A tantric masculine vision of MeToo

“What am I supposed to do now? How am I supposed to act? Men can’t do anything anymore.”

This shared frustration is common (and understandable) among men in the wake of the #MeToo movement. As women continue to present stories of sexual harassment and assault, men begin to see that behavior they thought was normal was actually causing harm. It’s one thing to report inappropriate behavior, but once we become aware of a problem, how do we move forward? How do we heal the past and create a new, healthy way of relating?

Tantra offers related tools that help heal old trauma and teach healthy behavior. We wanted to get a tantric man’s perspective on the #MeToo movement, to see how men are affected and how Tantra can help navigate this new world. We caught up with Bob, a longtime student and practitioner of Tantra, to get a perspective on the masculine side of #MeToo.

Q: We’d love to hear about your own experiences and how you see the state of manhood in this #MeToo era. What has emerged for you from these media reports, both in your own life and in the larger context?

A: I am now 68 years old and I live in a state of compassion and respect for the limits of women. Unfortunately, this was not always the case. At 38, those weren’t concepts that I knew at all. When I was younger, I did things that I shouldn’t have done, things that I would never do today. I pushed my sexuality to women. If I could get over the “no”, I did. And looking back at it, I say, “Oh my God, my God.” I just wouldn’t do that today.

Through tantric practice, I saw how inappropriate my old behavior was and how to move on. Today I advise people on what good and bad behavior is like. There are tantric practices that teach people what consent is, how to request what they want, and how to hear “no” without pressing or needing an explanation of why not. That is a really difficult practice; hear “no” without knowing why. But that’s what men need to do to begin healing relationships with women.

Q: What do you notice about how men are receiving the #MeToo movement?

A: I’m noticing that a lot of the guys don’t get it. They can understand it theoretically or philosophically. But individually, personally, it is difficult to sell. I just had a conversation with some of my fishing friends. We were talking about #MeToo and consent, permission, etc. Two of the guys wondered why they couldn’t compliment a woman at work on what she was wearing. They believed that she was dressing to look good to them, to look good to men on the outside, rather than just looking good to herself.

I tried to compare a woman dressing smart at work with them wearing a nice suit. I said, “When you’re wearing a good suit, you think, ‘Oh, I feel good about this today. I don’t use it to get compliments from anyone in particular.’ But they couldn’t understand the connection. They couldn’t see that saying something could be wrong or cause problems.

And that problem is so frequent, that is the main one. When it comes to them personally, as a man, standing in front of this human being who is a woman, they just can’t see the connection. This is where denial and anger come from. They feel personally attacked and say: “A man can do nothing anymore!” They assume that a woman is doing certain things to attract a man, rather than just feeling good about herself. When faced with the belief that this belief could be wrong, they become angry and defensive.

Q: How do you see men overcome this? How can Tantra help?

A: To begin with, it will take a lot of awareness and compassionate listening. Instead of men reacting and saying, “I can’t do anything anymore!” instead, they need to begin to understand where women come from. I know from my own experience that this process takes time and a lot of internal research. I liken it to playing soccer. There’s a lot of pain and a lot of agony, but you keep coming back day after day. You don’t express it in terms of pain and agony, but you look at the goal and teamwork. And you let that goal override the negatives. That is what is needed, because the old paradigm is changing and we have to work together to create the new one.

And, in fact, women will not be able to change it. It will take men to exchange it for men. There will be guys like me talking to my fishing friends. It does not come from our political, ecclesiastical or spiritual leader. “You know, gentlemen, we have to clean up.”