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