Men's Circles and Events | Newsletter 27.07. - 17.08.
Men's circles and events in Berlin that foster conscious and positive masculinity.
Dear men,
a few weeks ago I discussed the topic of porn with a handful of male friends. I think with porn, everyone has their own habits and I don’t see it being talked about very often. Whenever it is talked about, what strikes me is the differing views that men tend to have on the topic.
There’s quite a few men who seem to view watching porn as something very negative. Their ideal often seems to be reducing porn consumption to zero. I don’t know how many men there are like this. But what I can say is that I don’t often hear porn spoken about as something positive.
I used to work at femtasy, a streaming platform for erotic audio stories for women. At femtasy we saw the product as something that empowers women by allowing them to safely explore a multitude of flavours of sexuality and find out what they like. Maybe us men could have a similarly positive view of ‘our’ porn? It’s a layered topic, of course—we all know that what’s shown in porn can also affect men’s expectations of sex in an unrealistic way and therefore lead to suffering.
There are no easy answers. But after last week’s poll on alcohol, I wanted to run another small, anonymous poll to get everyone’s temperature feel on the topic of porn:
Please answer the question reflecting on how you feel about yourself using porn. I acknowledge there is also an ethical side to it, but let’s leave that aside for now (knowing that ethically produced porn does exist).
🗓️ Events
Sunday 27th July: Online sharing circle hosted by Hans (Berlin Men’s Group)
Tuesday 29th July:
Men’s circle in Treptow hosted by Fred (Men's Embodiment Group)
Men’s Circle in Kreuzberg hosted by Jules (Berlin Mens Circle)
Sunday 3rd August: Online sharing circle hosted by Alex (Sacred Presence)
Thursday 7th August: Men’s circle in Charlottenburg hosted by Devan (ManKind Project)
Tuesday 12th August:
Men’s Circle in Kreuzberg hosted by Jules (Berlin Mens Circle)
Men’s circle in Treptow on the topic of grief hosted by Fred (Men's Embodiment Group)
📖 Article of the Week
Porn has been a topic of discussion several times in the Berlin Men’s Group. Some men don’t worry about porn much. Others consider it a problem. The following article is written by someone who saw it taking over his life: