Johnology

The long awaited blog on my session on "Johnology". Not really awaited by anyone other than myself, and maybe to some degree blogs are used for self-processing more than they are not. Individuals are welcome to read the many things that are processed, but none the less I feel as though I gain the most from these posts :) So for entirely selfish reasons without further a due I give you.....Johnology.

What the hell is that? Well for starters (imagine myself switching to an English accent....One always sounds much more educated when they speak with a British accent) Johnology is the study of Johns, men who use prostitutes (imagine myself switching back to normal voice here and lowering tone with much seriousness).

Most people think John's are disgusting scums of the earth who deserve nothing more than to be castrated and thrown into some sort of eternal destruction where they are castrated over and over for the rest of their lives....add some flesh eating disease onto that and the constant itching and thirst quenching feeling you get in your throat and I think we would have what they deserve. Or so I thought.....

Perhaps I am going soft in my old age, perhaps coming out of the relationship I was just in taught me many things I had not known about the male realm of this world. If I was to further myself in grace and love than in my opinion the lessons that one must go through though painful were worth more than gold.

The individual who spoke on John's was a male and hats off to him for entering into a room full of about 21 street workers and 10 staff all entirely female. The girls mocked him at first making calls out to him. He stopped then and politely asked what they thought about him because he was a male. The answer was clear "you are slime, and you only want one thing". He asked for a bit of grace and began by telling the women that only 15% of males in our society will actually use a prostitute. That leaves an entire 85% of men that don't use prostitutes. He then used the ice berg analogy. With an ice-berg you only see about 15% of what is actually the entire ice-berg. The rest is covered with water. Men are the same. He then began to talk about what men are suppose to be in our world. So the usual came up: strong, independent, in control, providers, not emotional etc... We are all familiar with these stereotypes. But do we actually know how detrimental these stereotypes are? Many of the men that use prostitutes were sexually abused when they were young as well. Many of them feel emasculated by the world around them. Lets face it most men don't feel strong (i don't just mean physically either here), independent, in control and many can not or fail to provide solely for their families and many are very emotional and yet there is no one to show that emotion too. So instead of being able to ask for help (which is not an option when you are a man) they turn to the few things that they can control. Unfortunately in our society this means sexual things. Can we blame men for this? Look at what the media tells men they are suppose to be? Powerful, especially when it comes to sexuality. Most the time what men really need is just to be held, rocked and told that it is all going to be o.k. But because they can't do this, they turn to their sexuality the one place in which perhaps they still find a bit of comfort and control. It all begins with sexual fantasies and in the end it is sexual fantasies which ends up killing the women. The sexual fantasies express themselves through masturbation. Soon this is not enough, something with a bit more kick is needed so the individual turns to porn. This is still the one area that he can control. Sooner or later porn is not enough, he wants something more. This is where you get what the girls call "circle jock". These are the men that just circle around the prostitute (a live woman now) and imagine in their heads what they can do with her. It usually takes hundreds of times for the men to circle etc... before they actually work up the courage to talk to a girl.

One of the main things we wanted for the girls in this weekend was to keep them safe. Some of these men feel so out of control and hate themselves so much that their sexual fantasies are quite dark and destructive. The girls had many stories of men who had tried to harm them in more ways than one. He told the girls to ask the guys next time they go to pick them up what they want them to do, and if they ever felt unsafe doing any of those things that they had a right to say no.

Back to the guys....so why are most of them married? Well because what better place for a man to feel utterly humiliated and out of control and emasculated than by a partner? His sexuality is something only he can control, and the sexual fantasies that perhaps he secretly wanted he could never ask his partner to do.

So who is to blame? Society, media, men, women, and above all our inability to be safe places for each other once again. Stereotypes need to be broken down..and honesty about issues needs to be talked about willingly. People are dying, we need to pay attention to how our actions perpetuate this cycle. Loose the stereotypes people, and have a little more grace for individuals who feel totally out of control.

I know this was a hard read...thank you for allowing me to process my thoughts.