As an actor, I get scripts it’s my job to stay on script, to say my lines bring to life a character that someone else wrote. the course of my career, I’ve had the great honor playing some of greatest male role models ever represented on television. You might me as “Male Escort #1.”
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“Photographer Date Rapist,” “Shirtless Date Rapist” from the award-winning “Spring Shark Attack.”
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“Shirtless Medical Student,” “Shirtless Steroid-Using Con Man” and, in my well-known role, as Rafael.
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A brooding, reformed playboy falls for, of all things, a virgin, and who only occasionally shirtless.
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Now, these roles don’t represent the of man I am in my real life, but that’s I love about acting. I get to live inside characters very different than myself. every time I got one of these roles, I surprised, because most of the men I play ooze machismo, and power, and when I look in the mirror, that’s just not how see myself. But it was how Hollywood saw me, over time, I noticed a parallel between the roles would play as a man both on-screen and off.
I’ve been pretending be a man that I’m not my entire life. I’ve been pretending to be when I felt weak, confident when I felt insecure and tough when I was hurting. I think for the most part I’ve just been kind of putting on show, but I’m tired of performing. And I can tell you right now that is exhausting trying to be man enough for everyone all the time. — right?
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My brother heard that.
Now, for as as I can remember, I’ve been told the kind of that I should grow up to be. As a boy, all I wanted was to be accepted and liked the other boys, but that acceptance meant I had to acquire this disgusted view of the feminine, and since we were told that is the opposite of masculine, I either had to reject embodying of these qualities or face rejection myself. This is the script we’ve been given. Right? Girls are weak, and boys are strong. This what’s being subconsciously communicated to hundreds of millions of young boys and all over the world, just like it was with me.
Well, I came here today to say, as man that this is wrong, this is toxic, and it has to end.
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Now, I’m not here give a history lesson. We likely all know how we got here, OK? But I’m just a guy woke up after 30 years and realized that I was living in a of conflict, conflict with who I feel I am in my core conflict with who the world tells me as a man should be. But I don’t have a desire to fit into the current broken definition of masculinity, I don’t just want to be a good man. I want to be good human. And I believe the only way that can happen is if learn to not only embrace the qualities that we were are feminine in ourselves but to be willing to stand up, champion and learn from the women who embody them.
Now, men —
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I am not that everything we have learned is toxic. OK? I’m not saying there’s inherently wrong with you or me, and men, I’m not saying we have to stop being men. we need balance, right? We need balance, and the only way things will change is we take a real honest look at the scripts that have been passed to us from generation to generation and the roles that, as men, we choose to on in our everyday lives.
So speaking of scripts, first script I ever got came from my dad. dad is awesome. He’s loving, he’s kind, he’s sensitive, he’s nurturing, he’s here.
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He’s crying.
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But, sorry, Dad, as a kid I resented for it, because I blamed him for making me soft, which wasn’t in the small town in Oregon that we had to. Because being soft meant that I was bullied. See, dad wasn’t traditionally masculine, so he didn’t teach me how to use my hands. He didn’t teach how to hunt, how to fight, you know, man stuff. Instead he taught me what he knew: being a man was about sacrifice and doing whatever you can to take care of and provide for family. But there was another role I learned how to from my dad, who, I discovered, learned it from his dad, a senator who later in life had to work nights as a janitor to support his family, he never told a soul. That role was to suffer in secret. And now three generations later, I myself playing that role, too. So why couldn’t my grandfather reach out to another man and ask for help? does my dad to this day still think he’s to do it all on his own? I know a man who would rather die tell another man that they’re hurting. But it’s not because we’re just all, like, silent types. It’s not. A lot of us men are really good at making friends, talking, just not about anything real.
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If it’s about work or sports or politics women, we have no problem sharing our opinions, but if it’s about our insecurities our struggles, our fear of failure, then it’s almost like become paralyzed. At least, I do.
So some of the ways that have been practicing breaking free of this behavior are by creating experiences force me to be vulnerable. So if there’s something I’m experiencing shame around in my life, I practice straight into it, no matter how scary it is — and sometimes, even publicly. then in doing so I take away its power, my display of vulnerability can in some cases give other men to do the same.
As an example, a little while ago I was with an issue in my life that I knew needed to talk to my guy friends about, but I was paralyzed by fear that they would judge me and see as weak and I would lose my standing as a leader that I knew I had take them out of town on a three-day guys —
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Just to open up. And guess what? wasn’t until the end of the third day that finally found the strength to talk to them about what I was going through. when I did, something amazing happened. I realized that I wasn’t alone, because my guys also been struggling. And as soon as I found the strength and the courage to share shame, it was gone. Now, I’ve learned over time that if I want to vulnerability, then I need to build myself a system of accountability. So I’ve really blessed as an actor. I’ve built a really wonderful base, really, really sweet and engaged, and so I decided to use my social as kind of this Trojan horse wherein I could create a practice of authenticity and vulnerability. The response has been incredible. It’s been affirming, it’s been heartwarming. I tons of love and press and positive messages daily. it’s all from a certain demographic: women.
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This is real. Why are only following me? Where are the men?
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About a year ago, I posted this photo. Now, afterwards, was scrolling through some of the comments, and I noticed that of my female fans had tagged her boyfriend in the picture, and her boyfriend responded saying, “Please stop tagging me in gay shit. Thx.”
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As if being makes you less of a man, right?
So I took a deep breath, and I responded. I said, politely, that I was just curious, because I’m on an exploration of masculinity, and I wanted know why my love for my wife qualified as gay shit. And then said, honestly I just wanted to learn.
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Now, he wrote me back. I thought he was going to go off on me, but instead apologized. He told me how, growing up, public displays of affection looked down on. He told me that he was and struggling with his ego, and how much he loved his girlfriend and how he was for her patience. And then a few later, he messaged me again. This time he sent a photo of him on one knee proposing.
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And all he said was, “Thank you.”
I’ve been guy. I get it. See, publicly, he was just playing his role, rejecting the feminine, right? But secretly was waiting for permission to express himself, to be seen, to be heard, all he needed was another man holding him accountable creating a safe space for him to feel, and transformation was instant. I loved this experience, because it me that transformation is possible, even over direct messages. I wanted to figure out how I could reach men, but of course none of them were following me.
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So I an experiment. I started posting more stereotypically masculine things —
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Like challenging workouts, my meal plans, my journey to heal my body after injury. And guess what happened? Men started to write me. then, out of the blue, for the first time in my entire career, a fitness magazine called me, and they said they wanted to honor as one of their game-changers.
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Was that really game-changing? is it just conforming? And see, that’s the problem. It’s totally cool for men follow me when I talk about guy stuff and conform to gender norms. But if I talk about how I love my wife or my daughter or my 10-day-old son, I believe that marriage is challenging but beautiful, or how as a man struggle with body dysmorphia, or if I promote gender equality, then the women show up. Where are the men? So men, men, men, men!
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I understand. Growing up, we tend challenge each other. We’ve got to be the toughest, the strongest, the bravest men that can be. And for many of us, myself included, our identities are up in whether or not at the end of the we feel like we’re man enough. But I’ve got a for all the guys, because men love challenges.
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I challenge you to see if can use the same qualities that you feel make a man to go deeper into yourself. Your strength, bravery, your toughness: Can we redefine what those mean and use them explore our hearts? Are you brave enough to be vulnerable? To reach out another man when you need help? To dive headfirst into shame? Are you strong enough to be sensitive, to whether you are hurting or you’re happy, even if it makes look weak? Are you confident enough to listen to the women your life? To hear their ideas and their solutions? hold their anguish and actually believe them, even if they’re saying is against you? And will you be enough to stand up to other men when you hear “locker room talk,” you hear stories of sexual harassment? When you hear your boys talking grabbing ass or getting her drunk, will you actually stand and do something so that one day we don’t have to in a world where a woman has to risk everything and come forward to say words “me too?”
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This is serious stuff. I’ve had to take a real, look at the ways that I’ve unconsciously been hurting the women my life, and it’s ugly. My wife told me that had been acting in a certain way that hurt her not correcting it. Basically, sometimes when she would go to speak, at or in public, I would just cut her off mid-sentence finish her thought for her. It’s awful. The worst part that I was completely unaware when I was doing it. It unconscious. So here I am doing my part, trying be a feminist, amplifying the voices of women around the world, yet at home, I am using my louder voice to silence the I love the most. So I had to ask a tough question: am I man enough to just the hell up and listen?
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I’ve got to be honest. I that didn’t get an applause.
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Guys, this is real. And I’m just scratching the surface here, because the we go, the uglier it gets, I guarantee you. I don’t have time to get porn and violence against women or the split of duties or the gender pay gap. But I believe that as men, it’s time start to see past our privilege and recognize that are not just part of the problem. Fellas, we the problem. The glass ceiling exists because we put it there, and if we want to a part of the solution, then words are no enough.
There’s a quote that I love that I grew with from the Bahá’í writings. It says that “the of humanity is possessed of two wings, the male the female. So long as these two wings are equivalent in strength, the bird will not fly.”
So women, on behalf of men all over world who feel similar to me, please forgive us for all the ways that we have not relied your strength. And now I would like to ask you to formally us, because we cannot do this alone. We are men. We’re to mess up. We’re going to say the wrong thing. We’re going to tone-deaf. We’re more than likely, probably, going to offend you. But don’t hope. We’re only here because of you, and like you, as men, need to stand up and become your allies as you fight against pretty much everything. We need help in celebrating our vulnerability and being patient with us as we make this very, very journey from our heads to our hearts. And finally parents: instead of teaching our children to be brave or pretty girls, can we maybe just teach them how to good humans?
So back to my dad. Growing up, yeah, like every boy, I my fair share of issues, but now I realize it was even thanks to his sensitivity and emotional intelligence that I am able to stand here right talking to you in the first place. The resentment I had for my dad I now realize nothing to do with him. It had everything to do me and my longing to be accepted and to a role that was never meant for me. So my dad may have not taught me how to use hands, he did teach me how to use my heart, and to me makes him more a man than anything.
Thank you.