ordered a quick hearing test and found that there was severe hearing loss in the left ear and told me I was lucky I came in right away.

                I was shocked to hear that my problem was something other than a “wax in the ear.” She explained that sudden severed hearing loss, also called “Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss,” is when you lose hearing — usually just in one ear — over the course of three days or fewer. It can happen to anyone, but it’s most common in adults over forty.”

                “For most people,” she explained, “hearing loss happens gradually over a period of time and affects both ears. This is different. It comes on fast and usually affects only one ear. It is typically caused by damage to your inner ear or because of problems with the nerve fibers that deliver information from your ear to your brain.”

                It didn’t take long before I felt overwhelmed by what I was hearing. It was like coming to see the doctor because of indigestion and the doctor tells you she thinks you may have cancer.

               “I’m going to order an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) to rule out an acoustic neuroma. These tumors are uncommon, but an early symptom of this tumor is sudden hearing loss. I also want you to see your audiologist and get a more complete exam.”

               I took notes and thought to myself, I really don’t have time for this shit. I’ve got things to do and work that requires my attention and this isn’t what I had planned. But the doctor wasn’t finished.

                “In the meantime, I’m going to order fifteen days of high-dose prednisone. It will help protect the auditory nerve and other structures while we’re finding out more. It will make it difficult for you to sleep, but it’s necessary to your ears.”

             Over the next week, I began the prednisone and had the MRI and hearing test. The good news was that I did not have a tumor growing in my ear and my right ear hadn’t gotten any worse since I was tested last. But the tests verified significant loss in my left ear.

                What changed my life for good began horrendously. Prior to taking the prednisone, my sleep pattern was wonderfully regular. I could get in bed at 9 PM, read for an hour, then lights out at 10 PM. I would sleep straight through to 5 AM with a few brief wakeups to pee. I never took anything to sleep and never used an alarm to wake up.

                As soon as the steroids were in my system, I slept fitfully from 10 PM to 2 AM, then was wide awake. Not only was I awake, but I was agitated and anxious, and my moods went from extreme ups to terrifying downs. The doctor said to hang in there, that we would taper off the prednisone after ten days and I would be completely off them five days later.

                When I was wide awake at 2:00 AM, with my emotions bouncing me off the walls, my inner guidance told me I needed to walk (I usually walked everyday in the morning, but never this early).  I got up, got dressed, and walked through the neighborhood guided only by the moonlight and the occasional streetlight.

                The fifteen days turned from “A Nightmare on Elm Street” into a “Magical Mystery Tour.” I heard the night sounds as never before, cicadas and crickets, doing their dance. I watched the moon and stars, saw early-morning deer, and house cats out and about, even heard a fox with his eerie screech-bark which seemed to have a message of support. The night walks calmed me and when I got home, I wrote notes in my journal. I felt I was getting back in touch with the natural world of my childhood when I walked at night, talked to animals, and felt at peace with the world.

                I am now off the prednisone and back to my normal sleep pattern. My hearing has improved slightly and I hope that will continue. I have learned some important lessons:

1. Trust my intuition and inner guidance.
2. Attend to even a minor annoyance. It may be serious. Check it out.
3. All problems can offer important insights into our health and wellbeing.
4. Always look for the larger lessons within the inevitable problems life brings us.

After things began to get back to normal, I wanted to examine the deeper wisdom in my sudden hearing loss. I asked my inner guidance, What is it in the world that I’m not wanting to hear anymore? The answer came in a flash: I want to get away from all the noise going on in the human world these days.

My Life With Less Noise

For me, noise is what distracts me from tuning into my inner wisdom and hence keeps me from truly knowing myself. Humanity seems increasingly out of touch with the laws of nature and has become estranged from the community of life on planet Earth. As historian, Thomas Berry, cautioned,

                “We never knew enough. Nor were we sufficiently intimate with all our cousins in the great family of the earth. Nor could we listen to the various creatures of the earth, each telling its own story. The time has now come, however, when we will listen or we will die.”

                Losing my hearing, even temporarily, has helped me appreciate what a gift it is to hear—from the voices of my wife, children, and grandchildren, to the sounds of the birds, bees, and trees. Having to take a powerful steroid, whose side effects forced me to get out of my house and walk in nature, paradoxically brought me back to my true self.                

Wanting to learn more about how I could continue and deepen my daily practices to reduce noise in my life, I found a wonderful book, Golden: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise by Justin Zorn and Leigh Marz. The book title comes from a quote from Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle in his 1836 novel, Sartor Resartus,

                “Speech is silvern, Silence is golden.”

                Zorn and Marz describe three kinds of noise that challenges our lives:

Auditory noise.

                “It’s a measurable fact,” they say, “the world is getting louder.”

 Informational noise.

                They say, “In 2010, Eric Schmidt, then CEO of Google, made a striking estimate: ‘Every two days we now create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003.’ We are overwhelmed with information.”

Internal noise.

                “With so much stimulus consuming our attention, it’s harder to find silence inside our own consciousness,” say Zorn and Marz.

                For me, the first step in connecting with golden silence was to reconnect with nature. In future articles I will share more details about my journey and ways you can reduce the noise in your own life. I write regular articles which you can receive for free if you sign up for my newsletter. I look forward to your feelings, thoughts, and comments.

The post The Day I Lost My Hearing and Found My Life appeared first on MenAlive.

                I have been a highly sensitive man all my life, but never knew that it was “a thing,” until I read Dr. Elaine Aron’s book, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You, which was first published in 1996. In the book she asked:

• Do you have a keen imagination and vivid dreams?
• Is time alone each day as essential to you as food and water?
• Are you noted for your empathy?
• Your conscientiousness?
• Do noise and confusion quickly overwhelm you?
• If your answers are yes, you may be a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP).

                I remember feeling a chill of delight when I first read those words. She nailed me! Finally, I thought, someone who understands what life is like for me and who can help me accept and appreciate who I am.

                For more than fifty years I have worked in the emerging field of Gender-Specific Healing and Men’s Health and have written seventeen books on various aspects of men’s mental, emotional, and relational health. In 2022 I heard about a film that was being made called “Sensitive Men Rising,” by filmmaker Will Harper.

                I was totally excited and wanted to know when the film would be available. He explained that there was still much to be done, money to raise, music to license, etc. “It will be a while,” he told me. As we exchanged emails and he learned more about my own work, he asked if he could interview me for the film. I felt honored and immediately accepted.

                The film is now available here, with this note from Will:

I am a Sensory Processing Sensitive Man.
I Made This Film Out Of A Need.
I Made This Film For Men.
I Made It For Boys.
I Made It For All.

Will Harper-The Sensitive Director
December 31, 2024

                In June 2024 I wrote an article about the film for my weekly newsletter and shared more about the people I had met since learning about the film. The article titled “Sensitive Men Rising: Why the World Needs Us Now More Than Ever,” can be read here.

                In the article I said,

                “A new documentary film, Sensitive Men Rising (SMR), is turning its lens to the billion men who have largely been hidden in the shadows. Thanks to the breakthrough that we now know as ‘sensory processing sensitivity’ (SPS) — popularly known as ‘high sensitivity’— we know men can play a pivotal role in changing the face and times of masculinity as a force for good in the world.”

                I quoted Dr. Aron, who said,

                “As some of you know, I have a special place in my heart for highly sensitive men. I really do like them. That is part of why I want to see this movie made about them. But what makes them different from other HSPs or other men?”

                Just as her research findings demonstrated that “high sensitivity” is a biologically-based trait present not only in human beings but other species as well, she recognizes that “male sensitivity” also has biological roots.

                “First, Highly Sensitive Males (HSMs) develop under the influence of male genes, the main factor being testosterone. Gender spectrum aside, almost all HSMs (and men in general) are clearly biologically male.”

                 Dr. Aron goes on to say that these issues are complex and we will learn more over time, yet there are things that we can say now.

                “Of course, male and female behavior is such that many men do some things women normally do and vice versa, but hormones have to make HSMs and HSWs different in some ways. How do hormones interact with sensitivity?  We do not know yet, but they surely do, and we need to learn about it. Maybe that’s phase two of the research.”

                Dr. Aron also recognizes the importance of understanding evolutionary realities as we seek to work with this important, biologically, based trait.

                “Looking back at the evolution of male behavior we know sensitivity works enough to be present in 20 or even 30% of the population and in equal numbers in men and women. That means HSMs have been successful at reproducing themselves, but how?”

                 She goes on to say,

                “When you know that you are highly sensitive, it reframes your life. Knowing that you have this trait will enable you to make better decisions.

                Early in my life, I always felt my sensitivity made me different from most of my male peers. Now, as a father of five, grandfather of seventeen, and great grandfather of four, I realize I’m part of a select group of males who have a larger calling in life.

                  Based on her own research and that of others, she suggests that we look to the unique ways in which men are engaged with their children.

                “We know human males evolved into a strategy found in some birds and in some other mammals, which is staying around after mating to help raise their own young. This method of seeing their DNA go on to the next generation contrasts sharply with simply mating as often as possible with as many females as possible and not staying around after.”

                If we weren’t highly sensitive before we had children, being an involved father will definitely bring out the best in us.

                “Bottom line,” says Dr. Aron, “Highly Sensitive Men Have S.T.Y.L.E.”

                Dr. Aron gives us a simple acronym to summarize how this unique trait of High Sensitivity manifests itself in men.

• S for strategic, or depth of processing in action, since males must act and keep an eye on other males, especially those who are more aggressive.

• T for testosterone — you cannot explain an HSM by thinking he is more “feminine.”

• Y  for wise yielding — to live to fight (better) another day and in another way, and yielding as in “high yield” investments.  (Yielding can be misperceived as weakness, but it isn’t at all — as when in the martial arts, especially judo [or Aikido, a martial art I have practiced over the years], you use the other’s attack to defeat them almost effortlessly while preserving your own mental and physical energy.)

• L  for leadership — either among people or becoming leaders in their fields, in the arts, science, business, athletics, or any field they endeavor, using their unique STYLE.

• E for empathy, which can be used in close relationships and leadership, but also in knowing, for strategic purposes, what others are up to, sometimes even before they know.

The High Sensation Seeking, Highly Sensitive Person

                In the same way I felt a hidden part of my essence as a person was revealed when I first read Elaine Aron’s book, The Highly Sensitive Person, I deepened my sense of self when I read Tracy M. Cooper’s book, Thrill: The Sensation Seeking Highly Sensitive Person.

                “Sensation seeking is a personality trait comprising four main aspects,” says Dr. Cooper.

• Thrill and adventure seeking.
• Experience and novelty seeking.
• Disinhibition.
• Boredom susceptibility.

                The more I learned, the more I realized, Yes, that’s me, too!

                Dr. Cooper told me that high sensation seeking, highly sensitive people (HSS/HSP) are often left out in understanding the gifts and challenges we face.

                “Since we are up to half the HSP population, it is vital that we be included,” he told me.

                You can learn more about Dr. Cooper’s work here.

Welcome to the Sensitive Man, the Site for Highly Sensitive Males

                William Allen is another “highly sensitive man,” friend, and colleague. He is also the author of the book, On Being a Sensitive Man: Success Strategies for Harnessing Your Highly Sensitive Nature. Dr. Tracy Cooper wrote the Foreword for the book and Dr. Elaine Aron said,

                “William Allen is a major voice for highly sensitive men, tirelessly advocating for the need to redefine masculinity in a way that includes the huge contributions highly sensitive men make to the world.”

                His website offers articles, classes, podcasts, men’s groups, and a community of open-hearted and like-minded seekers of truth.

                You can learn more about William Allen here:

 Sensitive Men Rising: The Peaceful Warriors We Need in the World Today

            A few of the real-life Highly Sensitive Men I have admired in my life include:

• The Dalai Lama
• Mahatma Gandhi
• Martin Luther King Jr.
• Abraham Lincoln
• Psychologists Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Psychiatrist John Bowlby.

            These are all highly sensitive men who also have had to stand up against oppression with the strength of peaceful warriors. A man who also fits that description is meditation master Chögyam Trungpa. In my book, The Warrior’s Journey Home: Healing Men, Healing the Planet, I quote Trungpa who says,

                “Warriorship does not refer to making war on others. Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution. Here the word ‘warrior’ is taken from the Tibetan, pawo, which literally means ‘one who is brave.’ Warriorship in this context is the tradition of human bravery, or the tradition of fearlessness. Warriorship is not being afraid of who you are.”

Where Do We Go From Here?

            We are at a time in human history where Highly Sensitive Men are needed now more than ever. Mark Jamison, Head of Global Clients, VISA, Inc., one of the experts featured in the film Sensitive Men Rising, says, 

                “The world is falling apart, political divisiveness is pulling us under, the environment is being destroyed. We need a different model. When people see options that bring hope and sensitivity and a much more integrative approach to problem solving, I see them embracing it with their arms wide open.”

            At the end of the film, Dr. Elaine Aron concludes,

                “Most of the world’s suffering is due to a certain kind of masculinity. A different kind can change that. Sensitive men are rising. It’s a whole new ball game.”

                Let me know how this resonates with you. I always like to hear from readers. You can visit me at www.MenAlive.com.

The post The Future of the Sensitive Men Rising Movement: We Are Here to Transform the World For Good appeared first on MenAlive.

                I have been a successful marriage and family counselor for more than fifty years and have learned that people want and need love now more than ever. However, finding the right partner is a real challenge. Even more challenging is learning the science and art of deepening and keeping love alive once we have found the partner of our dreams. I have written seventeen books about love, life, and relationships and my book Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Overcoming Romantic and Sexual Addictions became an international bestseller. But I have recently discovered a program that is even more successful than mine.

                I had the opportunity to meet and interview Adam Cohen-Aslatei, CEO of Three Day Rule, a personalized and modern matchmaking service for high-intent singles seeking meaningful connections. Since launching in 2010, Three Day Rule has been on a mission to show successful singles that matchmaking can be modern, affordable, and accessible.

                Adam discussed his matchmaking company’s unique approach, which combines holistic coaching, AI-driven database search, and a new app with voice and text capabilities to match clients.

                According to dating statistics from eharmony, around 80 million people in the U.S. are now using dating apps or websites — or about 30% of the adult population. There are more than 8,000 dating sites to choose from. Yet, several studies show that dating app success rates are less than 10%.

                The problem is that they don’t work very well delivering what most people really want, which is to find a partner that is compatible and where they can get the love they truly want and need, now and forever. Matchmaking has demonstrated a 70-80% success rate because it focuses on the needs of real people. Three Day Rule has become so successful because they deliver what people need and want and they do it in a way that can help many people like you and me.

                The company has grown to employ more than 50 dating and relationship experts—Professionals helping clients tired of swiping and blind dates, finding hand-selected matches, and guiding clients and potential partners through the dating process and through the early stages of a relationship to build a strong, healthy foundation. Along with paid membership, Three Day Rule cultivates a database with more than 250,000 relationship-ready singles, and over 21,000 successful matches, and it’s also free for anyone to join HERE.

                You can watch my interview with Adam here where he will tell you about Three Day Rule, why they have a proven track record of success, how they have become the fastest growing matchmaking company in the U.S., and how the name of the company speaks to an important reason so many programs fail to deliver on their promises.

                The famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud said,

                “Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.”

                Throughout my years as a marriage and family therapist I have found that many women and men have found success at work, but still struggle to find the real, lasting love we all need. I have worked with many individuals and couples over the years, but the number of people I can see is limited.

                Those who visit my website will see my introductory video, “Confessions of a Twice-Divorced Marriage Counselor.” It was more than embarrassing to confront the reality that I was able to help others find relationship success, but I had not been able to make it work in my own life. I took time off from my professional work, did some soul-searching, sought guidance from experts, and finally figured out what I was missing.

                I am pleased to say that my wife, Carlin, and I have now been happily married for 45 years. I have written about our journey in my book, The Enlightened Marriage: The 5 Transformative Stages of Relationships and Why the Best is Still to Come. I wish that Three Day Rule had been available to me when I was struggling in my own life, but glad they are here now.

                I learned from Adam that Talia Goldstein founded Three Day Rule with a simple, but powerful concept.

                “Having a Matchmaker is like having a dating concierge,” she says. “You have a very full life. We do everything for you. We’ll go on all your bad first dates and we’ll only send you the best ones that are really worth your time.”  

                When I say that Three Day Rule is the matchmaker to the stars, I don’t just mean that they are well known for their work with Hollywood celebrities and people who work in the movie industry, though they certainly have helped many find success with relationships. I mean that they treat everyone like a star, get to know all about you, what you want and need in a partner, then go about helping you find that special someone and teaching you the skills you need to “live happily ever after.”  

                Three Day Rule currently operates in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, Orange County (CA), New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Silicon Valley, and Washington, DC, and is accepting clients in the U.S. and globally.

                One of the big mistakes I made during the years I was trying to figure out why I was having so much trouble finding love is that we are using “love maps” that often lead us in the wrong direction. Without being conscious of it, I was drawn to a certain kind of woman repeatedly that was often based on her physical attributes and “sexiness” but left out important factors that were more important for finding real, lasting love.

                Adam told me that one of the most important aspects of Third Day Rule’s success is that they emphasize four key factors that lead to long-term relationship success including:

1. Shared values
2. Shared life goals, especially those related to life stage and future vision
3. Ambition
4. Personality

                And, of course, physical attractiveness.

                “We always remind clients to use the “Rule of Three” on a first date, Adam says. “Find two emotional qualities in the person that align with your own, plus one thing you find physically attractive. If those three elements are there — and there are no major red flags — it’s worth going on a second date.”

                Finally, Adam pointed out initially men and women tend to look for different traits in a partner. Women often prioritize income stability (or a signal to ambition/future success). Men tend to prioritize physical attraction earlier on. There’s nothing wrong with a woman wanting a man who is a good provider or a man wanting a shapely sexy partner. But it often causes us to exclude partners who would be perfect for us in the long run and may get us hooked on someone who may knock our socks off when we first meet yet fizzle out in the long run when we’re trying to build a life together.

                “Over time, both men and women learn that while attraction sparks connection,” says Adam, “shared values and emotional compatibility are what sustain it. We should be looking for a slow burn not butterflies! We want love instead of lust.”

                If you’d like to learn more about Third Day Rule you can do so here: https://www.threedayrule.com/pool/adam.

                Adam said he would like to offer our readers a 20% discount for all matchmaker services if you mention you read about it from this article.

                Adam said, you could also email him directly. Adam@threedayrule.com. He’s a real person and he will respond. Also, Adam as a special gift for subscribers to my weekly newsletter:

                If you want to see my interview with Adam, you can watch it on YouTube here.

                To subscribe to my free weekly newsletter you can do so here: https://menalive.com/email-newsletter/. I look forward to hearing from you. I’m also a real person and I will respond to your emails.

The post Looking for Love in All the Right Places: Why Three Day Rule Is the Matchmaker for the Stars appeared first on MenAlive.

                The day began, as it had so often in the past, with a reminder from the Board of Behavior Sciences. “This is to notify you that your License is up for renewal,” it told me in bold black letters. The Board licenses several professions in the mental health field including:

• Marriage and Family Therapists (MFTs) who the Board says, “provide therapy to individuals, couples, and families.”
• Licensed Educational Psychologists (LEP), “Professionals who focus on the psychological aspects of education and learning.”
• Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors (LPCC), “Counselors who offer mental health services and guidance.”
• Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSW), “Social workers who provide mental health services and support.”

                The truth is there are more and more professionals working in the field and what we do often overlaps and can’t be easily categorized. I hold license #5066, as Licensed Clinical Social, a license I have had since 1970 and one I have renewed religiously for the last 55 years. Every two years I am required to pay a fee, submit proof that I carry liability insurance, and have completed the required 36 hours of continuing education.

                Today I have signed the papers which will retire my license. This decision was sudden and unexpected, but a long time coming, and requires some historical reflection to make sense of it all.

                I graduated from U.C. Santa Barbara on June 21,1965 and prepared for a summer break to spend time visiting friends in Mexico before going off to medical school at U.C. San Francisco where I had been accepted in the fall and awarded a four-year-full-tuition fellowship.

                I had studied hard in college, earned high grades, was involved in enough extracurricular activities to show I wasn’t a complete nerd, and was looking forward to becoming a medical doctor and eventually a psychiatrist. Few people knew that my hidden motivation to become a doctor was that I imagined that if I was successful, I would be able to help men like my father.

                As I described in my book, My Distant Dad: Healing the Family Father Wound, when I was five years old, my father had a “nervous breakdown” and took an overdose of sleeping pills because he felt he couldn’t support his family (me and my mother) doing work that he loved (he was an actor, playwright, and author). I was charged by my mother to go with my uncle each week to visit my father who had been committed to Camarillo State Mental Hospital north of our home in Los Angeles. When I asked my mother why didn’t go, she simply said, “Your father needs you.”  

                 I wasn’t sure what a five-year old could do, but as my mother often described me, I was her “brave little man.” I promised I would go and do whatever I could to help my father heal.

                What passed for “mental health” treatment in 1949 was not very helpful. My father continued to get worse. On the final visit when I was six years old, my father turned to my uncle and asked, “Harry, who is this kid you’ve got with you?” I was devasted. I thought, somehow, I could help my father and deep down I felt I was responsible for his problem, and I had failed him, my mother, and myself.

                In my child-brain I reasoned that the cause of his depression was the stress of having to support a wife and child. Since I imagined he was O.K. until I came along, I reasoned that I must be responsible for what happened to him.

                I grew up wondering what happened to my father, when it would happen to me, and what I could do to make up for my failure as a dutiful son.

                In 1965, at the age of twenty-one, I finally made it into medical school.  I looked forward to getting the training I needed to help men like my dad and families like ours. But I soon became disillusioned. I found that medical school was elitist and geared towards those who fit into a rather dysfunctional, male-dominated, system.

                Before our first classes began the six of us, who had the coveted Regents fellowships, were driven across the bay to ritzy Marin County, wined and dined, and made to feel special. The message was clear: Follow the rules, play the game, and this will be yours someday.

                This was not the message that resonated with a boy whose parents were lefty-activists who grew up accompanying my parents handing out leaflets and seeking to organize workers at the local General Motors plant. My reaction to what I saw after being in medical school a few months, was to get out as soon as I could.

                One day in class, I knew I had to leave. I went to see the dean of the school and told him I didn’t want to be a doctor after all.  Since there was still time to replace me, my resignation was quickly accepted, though I had to see a psychiatrist before I could leave. From their point of view giving back the money for a four-years of medical education was clearly an indication of mental instability, though it never occurred to me that I could keep the money.

                When asked where I planned to go, I had no idea, but I blurted out, “I want to be a social worker.” The dean brightened at a simple solution.

                “Oh, so you’ll be going to U.C. Berkeley to the School of Social Welfare. Say hello to my friend Dean Chernin.”  

                I had no idea where Berkeley was, but I borrowed a car, drove across the bay, found the School of Social Welfare, and the two deans worked out a plan for me to remain enrolled at the Medical School, but do course work in Berkeley and apply to graduate school the following year.

                I soon felt at home in my new surroundings, a different kind of place than the medical school I was leaving. The first obvious different was that medical school was predominantly male. There were only a few women in my 1965 class. Social welfare was the opposite. It was predominately female with only a few males.

                But the difference ran much deeper. The curriculum in medical school was limiting, focused primarily on body parts and systems. Social work was much broader, focused on mental, emotional, relational well-being, family systems, and community organizing.

                The reading and coursework covered a wide variety of issues, and I came to understand the limitations of the system I had left. I later read the book by social scientist Riane Eisler called The Chalice & the Blade: Our History, Our Future which helped me better understand the different systems.

                “This theory, which I have called Cultural Transformation theory,” proposes says Eisler, “that underlying the great surface diversity of human culture are two basic models of society. The first, which I call the dominator model, is what is popularly termed either patriarchy or matriarchy — the ranking of one half of humanity over the other. The second, in which social relations are primarily based on the principle of linking rather than ranking, may best be described as the partnership model. In this model — beginning with the most fundamental difference in our species, between male and female — diversity is not equated with either inferiority or superiority.”

                My experience in medical school fit more the dominator model, while my experiences in social work school fit more the partnership model. But over the years that began to change gradually until now, I realize, the professional system has tipped towards domination and it’s time for me to leave.

My New Career at 82

                The truth is, like many areas of our lives, what worked in one era, no longer works as we mature and have a clear vision of who we are and what we need. For years I tried to hold to my partnership values and practices despite the slowly but steadily growing domination and disconnection I was seeing in my profession and the world.

                Today, I decided I could no longer be part of a system that I felt was dysfunctional. Officially, my position as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker won’t expire until my eighty-second birthday on December 21^st. So, I’ve got some time to figure out what is next for me. I hope you’ll share your thoughts and feelings.

                Here are some things I know for sure and more things, I’m sure, will be revealed to me in the next few months:

• Since my wife, Carlin, fell, had hip-replacement surgery, and suffered a stroke in 2023, our lives have changed dramatically and I have become a full-time caregiver, which is both wonderful and challenging.

• Carlin and I have been married for 45 years and look forward to more years together. We remain engaged with our six grown children, seventeen grandchildren, and four great grandchildren. This is also a great blessing and also a challenge to support their changing lives.

• I feel I have at least ten good years to contribute my skills and experiences to helping men and their families to live fully, love deeply, and make a positive difference in the world.

• I want more peace and quiet in my life and less noise. In their book, Golden: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise, Justin Zorn and Leigh Marz, offer expert guidance to turn down the noise and tune into gifts of silence.

• I want to work with others who desire to re-connect us with other people, even those who have very different views than our own. A divided humanity is not long for this world. We need true partnership.

• I want to reconnect with the larger community of life on planet Earth. As the historian Thomas Berry warned us, “We never knew enough. Nor were we sufficiently intimate with all our cousins in the great family of the earth. Nor could we listen to the various creatures of the earth, each telling its own story. The time has now come, however, when we will listen or we will die.”

• I want to be part of a healing community where we can practice partnership principles and work together to create “islands of sanity” in a world where too many humans believe we must double-down on domination, rather than admitting we have lost our way.

                I look forward to your feedback. Please drop me a note to Jed@MenAlive.com. Please share any thoughts and feelings about my plans. What are your own ideas about what is most needed for us to survive and thrive in these challenging times?

                I write a new article each week and am feeling drawn to writing more personal articles like these. What do you think? If you are not part of our community already, I invite you to join and receive my free weekly articles and updates on our work. https://menalive.com/email-newsletter/

The post Starting Anew at 82: The Day I Retired My Clinical License and Began a New Career appeared first on MenAlive.