89. Beyond the Brawn: Redefining Queer Masculinity (with Erick DuPree)

Snarky Opener (0:00)

Erick DuPree

So, if we give ourselves permission to dare to be more, we will become more.

And if we give ourselves the ability to surrender a little bit like the hard binaries, like twinks with twinks, muscle bear, muscle, bear, like that, segregating part that power part, we can give ourselves permission to really find identity in self.

Episode Introduction (0:40)

Rob Loveless

Hello, my LGBTQuties, and welcome back to another episode of A Jaded Gay.

I'm Rob Loveless and, today, I'm a non-jaded gay, because this past week, I had a grandfather clock delivered to my house, and I am super excited about it.

So, in case you haven't figured out by now, I'm like very much an old soul/old man. Like I said, I drink tea all the time. I'm in bed by eight o'clock. I like old movies and music.

And so, you know, my house that I live in, it's from like 1920 so kind of old, and it has some older features to it, like the hardwood floors, the banister stair railing, all that fun stuff.

And I already had a record player at my last house, so I figured I'd just really lean into like the old man house esthetic, and get a grandfather clock. And I love it.

Just I had a big empty space in my dining room, so I really needed to fill it with something. And so, I think it looks really great there.

And it's so fun because, like, every hour it strikes, it plays the Westminster chimes. Oh, I just love it.

Masculinity in Queer Culture (1:34)

Rob Loveless

But anyway, from antiques to outdated patriarchal beliefs, today, we are deep, diving into the concept of masculinity.

And we've kind of talked about this in episodes about internalized homophobia and gay gym culture.

And for many of us, we may have struggled with our own personal definition of what masculinity means as a gay man. And it can be a toxic thing.

I mean, how many of us have seen on dating apps, masc for masc or no fems? It's like we're not straight men, but some within our community are only attracted to us if we act like stereotypical straight men.

Or if we naturally come off as straight passing, then others may criticize us for being too heteronormative or not being quote-unquote gay enough.

And you know, I personally believe we are who we are, so be whatever comes to you naturally, but it's a problem if we feel the need to force ourselves into a box to feel accepted one way or another.

And it's especially wrong if we're judging people because they don't fit into the box, we think they should be in.

So, with all that being said, I'm very excited to be bringing on a guest today to talk to us about redefining masculinity as a queer person and how embracing our femininity can help us heal.

But first, you know the drill, let's pull the tarot card.

Tarot (2:49)

Rob Loveless

So, the card for this episode is the Knight of Wands. And Wands is the element of fire, which is representative of passion, creativity, and sexuality.

It's masculine energy, so it's action-oriented, and this is one of the court cards in the Minor Arcana. So, we're getting toward the end of the cycle in the suit of Wands.

And in tarot, knights appear on horseback, and they're representative of returning from a journey with an elemental gift or message. for us. It's number 12, which we add together.

So, one plus two equals three. And in numerology, three is tied to creativity, collaboration, and community.

And when we draw the Knight of Wands, it's telling us that we're charged up with passion and energy and that now is the time to take action on our ideas or projects.

We have a clear vision about what we want to create, so we need to have the confidence in ourselves to make those things happen. But that being said, we don't want to be impulsive.

Don't act first and think later. Instead, make sure you're focusing your energy on the tasks that will move you forward to your goal.

Guest Introduction (3:49)

Rob Loveless

So, with that in mind, let's bring on today's guest. They are a literary anthropologist specializing in the intersection of literature and culture. Please welcome Erick DuPree. Hi, Eric.

Erick DuPree

Hey. How are you?

Rob Loveless

Good, thanks. Thank you for coming on today. How are you doing?

Erick DuPree

I'm well. It's warm out again.

Rob Loveless

I know it's like snow last week, and now we feel like spring, so the weather is just all over the place.

Erick DuPree

Right.

Rob Loveless

Well, I'm very excited to have you on today to talk about concepts of masculinity and femininity, but before we get into that, can you please tell us about yourself, how you identify, your pronouns, all that fun stuff?

Erick DuPree

Sure. So, as you said, my name is Erick, and I identify as assigned male at birth, and I use he and they pronouns.

And part of my use of the they pronoun is I'm obsessed with the backlash of they in, like, popular community, singular they because it's been around since the 14th century.

So, so I use that as well as he. I identify as queer, but I'm fine if people you know, assert gay, gay, male on me. So yeah.

Rob Loveless

And I like to ask all my guests today, are you an honorary jaded or non-jaded gay, and why?

Erick DuPree

Oh, that's a great question. Um, I think that I'm an honorary jaded gay. I'm yeah, yeah.

I think that being queer, being gay is difficult, and it's not really supported in a lot of ways by society, so it's really easy to sort of just feel like in the muck about it. So that's where I'm at.

Rob Loveless

Well, hopefully, after today's conversation, we'll get some good information out into the universe and help ease the jadedness a little bit.

Erick DuPree

Of course.

Rob Loveless

Well, kicking everything off, can you tell us a little bit about your writing career?

Erick DuPree

So, when I finished my doctorate in anthropology, I moved back to the United States and did a postdoc in Boston, and I started to write a blog in like Blogger back in the day.

So, this was like 2010, 11, I'm writing this blog, and I was writing about sort of religion being queer, how we find ourselves, especially if we're fractured by faith, or feel that there's not a home for us.

Religion in the United States, typically saying, hey, come home to this experience of God or whatnot.

And I just found it a compelling question and started writing, and that writing got picked up by, you know, different outlets, and then it got opted to a site called Patheos, which is owned by, I believe now, it's a Christian organization, but they had a space for, like, paganism, spirituality, we'll call it, like the alternative religions. And I wrote for them, and it just sort of snowballed.

And then I was like, writing for lots of different places. In there, I wrote a few books on spirituality, and I never considered myself a writer until Google created a knowledge panel about me, and it was like, writer.

And I was like, oh, I guess I'm a writer and so, yeah, that's really how it started. It was very organic. I don't write fiction or poetry. Everything's expository. You know, slightly leans on the academic.

Today, these days, I have a pretty popular website, magazine, where I write, usually twice a week, on gender politics, sexuality, literature, sometimes reviewing, who knows, maybe I'll review your book.

Yeah, stuff like that. So that's my writing career in a nutshell.

Rob Loveless

And for listeners who may not know what it is, can you tell us what anthropology is and why you're so passionate about it?

Erick DuPree

Absolutely. So, anthropology is a study of culture, as opposed to archeology, which is the study of how societies come together in the past.

So, there are lots of different sub-fields of anthropology, food anthropology, literary anthropology, overarching we all get degrees in cultural anthropology, for the most part, biomedical anthropology. And the question that is sort of always asked in anthropology is, what is the impact of x in society?

How does it influence culture? How does culture influence it, and what is the lesson that we can take from it?

Most anthropologists are working in the present day, present conversation, but some anthropologists overlap with archeology in that they look at a through line from the past to the present.

So, for example, in literary anthropology, I am looking at how works create identity in the past and how those that identity is carried forward to today.

And the easiest example is happily ever after fiction, all the sequels to Jane Austen, you know all of those things like, forget that marriage politics existed, where women became property.

So, but what does that tell us as a culture today? How does that help us inform identity? So that's my anthropology answer. I never thought I'd be an anthropologist. I thought that I would be an English teacher, like millions of other gay men.

I was like, English teacher, and I was halfway through a bridged masters to PhD program where I was like, I don't like this. I don't want to. I'm not interested in teaching about you know why Shakespeare wrote what he wrote in 1609, right?

Like, I wanted to talk about what, what lesson from The Scarlet Letter can we use today, and how is our culture still creating binaries, say.

And luckily, I had a great advisor who was like, you know, that's a bridge. You know, that's more like anthropology or comparative literature, your choice, and that's how I ended up here.

And the benefit of it is, I do a lot of work around data and statistics for organizations, nonprofits, a lot about book bans right now that I wouldn't have had access to with sort of a more focused subject matter degree, like, say, PhD in British Literature.

Rob Loveless

I can tell you're, you know, big into literary just because, for listeners who you know, can't see this right now, Eric is sitting in is it a home office?

I don't know, but there's just shelves lined up with books, which I love. That's the aesthetic I'm going for in this little office I'm starting to build here.

Erick DuPree

This is, yeah, when we bought this house, it had this third floor that had two rooms. My partner was like, I think you should take one of those rooms because I'm tired of looking at your your shit, piles of books.

And this isn't even all of them, but there are many. And I, I love them. And also, I love the Kindle.

You know, no one's walking around with, you know, a tome anymore, but you can have it on your mobile device. But, yeah, this is my home office.

Rob Loveless

Well, definitely giving me a design inspo for my own office. I'm in the process where I'm recording now, I'm trying to build it out a little bit, so I have a messy bookshelf to the left over here.

But eventually, I'd like to create a room like that.

Erick DuPree

You have that great it looks like, a back wall there that could hold lots of books.

Rob Loveless

Definitely, definitely. So, it's, you know, moved into the house back in August. So, it's like you have all these ideas, but limited time and limited budget. So slowly, but surely putting the rooms together.

Erick DuPree

Agreed.

Men and the Goddess (12:02)

Rob Loveless

Well, let's dive right into Men and the Goddess, the anthropology which you had, which was published, I'm sorry, remind me of the original publication year?

Erick DuPree

Sure. So, it originally comes out in 2016 under a different title, Finding the Masculine in Goddess' Spiral: Men and Men in Ritual. Men, Community, and Ritual.

And then last year, in 2023 I, I actually I found the original manuscript, like in pages. And I was like, I think I want to touch this again.

And if anyone reads that, I in my forwarded introduction, I'm pretty, I get into all the reasons why it needed to be revised.

And so, I republish it using, you know, today's technology, on my own on Amazon, and it felt with the universe.

Rob Loveless

I loved it. It was a really fascinating read. So, for the 2016 edition, well, I've read Men and the Goddess, but for the initial 2016 edition, what inspired you to create that?

Erick DuPree

Sure, so in in and around that time, I had been writing as I talked about blogging in different sort of news magazines, etc, and I was I had published a book called Weaving Moonlight in 2014 which is all about the moon. It's very pretty.

And I was approached by a publishing company who I had submitted to other people's anthologies. So one was about trauma, one was about like race relations, and so that that group Immanion Press was really in the forefront of publishing anthologies.

And the great thing about anthology I just want to say is it gives somebody who is newer to writing a place to land. You know, it's 700 to 1500 words is a lot more manageable than, say, a whole book. And so, my contract with them was, let's talk masculinity and paganism and polytheism and Neopaganism.

And the anthology was part of it. And the second part of it was a book that never got finished, all about how men can find identity through fiction, you know, through which we'll talk about when we talk about masculinity a little bit. And so that's how it happened, and it was really organic.

I had a web page, a call to action, because I was writing in a lot of different places, and knew a lot of people. I directly reached out to people who I respected, Men and the Goddess: Finding the Masculine in Goddess' Spiral, whichever version you have, some of the most prominent men in Neopagan spirituality are in that anthology.

That's the only time that's happened, huge names like people who travel the country and the world, teaching and writing. So that's how the anthology started. Call to action, got all the submissions, collated them how I wanted them in the book, edited them, sort of, I didn't want to change people's voice and tone.

Sent it back to the publisher. The cover was designed, and off it went. And it was very popular for like, a year, which is about just, you know, the lifespan of most things in publishing.

So, it's a popular for about a year, lots of blog, radio, lots of podcasts, and stuff about it. And then I returned to the work this year, almost a decade later.

Rob Loveless

What inspired that return to it?

Erick DuPree

I found, this is so, I've never told this to anybody, and I give such a flowery answer in the anthology itself, but exclusively for you, I read a bad review. I read a review that said the content was great, but it was poorly edited, and it pissed me off.

And so, I was like, you know, maybe it does need more. And I think the subject matter isn't done enough, like men in most, you know, we'll call them, you know, Neopagan spirituality, or in mindfulness communities, or anything that's not like, say, Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Judaism, are really silenced.

They don't speak about what moves them. And so, I thought it was really important to bring it back.

The other thing I thought was important about the work was the anthology has a lot of entries about healing, about identity, and we live in a time right now where identity politics and the suppression of people is just, queer people specifically, it's like an all-time high, which is so different than when I published the original book under the Obama administration, right?

And it felt like we had just gotten marriage rights, and gay is here to stay, and nobody cares. So that's why I brought it back.

And in, bringing it back, I got a new writer, wrote a new forward for me, Mat Auryn, who was pretty, you know, well respected.

And I added some entries, and I took some entries out that I felt really looking at it, that they weren't, they just weren't right for that piece.

Rob Loveless

To your point about how now, in 2024 it seems like queer voices are being suppressed. There's I just saw in January, there was a record number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills presented.

And it really seems like the pendulum swinging backwards, almost back to, you know, the 1980s under the Reagan administration. But further, you know, to your point, you're talking about with anthropology.

You know, when you were studying, you wanted to find ways about, you know, talking about The Scarlet Letter and how concepts from that still apply today.

And I feel like, you know, centuries may pass by, but history repeats itself, which we see in literature.

Erick DuPree

We do. And, you know, I'll just say to what you just said, look at The Crucible the play by, you know, where the girls are accusing somebody of witchcraft, right?

And it's a hysteria, and at the end, you realize it's all a ruse. We're in that right now. Like, and that play by Arthur Miller is McCarthyism. So, he's talking about McCarthyism under the guise of the Salem Witch Trials.

But we're kind of in, like, a McCarthyian-esque time right now where queer people are persecuted. Drag queens can't do drag, schools are banning everything from books to going to the bathroom.

And it's so crazy to me, because while I come at the end of Gen Z and into the millennial age, it didn't it, if I thought that was repressive. I don't even know what to think of this. You know?

Navigating Masculine and Feminine Binaries in Society (19:24)

Rob Loveless

It's a scary time, so I think that's why it's, you know, now more than ever, it's important to have these queer voices out there.

These, you know, we see a lot of queer fiction, but especially having, you know, anthropologies and people present and understandably, you know, Men and the Goddess, it's not all queer writers in there.

But just having these concepts presented around identity politics, that not everything has to be so binary, there's a spectrum.

So, with that in mind, why do you think it's so challenging to navigate the hard and fast binaries of masculinity and femininity that society places upon us?

Erick DuPree

Rob, I just want you to know that could be somebody's doctoral thesis and life study and I have sat with this question since we had our initial conversation about this podcast.

For those who are listening, I think it's first important to define masculinity a little bit, and that is to say in queerness and masculinity, and specifically, it's not until the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century that we get sort of the ideal look of what masculinity as we are currently defining it today.

There's sort of an image that comes up at the when the Industrial Revolution really takes place. And in doing that, what happens is we forget that prior to that, people were out.

And so, you could be queer, you could be gay, but you're still going to get married, you're still going to have kids because that's how the proliferation of species happens.

And if you are queer and known, Oscar Wilde, for example, or any of the folk, you have a very specific look. You know, you're dandy eyes. You are highly effeminate.

But it's not prosecuted 100% in the same way that it starts to happen at the turn of that century when we sort of get this idea of like the industrialized man. And lots of writers have written about this industrialized man.

I think the how it translates today for queer folk, for queer men, is if you were raised, made fun of, mocked, beat up, called names, and not allowed to create an identity for yourself.

You are rebelling against that identity that's been put on you by sort of like finding a version of manliness, masculinity that that works for you, and because we're same sex, for many of us, there is a fetishization of what that ideal archetype looks like.

And that archetype that we as queer folk are living under starts, you know, with like Tom of Finland. It's very aggrandized, hyper-masculinized sort of concepts, huge genitalia, like all of these things. They're not new, you know, the Greek statue, or whatever, like huge it's not new, but it's definitely homoerotic.

And it parallels, I'm not sure if you know this, that work parallels with, first, the satire by The Village People of what macho looks like. And then it parallels with what is known as the mythopoetic men's movement, which isn't just gay men, it's all men who are in touch by this and you see on Instagram now all the time.

Like, let's go into the forest with no electricity, and we're gonna, like, chop some wood, and we're gonna, like, build a fire with sticks, because we're men. That literally comes from a person, Robert Bly, who wrote this book in 1990 called Iron John, and like, the Creation of the Man.

So that I'm not sure if that begins to answer your question, but we're told a story about what masculinity looks like, and for some men, that might be accurate, but for many queer people, it's just another form of assimilation to survive.

Queer Men and Societal Masculinity (23:36)

Rob Loveless

How do you see these struggles manifest in gay men?

Erick DuPree

So, I'm gonna give you a real-life example. I'll give you two. One is a couple years ago, I went on a date with this guy, and he in his profile, he like, looked like he was very muscular and he had like, a big beard, and he just had a look. And social media allows you to create sort of an identity, right?

So, we we meet, and I'm in the Starbucks, and he comes up behind me, and he goes, hey, how are you? And the voice, the voice is super low and super, like, superimposing.

But about halfway through the coffee date, the voice changes. He can't keep up the facade of, you know, top, top dom dad, or whatever he was going for, and he becomes more comfortable with me.

And so, in that comfort, he becomes disarmed. And by becoming disarmed, how he normally talks comes out. So that's one way, I think it's like, we create these proto ideas of proto masculinity, and then we we force them on ourselves to to not be something else. I'm gonna use myself.

You know, I am large. I have a big beard. I present, tattooed. I present as very masculine presenting, so I've been told, and yet, like I don't know. You hear me talk. I have a lisp, I'm high-spoken. So, it's like it's counter to what people want.

Specifically, I think that we see it also in gay men, sort of this like dichotomy of masculinity and femininity, because there is an undercurrent of misogyny in gay male culture, and that misogyny says that being effeminate is wrong, that being a bottom is wrong, that being, you know, that having a swish when you walk is wrong, or if you don't play a sport, there's something wrong with you.

And all of these wrongs all come from sort of this hyper-aggrandized idea of what a man should be, that The Village People were mocking that we see all over the 80s and 90s, with the advent of like, bodybuilding and, you know, WrestleMania and He-man, like this is what man should be.

And I'm not necessarily sure that it's authentic for either people.

Rob Loveless

As you gave that example of the person you went on a date with.

That really made me think back to the code-switching episode we had where, you know, you come off presenting, your voice might be lower than you intend to because you're meeting somebody new, and then as you get more comfortable, you might be more comfortable showing more of your natural voice or your natural mannerisms.

Erick DuPree

Absolutely, and I want to just state, I think it's important that there is nothing wrong with that, because I believe that that's a trauma response. Like, it's a trauma response.

Like you want to either, it's a survival response, a fitting-in response. Like no grown man in their 30s or 40s, wants to get called faggot on the street, you know?

And what, you know, it's so, it's, I don't see it always as toxic masculinity, as much as survival masculinity. Is it rooted in some toxic concepts? Sure, but lots of things are.

Rob Loveless

So how do you personally navigate these societal concepts of masculinity and femininity in your own identity?

Erick DuPree

So, it has taken a long, long time for me to figure that out. And I think for me, I have the privilege, and I'm really aware of this of living in, not, I don't use code-switching, but like, I don't feel like, for me, that my masculinity is ever really questioned because of how I present to the world.

Fully aware that, like, someone has like, leather drag, and I have lumberjack drag meets professor like, you know, whatever it might be.

So, for me, I haven't struggled as an older adult, but when I was younger, it was really challenging to figure out, like, how to navigate, to not be made fun of, to look more like a man.

And I did all sorts of fucked up things to make that happen, you know, from trying to talk in a different register to steroids at one point, like anything, anything to make me feel like a man.

But today, I think we have the fortune of a culture and a community of people who don't care about binaries, and are actively like breaking binaries down. And that inspires me.

Like I feel so grateful for like the queer kid who can wear a skirt to school, and this is the binary, right? I would have given anything to wear a skirt to school just to wear one because my sister wore one.

But you looking at me, probably wouldn't believe that, because of the way I look, but that's that's sort of where I'm at with it.

Rob Loveless

Going off of that, what is your own personal definition of masculinity?

Erick DuPree

Oh, Rob. Oh, man. So, this is to quote Trixie Mattel, controversial, yet brave. I don't believe masculinity exists. I believe that, you know, and the reason I say that is because no one's going around saying, what is what is femininity?

Women, generally speaking, aren't saying, Am I womanly enough for you? You know, so I think that we've created a concept of manliness of masculinity, which is why I changed the name of the anthology from masculinity to men.

And if you call yourself man, then you're a man. Like I'm not going to question you. I think, I can't deny, as a social scientist, that masculinity today is an aggrandized concept of of the brawn.

The provider, furry, muscular, siring children, being a good dad, playing ball.

Like I think those are all under the umbrella of masculinity, but I'm not sure that the kinship of that really translates when we really look at the meta of society.

I'm curious what you define masculinity as.

Rob Loveless

Sure. So, I think, in my opinion, I feel masculinity and femininity are relative terms, going back to, like, you know, how gender is a social construct, meaning, and I'm gonna get dates wrong, 'cause I'm not a historian.

But, you know, back in, you know, ancient Parisian times, it was manly to wear heels and to wear makeup. And, you know, purple and pink used to be manly colors for baptisms and this and that.

Again, don't hold me to those facts, because I know they happened somewhere in society, but I don't know exactly the cultures or the years, but that's the thing.

Now we're learning, well, you know, blue is a boy color, red is a girl color, things like that. So, I was just curious, you know, I think, the reason I asked you that question was, I think for me, I think the idea of masculinity and femininity evolves.

So, you know, it might be all right for the 1900s, this is what masculinity meant. For the 2000s, this is what masculinity means, or whatever as we see these shifts in identity politics.

And I think there's also a difference in terms of what societal masculinity is versus what it means to be, I'm trying to think of how to phrase this.

Maybe, instead of using the word masculinity, I think there's a difference between what it means to be a traditional quote-unquote man in societal concept versus what it means to be a gay man, that we have our own definition of what it means to be a man within our own community, because at the end of the day, you know, we're not women, but we are also not straight men.

So sometimes we're trying to act like something we're not. So, we're somewhere in between.

And I think we have to redefine what that own concept of what being a man or being quote-unquote masculine means for us as a gay man or as an individual person, as opposed to the societal umbrella belief.

Erick DuPree

So, I'm going to introduce you to a concept that I talk about a lot, which is culture versus community. So gay male culture might be, Hey girl, hey. Might be, you know, the dom tops in the corner of the bar that no one talks to with their baseball hat real low, like whatever it is.

That's the culture, and that culture is indicative of what we are said by media. I call it sometimes loud radio, like everything in your face.

And you know, so for me, it's like Marky Mark and then Calvin Klein ad, you know, with a giant bulge and their six pack says, that's beautiful, that's manly, that's that's something you attribute to.

And then it trickles down into little ways that people then maneuver that to themselves. Community are the is the company you keep separate from the culture and so depending on the company you keep as queer people really define, really helps define, like your own identity.

So, for gay men as a group in community, I think it's really nubile. I think it's like really nuanced, and people push and pull at what is socially acceptable, or social standards.

And the flip of that is for people who are looking at the culture of a big umbrella are seeing a shift, because, for years, it was a hard binary of masculine and feminine. You see it in apps, you know, masc for masc, no fems, no fats, like all of it.

And I think we're shifting a little bit to like those aren't terms that are appropriate to use. And I think our younger generation is sort of like holding, tethering to more fluidness and flexibility, if that makes sense.

And to your point, because I do know it is not until the 19th century that we create an idea of masculinity that is really hyper, hyperized, because throughout all of history, up until that point, plenty of cis-gendered heterosexual assuming men, you know, were bedecked in pearls and skirts and all the things that we have now deemed unmanly.

And a sign of wealth was to be corpulent because you could afford food. And now it's like, if you're not super fit, super thin with a big arms, you're like, not okay.

And I it's an interesting, it'll be curious to see when that pendulum sort of shifts back a little bit.

And I think that people like Alok and, you know, Jonathan Van Ness, like are really like pushing the boundaries of like masculinity.

Rob Loveless

I think, you know, even outside of the LGBTQ+ community, I do think we see, you know, men who aren't afraid to dress a little bit more, you know, fashionably, when maybe 10 or 15 years ago if you dressed fashionably, you're considered quote-unquote gay.

You know, I see a lot of the, you know, I'm in South Philly, so I see a lot of like, younger people out and I see a lot of these, like 20, I'd guess, 20-something-year-old guys who are partaking in fashion that the gay men I know also partake in.

So, I'm glad to see that it seems like some, you know, some barriers are being broken there, where we're allowing, you know, clothes to be fashionable without having to be gay or straight, male or female.

And hopefully, like you said, that pendulum will continue in the future where, you know, there's not such strict binaries. And, you know, it just is.

Erick DuPree

Yeah, and I, you know, it made me chuckle a little because, just now, because I was thinking, there's a period of, like, the late 90s, early aughts where metrosexual becomes a thing, and it's like, you know, you look gay, but you're not.

And it's ironic to me that, like hygiene and a pair of pants that fit are seen as queer for a period of time, and yet we have a whole genre.

I used to call it, like the structured and structural like, you know, express, like that was like the metrosexual look for, you know, for me, like, you know, flat front pants that were a little bit too small.

And now, you know, watch an episode of like, the Jersey Shore or something, and those guys are, like, dressed in skin-tight pants that look like leggings, you know.

So, I think there is a shift, and I think clothing plays a big part of it. And Tom of Finland and those creators knew this because it's something you can wear as armor.

It's something you can wear as armor, you know. So, if you put a lot of colors on, or that flannel shirt or a skirt, like it's either an armor for you or it's disarming for someone else.

Matriarchal Religion (37:15)

Rob Loveless

Going back to Men and the Goddess, throughout the anthropology, there are a lot of references to the mother and the Goddess. So, can you explain who she is?

Erick DuPree

Sure. I just have to note that I love that you can like you keep switching the word anthology and anthropology.

Rob Loveless

Oh, am I doing that? Geez, whoops.

Erick DuPree

And yeah, no. So that's a great question, and I want to preface it by saying that when I did the original call for writers, people had a real hard time defining, like, what, what that was, even people who it's part of their spirituality.

They wanted to, like, what goddess do you want me to talk about? And I'm like, just however it manifests for you. So, Goddess is an all-encompassing term for anything that is generative, creates, destroys, and recreates again.

And while different cultures throughout history have representations of the Divine female, the way that sort of earth goddess, Mother Goddess, is shaped today is typically through the lens of matriarchal prehistory, this idea that like the little Venus of Willendorf statue, like represents the fertility goddess, and therefore, you know, there's a cult of Goddess worshipers all the way back in time.

Sometimes some of that scholarship is respected in academia. Some of it's considered like hogwash. The part that's important is that in all faith-based traditions, regardless of the practice or the dog or the dogma, is finding your own reflection in the divinity.

So, Joseph Campbell once said that God, God's face with the was the face that mankind gave him, you know, so, like, that’s why Jesus is white, or, you know, Mary looks the way she does, or angels look the way they do. They're not like that in the Bible.

So, for goddess, the goddess movement comes out in the 70s. It's a direct correlation to first-wave feminism.

Women are reclaiming their identity, their sexual agency, and I think the reason that queer men identify with it is because this the women's rights, the women's liberation struggle, and the queer liberation struggle intersected a lot.

You know, feeling that you don't have autonomy or agency of your body, not feeling believed if something happens, like feeling unsafe. So, for a lot of gay men and for many women, there's that intersection.

So, The Goddess comes about, representing that virtuosity, which says you are goddess indwelling, and everything around you is the Goddess. So, it's very much community-centered and generative.

So, like I'll tell you this little story that's based in Scottish mythology that those alone, awesome, and complete within herself, God herself saw her own reflection in the abyss of black space.

In that space, she fell in love with herself and created the universe. Like that's such a beautiful creation story. Goddess sees her reflection in darkness, falls in love with herself, and manifests the universe, right?

Counter to, you know, over seven days, God creates the heaven and the earth, creates Adam, and then from Adam creates Eve, then Eve fucks up. And now we have this mess, right?

Totally different narratives. So, I think for people seeking healing and identity, that goddess piece feels really empowering to them and not punitive.

Rob Loveless

I love that. And just to make sure I have it right before we continue. So, anthropology is the profession. Anthology is the collection of work, right?

Erick DuPree

Yeah.

Rob Loveless

Okay, perfect.

Erick DuPree

I'll have it put on a t-shirt for you.

Rob Loveless

Oh, please do, I and I know when we were going over the show notes too, I'd switch them up too. It's just I, I talk too fast, so like, my mouth moves faster than my brain sometimes.

So, but, all right, anthropology and anthology, I got to get those down right. So, thank you for that explanation of, you know, mother and the Goddess.

And I think that is a really interesting concept. And I think it's interesting too, because people, again, this goes back to the binary. But people like to assert that man is so strong and this and that.

But if you think about it, especially as it relates to, you know, the goddess, like woman, is the one that carries the life, and that kind of creates life, if you think about it, and brings it into the world. And I think there's a great sense of strength with that.

So, I think it's really interesting how you talk about the juxtaposition between those religions, that kind of view the female deity versus what you can, you know, what you had mentioned, like the modern-day Christianity, of like, very patriarchal, and man is the one who creates this, and Eve is the one who messed up.

Erick DuPree

Right. And I just want to second that by saying that construct of birthing or whatnot, I want to be really clear here that every person can birth something.

You birthed this podcast, so it's not it's not gendered. We mean biological women might create children, but like all women, birth and create, all people birth and create, but not all people destroy.

And also, that same energy, that same Goddess energy that creates the sun and the stars, is the same Goddess energy that sends a tsunami because it's not about punitive; it's about regeneration.

So, when the volcano erupts and everything is destroyed, now we have this beautiful soil for something new. So that's what I mean by like that generative process that lives within all of us.

And in parts of Neopaganism, there's like a place that says that only women who were born women have access to that. And that is untrue.

And I just want to make sure that your listeners know, however, they identify, that that energy, the mythology of Goddess, is certainly part of their wheelhouse if they want.

Rob Loveless

And within Western society, religion tends to be a patriarchal construct. You know, a lot of people think of God the Father as a man, even though God has no gender.

Because, again, we're all, if you believe in Christianity, we're supposedly all born in God's image. So, if we have man and women, why can't we be both and everything in between?

You know, but in Men and the Goddess, there are a lot of references to paganism, Wicca, and witchcraft, religions that all tend to believe in a feminine mother source.

So, can you, and I think you kind of touched upon this already, but can you go a little bit further and explain and walk us through the difference between patriarchal religion and those that recognize a feminine divine?

Erick DuPree

Sure. So, I want to say that. Let me just say first, that in many Neopagan religions, Wicca, you know, whatever they might be, typically, there are two deities, so a male and a female.

One is the sustainer and one is the creator. So, in typical Neopaganism, and then going back to pre-history religions, pre-Christian religions, oftentimes the goddess births a son who becomes a god. She falls in love with the god. She sacrifices the god; she then rebirths him again.

And we see this is the Eleusinian mystery. We see it in nature. So, springtime, it's born. Summertime, it rises, fall, she kills, it. Winter, we mourn, and then she births again, and that exists in almost every culture, Rob, pre-Christianity, this sort of cycle of life.

Patriarchal religion and patriarchal religion can be anything. It doesn't have to be Christianity or Judaism or Abrahamitic, is anything that powers over, that powers over you, that says if you don't do X, Y, won't happen. If you don't submit to these binary rules, this won't happen.

So, in Christianity, if you don't believe in Jesus, get baptized, blah, blah, blah, you're not going to go to heaven. That's a power-over model.

And the Catholic Church, for example, uses it all, has used it through for millennia, but even most recently, still uses it. Like the pope recently said that you could bless a gay relationship, but you couldn't marry, because it's really murky, right? It's just power. Power and politics.

Matriarchal religions are religions that work in a circle. So, everyone has power because everyone has autonomy.

Everyone is, there's no litmus test for belief entry like God comes to you, however, you see God, that could be a male image, but the idea is that it comes to you and that all are welcome, even you, even I.

And that matri, so like matrifocally, it's not ruled. But see people think they hear the word matriarch and they think women run, or they hear patriarchy and they think male-dominated, those gender binaries have to come out. Instead, you have patriarchy, power over, matriarchy, generative.

So, anything that's generative is of the goddess say, and anything that's power over is patriarchal. So even in goddess-based theology that's very much rooted in trans-exclusive radical feminism, that's patriarchal, patriarchal.

They wouldn't like me to say that, but it is. And there are so many great Abrahamic faiths, you know, like liberal Christian faiths and Reform Judaism, where everyone is welcome at the table equally, and so that's like matrifocal. But so, I hope that answers your question.

Rob Loveless

Definitely. I think that was really informative. And that's, you know, good examples of looking at even, I, like I said that there even are some Abrahamic religions that are more liberal today, like liberal Christianity, reform Judaism, that can be inclusive spaces too.

Erick DuPree

Of course, because they've they're not sitting in the binary of a book. This is important, right? Like all, religion is a wisdom tradition from some source. Most of them are written source, right? That sadly, because of power, hasn't allowed people to adapt to the world we live in.

So, while I personally have no great desire to go to a Christian mass at St. Mark's here in Philadelphia, I have lots of gay friends that do, and they feel really loved by their minister, and they feel really held by their community, and they're not being told they're going to hell, because we don't need to talk, like we don't need that.

And so, I just want your listeners to know that both exist in the binary. Right?

Rob Loveless

With that in mind, do you believe that the feminine divine is in all of us?

Erick DuPree

Yes. So, this is the other thing that's really different between, say, Abrahamic religions and earth-based or goddess religions is one is strictly transcendent.

God above, over you. His son comes down, the Holy Spirit is in you, but God, you pray to God, right? And in pre-Christian religions and in modern Neopaganism, for the most part, Goddess is both transcendent. Gods and Goddesses are both transcendent.

They are above you in the world, and they are immanent and part of you and. So it is that part of like, everything is Goddess, everything is sacred, everything is holy, not just say the church building or the priest, or, you know, or God over here.

So yeah, and in some of my earlier writings, like for people who find it, you know, I often say, I am goddess, you are goddess. We are goddess. All is goddess.

But really what I mean in that statement, Rob, is I use goddess there because I don't want people to think of the Abrahamic God that says that if you don't follow me, you're bad.

But really you could use that word for, you could change goddess for anything generative. We are community. You are community. I am community. Community encompasses and holds everybody.

And I think that that matriarchal idea really exists, whether they know it or not, in a lot of queer and gay communal spaces.

Queer Men and Divas (50:59)

Rob Loveless

And the anthology, and I'm using the right word this time, right? Anthology?

The anthology also talks about how in the ancient world, gay men viewed Mother Goddess as the most revered being in the land.

And in modern times, gay men still seek out and worship this divine feminine, unconsciously through idolizing their pop culture icons. And that the word diva is actually Italian for female deity or goddess.

So, can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Erick DuPree

So, the I wanted to say that the anthology holds the truth for those who wrote in it. So, we have to see them as their direct experience or belief.

Objectively, there are definitely queer cults to the Goddess throughout history. So, the cult of Inanna in Sumeria, trans people were like divine, and we see that in Native American and indigenous cultures where, like the binary switch or flip is seen as a gift of the Divine.

I think today, in a Neopagan or modern world, people are finding identity in goddess through, whether they realize it or not, through an identity with the the pop icon of today.

The revered, greater than woman. Like I use an example a lot. There's a story from the Hindu tradition where the Great Mother, Durga, comes down into the city, her children have been crying for her to wipe out a demon, right?

So, she comes down, and she fights the demon, and the demon pretty much is kicking her ass, and eventually, she splits in half, and she becomes the Goddess Kali, who cuts the demon's heads off, and the war is over.

When I tell that story to a wider audience, I say, I want you to imagine Beyonce, because in, you know, pre-Christian times, Durga was seen as the most beautiful, the most amazing, the most like, it doesn't get higher than. And so, for a lot of people, that's Beyonce, maybe Madonna, but I go with Beyonce.

And so, she comes in, and she gets into formation, and she is crazy in love for everybody to make everything better. And when the demon is kicking Beyonce's ass, she becomes lemonade.

So, we're no longer up-tempo. We're now telling a different story. But people find identity in that. You know how many of I mean, I remember crying in my bed to Mariah Carey's We Belong Together about a straight man who did not love new back, right?

Because it was, I could create identity around that. And there's no place in like, say, religion, where that exists for people, especially if you're queer. You know, even in the most liberal places, there aren't a lot of examples or places to hold that.

So modern, whether it's pop or Michelle Obama, like there's so many, so many icons. Those icons transliterate into sort of a greater than, greater than, um, selfhood if that makes sense.

Rob Loveless

I love that analogy. I mean, personally, I'm a big pop culture fan, but I think it really is interesting too, because, you know, a lot within the gay community have their icons.

And I actually did an episode back in, I think, like almost two years ago now, about the emotional appeal behind pop icons, whether it be, you know, I'm too good for you or sexual liberation or heartbroken/victimhood, that you can feel a lot through them.

So, I think that analogy gave us a really great example of that.

Erick DuPree

Sure, I also think that, like, it's something that you grow up with. So earlier, we talked a little bit about how like society gives an identity of manliness, and it's like in front of you, but like society also gives you pop stars and gives you also, you know, in front of you as well.

So, when Whitney Houston died, I was at a party, and people kept saying, don't tell Erick. Don't tell Erick. Don't tell Erick. And then I hear she died; I fell down on the floor.

You would have thought my mother died, right? Like it was, like that emotional for me, not because I knew in Houston, but because all my life milestones, had a Whitney Houston song on the radio, you know.

And so, it's I you create kinship and identity there, and as gay people who don't have a lot of stories, like when I was growing up, and I'm sure for you too like boys didn't kiss on TV. You know, you didn't have love stories with men.

Please, when I found out that Doug Savant from Melrose Place wasn't really gay, devastated, because, to me, that was the only gay person I knew quote unquote, right?

And I think pop culture fills the void where, like, maybe religiosity fills the void for other people. And in the anthology, I mean, Matthew Sawicki talks about Madonna being like this liberatory creature.

Like, there's Madonna Ciccone, right? And then there's like, Madonna. You know, there's Beyonce Knowles, and then there's Beyonce. And they overlap, but they're separate.

Rob Loveless

Going off what you said with, you said with, you know, when you found out Whitney Houston died, I think it is too that, you know, they obviously, the pop girls, have their eras, and I think a lot of our milestones kind of connect that in a sense of like, you know, if somebody brings up Britney's 2016 album Glory, I can tell you where I was when that came out.

And it takes me back to where I was at around that time, the apartment I was living at, the job I was working, all those things.

Erick DuPree

And if you read Britney's memoir, it's like an access, it's almost like a Bible, or it's like an access point to like their life.

Like if you read Mariah Carey's bio, biography, like they talk about things that you you lived through, but you weren't part of, but you thought you were part of, and it creates a sense of inclusion, you know?

Whether you're a Lamb or a Little Monster or whatever it might be, right? Like it's part of, you feel part of a family that for a lot of queer people, even queer people who have loving parents, are looking for.

And that's what religion does, creates a place where people can come together to create identity, and that's what Christianity was for millennia.

Rob Loveless

And kind of shifting a little bit from that, going from, you know, Britney Spears and pop culture and all that fun stuff, although I could talk for hours about that.

Shared Struggles of Gay Men and Women (57:57)

Rob Loveless

Another thing that was brought up within the anthology, and I thought this was really interesting, was that there, there was somebody wrote about an alignment between the shared struggles that gay men share with women in reference to patriarchal society. So, can you explain that a little bit more?

Erick DuPree

Sure. You talked a little bit earlier about it, and you know to just go back to that point in the United States, queer people do not have federal protection for employment discrimination, housing discrimination, your personal county might, but overarchingly, you don't.

Our access to health care, depending on where you live, can be really scant. There are places in the United States where you can't get PrEP from your doctor because your doctor, like doesn't know what that is.

Women have that same struggle, no access to reproductive health in many states, most of them with the anti-queer bills. It wasn't until, like the 1970s a woman could have a credit card on her own or a bank account like you know. So, there's a shared struggle there.

There's also the shared struggle that both are objectified. Um, Sasha Colby, who won RuPaul's Drag Race, recently said something along the lines of the issue isn't trans women. The issue is that men are afraid that they're sexually attracted to trans women.

And I think that runs true for a lot of the anti-LGBT, anti-woman we want, the men want to have power, and they have that power because they're afraid.

Like I'm gonna I'll say this. I might not love Hillary Clinton, but I think every queer person listening to this podcast would have preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, right? Like, so it's that place where there's that intersection. It's a shared struggle.

It's also a shared struggle with People of Color who voting or just being restricted or not being allowed to, like, live your life, being patrolled by people, policed.

So that's where there's, I think, a strong overlap. And of course, historically, the woman's liberation movement and the queer liberation movement happened really in tandem with sexual liberation in general.

So, I think that's it. I also think more interpersonal depending on how you were raised and your kinship in your family, gay men have often found survival and identity with women. I don't necessarily, I think part of that has to do with it feels safe.

Mother, whether that's your best friend or your actual mother, feels safe, like there's a safety there, that you're not going to hurt me.

Like I remember being in high school and like I was friends with every popular girl, not because we always had a lot in common, but like I knew that if I was best friends with the captain of the cheerleading squad, no football player was going to beat me up. It's like a survival thing.

And I think that for queer, for straight women, who are who want to who enter queer spaces, like typically male queer spaces, they don't want to be stared at by some man or asked if to buy a drink or sexually harassed.

Like it's a, there's an overlap in how people, how we work together, and also there's a lot of misogyny in gay male culture that is not, I don't think known. I don't think it's like, I think it's like a bias. I don't think they realize it, because there is such a kinship and safety with with women.

So, it's like, it's like the person who says, like, who knows that they can fight with a certain friend, because that friend is never going to leave, you know, and get away with it.

But you know, like bitch and cunt, and certain phrases you know are, are pejorative, maybe outside the gay bar to a woman, just like faggot is pejorative for us, unless we choose differently.

So, I think it's important to also know that.

Awaken to Mindfulness (1:02:29)

Rob Loveless

And then again, kind of shifting gears a little bit, but it'll tie back in towards the end. Most recently, you published the book Awaken to Mindfulness, which I loved.

It had great instructions through it, kind of some guided meditations, journal reflection in it.

So, can you talk to us about the connection between these concepts we've talked about in Men and the Goddess and mindfulness and meditation?

Erick DuPree

Sure, so mindfulness and why I love it and why I teach it is it helps you re-access your body in a non-threatening way. Like going to the gym can be threatening for some queer folk. It brings back trauma.

It brings back different things. But in you know mindfulness, you're getting to know yourself again. That self, that God herself saw the reflection of and fell in love with, like that's the thing that mindfulness does.

It brings you back into your most authentic self. It helps you question the parts of you that might be icky and hurt, and it helps awaken you to your to a wider potential.

And as queer people who have been outcasted, shamed, barely tolerated at times, you lose your sense of identity in self. And so, what do you do? You create an identity in self that makes you feel safe.

But is that authentic? Back to the date right with the guy who had two voices, you know, or whatever it might be the code-switching.

Code-switching is really when somebody, happens because somebody can't find needs to find safety, so they code switch, or they code switch because they don't have a clear sense of self.

And mindfulness is a way to get that clear sense of self without religion, without a patriarchal God or whatever, saying you have to contrive to this.

And of course, I always feel that for queer folk, if you're doing the mindfulness, some psychotherapy probably would help. You know, they kind of all dovetail together.

Rob Loveless

Definitely, I'm a firm believer in therapy, too, on top of that. I do a little bit of everything: I go to therapy, I do my tarot on the side, I go to church, I do the mindfulness. So, I like a good blend there, you know.

Queer Men Embracing Authenticity (1:04:45)

Rob Loveless

And then why, why do you think gay men should embrace their femininity?

Erick DuPree

So, kudos and shoutouts to all the gay men who do. You know, I want to like to state that, you know, and I think that they should first, I think the value is we have to stop seeing femininity as a ball gown or Barbie doll, right?

Those are just tools. Femininity is how or Goddess energy, or whatever you want to call it, is just your generative self, the part of you that can be expansive and not contracted.

The part of you that can make space for people who look different, who act different, who are walking in the world differently.

And that doesn't necessarily mean that they're walking in like a gender, nonbinary way. They just aren't the same as you.

Like, how often do you go to a gay bar, and everybody's coupled in sets that look like them? You know, it's like, the bears are in one corner, your your twinks are in another.

Everyone's on their phone, you know, on their Sniffies, or whatever it's called, looking for a good time. And it's like, look at the room and so that, I think, is that's a generative part of femininity.

Patriarchy tells us that we have to shut ourselves down and be in our box with the people who look like us, act like us, believe like us, are us. You know what that sounds like.

The feminine part says, be expansive, be open, create relationships with all people. They don't have to be the most intimate relationships, but they certainly, you know, can expand who you are. And when we create expansion, Rob, we're generating something new.

Like queer people, queer culture should not be segregated, and it is in some, in some ways. Masculine, butch, not butch, have money, don't have money.

A matrifocal way, a feminist way, is to be intersectional, that we all belong here because we all have the same struggle.

Rob Loveless

How can we as gay men quote unquote seek out the goddess to better embrace our femininity?

Erick DuPree

Yeah, so I want to say, let's say I want to change that question from femininity to authentic self because we're both. We're both masculine, like both live in every person, right, whether you, whether it's super outward or not, like both are in you.

Meditation is a great way to engage with the divine feminine, creating intimate relationships with people. Like I totally get like this, the use of the apps for sex and all of that, but intimacy is a feminine, is like feminine.

Being able to have eye contact with people, walk across the bar and talk to someone you don't know. I think those are, like easy ways, and I think in a wider way, in our culture, how are you interacting with minorities?

Whether that's queer minority, racial minority, socio-economic minority. It doesn't have to be a lot, a radical change. A little bit, often equals a lot.

So, it might just simply be that you're going to read a book by a trans or nonbinary writer, and just by reading that book, you're hearing their truth, even through a different lens. So, I always say the first thing is to create, be open to space.

Be open to self-intimacy with yourself, and to consider expanding how you interact in your community. All of that's honest, all of that's generative. I think that's what I have to say on it, which I'm not sure answers the question, because I know people love a bullet point list and, and also a bullet point list is patriarchal.

It's like, this is what you must do, and I don't know what that is. Everyone is different. And I also think that everyone has the opportunity to come into themselves a community with more openness.

Rob Loveless

And our authentic selves looks differently for every person. So, there's not like you said the bulleted list of follow these instructions to do it.

You need to look within to see what resonates with you, and, you know, figure out that action for yourself.

Erick DuPree

Right, and if looking within feels like you know, whatever the archetype of masculinity is, rock on.

Like I empower that, and I respect that. I want to make sure your listeners know it's not a it's not like, oh, you know, going out into the woods or fishing, or, you know, chopping wood, or looking like whatever, or, you know, being on trend and changing your body, like if that's who you are and that's your authentic truth.

Yes. Great. We need that. The mountain is masculine. It doesn't ask permission to take up space. It just does.

And also, don't shut yourself out from the rest of it, because, and this is uncomfortable for some gay men, it is the person on the furthest fringe, Alok, Jonathan Van Ness, the gay guy at your bar that can't code switch, those are the people who make it, who are on the front line, for folk like me, who could, you know, walk through society with very little question.

And like integration through that is like the Divine Feminine.

Rob Loveless

Kind of tying everything up, how can the Goddess and the divine feminine and embracing our authentic selves help us, as gay men, to heal?

Erick DuPree

I've thought about this question a lot since I saw that we did like the questions, and I think the first place it could help us heal is it gives us permission.

So, in goddess-based spirituality, and I actually write about this in the book, the mindfulness book, but I don't tell you where it comes from. I just give it as like wisdom is the idea of permission to dare and empowered surrender.

You know, like queer people, gay people you know, depending on your generation, haven't been afforded a lot of opportunities to dare. You know, not to be somber, but there's a whole generation of gay men who aren't even here because of AIDS.

They weren't given the permission to dare or the empowered surrender, right? They were just obliterated. They are a queer man who never imagined that they could be married, so it wasn't real for them. So, if we give ourselves permission to dare to be more, we will become more.

And if we give ourselves the ability to surrender a little bit like the hard binaries, like no fats, no fems, no Asians, twinks with twinks, muscle bear, muscle bear, like that, segregating part, that power part, we can give ourselves permission to really find identity in self.

And if you really like mythology and story, there are so many great books, you know, about that, about how the goddess transforms, or how that you can learn from. Like all, all of it's wisdom that you have to give yourself permission to step into.

And I don't want to sound, you know, altruistic or like fairy tale make-believe, you know, for people. I just think compassion in the struggle is needed, you know. And in patriarchy, compassion is seen as a weakness.

Like, if you're a gay man who hasn't given yourself permission to cry, and there are lots of gay men who haven't for whatever. How you were raised, people who died that you knew, because you're afraid to quote break, a good therapist, and permission to like be in that space of vulnerability.

Our culture gives certain words, gender, vulnerability, crying, are all seen as feminine, but they're not. They're human.

I think for gay men who are shut, who have shut themselves off or put themselves in a tight box, that box feels safe, give permission to, like, just work a little bit out of that box.

Rob Loveless

Definitely, because, again, like we kind of talked about earlier on, the box we're put in, there's not really. There's not one way to be gay, just like there's not one way to be straight.

So, you know, whatever boxes are placed on us, we need to kind of find ways to break out of that if that does not feel natural or in alignment with our authentic selves.

Erick DuPree

There is a great book called The Four Agreements, and in that book, you're creating these agreements for yourself.

But the very first one is, what he talks about is you were not given a choice of the box you were put in when you were born.

The box or label that your parents put on you, that your school put on you, that society puts on you. So how do you create new agreements for yourself where you're giving yourself permission to let go of things you didn't ask for?

How many gay men were told they were gay by bullies at school before they even knew what gay was? You know, like so many, and when we want, when we start to break that down, or, you know, examine that and give permission to examine that, you can expand.

And and going back like matriarchal is about expansion. Goddess is about expansion. It's about dissolution and expansion.

Rob Loveless

I love that. And there's been a lot of good information in this episode.

So, kind of just closing it out, what, what piece of advice would you have for gay men out there who may be resistant to embracing their authentic self, if it includes pieces of femininity?

Erick DuPree

This is tongue-in-cheek, but I don't add to it. But if you've never bottomed, bottom. That's one of the places where gay men, like we have these, like these binaries, right?

In a way that feels safe and supportive for you. I think the one thing, even if, in your investigation of self, you don't do anything with it, you you know, you still walk the world the same way, love yourself.

Our world isn't nice right now. You know there are bills all over to annihilate our rights. Other parts of the world, there are whole populations that we're not welcome.

So, if nothing else, like love yourself. And to quote one of the greatest feminists of all time, Jesus, love the person next to you. And I know that's hard, and also like not as hard as I think we think it is.

So that's, that's, I think that's my, my final answer.

Rob Loveless

I love that. We could all use a little bit more kindness in this world.

Erick DuPree

Yeah, absolutely. And don't see it as weakness. See it as expansion.

Episode Closing (1:16:43)

Rob Loveless

And tying it back to the tarot, Knight of Wands. Again, this card is letting us know that we have a clear vision about what we want to create.

And when we talk about that, I think it's talking about what we want to create within ourselves, the person we want to be. We have the confidence looking inward to know who we are.

And while it can seem overwhelming to really kind of form your sense of self, it doesn't have to be. You don't have to have it all figured out overnight.

Like the card says, focus on the tasks that lead up to the bigger picture.

So, look within to really identify who you are, what you feel, and take those steps, and even if they're baby steps at first, that's fine, but take those steps to start leading yourself to actually living out a more authentic life.

Connect with Erick (1:17:22)

Rob Loveless

Well, Erick, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been super enlightening. I've had so much fun talking about this.

You know, for all our listeners out there, can you please plug all the things, tell them where they can find you, where they can learn more about your books, the anthology Men and the Goddess?

Erick DuPree

Yeah, sure. So, I have a, you know, website. It's erickdupree.net and that's all of my writing and links to like the books that I've written and invitations to different things that are coming up.

There'll probably be another anthology this year because I really like doing it, but not focusing so much on the goddess, but focusing on queer identity.

And then I'm on Instagram @likeatolstoynovel, because I'm nerdy, and so either of those places are good.

And you know, I love a DM, so if you have questions about this or want more information, please feel free to find me, and I will happily share what I know or connect you with others.

Rob Loveless

Awesome. Well, I will definitely be looking out for the new anthology. I think that's going to be really interesting, and maybe we'll have you on for a follow-up to talk about that one too.

Erick DuPree

Maybe you'll write something for it.

Rob Loveless

Ooh, that'd be interesting. I've never really done nonfiction too much, but I'm always down for that.

Erick DuPree

That's why an editor helps you. But, yeah.

Rob Loveless

Perfect.

Erick DuPree

All right.

Rob Loveless

Awesome. Well, thanks again, Erick. For everybody listening, go check out Men and the Goddess, Awaken to Mindfulness.

Follow Erick on Instagram. Check out the website. It's all really good stuff, important information we should all be reading about.

Connect with A Jaded Gay (1:18:57)

Rob Loveless

For the podcast, you know the drill. Any questions, you can reach out to me rob@ajadedgay.com.

You can follow the podcast on Instagram, TikTok, SoundCloud, and YouTube @ajadedgaypod. You can follow me personally, Rob Loveless, at Instagram @rob_loveless.

Don't forget to check out the website for more information on episodes, guests, resources, and our merchandise. That is ajadedgay.com.

And remember: every day is all we have, so you got to make your own happiness.

Mmm-bye.