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This article is great news! A man's emotional pain is usually taboo in our culture (and the Australian culture also) and is expected to be hidden away. A woman's emotional pain OTOH gets every clinic and service imaginable, gets feature articles in the style section about her pain and those who are dedicated to help, and is the interest of the family and friends to insure she is okay. I work with grief and trauma and can tell you that after a man's child dies one of the most frequent questions he gets is "How's your wife?" A part of this is that people don't know how to talk to men about their pain (as a result of lack of practice along with the taboo) and don't want to embarrass them...but another part is simply that a man's pain is taboo. How many feature articles have you seen that focus on the man's emotional pain following a loss or trauma? How many for women? Duh.
Go Australia! Glad to hear that it is popular and that the popularity has now gotten them more $. Watch as their suicide rate starts to decline.
Great news! I'd love for us to get something like that going for the US.
Stand Your Ground Forum
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We should try to get this story published in the U.S. There are few who realize, and many who choose to ignore, the fact that men need help too; they just choose to solicit that help in slightly different ways than women.
My point is that there definitely IS an underlying demand for these services for men while the mental health community in this country dismisses it because no one is walking into their offices. Whatever their level of misandry, their position is validated. The experience in Australia proves different.
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by Anonymous User on Friday November 01, @11:37AM EST (#3)
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My point is that there definitely IS an underlying demand for these services for men while the mental health community in this country dismisses it because no one is walking into their offices. Whatever their level of misandry, their position is validated. The experience in Australia proves different.
I think you are absolutely correct, frank h. Many of the Australian men obviously did not want to come forward in a way that would reveal their identities, so I think anonymous phone call (or Internet even) services for men are a great thing.
What I have thought about doing is setting up a *completely* anonymous (to all the users and counsellors, of course) Web community where men can go and actually chat one-on-one (no public forum for counselling, although maybe a public forum for just bullshitting) with live counsellors via a Web browser. Those counsellors could take people from all over the world (I would want to provide counsellors who could speak several languages, though).
Does anyone else think this is a good idea or am I just dreaming?
Jack Implant
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I think this is a great idea. The cost would be a challenge, though. No government would fund it, except maybe one of the more egalitarian Islamic governments. The rest are entirely too enthralled with the notion of woman-as-victim/man-as-killer.
I could envision, though, a center for the counslors operating in each time zone, on the Internet, as you suggest, with multi-lingual capability. Counselors wouldn't even need to leave their homes, and the up side of this is that you get more volunteers.
Needs more thought, though. I could imagine the services being swamped by pranksters, feminists among them. Perhaps it could require some disclosure of location, which could be correlated with sourcing IP address. Hmmmm...
Good idea, though. Has real merit, and seems achievable!
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by Anonymous User on Friday November 01, @12:44PM EST (#5)
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I could envision, though, a center for the counslors operating in each time zone, on the Internet, as you suggest, with multi-lingual capability. Counselors wouldn't even need to leave their homes, and the up side of this is that you get more volunteers.
This is exactly what I was thinking. Funding would certainly be a problem, but with people able to do this work from their homes, we might have more people willing to just volunteer time.
You are absolutely right that it needs more thought, though. I will work on it.
Jack Implant
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This is an interesting idea. Please keep us posted on the work that you are doing and on the progress that you are making.
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Im not sure if an internet version is a good idea, but it certainly will reach some men and show the need for it to build. Just a thought.
Btw does anyone know what the crux of the calls are about? Does there seem to be a 'main theme' to most of the calls. Do they break up into catagories?
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Dan Lynch
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by Anonymous User on Friday November 01, @04:14PM EST (#8)
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Btw does anyone know what the crux of the calls are about? Does there seem to be a 'main theme' to most of the calls. Do they break up into catagories?
The Age article describes some of what most of the calls are about. Suicidals apparently get different counselors than people who are just calling because they are depressed about family break-ups and things like that. I imagine they take all kinds of calls, though.
What I may do is try to get in touch with one of the sources in that article and find out exactly how they work their service before proceeding any further.
Jack Implant
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"What I may do is try to get in touch with one of the sources in that article and find out exactly how they work their service before proceeding any further."
Wow!! Great work, Jack.
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Dan Lynch
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What I may do is try to get in touch with one of the sources in that article and find out exactly how they work their service before proceeding any further.
After you find them, please let us know their contact info (email address, phone number, whatever). I, for one, would like to thank them.
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by Anonymous User on Friday November 01, @05:17PM EST (#11)
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Wow!! Great work, Jack.
No need for compliments. I am just doing research for the moment and I have no idea if any of this is a viable solution, or if I can even get off the ground with it. I am a behind-the-scenes type most of the time and I am actually a little uncomfortable posting these things in public. If I can get in touch with the Australia people I will do as Thomas suggested and post some contact information here though. I know there are others who would like to communicate with them.
Jack Implant
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Hi Tom - here is there web address - http://www.menslineaus.org.au/
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by Anonymous User on Friday November 01, @08:37PM EST (#13)
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As an Australian, heavily involved in Men's Work and acquainted with some of the people in Mensline, let me add a few points.
First, most of the counsellors involved on Mensline are women! Imagine men staffing any of the several helplines available in this country for women! The good news is that there is some effort being made to encourage more men to volunteer for counselling duties. (See below for more detail.)
Second, much (though not all) of the lengthy training and supervision of volunteer counsellors is conducted by women. Often a 'feminist critique of masculinity' is apparent.
Third, most calls to Mensline are from men who phone in during work hours. These are the hours when most of the on-duty counsellors are women because the men who are potential volunteer cousellors have to earn a living during those hours to support their wives and children.
Fourth, unlike the dozens of similar services in this country, volunteer counsellors have to pay for their training! Granted, this training counts as a unit towards a tertiary qualification, but maybe men need to be valued a bit more??
Fifth, it is, nevertheless, a wonderful break- through. Much excellent work is being done by some marvellous men and women, though it is clearly just scratching the surface.
Sixth, like many of these initiatives for men, there seems to be an underlying implication that men need 'fixing', rather than 'support'... or am I being too cynical? Perhaps I am :-(
Chas
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by Anonymous User on Friday November 01, @09:17PM EST (#14)
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Jack Implant suggested:
"Many of the Australian men obviously did
not want to come forward in a way that would
reveal their identities, so I think anonymous
phone call (or Internet even) services for men
are a great thing."
The need for anonymity is a very powerful thing, for many men, as I have found over the past three years of running a web-based group.
Jack then suggests:
".... setting up a *completely* anonymous
(to all the users and counsellors, of course)
Web community where men can go and actually
chat one-on-one (no public forum for
counselling, although maybe a public forum for
just bullshitting) with live counsellors via a
Web browser."
This sort of thing is already present on the web, though not to the sophisticated level or extent that Jack is proposing. At least, as far as I am aware.
For example, I have been running, on an entirely voluntary basis over the past three years, an e-group for same-sex attracted married/de facto men in my home city, Melbourne, Australia.
Pornography is forbidden, the group is NOT a dating service, nor is it a "Personals" facility. The use of an alias is advised, and so is a web-based e-mail address unique to membership of our group.
The group is strictly limited to my home state, with some exceptions for men in remote locations in adjacent states e.g. Tasmania. This geographical restriction encourages a deepening of a sense of community. This is especially important when some men begin to feel sufficiently empowered to emerge from anonymity and make contact with the friends they have long sought after.
The group explores any and every topic of concern to married bisexual men and also a few gay married men who have joined. Those topics include, to name a few recent threads, parenting, coming out, raising sons, definitions of bisexuality, STDs, circumcision, loneliness (especially for a bisexual man), seeking safe sexual contact with other men, separate identity from the gay community, isolation of rural bisexual men .... You name it, and it will be discussed.
Current membership runs at about 160 men, though about 350 have passed through it over time.
I am also aware that there are similar groups run by men, for men, in the US and other countries... and they can be found on the net, if you can negotiate your way around Yahoo!Group's censorship.
The major thing about such groups is that they provide a forum where men can *safely* explore the things they want to explore without being berated, demeaned, diminished, ignored or laughed at.
I have found that some men never post a message. Many just don't have the words to do so. However, in this kind of environment, those men who do have the gift of writing seem to enunciate the issues for those men who cannot do it for themselves.
There is also a kind of "permission-giving" evident in this "safe space". That is, many men feel able, at last, to open up when they can see other men sharing their intimate details and vulnerabilities.
A spin off is that many of these men then go on to meet each other in real life and form impressively supportive friendships and mostly this is non-sexual in nature. Sometimes sexual contact is made but the priority is the safe development of community.
It also keeps many of them out of bath houses and the beats... and that is a public health spin off.
I am willing to be contacted privately for any further discussion.
Chas
(In Melbourne)
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