In this day of increasing specialization, David Deida is a bit of
a renaissance man, at least with regard to a man's perspective on
gender issues. Leader par excellence of workshops to help men and
women understand each other better, he has written a flurry of
books over the last few years on a variety of topics related to
masculinity including sacred sex, spirituality, and a superb guide
for men to understanding women and femininity (The Way of the
Superior Man).
Prior to publishing the popular Way of the Superior Man, Deida also
penned an inverse book of sorts: a guide for women to understanding
men and masculinity. It's A Guy Thing manages to play both sides
of the fence very well. At first, if anything, the book's format
may put some potential readers off as almost too appealing: catchy
title, cover littered with "guy things" such as a TV remote control
and a fish hanging from a lure, chapters all between one and two
pages in length, each beginning with an attention-attracting
question: Why are men often hostile toward professional women? Are
all men obsessed with something other than intimacy? Why do I
always get involved with a man who can't give me what I want?
But you should not be deceived by its slick presentation. This
book has a lot of wisdom in it. It is written for women, but
anyone can learn from it. It's a Guy Thing deals very effectively
with some complex matters while managing to entertain and amuse.
Deida is clear that the masculine (not necessarily, but usually,
predominant in males) and the feminine (not necessarily, but
usually, predominant in females) are both wonderful and yet are
very different. Men tend to have achievement external to their
relationship as their mission or highest priority, while women tend
to place family and partnership as their most important pursuits.
>From this simple fact comes much tension and misunderstanding
between the sexes. And also much delicious polarity.
Deida shows us the wondrous differences between the masculine and
feminine versions of love and vulnerability. Women's greatest
gift, he says, is radiance, while men's is force or commitment.
The author has a lot to say about polarity. He says relationships
can work where the woman occupies the masculine polarity more and
the male lies more in the feminine region, but this is rare. More
common and more problematic is the situation where men or women
stop fully embracing their deep essential natures. For example, a
fundamentally feminine woman puts her career before relationships,
thereby deadening her feminine energy. A loss of polarity may
result and ultimately the relationship can turn dead from the
inside out. Similar results ensue when a man loses touch with his
masculine essence due to his fears of being judged negatively for
tenaciously following his mission or for ravishing "his woman" (as
Deida fearlessly and repeatedly phrases it).
Deida torpedoes numerous sacred cows, demonstrating through his
direction and courage the commitment he hoes that every man may
find or hold to in his life. Deida is clear that men and women in
relationship need to have boundaries and get over the idea that we
should be able to tell our partner anything. Partnership, he tells
us, operates on a different wavelength than friendship; chit chat
does not promote love. Nor is our current preoccupation with
equality necessarily wise; fairness is not always best! He
encourages both men and women to know their bottom line issues in
relationship.
Even the near absence of a discussion of men's rights issues from
this book cannot much diminish my admiration for it, especially as
very little space is devoted to women's claims either. This book
operates on a different and I would say higher plane, working to
join the sexes in a place beyond and before divisive politics.
The aphorisms fly fast and furious. Men typically speak from
either their navel ("their doing center") or their head ("their
thinking center") while women speak from their chest area ("their
emotional center"). Just as most women will say anything when
moved by their emotions, most men will say anything when moved by
their mission. The culture embraces women's primary sexual
fantasy, marriage, but deprives most men of theirs, sex with a
variety of attractive partners.
Practical information appears everywhere, too. Deida gives examples
of how a man can invite a woman to an event in a way likely to
actually convince her to go. He then turns around and tells women
how to convince men to do something; the strategies are
intriguingly distinct.
Deida urges us to love despite our fear, despite the impermanence
of it all. Sounding like a mystic, he writes, "The knowledge of
death in the midst of love is a kind of crucifixion... You fall in
love with people who are all in the process of dying." David Deida
has achieved something truly wonderful, writing a book so ordinary
that it is extraordinary, a book that manages to be accessibly
profound and profoundly accessible. Don't miss it. It's a guy
thing.
