Eat Me

Daisy Edgar Jones and Sebastian Stan in Fresh

A few months back, Sebastian Stan said something that surprised me. He said he gets recognized for his character Steve in Fresh and that he didn’t understand the women and cannibals thing. I wasn’t sure how he couldn’t get it, and how he didn’t understand that the cannibalism was irrelevant. I tend to think of him as a man written by a woman, so his disbelief confused me. I figured if he didn’t get it, a bunch of folks probably didn’t get it. Allow me to explain.

Part of this is just Sebastian Stan. No matter how terrible a person he plays, Sebastian Stan is a great actor, and he’s also blessed enough to look the way he does. Sadly, we live in a world where sometimes folks get blinded by beauty and get the character and the actor confused. These people love Steve simply because he is played so well by an attractive actor.

Then you’ve got the folks who can’t get past the meet cute. It was perfectly played. Steve was charming and funny; Noa was cautious and hesitant. He never invades her personal space, he didn’t check to see if she had given him her actual number. When they go on their first date, he’s somehow even more charming, and clearly smitten. She ignores red flags (his lack of social media, his idea to take a weekend trip so soon into the relationship) because he has a reasonable explanation, and she likes him. But they’d decided not to play games, and he’s cute and charming, so Noa silences that alarm bell.

The fact that Steve is hot and has a really cute interaction with a woman isn’t enough to fascinate mobs of women. No. What really gets women going is deeper than those things, and it actually happens after we know what the nasty bastard is up to. You know, when the audience finds out he goes ass to mouth, quite literally.

Noa, starting to understand that Steve truly is interested in her, gets Steve to open up. She asks him personal questions, feigns interest. Steve starts to think maybe she genuinely likes him back. He brings her upstairs for dinner, and during that conversation, he opens up more. He talks about the first time he ate a person, and how alone he felt, how he thought he was a freak. Then he found a community and gained a bit of understanding. Noa, brilliant girl that she is, realizes his weakness. He actually likes her and wants to confide in her. If she pretends to be interested in Steve’s hobby, she might have a chance to get at him. He might let his guard down enough for her to get away from this psycho.

Steve “invites” Noa upstairs for dinner again, even giving her a dress to wear to make the evening feel fancy, romantic. During the second dinner, she coaxes him into opening up even more. He talks about the women he butchered before her, even showing Noa what amounts to his trophy case: where he keeps the belongings and pictures of the women he’s butchered and sent to the “one percent of the one percent.” The audience can see the fear and empathy for the women Steve brought here before her in her eyes, but Steve is only able to see Noa’s face. He doesn’t see anything besides her closely studying the trophy case. Steve opens up, and becomes even more infatuated with Noa, simply because she doesn’t react with horror or disgust.

Those are the moments that some women can’t let go of. When Steve opens up, admits to feeling misunderstood, outcast, we respond to that. He’s got this look on his face like he’s revealed his deepest, darkest secret, spoken it aloud for the first time. You can even see his fear that he’s saying too much. I’ll be damned if I didn’t respond to that with a little sympathy when I watched. Because that’s when he becomes vulnerable. Not just to Noa’s scheming, but in general, and we are so starved for masculine vulnerability, we can almost forgive fucking cannibalism.

Don’t believe me? I’ll give you another pop culture example. Vanessa Marianna and Wilson Fisk (Ayelet Zurer and Vincent D’Onofrio) in Season One of Daredevil. I mean, c’mon. Vanessa is an objectively beautiful woman. Wilson is not a conventionally attractive man. Further, he is a bit socially awkward, his sense of humor is barely existent, and he’s a brutally violent fucking murderer. Of course, Vanessa doesn’t know that last bit about him at first. But, she agrees to go out with him despite his awkwardness. Why?

Wilson charming Vanessa by being a vulnerable enigma.

Because when she approached Wilson to talk to him about the painting, he was emotionally unguarded and she immediately saw it. When she starts asking how the painting makes him feel, he answers without building his walls back up first. That moment is what leads her to agree to dinner with him. She is intrigued, and she wants to find out more.

Hell, on that date Vanessa talks about grand gestures men have made toward her and lovers from her past. Those relationships clearly didn’t work out, but Wilson proposes to Vanessa before the end of season one. He needs her, and she loves him, in part, because she knows that he would never do anything to hurt her, simply because he was vulnerable, and she accepted him. [This was clearly written a while ago. Doesn’t change that this was true in Season 1.]

Jesus, boys. Tell us your secrets. Tell us what hurt you in the past. Tell us about your bad day or the girl who broke your heart or how you really feel about your parents or the first girl you kissed. Just tell us something intimate and real about yourself. Do it while actually emoting. Show us how you feel. I’ve always heard men are visual creatures, but so are women. We want to see your joy, your tears, your fear, your honesty.  We want to see you geek out over something we care nothing about… except for the fact that you care for it, and we care for you.

Even if you don’t look like Bucky Barnes, we’re going to respond to that. Probably positively. Alas, there’s always a chance we’ll bite your cock off, especially if you’re a cannibal using us like a combination beef cow and side piece.

Oh yeah… Steve was also married. It makes me a bit concerned that Steve cheating bothers me more than all the murdering and butchering and cooking of humans. Look, y’all, cannibalism is undeniably bad, but I’m more likely to meet a cheater than a cannibal.

Soft Men

Pedro Pascal and Oscar Isaac via @pascalispunk

Give me all the soft men.

Give me all the men written by women.

I want construction workers who attend group therapy. I want truck drivers who hide their faces against their buddy’s shoulder during the climax of a horror movie. I want burly, biker-looking dudes who openly cry during Steel Magnolias or when they stub their pinky toe.

I want these things in cis-het men. I love my queer brothers, in part because so many have already embraced these things.

Let me go ahead and say: Yes. Men™ are the goddamn worst.* Ask anyone you know who is attracted to them, because even men will tell you that men are the goddamn worst. 

Fuck, though. They’re amazing. The tall ones. The short ones. The lumberjacks and the lumbersexuals. When you find one that embodies amazing characteristics and embraces their humanity, including the parts toxic masculinity says are bad… fucking breathtaking.

I’m not talking about the bare minimum that we beg men for every day. I’m not talking about a man who is a present father or who can manage himself. I’m not talking about a man who is emotionally mature and can find the clit with minimal instruction.

Give me men who put themselves in therapy. Give me men who respect all human beings. Give me men who exhibit empathy. Hell, give me men who can properly exhibit any emotion besides anger. Give me men who remember about that thing you said you wish you had in July and gives it to you for Christmas. Give me men who not only don’t argue about wearing a condom, but they also brought their fucking own.

Give me men who put themselves in therapy. Give me men who respect all human beings. Give me men who exhibit empathy. Hell, give me men who can properly exhibit any emotion besides anger. Give me men who remember about that thing you said you wish you had in July and gives it to you for Christmas. Give me men who not only don’t argue about wearing a condom, but they also brought their fucking own.

It is incredibly and indescribably sad to me that society crushes these things in boys and men. Because let’s be clear: Needing help processing emotions isn’t feminine. Being scared isn’t feminine. Crying, whether from physical or emotional pain, or from sadness, happiness, or just being overwhelmed isn’t feminine.

These things are HUMAN. And it is long past time for us to stop teaching boys and men to deny their humanity. Vulnerability isn’t the same as weakness; it is the possibility of weakness. And by expressing it, a person becomes stronger.

These things are HUMAN. And it is long past time for us to stop teaching boys and men to deny their humanity. Vulnerability isn’t the same as weakness; it is the possibility of weakness. And by expressing it, a person becomes stronger.

Give me all the vulnerable men.

*Yeah, yeah. Not all men.