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