Playing apart

Illustration by Josefine Højholt

By Geer Rift

I’m twenty-eight years old. I’m visiting my friend’s commune. The gathering is an equal combination of men and women. We’re drinking some beers before heading out to a party. Someone puts on a playlist. There’s low music in the background, people get into conversations. Two guys from the house suddenly turn down the volume before standing up, one of them confidently expressing their wish to do a music quiz. Everyone looks around at each other to gauge the other's reaction. People stall at first, then slowly begin to express their discontent with the idea.

We're all being lenient, telling the both of them that we can do it another day. But the guy who's doing the talking won't let it go. Through a smile he repeatedly says: “Okay, so we're doing it!” I spell it out for him, telling him that we were enjoying the conversations and, as someone else mentioned, that we can do it some other day. I receive a glimpse of something defiant in his eyes, something all too familiar. It goes back and forth. He keeps at it, using smiles and laughs as catalysts. I realize that it isn't about a music quiz any longer.

I do not know the person very well, but the impression he is giving me is leaving me with too many connections - notions of other kinds of behavior.

I become irritated. I raise my voice: “No! Excuse me for being so direct, but you're not being respectful.”
I feel my words clotting up the atmosphere. I feel as if I've crossed some kind of invisible boundary, as if I've done something that would otherwise have been unnecessary had we all just played along.

But I've promised myself not to play along anymore and I do not see why you should either.

In some respects I suspect you've got a respectable side
When pushed and pulled and pressured
You seldom run and hide
But it's for someone else's benefit

Not for what you wanna do
Until I realize that you've realized
I'm gonna say these words to you

: The White Stripes – You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told)

I’m seven years old. I’m playing tag with a friend. My brother, who is a couple of years older than me is playing together with us. We’re having fun. At one point my brother grabs a jump rope and ties it around me and my friend. Our faces become pressed against one another. We’re giggling. Once completely entangled, my brother shouts that now is the time to kiss. He’s laughing. I look into my friend’s eyes. She's blushing, her face drops and I feel a combination of sorrow and confusion washing over me. I am ten years old. I’m discussing the universe with a friend, the birth of our stars, evolution, where we come from and where we’re all heading.

My friend suddenly interjects: “Think about this: you and I were the best of our fathers’ sperm. The ones that got there first. The winners in the game of life.” I’m twelve years old. I’m watching a group-sex video together with two other friends. We’ve been exchanging videos for several months, since the advent of broadband internet. The themes rapidly become more extreme; more violent.

Our parents are unaware of what's going on. I’m thirteen years old. I have a conversation with my mother that enters the topic of girls and women. She recollects the subjugations she has suffered throughout her life. She explains to me how I should always be aware that I have been dealt an upper hand in terms of my gender. She reminds me to treat women with dignity. I’m in highschool. I persuade a girl I’m dating to make a recording of the two of us having sex. The following day I eagerly show the video to several of my peers.

Some months later she hints at a sexual assault that has happened within the family when she was very young. Her words are slow and tentative. It feels uncomfortable. I quickly change the subject. We're having a break in between classes. We're five guys sitting in front of a computer in the hallway. We're looking up actual videos of people getting murdered. We're watching a man drowning in his own blood as his throat is being slowly cut open. We're also watching a man being dismembered by the pull of two cars.

Class begins. One of the guys are stalling. He enters a couple of minutes later and takes a seat next to me. I notice the bit of vomit around his mouth. We all burst out into laughter while vivid images of brutal torture are moving inside my head, flashing. Preventing me from being fully present.

It's just porn, mom, you're running away
You wouldn't believe what the kids see today
It's just porn, mom, and it won't go away
Wherever you turn you find porn everyday
It's just porn, mom
Just porn mom

: Trucks - It’s Just Porn Mom

I’m eating lunch with a friend. We’re talking about parties, people and relations. She confides in me that she had gone to sleep after a recent party and woke up with an acquaintance of mine on top of her. Inside of her. She’s disgusted, but portrays it as a misdemeanor. I didn't bother to mention it again – not to her or him. I’m eighteen years old. A close friend of mine confesses that he fondled my girlfriend’s breasts when the three of us had a night out together. He tells me that she asked for his opinion about her body. Considering the high regard I have for our friendship I forgive him.

The following day I confront my girlfriend with it. She tells me that she was too drunk to remember. I berate her for being so promiscuous.
Some years later that same friend approaches me, telling me that he slept with my ex and that he used the opportunity to ask her which one of us was the biggest. I’m twenty-four years old. I’m sitting by the dinner table together with my nieces. They begin to list the countless times they’ve experienced groping, catcalling, infantilization and other degrading behaviour from men. I tell them that I acknowledge how improper all of that is. One of my nieces asks me why I do not want to call myself a feminist if I acknowledge it. I tell her that I do not like to put labels on things and that I do not know enough about feminism to be able to use that term. I’m reminiscing about all the things in my life that would add to the absurdity of me as an advocate for women’s rights. I feel a knot inside myself. In the weeks to come I begin taking peeks at headlines of feministic articles, half curious, half ashamed. I’m twenty-five years old. I'm sitting in a café having a conversation with a woman. I quickly realise that she’s brighter than me. I steer the conversation onto topics that makes it difficult for her to display her own capacities. I go home with her that same evening. I have just entered Copenhagen University. Our two male tutors huddle together with the only six guys that are in our class. They explain to us how important it is for the men to stick together in this place, telling us that our particular field is somewhat of a chicken coop and that we will soon find ourselves discussing the color of nail polish and various types of hair extensions if we do not stay strong. If we do not stay as a group.

I try long and hard to squeeze myself into a culture of football gambling, heavy drinking and fetichising of women. I do not enjoy it, but do it in order to feel connected to my class. I’m in my second year. It's Monday. I meet with my classmates by the entrance. We’re standing in a circle, discussing the highlights of last week's party, one of them explaining how he was “cockblocked” by the friend of a woman he was lying in a bed with. Everyone else makes sympathetic gestures that denote an awful loss. People are asking for details. It quickly becomes apparent that the woman was unresponsive and that her friend was preventing a possible assault. I tell him that he’s an idiot for trying something like that and hint at the act as an attempted assault. I immediately receive disapproval from the circle. My classmates tell me that I’m overreacting and that I should watch it with such accusations.

I become weary.

When you talk to me as one
When you talk to me as one
When you talk to me as one
When you talk to me like one

: Chairlift - Grown Up Blues

I’m twenty-seven years old. I have recently started my course on gender studies. We’re on the subject of universalization. Our teacher is explaining how it’s a prevailing view that what happens at a smaller scale analogically repeats at a larger scale, and that this heuristic method of seeing the world often settles as a kind of “truth”, loosely linked to notions of determinism and universal schemes in nature. We’re talking about perceived “activeness” of men and “passiveness” of women, often understood as something hardwired into our DNA. Something natural. Our teacher exemplifies this patterned way of thinking by mentioning the sperm- and egg cells as bad representations of anything particular male or female - one as active, the other as passive - considering that a human being, of course, is comprised of both an egg and a sperm cell.

I think back to a time when someone I knew would illustrate his single-celled heredity. I'm beginning to feel more versed on the subject of genders. I feel confident in telling other men that I’m taking up gender studies as well as discussing the topics openly.

I’m struck by some of the remarks I receive from several peers on account of my choice, most of which in some way or another display contempt, some of which by questioning various parts of my identity – which team I’m rooting for. Common for all is the expression of strong opinions. Common for most is not having any interest in the experiences of women on account of them being women. Common for most is not having read any literature pertaining to the field. For every one of these glimpses there are at least a hundred more. Many that I have forgotten, a plethora of firsthand accounts of sexism, some incidents that require too much explanation to understand the context of and some particularly dire ones that I’ve left out for the safety and anonymity of certain people.

While I feel a lot of remorse about these things I am not writing down these memories as a way of redeeming myself. I would like to expose the incidents that I’ve experienced and place them before other men as objects of possible familiarity.
If none of these events resonate with any of your own actions, they will most certainly resonate with something you have witnessed. If this is still not the case, I hope your eye surgery will proceed without complications. Surely, then you must be blind.

När jag tittar in i ljuset ser jag pusslet som vi lagt

och då faller alla bitarna på plats

Och när jag hör dem säga orden som de många gånger sagt

Så många gånger så man nästan tror på allt

Nä, jag tittar inte ner mer

: LALEH - Bara få va mig själv

I'm twenty-eight years old. I’m taking a stroll through the woods with a close friend. Our conversations are vulnerable as we have developed something of an honest tie between us, something that isn't shared with many of my other male friends.

We’ve just discussed the damage that is at once received and emitted from watching pornography.

We're now on the subject of past relationships. He tells me that everyone of his past girlfriends had been insecure in one way or another, rendering him the active constituent in all of his relationships. His tone of voice denotes puzzlement.

I immediately recognize myself in his position.

I'm considering what to respond... Almost every woman I have ever gotten close to have at some point disclosed experiences of having their boundaries transgressed. Many recollections have been light, but a staggering amount have been heavy to the point of unbearable. Degradations, humiliations, methods of controlling obscured by all kinds of unsolicited as well as solicited advice, sexism camouflaged as humor, blatant sexism and sexual assault, and that is entirely without mentioning the accounts in which responsibility could not be directly attributed to either part.

These acts of violence have been committed by friends, by parents, by strangers, by siblings, by classmates, by colleagues, by bosses, by should-have-been lovers; every experience leaving scars on their psyche for the rest of their lives, tinkering with their self esteem, their behaviour, their connection to their own bodies, complicating their bonds with other people and adding to their weariness of men. The same weariness they’re oftentimes being accused of harboring.
As a man it is easy to consider these things as not relating to oneself, especially if you are unable to form a straight trajectory to the experiences of the women around you and your own behaviour. It is easy to listen to the accounts of women and conclude that it happens so rarely that it shouldn’t be considered a problem. It is easy because you do not experience these things. It’s easy because you are a man. ...I ponder at his bafflement before telling him that he should consider his own role in all of that.

An apple and a berry plant

Comes with a house

On the grass

Who is that

To come by my house

Stands outside my window

Sucking on the berries and

Eats us out of house and home

Keeping us awake

Keeping us awake

: Fever Ray - Triangle Walks

I've recently celebrated my twenty-ninth birthday. I have spent most of my mid- to late-twenties trying to localize garbage within myself; all kinds of cultural litter that I have internalized at one point or another, not realising how damaging it was until long after it had initially been obtained. These pieces of cultural trash, inadvertently (and sometimes conveniently) mistaken for social road maps, amorous compasses and signposts for possible personal growth, would bring about all kinds of ludicrous thoughts: ideas that men are inherently destructive; they are more logical; enduring mentally strenuous situations could give me a tough hide and that this was a good thing; great endeavours could excuse violent behavior; humor could work as a lubricant for my battle ram of discriminating and violent words; men by definition are the best leaders; reading and practicing The Game was a good idea; I was honestly trying to convince women that I was a nice guy when in reality I was being pushy as a result of not coping well with rejection, while at the same time having weak concepts of personal space; I could intellectualize any conversation as a functional means of circumventing my own emotional responses or clutter up otherwise simple arguments for the sake of winning; I could maintain a relationship without sharing my own pains — without opening up. It took an awful long time to realise that the aggressions I would show in my relations would neither constitute myself as a man nor be excused by my biology. What it would do, however, would be to inflict long and deep lacerations to the trust I shared with my partners, my friends and my family.

The truth is that I never shook my shadow

Every day it's trying to trick me into doing battle

Calling out "faker" only get me rattled

Want to pull me back behind the fence with the cattle

Building your lenses

Digging your trenches

Put me on the front line

Leave me with a dumb mind

With no defenses

But your defenses

If you can't stand to feel the pain then you are senseless

: Alexander - Truth

It took countless conversations with women, in which I would lay down my guard and actively listen, in order to locate patterns of hostile communication within myself: interruptions, sarcasm as a means of rebuking criticism, derailing as a means of avoiding topics that I was unwilling to accommodate and a nurturing of incongruences in logic; the latter two share somewhat of a kinship to the otherwise overt lie.

To sum up the irony: the methods I would use to thwart any criticisms of power abuse was power abuse. Too often have I been the devil's advocate in conversations with women and men. I wasn't surveying all perspectives as a means of adding nuance to a specific subject. Did I say that? I was lying. What I was doing was tucking away any feelings of true intent while not handing out any appreciation for the honesty someone else would show me, partly in order to make myself seem wiser than I was, sometimes for the sake of status, and sometimes to place others in submissive roles. I’ve coaxed women into doing things they didn't fully consent to. I’ve pushed women’s boundaries to pursue goals that had less to do with affection and more to do with braggadocian behaviour and postulated identities within circles of men, where physical and psychological aggressions are rewarded and acknowledged as marks of prowess; an instrumentalisation of women as a means of triangulating an identity that is sustained by a world that encourages aggression as a sign of strength and demerits vulnerability as a mark of weakness -- a world designed, directed, facilitated and built by men. I get why I and so many other men would be able to find meaning in these actions. The concept of a destructive masculine role is a narrative that is vastly available. It thrives on each proliferating act of excused male aggression, accumulated layers guilt debilitating ethical judgment as well as memory, rendering fabricated narratives a viable solution in the attempt of closing any logical gaps. A negotiation of one's own moral incongruence. The idea of an inherently destructive masculinity becomes potent in its spreading, with time congealing notions of natural causation. It carries an element of shared belonging that can inversely annul recognition of anyone venturing outside its circle of participation, its perimeter loosely defined by evaluations of competition and force, ironically mediating feelings of belonging through the act of pushing others down.

It is not always verbal: it can be a kind of touch; it can be a look; an approach; a repetition; a smile; an invitation.

It is not always easily noticeable; not easily from the outside, and with considerable effort from the inside, as these aggressions can be entirely automated as well as intricately distinguishable from the best of possible intentions – and often times also excused as such.

Saw them gathering sticks from the ground

By the thicket while assembling a nest

On alert for any lingering threat

Building frantically without rest

Walls grew dense and blocked out the sun

Caving in everyone

Darkness fell, wiped a once joyous tone

Then famished, like possessed ended eating their own

: Jose González - The Nest

I'm beginning to suspect that we're acting. I'm starting to suspect that we're acting on behalf of others and not ourselves. I'm noticing how roles are kept in check by the voices and hands of my surroundings.
It happens by the counter, the moment my girlfriend realizes that she has forgotten her wallet and her friend tells me that “now is the time to be (act) the hero”. It happens the moment my friend tells me about the practical aspects of his newborn girl being petite, in it being easier for her to slip into a certain kind of ideal (a role). It happens when my coworker feels she has to listen to (entertain) my boss’ sexist attempts at humor along with pseudo-intellectual ramblings about her own specific field of study. I'm fairly certain that I have a choice though. I'm pretty sure that I can choose whether to laugh about my boss clapping my coworker on the ass as a way of diffusing an uncomfortable act or treat the whole scene with disapproval and disgust.

I'm fairly certain that I should be able to talk about the humiliating things that our friends experience solely on account of their sex, without priorly needing to explain the various faces, curtains, veils, masks and guises of aggression, in order for it not to be dismissed and excused as minor misdemeanors. The examples are quite ample. They are literally all around us.

Well it's like cranes in the sky

Sometimes I don't wanna feel those metal clouds

: Solange - Cranes In the Sky

It's not all just an act. Of course it isn't. We have penises and vaginas and sometimes a little more or less or both, and our reproductive organs definitely have a distinct and physiologically defined impact on how we behave in the world. But perhaps if we stopped talking so much about the big connection between biology and how that relates to me feeling like bragging about a sexual feat, I might actually think a little longer, feel a little deeper, consider to whom and why I would like to say something like that and disconcert myself with the unfathomable moral complexity of my actions, without a voice of biological reason implicitly rationalizing my behavior.

Any deterministic way of talking about biology and its tie-in with psychology will inevitably make it a little more difficult to maneuver around inside one's own imagination. If anyone would want their personality to be seen before their body they will be hard pressed at conceptualizing ways of doing that, while at the same time being understood as sexy, as having their period or as being inherently aggressive. These dichotomizing assumptions of gender will inevitably work as statements of disempowerment, subduing any creative expressions running across concepts of gender while sustaining alienation. So why should I confine myself within the narrow walls of any passed-along or otherwise assumed masculinity, when I have an infinitely wide playground inside myself, complete with merry-go-rounds of affection, exhilarating multi-tracked rainbow-colored water slides, hanging gardens of staggering diversity and immensely contemplative calm and beauty as well as turd-free sandboxes stretching far across space and time, for all my friends to build their castles in — for them, and only them, to tear down and rebuild as they see fit.

How could anyone ever convince me that I should leave that space for a container, complete with hand-me-down, worned out identities and matching sets of black and grey clothes as boring as that-which-befits-my-gender? Why would I want to be lured into a dumpster?

Why in heaven's name would I ever want to leave my playground?

I woke up this morning
Didn’t recognize the man in the mirror
Then I laughed and I said, “Oh silly me, that’s just me”
Then I proceeded to brush some stranger’s teeth
But they were my teeth, and I was weightless
Just quivering like some leaf come in the window of a restroom
I couldn’t tell you what the hell it was supposed to mean
But it was a Monday, no, a Tuesday
No, a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Then Saturday came around and I said
"Who’s this stupid clown blocking the bathroom sink?"

: Kurt Vile - Pretty Pimpin’

I'm sitting at a board game cafe while finalizing a piece on gender and masculinity called Playing apart. A couple walks over to my table. They introduce themselves; her name is Karla and his name is Klemens. They ask me if I would like to join them for a game of Dominion. We're halfway through the game. Klemens has been interrupting my turns several times, explaining the rules to me even though I've told him that I've played the game many times before, making me consider whether or not he is listening to me at all.

We’re all tied by about fifteen points. Klemens begins to become anxious about his choices. He forgets Karlas turn three times in a row, making Karla cut a disappointed face the fourth time it happens.

The last point gets taken and the game ends. We count the cards and announce Klemens as the winner, being some ten points ahead of Karla. I congratulate him.

He reaches a hand behind me and pads me on my back. It's a gesture of sympathy that I expressed no need for. It's a gesture that has little to do with comradery.

I glance at Karla. Hey eyes dart towards the exit. It must have looked as awkward as it felt. Later that evening I'm at a concert with several friends.

I notice that Josefine still hasn't entered the building. I walk outside and spot her in conversation with two other guys. The moment I'm within earshot I hear Josefine’s voice cutting through at higher-than-average volume, every word thoroughly punctuated: “...I'm not saying that everything is a construction, I never said that it was.”

The guy she's talking to quickly responds: “Okay, yeah, but you have to admit that the behavior of the sexes is somewhat inherently biological.”

They’re talking past one another. Or rather, judging from what I'm hearing, he is talking past her.

I say hi to them and walk up next to Josefine. I keep my mouth closed and start listening to their conversation.

Something changes. Their arguing proceeds with less tension. She no longer uses as much force and they suddenly seem to arrive at a kind of agreement. I'm ordering a beer by the bar while talking to Josefine. I'm thinking about the argument she had with the guys. I ask her whether anything in the atmosphere had changed after I arrived.

“Yes!” she says, “they were suddenly much more willing to nuance their views, simply because of you standing there!”

She's angry. I tell her that I can imagine that being a woman must sometimes feel like something of a Truman show. She tells me that it's just one in the bunch, but that the repeated experience of such conversations can actually make her doubt herself. That it can make her doubt her understanding of the world. That it can make her doubt her own sanity.

I know you put in the hours to keep me in sunglasses

I know

And so, and now, I'm sorry I missed you

I had a secret meeting in the basement of my brain

It went the dull and wicked ordinary way

It went the dull and wicked ordinary way

And now, I'm sorry I missed you

I had a secret meeting in the basement of my brain

: The National - Secret Meeting

The lyrical excerpts that I have used to underpin and communicate feelings and realizations can be accessed through the following Spotify playlist: