Link: Nurturance Culture and attachment styles

The Opposite of Rape Culture is Nurturance Culture by Nora Samaran.

This whole article is amazing. It talks about how we as a society, as a culture, need to support men to be nurturing, and currently men learn that, if at all, in isolation, rather than with and from other men. It brings in attachment styles, and the pervasiveness of unneeded shame about the primal need for nurturing and attunement in all of us.

Here is a bit about shame:

In other words, shame and guilt, left subterranean, interrupt attunement, and can lead to an inability or unwillingness to properly respond to the needs of others, whether for nurturance or for space. I mean the really deep, structural kind of shame, that is so old and convincing, it doesn’t even appear as anything in particular. It just appears as ‘the way the world is,’ laid down in patterns in the limbic brain. This kind of shame hides, appears as nothing in particular, until questioned with compassion and curiosity, deeply, in safe company.

and another bit:

If a man with an avoidant attachment style experiences internal distress when someone he cares about expresses nurturance needs (such as the need for trust, reliability, availability, closeness, responsiveness, attunement) he may blame the woman for ‘being too needy’ instead of dealing with those intensely confusing feelings of shame.

and the core of the whole thing:

None of this is worthy of shame; fundamentally, all of the insecure styles are based in an unquestioned belief that people will not be there for them and that nurturance is somehow a problem rather than wholly desireable and good. Avoidant attachers ‘know’ from an early age that the ice will break, the chair will collapse, best not to try. Insecure attachment styles are not chosen, are not conscious or intentional, and it is an understatement to say they are not easy to change. They deserve understanding, compassion, and empathy.

And yet living without loving, secure attachment bonds is the loneliest experience in the human repertoire.

and a bit about protection:

To stop white knighting, don’t stop protecting; just protect while you also listen and believe. Protect her, actively, in the ways she actually wants protecting, and not in the ways she does not. Protecting people you care about – in ways that are attuned and responsive to their actual needs – is a normal, needed, and healthy part of nurturance.

The whole thing is hopeful and elegant and carefully thought out and so worth reading. Even the comments are worth reading (so far).

Link: Dating tips for the feminist man

Dating Tips for the Feminist Man by Nora Samaran.

An earlier article from the same blog as the previous link I posted.

10. Share the load. Consider it your responsibility to be continually self-reflexive about your actions and their effects. Don’t wait to be taught, because that puts multiple burdens on the other: to understand and name the harm that’s affecting them, and to take the risk to talk to you about it, and to find language to articulate it in a way you’ll hear. Those things all take a lot of energy and are not easy.

I'm wanting to get that quote engraved as a sign for my door. And as a footer on my email.