About Pushing the Envelope and Boundaries

(In response to some recent emails)
MBP welcomes fair criticism and dissention. Being challenged is one of the best ways to shore-up your position and create a surface for expansion and new growth. That is even a main function of MBP- to edge guys past their comfort zones, and get them into unfamiliar and new territory. Because we deal in pushing the envelope and boundaries, many times MBP is uncomfortable and awkward at first. It is not just because we challenge the accepted imperial programming, but because we call for self-actualization, autonomy, and full responsibility in a male. Those can be very threatening concepts, as they no longer allow victim-status or the “I was just following orders” defense.

The material we get the most friction on is anything dealing with eroticism. A few days after the Playbook went up for the first time on the main site, we received complaints- why were we focusing on mutual masturbation as the end-all of masculine existence? Two paragraphs and one cartoon out of over 50,000 words and over two dozen illustrations, and that's what they got caught on. I actually removed those two paragraphs at one point, and complaints still came in- why were we trying to “ruin the American way of life”? When the discussion of the erotic was removed, we also were called homophobic. Apparently one can never fully appease empire.

Empire is so pathological, oppressive, and neurotic about eroticism, that even when it has nothing to do with the erotic, it absolutely has to be. Ignoring their own Rabbi Freud (“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”), they will project what they are most obsessed with in places where it isn't. I like to describe it this way: picture a flat board carefully balanced on a ball. As long as you evenly balance the load-weight, the board will continue to stay stable on the board. It requires some care and thought, but is not that difficult. If you begin to heavily load one corner of the board more than others, then the entire balance will be upset, the board will topple, and everything else balanced on the board will be negatively effected.

One can also use the idea of a game to illustrate this: if the normal gameboard is a meter square, and you mark off a section of the board that is used in common play, and say that it is evil, wrong, and forbidden to go there, the entire focus of the game will become trying to use or avoid the marked off section, or adapting to the new restrictions. Guys who over-emphasize or over-defend their “hetero”-orientation force everything else to have to conform to it. The old saying: “I am comfortable enough in my sexuality to allow this to happen” is revealing. If the statement is take at face value, then someone who is trying to pretend or cover will do everything in his power to not allow something “not straight” to happen. (It should also be “comfortable enough in my masculinity” not “sexuality”.) The rigidity and fear will begin to quickly effect the rest of the male's life, as exactly what is “not straight”? Obviously a blowjob form another guy is “not straight”, but is wearing yellow or pink in a shirt OK? Is a hug from another male? Is that song on the radio too “gay”?
Once you live in fear of something, you are controlled, owned, and defined by it.


When you only exist well within your comfort zone or safe zone, there is no challenge, and no growth will occur. Complacency will be the result. Safe zones are really important to have, they are where we go to re-coup, to heal, to rest securely. Comfort zones can help us hold our boundaries when needed for real security, and prevent us from being abused. Being outside your safe zone doesn't have to be dangerous, the world is not an evil, hurtful place. Many new ideas and much information- including things that can help re-enforce your safe zone- are what you can find. Even things you weren't looking for- that you may not have known about, or may not even fully agree with- are available. To remain cloistered is to limit your own ideas and interaction, indeed, to limit what you are capable of. To encounter, understand, and think about new material, even contradictory to your beliefs, is not going to hurt you. It can bring greater understanding and strengthen your position as well. I know I certainly have gotten (and it continues) a full education by working on MBP. I have had ideas and facts presented to me that required my re-calibrating and restructuring to encompass them, and I am glad for all of it. Ideas are like powerful dormant seeds. Once planted, they take their time, and can grow suddenly. Their growth always brings change, and sometimes the sprout can be overwhelming and revolutionary. Growth is needed, though, as stagnation and static existence is close to death, though even in death the decay process is dynamic.

For those new to MBP, if a Bronkey suggested you take a look here, don't take it too personally. The site is for you, but it is not about you exclusively. The Bronkey who suggested you visit us had a discussion with you that breached MBP topics, and thought our material could grant a deeper understanding for you. You have not been “outed”, no one is accusing you of being “gay”, and no one is trying to “hit on” you. We welcome you and hope you poke around, and we hope you find something meaningful to you, and that you find something you like, is familiar, or makes you feel welcome. We invite you to contact us and question and comment, and most of all, PLEASE READ THE MAIN SITE. The for beginners section explains a lot quickly and simply.

For those who have been here a while- what have you done to challenge your safe zone recently?

- Joaquin 2 Cacimarex, in Sewaornock, Manahatouac.