Spacious Human

I keep thinking about something Scott Galloway has been telling college men.

He says women won’t want s*x with you if you split the bill.
Pay up, or you’re basically out.

That framing really bothers me.

To start, q***r folks have s*x all the time without this "men pay, women play" dynamic, so money clearly isn’t the universal currency of desire. This isn’t a timeless truth about attraction. It’s one narrow script being presented as reality.

I remember when girls and women were told not to be too smart, or not to show it, because boys and men wouldn’t be interested. That may have been the reality at the time, but women were wise enough not to accept that advice, and they helped change the dynamic. Even if Scott Galloway is right about what some women respond to now, that doesn’t mean men should accept it as the limit of what’s possible.

Men sometimes want to be treated too. They want to feel valued, pursued, and appreciated, not just useful. That doesn’t make them weak. It makes them human.

Many women earn as much or more than the men they date, so the assumption that men must always be the provider is already out of sync with how people actually live.

I often hear the response, “Women put time, money, and effort into getting ready for dates.” That’s true, and that effort matters. So is the answer that men should always pay? Men, if you wish, maybe its time to level up your grooming regimen?

And something else gets erased in this advice: men are offering something as well. Their bodies, their presence, their desire, their vulnerability. Men are not neutral objects waiting to qualify. Men are also a prize.

What worries me most is the direction of the advice: Boys and men are being pushed backward into a single, narrow role in order to be chosen.

If a man chooses that role, great. Choice is freedom. Just remember that most people have ups and downs financially. Tying yourself too tightly to the provider role has costs too.

But men deserve more ways of being, not fewer.

And dating works better when desire, effort, and appreciation move in both directions.



Scott Galloway

I’ve met so many men who tell me they either can’t cry at all — even at funerals — or that when the tears finally come, they fall into complete overwhelm.

I don’t think this is because men don’t feel. I think it’s because of what they learned early in life.

Most boys learn very young that sadness is unsafe. Crying meant losing belonging, losing respect, being mocked, or even being physically punished.

The body remembers that.And it remembers for decades.

So a lot of men grow up with only two emotional settings:

shut down… or collapse.

No middle. No waves. No pacing.

And the middle range is where so much of life actually happens.
Without it, men lose the ability to feel sadness without drowning in it.The relief that comes from small emotional releases. Connection. Pleasure, which becomes muted and flat. Emotional confidence, knowing you can feel something hard and stay present. Self-trust, the sense that your emotions won’t overwhelm you. Relief, letting feelings move before they become too big. That's the power of the middle range.

There are many ways to relearn that middle space: therapy, somatic work, noticing early signals in the body, practicing tiny waves of emotion, breathwork, or opening up with people who feel safe.

But the one I keep coming back to — the one that changed the most for me — is this:

**Exposure to the Feminine.
Breaking down the fear of femininity itself.**

For a lot of men, crying isn’t about sadness. It’s about what sadness represents:
softness, tenderness, receptivity, all
qualities boys were taught to avoid or fear. That fear lives in the nervous system.

When men start experimenting with feminine-coded spaces or expressions —
movement, softness, aesthetic play, beauty, emotional honesty —
something unexpected happens.
The old survival fear loosens.
The body stops bracing.
Feeling becomes safer.

Crying becomes smoother, not because they “tried harder,” but because the whole category of “feminine” stops being dangerous.

Once that fear begins to dissolve, the emotional channel opens in a way that feels real and sustainable.
Not dramatic. Not performative. Just human.

And honestly, that shift has had more impact on my emotional range, self-trust, confidence, and ability to cry than anything else I’ve tried.

What you wear is THE ultimate somatic experience. Every morning, we train our nervous systems to recognize and avoid certain kinds of expression, emotion, connection, even pleasure.

If the body keeps the score, then breaking those rigid gender conventions isn’t just a concept— it’s a full-body practice.

Gendered clothing conventions literally wrap our bodies in a constant reminder of what we’re supposed to be. Because that's the way conventions work, we don't notice them or think about them. They make impacts invisible, but that doesn't mean they aren't doing their work, having somatic impacts every day, all the time, for years and years on end, even though you may not notice them. See, the body can’t separate the physical sensation of putting on “appropriate” clothes from the psychological message to stay within the boundaries.

When a man first tries something like eye makeup, his body might flood with stress. That fear isn’t just social; it’s stored in the nervous system.

But here’s the good news. When we step through those old limits, we’re not only changing our minds — we’re teaching our bodies that it’s safe to expand into new ways of being, relating, communicating, accessing wisdom, and experiencing pleasure and desire.

The body learns freedom the same way it learned restriction: through repeated training and somatic experience.

I would love to discuss this with Bessel Van Der Kolk one day🤞🏻

Acting as a protector is a beautiful expression of love.

Men protect. Women protect. Anyone can be a fierce guardian. Most boys learn this from the first fierce protector he meets: his mother.

So why did we decide that protection is “masculine”? Why did we turn a basic human instinct into a gendered job description?

When boys grow up believing that their worth depends on being strong, steady, and useful at ALL times, that's when trouble begins. When that sometimes ROLE becomes the always IDENTITY.

That is how a beautiful instinct becomes a cage.

You forget that you can also be held, supported, comforted, and seen, and that you are valued simply for being a human being.

Men expanding beyond traditional notions of masculinity doesn’t mean abandoning protection roles. It means men expanding the ways we can experience self-worth and finding flexibility in balance beyond that role.

It means men having access to more than one way of feeling worthy, valuable, human.

We packed up A Body Hair Experiment in July, right in the thick of summer heat ☀️. Now the air is shifting, September is here. Seasons change, but the inquiry continues.

It calls again… this time, it lingers longer: not 2 hours, but 4 hours to listen, explore, and want. Reserve your early bird tickets today, linked in bio.

Your seat is waiting, will you lean in?

Whispers of Want calls again. This time, it lingers longer: not 2 hours, but 4 hours to listen, explore and want. Get your early bird tickets today before they go! Linked in bio.

Your seat is waiting, Will you lean in?

A few install shots from A BODY HAIR EXPERIMENT ✨✨✨

Officially 1 week ago we celebrated A BODY HAIR EXPERIMENT ✨✨✨