It has been a while now since I began to think about boys, men and masculinity. During this time, I have undertaken studies and written a couple of things in this area of scholarly interest. I have also taught university classes on these topics. Alongside the research and writing, I have dedicated many days to talking with boys and men about being a boy and being a man in a society like ours, when compared to others. These conversations have taken place in person, virtually, and via traditional and social media; my aim in them has been to learn about their experiences but also to talk about what I have learned from my studies. In a society soaked in violence, it would be curious not to touch on violence when studying and discussing masculinity. Even if I can imagine myself specialising in another topic related to masculinity, say men’s fashion, the magnitude, urgency and far-reaching consequences of violence are simply unignorable. That violence, I should underscore, comes in different forms. It is direct and indirect. It is against children, against women, against other men and against the self.

I have spoken with girls and women, too, perhaps more often than with boys and men – because women, in my assessment, are more interested in masculinity than men are. It makes sense: while men’s violence is a problem for both women and men, women generally appear keener than men to dig down to the roots of violent masculinity, and all other forms of masculinity. The apparent lack of interest among men in wanting to understand men’s violence may have two causes, of different weight. Some of us may be convinced that we know all there is to know about men’s violence. Some of us may be resistant, consciously or not, to speaking about ourselves as men. And for some, these two causes are hard to disentangle from each other.

Besides the focus on violence, my contemplations about men and boys are equally concerned with love and lovelessness in their lives. It is intriguing to me that it took me much longer to turn to love than to violence in relation to masculinity.