Book Review by Carlton Rounds on:Toxic Masculinity: Curing the Virus: making men smarter, healthier, safer

Toxic Masculinity: Curing the Virus: making men smarter, healthier, safer

Written by Stephen Whitehead

And Reviewed by Carlton Rounds

This book could not be more timely or relevant. When toxic masculinity pours forth from the highest political offices in the land, the urgency to understand the challenges and the opportunities poised at the intersection of power, justice and gender hints at outcomes and predicts the potential future of humankind. I loved this book. It called me out, it reassured me, and it rekindled my curiosity.

The book is accessible and well structured allowing individuals with different levels of gender awareness to follow the observations and narrative. The book explores and defines intersecting zones of masculine identity and behavior making specific, well explained and targeted points. The helpful lists of behaviors and questions could literally be applied as a rough diagnostic tool, or to really get a group going during a facilitated discussion. The author’s approach is neither cajoling nor condescending. His feminist platform is not submerged, and his commitment to the term renews its “spirit” making feminist identity seem more expansive and engaging than what it has become, it feels to me, flattened academic dogma.

It is clear the author would like to see men and women evolve into progressive gender expression, and he calls out both sexes for perpetuating toxicity. In the author’s world, everyone is part of a constellation of behaviors that pollute the integrity of our world. As a progressive masculine man myself, this book helped me recognize issues I need to work on, and due to Stephen’s writing, I have new concepts and language I can drop into discussions I am determined to spark.

I am particularly inspired by the “futurist” scenarios used to show trajectories of change over time. As a historian, this stylistic technique is very compelling. It stretches my perspective and my sociological imagination by requiring continuous growth and evolution not just about gender but about what is possible in human society. My woke style in the year 2019 might be the unenlightened cave of thought by 2050. Finally, Stephen brings not just a lifetime of experience and self reflection to his findings, but an Asian cultural awareness making his work not just a western anchored exploration, but a conversation with a global cadence.

Having met Stephen in person, his warmth and emotional intelligence are much like you would imagine. His role at 70 as gender journeyman is not just fitting, but reassuring. He is helping define what a mature progressive masculinity looks like, not leaving the work and the responsibility to the emerging younger generation. In addition, for those of us who never had the benefit of non toxic Dads or Grandpas, Stephen’s desire for a more deeply connected experience feels personal, validating and healing.

In service,

Carlton Rounds

Reflections of a Caregiver: LGBTQ Seniors

I

t’s been a week now since beginning my work with LGBT seniors. The work is not hard on one level but very difficult on another. After years of independence the indignities of age seem to strike hard and deep. The men I am working with are in their late 80’s having lived through the times when being openly gay was not an option. Some were pressured into marrying women just to be socially and economically viable. Others stayed single and were workaholics hiding their same sex attractions and redirecting that energy into powerful careers. Now, they are being looked after by someone like me. I am trying to absorb the life experience and insight these men can share with me as I care for them. 

One is single the other is still living with his partner. The couple has a twenty year age gap, so as one is entering the last months of his life, the other is still strong and vital. I can see that what once was a Union of minds, passion, sex, and a social gay life has morphed into 2 men who now face the fading dynamics of the relationship. Now one needs 24 hour care to dress, eat, bathe, use the bathroom, and remember what happened the day before. They are now like companions. With advanced age, the gap in years is very significant. How do you prepare to be alone after an intense time of caregiving? Who will take care of the man left behind? In comparison, the single guy wears his isolation with a curmudgeonly vibe with exasperation aimed at the intersectional identity of youth and what he sees as frivolous gay cultural obsessions. This is punctuated by references to what I think is a preoccupation with gay sex for hire. His closeted life was about being sneaky about wanting sex with men, loving men, but being transactional with them. Deeply sexist and polarized in his views, he uses his pronouncements as a mask for his profound sense of loneliness. This is a man with lots of dirty sex secrets. 

I know the type having met them before. They steep in their own male toxicity and only gay men who are similar in psychological makeup like to share space with them. They eschew deep reflection, present with an entitled persona, but don’t trust or understand love, and yet they have giggly crushes that sometimes drip out from cracks in their protective walls. What is clear though is a misogynist world view. Any man, no matter how bland, is held in higher esteem than any bitch woman. Forced into marriage, forced to provide and forced to have children, women are resented for the roles society made these men live or be judged for not living well enough. I get it. How dare the world now allow gender fluidity? What would it mean if in your 80’s you choose face the fact that you can see the freedoms you never had access to, and not feel like you suffered for no reason except for being born too early in the century. Very few people can change at age 25 much less 85. 

So for me, I find the emotional environment tiring but important to experience. Maybe this kind of care is one of the only places inter generational discussions happen and some cosmic issues get worked on in both parties? Through feeling their pain and frustration I learn more about the obligation I have to honor my own emotional and social life. When I am 85, my caregiver might find me and my life symptomatic of the times I lived. Will I want to be told I did not live up to my potential? Will I shun these judgements, too old and tired to want to explain something they will never understand unless they lived it? So with this in mind, I am trying to listen with my heart, not my language sensitive ears. Trying to be in a space where I encourage and validate the unique moments of overlap I discover when buttoning a button or changing a diaper. I know that these random men are not truly random for me. I don’t accept random. 

Each day when I leave, I touch a shoulder or shake a hand and thank them for having spent the day with them. I am absorbing things unconsciously that I know have value, even when I try to be so conscious of the interactions. Managing communication in such a multitude of directions, across historical time, and informed by the dimensions of spirit, while simultaneously cooking soup and finding a lost sock demands a somatic versatility and resilience. This strength training is part of the gift of this work. As I slowly walk into my golden years, it gives me perspective and highlights the choices I still have, and must pay dedicated attention to, so that I continue to grow and change and evolve.

Carlton
December 10th, 2019

Invitation as Key Note Speaker for Charles University's Event Sponsored by the US State Department for Cultural Diplomacy

Dear Mr. Rounds – and To Whom It May Concern,

This letter is to serve as official invitation and confirmation that Mr. Carlton Rounds has been awarded a Small Grant for Democracy by the United States Department of State through its US Embassy to the Czech Republic to visit the Department of American Studies of Charles University in Prague to be a keynote speaker and trainer at the Allen Ginsberg Memorial Freedom Festival, to take place in Prague, the Czech Republic on April 29 through May 7, 2015.

Click Here for Information on the Historic Visit of Allen Ginsberg to Prague 50 Years Ago

Mr. Rounds’ participation is key to the success of the Festival, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of out gay Beat poet and activist Allen Ginsberg’s 1965 visit to Prague, in then Communist Czechoslovakia. The Festival presents to Czech university students and faculty, the general public and activist audiences the history and current state of US artistic freedom of expression, democratic dissent, civil rights and LGBT and HIV/AIDS activism, and trains them in cross-cultural coalition building for social justice. Mr. Rounds’ extensive experience and strong record of leadership in these fields make him a highly desirable citizen diplomat for this cultural exchange program.

HIV Story Project - Carlton Rounds - HIV and Moments of Levity

Founded in 2009, The HIV Story Project is a San Francisco based non-profit organization focused on bridging HIV/AIDS with film, media and storytelling to fight the spread of the pandemic and the global stigma associated with it. We create our own film and media projects in addition to offering production services and digital media consultation & training to HIV/AIDS nonprofits in San Francisco and beyond.

MISSION
The HIV Story Project uses multi-platform media and personal stories to advance HIV/AIDS education and awareness, support HIV/AIDS nonprofit organizations, fight the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, and give a voice to the HIV positive community.

VISION
The HIV Story Project envisions acceptance, support, and empowerment of people living with HIV/AIDS; a reduction in HIV/AIDS health inequalities; and a reduction in new HIV/AIDS infections with the ultimate aim of halting the pandemic.

VALUES
The HIV Story Project believes in the transformational capacity of personal stories, especially to empower those living with HIV/AIDS and enlighten others about the impact of the pandemic.

The HIV Story Project seeks to support underserved communities and those disproportionately affected by the pandemic, including LGBT people, communities of color, women, and youth.

The HIV Story Project fosters collaboration between those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, media artists, community advocates, health care providers and public health professionals, funders, and other concerned stakeholders.

The HIV Story Project provides affordable and high-quality media services for HIV/AIDS nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as nationally and globally.

The HIV Story Project is committed to the professional development of emerging media artists, filmmakers, and storytellers, particularly those from underrepresented groups.

NON-DISCRIMINATION STATEMENT
The HIV Story Project supports and celebrates diversity in all of its forms and does not discriminate based on sex, gender identity, sexual identity, race, ethnicity, national origin, age, religious creed, marital status, medical condition, physical or mental ability.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The HIV Story Project on Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/HIVStoryProject.
The HIV Story Project on Twitter:https://twitter.com/HIVStoryProject.

Volunteer Positive highlighted through World Learning, The School for International Training Graduate Institute.

Volunteer Positive 

 is highlighted through World Learning, 

and The School for International Training Graduate Institute. 

Thank you for your respect, attention, and for making the contributions of people living with HIV visible!

Click Here to be taken to the article.

Cortona Opera House/Bohemian Club/ Harlan Crow Tuscan Arts Retreat - Spring 1997

Wonderful memory 
of singing with the world famous soprano

Carol Neblett

In spring of 1997, I was asked to join a private group for an arts and culture appreciation trip to Tuscany, Italy. Six of us were chosen to stay at Castello di Gargonza, and to perform for a night of special importance at the Cortona Opera House. As the broadway singer, I was teamed up with an opera singer to do some duets from our favorite musicals. Neither of us had met each other before. I was a bit worried because my broadway/cabaret style was not very disciplined, and I had an off color interpretation of many standard songs. I was worried that singing with an operatic soprano would be absolute misery due to the clash of styles. And my lord, I thought what could be a more tempermental coupling than a tenor and a soprano in Italy, then I met Carol. The first time I heard her sing I was physically stunned. Her voice moved through my body like a spirit of force. In the world, there are few voices of her quality, and gifted to such charisma.

A tall and beautiful woman, buxom and sexy, she was full of good humor, quick wit, and a love of music of all kinds. We snuck away with our awesome pianist and tried to cram for the show later in the week. I found out that I had been assigned to partner with Carol because she was a big personality and it was believed I could "manage" her.  The truth is, she was so much fun, so naughty, and very into making it clear that she was her own person, and that her spirit was free. We got along well, and I felt like I was her courtier. I really liked her energy. When she performed she wore an outstanding blue dress adorned by a jeweled pin she had been given by Prince Charles after a command performance. It suited her. She let me touch the pin, and I could see she loved her life as an opera star, and realized how rare an experience it was.

For that week Carol and I spent a lot of time together making fun of some of the other guests, talking about our love of music, and drinking red wine late into the evening. One night she pressured the restaurant's kitchen into feeding us extra dessert but singing to them in Italian. She told me she would show me how to get tiramisu from a closed kitchen. She stood up in her blue gown, adjusted her ample bust, gave me a look of mischief, and marched through the serving doors, shocking the chef and his staff.  After 2 arias, we had tiramisu and limoncello at our table. 

In the castle where we were staying, there was a small ancient church, and Carol and I would walk by it every evening on our way back from rehearsal, then dinner and wine drinking. I would drop her there and she would go up to her room for the evening, and I would go to mine. It was not hard work, and it was nice to be one of 6 guest performers who were paid handsomely, fed well, treated with adoration and respect, and given first class lodging and travel. 

Carol and I had dressing rooms next to each other at the Cortona Opera House, a cold stone cave of a building in use since the early 1600's. The dressing rooms were damp and chilly, and the late spring in Tuscany was full of blooming flowers and trees. I got through the rehearsal, and tried to adjust to performing in such an odd mausoleum-like space, but as my sinuses and throat swelled, I felt increasingly worried about singing anything. 

No Shame - Rise Up to HIV

Tribute to a Lost Friend and Teacher - Michael Foster

Michael J. Foster, of NYC, died suddenly and unexpectedly of pneumonia on Thursday June 14, 2012 at the age of 34. Michael was a nationally recognized leader and activist with BMX (Black Men’s Exchange) working to enrich the lives and improve the health of same gender loving black men in the USA. Previously he was an Environmental Scientist and Environmental Policy Analyst where he served as the Biology Educator with the Youth Initiatives division of the Education department at the American Museum of Natural History. He created curriculum, designed courses, and taught in the areas of biodiversity conservation and ecology. In addition, Michael helped Museum scientists improve their mentoring skills and developed recruitment methods that reached increasing numbers of traditionally underrepresented students.