This is just so damned stupid, I can’t not post it.

[…] men HAVE NO spiritual side. They have many other kinds of sides, but no spiritual sides. They may have mechanical sides, or sports sides. They may have barbeque sides, home repair sides, all-sex-all-the-time sides, or even remote-control-and-beer sides. These are all valid manly man sides. But no true man has a spiritual side. You can turn him this way and that, upside down or right side up, but you still won’t find it. It’s not there.

(Even priests and missionaries don’t have spiritual sides, in the sense discussed above. No. Priests like their beers and whiskey just as much as any regular guy does. They like to watch Notre Dame football games, too. The fathers probably argue about who gets to hold the remote control. They may not use the same descriptive language necessary to describe the abysmal nature of that last bone-headed play, or they may say it in Latin or Aramaic, I don’t know, I haven’t hung out with church folks in a while, so times may have changed, but I think not, and the point of all this is that they are still all guys underneath those smocks or black things, cossacks, or whatever. It is not in the nature of a true guy to go Googling for the correct names of these things, because he doesn’t really much give a shit. Any true guy will recognize the innate correctness of this last statement. Any true guy, if he’s not spiritual of course. A spiritual guy might, but then again I’ve never met a spiritual guy, and I suspect that not even freaks of nature types with really bad chromosomal codes could have genetic predispositions that could make them truly spiritual.)

And yes, before you go off on me: I realize it’s supposed to be a “joke” or a “rant” or some kind of “musing” or something else…. but I don’t care. I mean, it’s not that I’m offended by it. It’s just that I’m surprised to see somebody put it all together in such a plain easy to understand stereotypical little package. I’ve never thought about it like this, but I’m gathering this is what other people think?

I normally just don’t think about this sort of thing - partly because I’m so accustomed to breaking the mold in this area. It just whizzes right past me that there’s a stereotype I’m not fitting into. It’s like, “What? Another one? I can’t keep up anymore!” I also just think this passage is just flat out wrong. If they’re gonna talk about beer and whiskey and sports, but then say men have no spirituality, then they’ve totally got their head up their ass. I mean, have you ever been knee deep into a bottle of whiskey with a close guy friend? I mean, you get into some really seriously heavy spiritual shit. Or at least I do. Doesn’t matter who it is either. Shit gets serious.

I think the real problem is that stereotypically, it’s not accepted for men to be interested in a lot of this stuff. Just go to the bookstore and look in the New Age section. All that shit there is so fucking slanted towards women that it just makes you want to curl up into the fetal position and cry over a cup of chicken soup for the practical teenage witch. Even the “manly” stuff is feminized - get in touch with your inner “goddess.” I mean, I understand the concept here psycho-spiritually, but no wonder most guys will just see this stuff and think fruitcake! In comparison to that, a really fine glass of bourbon really IS a spiritual experience.

What do all you out there think of this gender stereotype in spirituality? I guess I’d always kind of subliminally noticed it, but never had it so flagrantly waved in front of me like this… I think I understand now why a woman wrote to me about something or other through my site, and I wrote her back a thoughtful letter, and she said something like, “Wow, you understand this stuff and you’re a guy?”