Original subtitles

Hello and welcome to the 2021 Bronx Book Festival. My name is Leah Clark. My pronouns are she

and her and I am on the Bronx Book Festival Kid Lit team and I'm thrilled to be introducing

this panel. You're listening to Man Enough: Exploring and Challenging Toxic Masculinity

which will be moderated by Adib Khorram. Adib Khorram lives in Kansas City, Missouri. When

he isn't writing or at his day job as a graphic designer, you can probably find him trying to get

his 100 yard freestyle under a minute, learning to do a Lutz jump or steeping a cup of oolong.

His debut novel, Darius the Great Is Not Okay, earned several awards, including the William C.

Morris Debut Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature, and a Boston

Globe-Horn Book Honor. And now I'm going to turn it over to Adib to introduce our other panelists.

Hello, hello. Welcome uh I'm Adib and I am so excited to introduce our panel uh. First up,

we have Jonny Garza Villa, uh. is a product of the great state of Texas, born and raised along

the Gulf Coast, and a decade-long resident of San Antonio. They are a Sagittarius sun, Capricorn

everything else, oh that's intense, and an earth bender and an author of young adult contemporary

literature that takes inspiration from their own Chicanx and Tejanx and queer identities.

The multiple star reviewed Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun is their debut novel. You can find

them on Twitter, Instagram and their website jonnygarzavilla.com. Welcome, Jonny. Next we have

next we have Ben Philippe. Ben is a New York-based writer and screenwriter,

born in Haiti and raised in Montreal, Canada. He has a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University

and an MFA in fiction and screenwriting from the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, Texas.

He is the author of the William C. Morris Award-winning novel The Field

Guide to the North American Teenager and Charming as a Verb. Sure, I'll Be Your Black

Friend is his first book of nonfiction. You can find him online at benphilippe.com. Welcome, Ben.

Uh well I'm so excited for us to talk all things masculinity today, um but first uh for those out

in the audience who uh are unfamiliar with your work, can you give us like a quick

rundown of your uh of your most recent or most upcoming uh book? Ben, why don't we start with

you? You're on my left. Sure uh you just I realize I gave you my full bio so you just read it for me,

but um my latest book is my first foray into adult non-fiction, um. I'm that obnoxious person that at

age 32 decided to like write a memoir having experienced very little, um. Yeah it's just a

collection of sort of uh conversations and essays about sort of growing up as a Black man in Haiti,

Canada and the United States. That's about it these days. That's awesome. How about you, Jonny?

Yeah, so um my debut novel Fifteen Hundred Miles From the Sun, which looks like this, um is about

Corpus Christi, Texas high school senior Julián, aka Jules Luna, um who accidentally comes out as

gay on Twitter whenever he gets tremendously drunk at a party. And in the days and weeks and months

that follow, Jules will discover all of the good that happens whenever we're allowing ourselves to

live our most authentic lives, like getting a DM from his long-distance Twitter crush. But also

the bad, like figuring out if when and how uh he comes out to his very much peaceful father.

Um that's so delightful and as of this recording it comes out on Tuesday,

but I think it will in fact be out by the time the balloon goes up on this. That is

wild. Right that's so exciting um. Well let's dive right in, uh. I'm actually

really curious uh kind of how you both came to the concern of addressing masculinity in your writing.

Was it um was it deliberate, something that you were thinking about, or what did it just kind of

dovetail organically with your like primary concern?

Oh I should pick someone. Jonny, you go first. Okay um I I feel like kind of both

um. I definitely write with the intention of highlighting, you know, like the good and the

beautiful about like the Chicanx and the Tejanx community, but I also wanted to highlight the

sort of problematic environments that a lot of people are put into primarily because of

machismo and hyper-masculine culture that's pretty prevalent in Mexican-American communities.

And just from like Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun being a lot more personal of a story than I

think I intended it to be, it really had a lot of my own experiences and traumas, I guess, of being

raised as like an AMAB person um. And so I really just wanted to highlight that and how specifically

it can affect someone who is who is gay and who is just like trying to figure out how to live

life while also under a household that kind of restricts that sort of situation and

aspects of an individual um yeah. That's awesome. Ben, how about you?

Uh well as a child of immigrants uh sort of coming from Haiti moving to Canada, I think uh

respectability respectability politics entered my life fairly early. My dad was one of those people

who was like, we you have to be a respectable Black man in society. And you know the word that

like is brushed over assuming you know everything about that is the word man. So that's always been

something I didn't feel I could even interrogate. Like just it's just something you have to be.

You're four years old, you're a man. You're 12, you're a man. You're 16, you're a man. And

eventually when I start to write I give myself permission to just put a question mark around uh

what that actually meant uh and it's something I began to explore along with my race identity.

Uh that's awesome. I mean, it's terrible, but also awesome. Not like terrible, terrible,

but, you know, what I mean. Yeah um the way that kind of this repressive culture can deal with us

um especially, you know, living in like a white supremacist patriarchy, it's really hard

um to tease apart any notions of masculinity from whiteness um, and yet also none of us here are

white. Although I'm very pasty looking. I do blame my new SPF, it's just got me glowing, but also

um just looking like a little bit of a ghost um. But I'm really curious um

how kind of culturally specific notions of masculinity took shape in your work.

You just like continuing the same cycle. Oh yes, or you can jump in, or I can pick on people.

Anything goes. I am an agent of chaos in this panel. My job is to try to get you to

fight each other and then hug it out by the end so. I'm just joking please don't fight

I'm I'm not equipped to stop anything. (laughter)

You go. Okay um I I mean I it's kind of a complex question, because

like on one side I realized that like a lot of the reasons that, like especially in my own community,

men act that way, is because of colonization and is because of Catholicism and religion and all of

these things that were brought to this side of the world that like permeated and like, allow

people who look like me try to like get as close as they can to whiteness.

And like definitely gender identity and sexuality play a huge part in that, um, so yeah I mean there

definitely is that um. But at the same time like, I really try to remove whiteness as like

a feature in what I write. So I really haven't thought about that. But like now yeah like like

there's definitely like it's white people's fault, um and I feel proud saying that here. But and like

yeah um that's I'm now on now like my my mind is just boggled about the fact that like I thought I

wrote no white people in here, but now it's like white culture and Spanish people that did this

to people. So um no I'm rambling, but yeah um I feel like I tried to remove my characters and

everything from like white American culture into like a very specific like south Texan culture and

like Brown people and BIPOC characters like heavily prominent in my stories, but at the

same time yeah we can't like fully erase ourselves from whiteness and from um the things that we can

maybe climb up trying to hold on to any aspects of whiteness, that we can whenever it's beneficial to

us um. And that'd be really cool to explore later. And I think in my case it had to do with the fact

that we were immigrants. And I get to blame my dad for so much in life, it's fantastic.

But just the idea that like, you know, in order to shape a better life for yourself,

you just have to assimilate. You have to be a respectable Black man and, you know, the thing

that's not spoken in that is that disrespectable Black man exists in a white patriarchal society.

So it was just seeing him and seeing other Black men in my life just wrestle with that identity

of what it means to be a man. And it, I think I was a very moody teenager and like the older

I got the more I enjoyed pushing against those boundaries because they sometimes felt

a little nonsensical. Like it's just like, oh well, you know, I'm sad but the a man doesn't cry.

And well I feel like crying. Or I'm sad, but a proud Black man would never show that those

emotions out to the world because that means the world has won um. So it was just like interesting

I think, growing up to see that so many people had so many uh conflict conflicting definitions

of masculinity. And that it often amounted to uh permission to be less. Like being masculine

enough, being men enough, was sort of permission to be less empathetic, to sort of listen less,

to care less. It was just sort of like, the set of behaviors you were allowed to

perform and a limited set of things you were supposed to care about. And I think

I I just found myself bumping against that. Like oh I I want to sing the Sailor Moon theme song.

I wanna sort of, I don't wanna go play sports with the other guys. All the typical sort of like

markers of masculinity and culture just felt a little silly to me. I didn't understand why,

uh crouching in front of a car and throwing fingers was like cool,

but then taking selfies with uh female friends wearing makeup was weird. I just,

it didn't make sense to me. So I think that's something that stayed with me throughout my life.

Um yeah that makes so much sense. I really like what you

said about like permission to be less. Because it is this weird thing where you're like, yeah

be less. I'm I'm I wrote that down because I have to think about that more.

Um but speaking of daddy issues, um as a gay man, one of my favorite topics uh,

you both really lean into exploring um how fathers affect the development of their sons um. Can you

talk a little bit about, kind of specifically in your books, how you grappled um father figures?

No Jonny, did go first last time. That's fair, that's fair um. Sorry if I mute myself sometimes,

by the way, there's a fire station right next door and something's burning today.

Oh I assumed it was the masculinity police (laughter) coming for all of us.

What is he saying about Sailor Moon? Um yeah, how my father influenced my writing? I think uh

even when I was writing fictional stories, I was always very concerned about what the

father figures would represent to the world. Like oh "I want to write a bad father." Well

am I really just writing one more archetype of the you know deadbeat Black father in the world um. Oh

"I want to write a really, really good father." Is this just like a fantasy uh archetype of something

that doesn't really exist? And I think, you know, there's so many books of fiction that

give us those those amazing father characters and you they're almost so great you question their

existence or their tangibility. Am I talking about Call Me By Your Name? Who knows um. But just like,

this this sense of like, when you're writing notions of masculinity and fatherhood either

you're just crapping on the archetype or you're elevating it. And I found myself, I did I elevated

it in one and I crapped on it in the other. Who knows what I did in the non-fiction uh version.

But I just found myself like questioning it and I tried now that I'm like bravely older I find

myself questioning like, what would it mean to sort of be a quote-unquote man having to sort of

instruct? Like the expectation of teaching, that thing I've been questioning all my life um. So

those are some of the glimpses of the many, many daddy issues like in my head. And it's not always,

I'll just add, it's not always daddy issues. Like "waaa" my dad was mean to me. Like no,

my dad was an immigrant who kept me fed uh, you know, just like gave me a citizenship

taught me a second language. My dad did a lot for my life. I'm very grateful. I

love my dad. Don't worry about the pause in my voice (emotional) um but

what does that mean to have that much responsibility, both within like yourself that

you've created life and you have to sort of parent this person that's under your responsibility, but

to society as a whole? Um I think that's why, like whenever you write something that's even remotely,

not even transgressive, that includes things that aren't normally in the canon, sometimes

the criticism you get from parents is like, well I'm a parent and my child blah blah blah. And it's

just like it's the teacher from Charlie Brown, but I think it's that sort of burden of having

to instruct that is also uh linked to masculinity and the performance of it. That's so fair,

um. My father was also an immigrant and growing up I could, you know, I was probably too young

to kind of understand the ways that he was trying to navigate his own like Iranian version of

masculinity from like the his kind of white American assimilationist versions. And sometimes

um it was like he just put them in a blender and picked out the worst elements and then was

like this is probably what you should do um. And only as I got older did I kind of learn to unpack

that. Also I do I also love my dad and he also definitely did the best he could um. But yeah,

there were definitely some um some growing pains growing up. I guess that's why they call them

growing pains. Um. Jonny, how about you? Yeah I, so I like to say that my book is like Selena's

"Dreaming of You" mixed with like a bottle of Patrón and then just like you throw in all of

my own adolescent trauma into that and just like that's my book um. I... That sounds like quite the

party. Yeah no it's fun and also um not at the same time, but like you know um I I think that

this book was just uh in many ways a way for me to like identify and realize a lot of the things

that I hadn't really considered growing up. And like, up until when I started drafting it in 2018,

um just like all these personal things and how much it still kind of retained itself into my

like everything that I do and everything that I think. And so

it was just that for me and allowing like Jules to be able to experience a lot of the same fears and

happenings that went through my own life with his dad. And like what did what would that look like

if you know Jules was, not only had you know a dad that is shitty, but also like had a really

great support group. And also just had like a lot of really great other men who like weren't

that. And what does that look like? And what does that how does that reflect into his life? Really

we can see two sides of of this experience um and definitely like

it's something that's not heavily prevalent like in anything that I've written since, but I think

it was something that I needed to write first to just kind of get that out of the way. And

um and I also just really loved that I got the opportunity to show, I think what y'all

were talking about. Like there there are so many instances where Jules as a main character, like

identifies a lot of the ways in which he loves his dad. And like all of these little moments,

like personally even speaking, like there are a lot of those moments where it's like

we had really great times and like there were just a lot of these special moments,

and like where you can really tell that his dad loved him and he really held those close to his

heart. But he could also tell all of these times where that love was not shown. And

like it was important at some point that he really identify those and really juggle with

what like that balance, and what is important in his life and who is important in his life. And

maybe some people don't deserve redemption. And I think that that was something that like

I really wanted to take into consideration when writing this story uh because, you know,

lots of dads are great but also sometimes like they're not. And that's just kind of

the way the world is and I really wanted to be able to reflect that and just to show that.

Um it's so funny that you mentioned, kind of, showing the world as it is. Because I always feel

like one of our um one of our jobs as writers is to find the balance between um showing the world

as it is and showing the world as it can be or as we would um like it to be um. Boy, I wish I

had a better segue into making both of you talk about this now, but I was like now that I think

about that that was more of a question or more of a statement than a question. So here's a question:

do you agree? And if so, please expound on your agreement. And if you disagree, you're wrong.

Yeah I feel like because we're talking about like such loaded things that get to the core

of identity, like you get to cut yourself some slack about the poor transitions. You can just

like point at the screen when it's time for someone else to talk um. I I do agree with that.

I think sort of like, uh are you, wow it is a good question. Do you want to represent the world as it

is or as it can be? I think I aspire um to represent it as it is. I was trying to

like pick between one of the two, but with the caveat that I'm like, I think I'm an optimist.

So the world is really, really ugly and dark and adversarial in a lot of ways, but I think there's

a lot of joys in those things. So even though I'm not ,I don't think my writing sort of paints a

glossy depiction of a higher, you know, standard of living all the time. But I think I try to sort

of, in that darkness, to show the joys of it um. I uh I've written two YA books, and one of them like

the family of the main character is deep is very poor. And they're not magically rich by the end of

the story. But within that poverty, I try to sort of like write their house as still being a home

um, because I realize that that is sometimes something that people don't see, especially when

you talk about topics like gentrification. Like oh families are just moving. Well no, even if someone

has a little tiny basement apartment, that's still their home. That's still where they raise their

kids. So I think I try to depict the world as it is um yeah. I have to pick between one of the two.

I would I would agree. Like I think a lot about this podcast I listened to with Gabby Rivera and

she was talking about the importance of including both joy and trauma or like not joy um in in her

stories. And like I think that's just a very real thing, especially when it comes to queer stories,

like there's gonna be pain, but there's also going to be lots of joy. And that's that is the

world. Like it can involve both. And I don't think that it becomes idealistic whenever we

really want to highlight the joy in a story rather than when we include trauma, like not just like

be our main character with it like it doesn't have to be done we can just show it um. And so yeah

like I mean I I wanted to to show that in ways of like Jules' grandfather being really supportive

of him from the get-go. And I've had readers say that that's super surprising to them because like

the father isn't, but then the grandfather is. And I'm like yeah that's kind of maybe like not

what everyone's going to experience, but like I think it's not not-realistic. And so and also I

just didn't want him to be refused by his entire family. And so like, you know, we can include

both of these things, and they can both be realistic and they can both highlight

different aspects of life, one being terrible and one being great, and it it can still be very real.

Um yeah that feels really true to me um. I found myself kind of waffling between uh

between what I wanted to show in my books, especially during the pandemic as I was like,

oh everything is terrible. I don't feel like writing about the real world right now, so

I'm gonna go write about boy bands instead um. Well, as long as we're on the craft track,

I'd also I'm really curious about like how you bring um you know a boy to life um? Are there

like, what are the tools you use to make sure that he feels real and fleshed out? And are there ever

like markers of where you think people are just getting it wrong?

Like I always feel like if I read a book that's supposed to be from a boy's point of view um

and there's like, and they're like emotionally stunted, I'm like this seems

like unrealistic. Like just because boys don't express themselves doesn't mean we they don't

have um rich interior lives. And I think, going off of that like, one of the one of my favorite

things about writing contemporary YA is that we get the opportunity like 99% of the time, to write

first person point of views. And like getting into the head of the character, I think is really what

promotes, or like not promotes, but builds on who this character is even externally.

And like ,you know, if they're emotionally stunted on the outside like, they probably

got a lot of emotions going on in the inside. And what do those look like? And I think a lot

of it is like how was that reflected in my own experience or like in my friend's experiences.

And like how does that then become like what their decisions look like externally

um. And then also just reading a lot of like books with boy main characters and

seeing like what what sounds realistic and what sounds not realistic, and even then

like that's it's a huge, it's a broad degree of what's realistic, because like

teenagers are very different people, like all of them. And so like one is stealing a car and one is

a nerd, but they're both equally teenagers and they're both equally teenage boys um.

Yeah I I think a lot of things that I like to look at is just like making decisions and just

like a spur-of-the-moment sort of thing and not really processing it like mentally I feel

like is a pretty fun go-to for me for like male characters um. I just I feel like a lot of times,

I think boys are smart, but sometimes boys don't think. And like, I love that's, that's great like,

I support that wholeheartedly. And I I'd love to see that on page um. So that's like just

sporadic thinking and even like, a lot of times thinking, but they're not necessarily

vocalizing it or expressing it or even doing it in a way that like was probably the wrong way

and now they feel weird about it. Like I think there's a lot of that too that I like to include.

Yeah, I think um for me when I'm writing it comes back to, god, I love the title of this panel just

like "Man Enough" um because I think when you're writing uh characters within their formative

years that that question, that that statement, is very much a question. It comes with a lot of

question marks. So it's like, everything you're doing, is it are you man enough? Um. And I like

to add those question marks especially when I get permission to be like, in the first person ahead

of such a character and I think just when you're defining uh identity in that sort of polarity,

like something about asking the question "Are you man enough?" really, what the question

you're asking is uh how much femininity do you not have in you? Or if, and everyone has some

femininity in them, so uh what are the actions that these characters are taking every day

not to show that in their uh to their peers ,not to show that to the world um. I very much remember

like the phase of, everything is hoodies and jeans. And I think that's just like that was the

uniform that was like anchored in my mind. That if you're writing teenagers teenagers or writing

or putting on uh hoodies and jeans. And when, you know, I visit schools now, I look at teenagers

in the streets, the interesting ones, those that like could really have a book around them, are the

ones that fully embrace the performative aspect of being a teenager. I enjoy those characters

um. And then I think back to like, hold on, I didn't just wear hoodies and jeans back when I was

like a young person. I think when I wore hoodies and jeans it was a part of a bigger performance

that like. I remember standing in front of the mirror thinking like oh "Am I getting man breasts?

I need to hide those. Let's put on a hoodie, um oh these pants are getting tight. I don't like

that let's put on baggy pants." Like there was, like, so many question marks came into the simple

uh blunt statements of identity. So I think that's how I approach it um, men enough with a question

mark. And hopefully that there's something true in that because I think even now as an adult like,

everything I do comes with a question mark. I don't know what I'm doing. And

if I have children, it's all going to be question marks. So keeping the question

mark in, even though as a writer you're only writing like declarative sentences, is the

sea we all navigate. My metaphors are bad today. I think your metaphors are great. Also um, you know,

living through the pandemic, I'm just not sure I'm ever going to wear a pair of jeans again.

Like why did we decide that jeans were a thing? They're so uncomfortable um sweatpants, joggers,

anything with elastic, like that's just that's the way I plan to live my life, uh no regrets,

um. Well I have a question that apparently I was halfway through formulating uh I sat up in bed

last night and I literally wrote "something smart sounding about uh the intersection of queerness,

masculinity, disability, etc." So I don't know what that question was supposed to be, but I think

it was um basically exploring intersectionality. Do any of you, do either of you have

thoughts on the matter because apparently I did not have enough thoughts to make a coherent

question. This will teach me to make questions in bed. Yeah, that wasn't a question. That was

like a a long list of like very, very, like powerful words. It was an aspiration

um. Like obviously, obviously, um it's my quick answer to that, whatever that was um. I know,

I apologize, this is how my brain works. That's, you know, like yeah I mean I I I wrote this like

the initial thought that I had whenever I started drafting this book was how would Simon

Spears journey be different if he was a Tejano gay kid living in south Texas, raised Catholic

and under like a machismo household. Because it would look very different if,

you know, if Simon Spears was a Brown boy in south Texas. Like, there would be huge amounts of,

huge amounts of differences. And I felt like that was important to explore and

I mean, I think that like just, in general, the push for more diverse literature really speaks on

the fact that like, these are different stories and they all deserve to be told um. And that's,

yes. Yeah and um to piggyback off of that, I do think that when it comes to intersectionality

the way I tend to think about it is as a series of complications without any negative connotations to

the word uh complication. Just identity is not this simple thing. And I think that's actually

where uh toxic masculinity can emerge, is when like "I am a man. A man does this. A man thinks

that. I would never use a pink toothbrush" and that simplicity almost goes against

the self in my opinion that, like, people are just more complicated than that.

So intersectionality is just a layering of all your identities and the understanding

first and then the layering even if you're a cis-gendered person, then that means that,

understanding what that means in the world. What privileges come with that. What it means not to be

a cisgendered person in the world um. If you're of a certain ethnicity, what does that mean to you?

And that's added up onto your uh gender identity. That's added it onto your cultural identity,

your media identity, I think, um. Because I, growing up I was an expert in white women stuff.

Like I could quote every single episode of the Gilmore Girls or Gossip Girl. And that just,

to some people that did not look like my exterior, but that was who I was. So I think that

layering is how intersectionality happens within the self um. there are the broader, broader social

identities, but there are also sort of like, conflicting forces happening inside of you as

a person. And there's a lot of beauty in that. I think that's a good thing, that we have all

um you know all that complexity in us. And when writing male characters uh I do think when uh,

because the shady part of that question was, oh when is it not done right, um. I think when

it's not done right or when I sort of don't get engaged, is when I just see, oh this is a recycled

character you've seen elsewhere. This doesn't feel like a real person. And I think just

capturing some of that complexity when you're writing real people is really the challenge.

Even in like the chapters of my non-fiction book when I was writing my dad at his crappiest,

and it's like, no this is child abuse. This is going to be the chapter on child abuse. I try

to sort of like come at it from a perspective of: this man is also an immigrant. This man is also an

educator. This man is also cisgender. This man is also, I wouldn't say straight um. But it was just

a bunch of identities on top of each other and I think everyone has that. And sometimes, for me,

I'll say I don't think it's always easy to see uh. You know, when you're in like Midtown and

there's a bunch of like no offense, white dudes in Patagonia vests talking about the game last

night. You're like, I have a blockage in seeing likem the interiority in this person. "Oh dude,

check out this chick on Bumble." It's like, oh which factory line do I have to close to make this

stop. But these people have interiority, too, and even if I don't have the full perspective or skill

to explore it, it is very much out there. So I think that is how it affects my writing.

Can I add like, I think whenever I see it done really well, in my own personal opinion,

is like whenever I read a book that would otherwise be just pretty unordinary. And it's

like coming of age or romance or whatever kind of plot line. Whenever it's done and it's like,

oh, like okay, this is gay. But also like, oh, this is Asian or this is Black or this is Puerto

Rican. And like, you can very much tell that that author wrote it for that specific audience.

Like I I just tremendously love that. I love reading a book and realizing like,

this wasn't necessarily written for me, but it doesn't make it terrible. That makes it

exceptional in my opinion. And like I really hope that everyone who it's written for reads

it. Like I I mean I definitely got that from like Darius the Great, and I got that from like uh You

Should See Me in a Crown, and like all of these different books where it's they're writing for

their communities and like I think that's just an excellent thing and that should be done way more.

I love that. I think um, yes, agreed. I think that's what I was trying to go for with my poorly

worded sleep thoughts, um. I'd also love if we can talk a little bit about um relationships. Both

of you um have written like really great romantic interests in your books um uh that kind of affirm

your main character as being able to be vulnerable and secure um. Do you feel like those are things

that you um like saw in your life that you wanted to show on the page? Or were they

more things that you wished for or kind of a combination of the two? Let's talk about love.

Like I kind of think of it even platonically speaking like, I can bring the romantic

relationship into like my platonic thinking, too, but like whenever I was Jules' age at like 17, 18,

I definitely don't think I had a group of people that I was surrounding myself with who would have

been embracing or accepting or supportive or let me feel whatever feelings I had.

Like I just don't think that that was a thing that I had at that age. And so I knew very early on

that that's what I want. I wanted him to have the opposite. I wanted him to have friends who were

just day ones and who like will protect and attack and like I wanted, like, a romantic interest who

would let him feel things. That would let him grow. And would be supportive of

his own journey and coming out and figuring out like what it is to live openly as a gay young man

um. So like that was that was really important to me and I think a lot of it does take influence

from my friend group as I went into college and moved away and the friends that I have

now who are just like fiercely supportive of like, figuring out sexuality and figuring out

gender identity and all of these different things. And so I I definitely have told them that like,

if people like Matt's personality, if people like Jules' friend's personality, like they're the ones

to blame because like they had to go be nice to me like, and so, now look what happened um.

But yeah so I think it's just a mixture of both of me, realizing when I was young

like what I lacked and what I have now and like what would Jules' life

have looked like if he had those kind of support systems, platonically and romantically.

Yeah I I also just really love writing about love, um not always within no rom-com

configuration of that term, but I just, I think it's such a fun feeling. It's such an

overwhelming, but also universal feeling. And that bro at the bar uh with the Patagonia vest

who I keep like crapping on, um or someone who writes poetry in a cabin. Like they both

feel love at some point in their life and it's intense for both of them. So I just think it's

like this stage of permanent adolescence, so that anyone can relate to. Even when books are

hyper-specific to culture or an identity, um when two people fall in love within that book,

like you can latch on to that and you can sort of project it onto your own life. And I just like

writing different permutations of that. I think the older I get, I agree that like friendship,

I see friendship more and more as a as a form of love that is as big and you know overwhelming as

uh romantic love. When I was writing like my non-fiction book, I think some people said that,

oh the most emotional like chapter like was the one you wrote about your best friend and roommate

you had a fight with. Like well I covered three relationships that lasted multiple years, but like

the heart of the feelings were in that friendship so um, I think that's the joy of writing about

love and that also sometimes means just writing truly all of my friends Tinder profiles, like if

you match with one of my friends like really, uh you're matching with me. I wrote it um. But yeah

it's just, it's fun to talk about relationships and I think we define ourselves through our

relationships. Like my marriage, my high school sweetheart, that person in my 20s that just like

had me on a little leash and played yo-yo with me. Like even if you don't remember where you

lived or what job you did for eight hours a day like those people that like had like tethered

chains to your heart, you remember them. And I think that's why I just love writing about it.

That's really awesome um. Well we're starting to run out of time so I just have like one

closing question um for both of you, but it's a tough one um. If there was one thought about

masculinity, one new idea or revelation that a young reader could take away from your books,

whether it's a young you know cisgender boy or a trans boy,

someone leaning masc or femme or kind of anywhere along the beautiful gender

spectrum that we have um, what would you want them to take away from your book?

That it's made up, and that could be controversial and that could be the thing we have to edit out of

this, but I think throughout my life like, after bumping against members of my family,

cousins, my dad, eventually I came to the realization that like,

this is all made up. Like there's no one way to be a man that does not look like a single monolithic

thing um, just like there's no one way to be a woman or a Black person or whatever in the world.

It's all made up and once you know yourself, however you go into the world, if you're a man,

if you identify as a man. However you go into the world in full confidence of who you are,

you will meet someone and then that person will go home and say, "hey, today I met this man who

blah blah blah." Like that definition of uh manhood is as valid as "I met a man who was

driving a pickup truck with like a rifle on each shoulder." Um it's made up. It's whatever you want

it to be. I think uh as my favorite himbo Thor famously said, all words are made up.

Yeah gender is a hoax. Like I think that that itself is just fact um I I would say that like

I I hope that like, if any reader that like fits into Jules issues, and like knows what it is to

have to like form an image of themselves that fits this outdated perspective

of masculinity and what it is to be a man and what men are allowed to be and to want and

to ask for, know that like, it at some point like we'll be allowed to to not have to

do that. Like we'll be able to break out of that and be our best selves and our truest selves and

like, that might not happen tomorrow. That might not happen next year.

Um and that's shitty and like ,you know, like I think

that the world is shitty sometimes. But eventually like it's going to be brighter and like,

you know, you know, one day maybe we won't have to rely on

like, we won't have people who are just so reliant on perspectives of gender and sexuality that are

from the 70s and from the 30s and from the 1500s. And we'll be able to live a way that

is a perspective of our own selves in today's world. And like, let's let's do that.

Yeah and you know that that is so great and it reminds me of something that happened to me

this week. Actually I was just I was on the subway and I was riding the subway home

and um there was this drag performer who was in full drag, it was like 11 at night,

that was riding the subway of New York City home. And people were looking at them and people were

like taking photos and just commenting and this person was just the most badass person I've ever

seen because they were just fully themselves. And it really reminded me of like, the awe that my

own father used to have looking at cowboys in old movies, like the oh the image of the

western. The image of like that person who is beyond rules, beyond like the boundaries of

of conventional society. To me it was just like, okay that's just a man with a hat on

a horse. But I got that exact feeling seeing this like drag performer. Like, you're so [ __ ] cool.

You're so freaking cool. You're so cool out there. You're so brave, so much braver than like,

all the people glaring at you pretending to be sort of threatening. It's just, go freaking off

um. That's so true. Also I told you this was PG-13. You got the one,

so well done. I was going to use it, but now it's it's all used up. Sorry. All right,

well no no don't never apologize for excellence um. Well thank you both so

much. This has been a really um awesome and enlightening and fun conversation

for me. I hope it was for you as well. And for everyone out in internet land, thank you so much

for joining us um. Be sure to check out uh Ben and Jonny's books uh wherever fine books are sold,

especially if you shop at The Bronx is Reading uh. It's one of my favorite stores um. Where

can everyone find you on uh the social medias? Just remind everyone where we're finding you.

Ben, you go first, you're on my left um. Find me on Instagram. I would like more followers

thankfully on Instagram. I would also like more followers and I can finally get the swipey uppy.

That's all I want in life is the swipe uppy. Nice. Jonny, how about you? I am uh on Twitter

@JONNYescribe, uh e-s-c-r-i-b-e like "write" in Spanish. And on Instagram @jonnyinstas. Awesome

uh and I'm on Twitter and Instagram where again I lamentably can't do the swipe up

in my stories @adibkhorram, uh. I'm on the web at adibkhorram.com. You can sign up for my newsletter

where I share tidbits mostly about my obsession with The Untamed uh. Well thank you all so much

uh, thank you to the Bronx Book Festival and The Bronx is Reading for having us uh. Happy pride

everyone. Be gay do crimes. And we'll see you next year maybe even in person who knows. Bye!