I Rattled the Cage
In the past 3 years I have shared over 500 posts and somehow I have never, not once, gotten a single negative comment.
Not until very recently.
(I am 100% sure people had plenty of negative thoughts about my content, but not to the point of actually publicly sharing them.)
Well, I received my first negative comment from a stranger.
Shortly after, I received 2 more. But these ones came from close family.
All 3 negative comments were about my SoftMen posts.
Many of you have asked for an update on my SoftMen project. The truth is, I have lots of photos and writing to share, but I have been scared to do so.
It was the beginning of a downward spiral. I couldn’t understand what had happened. Why was I so fragile? I had hundreds of positive responses and only 3 negative comments and all of the sudden, all my forward moving energy came to a halt.
Then after a few deep meditations and lots of journalling I realized what had happened.
Sharing photos of amazing and beautiful humans is tough to publicly disagree with. But much of the SoftMen content is inherently different than my photography business content. SoftMen brings up a lot of hidden fear that sits right under our societal masks of progressiveness. People still equate softness to weakness, people still have dormant homophobia, people still have fear of rattling the cage.
There are a lot of potential areas of tension and conflict. There is a lot of new territory and new learning for me, which means I will likely stumble and trip several times. I will look like a fool and make mistakes, but if that means I can get closer to creating a space to support and celebrate amazing, kind, generous, beautiful and powerful men, then so be it.
The level of support for me and this project has blown me away. Thank you for caring so much, and for not letting me hide.
It’s time to continue sharing SoftMen photos, writings, podcasts and videos. Next week I will share with you some amazing photos I took of my dear friend Micha Edwards. (Here’s a sneak peek of 3 photos.) Follow the link below for the naked SoftMen podcast Micah and I recorded a few days prior to our photoshoot.
PODCAST LINK → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsKHMFPLbVg&feature=youtu.be
If you like the podcast and would like to support the SoftMen project please hit Subscribe on the YouTube link.
If you’d like to be one of the SoftMen or know of a SoftMan that would be perfect for this project please visit www.softmen.art to apply.
