Balderdash and poppycock!

Earlier this month, the American Psychological Association (APA) announced that for the first time ever, it’s releasing guidelines to help psychologists work with men and boys.

Its concern is that there’s something wrong with men because they commit 90 percent of the homicides in the United States and represent 77 percent of homicide victims.  They tell us we’re more likely to be victimized by violent crime and 3.5 times more likely than our lady counterparts to die by suicide. 

And, if that’s not enough, we’re told our average life expectancy is almost 5 years less than women.  The APA’s litany goes on and on, but I’ll spare you of the statistical details.

Now, no thanks to these new APA guidelines, the psychologists of the world whose mission it is to tell us men that we’re all nuts, will also be teaching that traditional masculinity is, for the most part, harmful.  Men socialized in this way, we’ll be told, are less likely to engage in healthy behaviors.

Quick to drink this Kool-Aid was Proctor and Gamble, an American multi-national consumer goods corporation founded by traditional men and whose products include the Gillette brand traditionally-masculine shaving creams and razors marketed towards young men wanting to be traditionally-masculine, and older traditionally-masculine men.

Thirty years ago, Gillette introduced its popular tagline, “The best a man can get” which it defined as an inspirational statement reflecting standards that many men strive to achieve. 

Now, Proctor and Gamble, and I’m sure others to follow, has not so cleverly yet sublimely given a two-thumbs down to traditionally masculinity, doing it slyly with its own descriptive tagline of “toxic masculinity.”

It’s a misguided attempt destined to fail that will fall upon deaf ears of most middle-aged men in America and around the world who have a correct understanding of traditional masculinity and what it means to be a traditional man.

America was made great thanks to traditional masculinity and traditional men who exhibited this time-tested and desirous virtue.  And, collectively, we traditionally masculine men will make America great again.  It’s what we want for our sons and our grandsons and succeeding generations of males to be born that we’ll never know.

Well thanks APA, for letting this middle-age man know what you think about traditional masculinity.  As ambassador of all middle-aged man around the world, the Pierini Fitness gut reaction response to your guidelines and new mission is thanks but no thanks.

APA’s guidelines aren’t relevant to the middle-aged men of Pierini Fitness, traditionally masculine men who think before acting, and are constantly reflecting about living and dying, gracefully-aging and trying our best to live good and honest lives.

Therefore, there are two words that best describe what we collectively think about this new APA nonsense.   

Balderdash and poppycock! 

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum