Connecting can save your life and make you happier, man

Like some men, it took me a long while to fully realise that durable relationships and reciprocal connections were pretty much all there is. Make that the majority of men. Many of us, and nearly all young men, act as if sex is completely and incontrovertibly central to their lives. Not relationship, coitus. At least they talk that way.

Without regular copulation, I have heard some men state, they would die. If there is no sex, more than a few have even said, there is no relationship. That's what we are led to believe by other men, some women, pornography, quite a number of tv shows, women's mags, men's mags, and, if we didn't think so before we saw Mapona Volume 1, what we make others believe. But if you believe this partial rendering of your own being at 25, you better come right because it doesn't hold at 52. Soon you are going to have to start accepting that you got it terribly mixed-up. You got sex confused with connection, with acceptance, with what it means to be young and oh so cool. Even old presidents and world economic leaders confuse and are confused about this stuff.

What I think many of us are mistakenly looking for in beautiful young bodies is precisely this hard to describe enjoyment we confuse with sexual fun. Actually, the majority of women got and were socialised into it early on in their lives - while hanging out with their mothers and grandmothers - far more than you as a man got. Not in so many words, but girls more than boys learn without direct teaching that quality connection makes us more secure and happier. It turns out that connectedness to others also makes us healthier and live longer.

You didn't get the lessons in relationships as a boy because, in South Africa at least, the father and grandfather and older men who can give you the education about boy-stuff to match the education girls get have themselves disconnected, absconded, checked out from the families, even while they may be in the house or neighbourhood. In a research paper released in April 2011, the South African Institute of Race Relations said that the proportion of South African children with absent but living fathers in 2009 was nearly 1 in 2. At 30% black children had the lowest proportion of present fathers and Indians at 85% had the highest. 

It isn't sex that is central to our lives as men (and women) then. But don't get me wrong, sex is good. And good sex can be really awesome. It reconnects you to your body, and in some cases, your heart and mind. The question is, what makes sex good? Is it because the person you copulated with is so hot, so supple, so wild, so rich or so kinky you feel as if you just came into the world? Is it because you did it in the backseat of the car, the church graveyard, and the public toilets? Is it because you just did to her or him what you have always fantasised your tribe doing to the other tribe? I think not. 

What all of these factors indicate is that sex holds inexhaustible potential. There are myriad factors that go into making sex fantastic, from with whom you do it, where you have it, why, with what, and when in your life. Sometimes what kills the sexual mood can be as unrelated as worries about bills, something that your boss said to you last Friday, someone cutting in front of you in traffic, or not finding your favourite bread at the store. But the elusive nature of pleasure and innumerable factors that make it mind-blowing when it is good, also indicates that these spaces, fantasies, and sexual objects (in the Freudian sense), do not exhaust the potential of sex.

What makes sex an axis of what is good, and so damn confusing at times, in the world is more than the physical. The difference between sex that makes you feel good and good sex that leaves a bad taste in your mouth is reciprocity and recognition. I know, sometimes friends dispute this and argue that it's because one has never been fellated by a sexy foreigner who will never be seen again, otherwise I would not be going on about all this mutuality and sharing. Maybe not. Until such time, and following such unbelievable lasting happiness that I change my mind, I will stick with connection, communication, and intimacy. What keeps a man up between the rounds, I think, is being looked at in a certain way by a lover or spouse. That feeling of incompleteness even after coming hard is because, though you may not know it, you want to be touched, spoken to, told you are good - even if you are not so great. You might not know it at the moment, but you feel disppointed even though she or he is hot because what you are really missing is for her or him to wear your shirt, smile at you, tell you something interesting, listen to cds with you. 

It took me to be in another country, free to do as I please, to figure this out. And I am a psychologist for goodness sake. Also, I come from a people who almost on a daily basis use words like botho, motho, setho: that's not botho, that's what setho means, you gotta do that if you are motho, and all that cultural jazz. Botho is nothing if not connectedness. Setho is about being-fully-present-in-relationship, and thus motho is one of who cares about the other, and by extension the world.  

Since I mentioned communication, and at times talking on a phone or smsing that seems the only worthy kind of connection nowadays, of course being connected means far more than choosing a Vodacom, MTN, Cell-C, 8ta or any other cell-phone services provider. Connectedness of course goes far beyond getting sexually connected, we have said that enough times now. Being connected to others - and, in this case, the more quality partners the better - could mean literally the difference between a long healthy life and dying young if you are a young man. It could mean the difference between happiness and suicide. Being securely attached to your son, father, grandparents, mother, sister, daughter, teacher, student, peers, colleagues, dog, whatever makes you feel recognised and valued - it makes a difference.  

'Makgaiso Adelise Mapeshoane with her daughter, grandson, and great-grandson, at a traditional ceremony introducing the great-grandson to his people, Vosloorus, Gauteng Province, April 2011

But the connectedness of young black men or lack thereof could make a differnce to your life too, whoever you are: woman, old, white, rich, or poor. Since the deadly male-male violence spills out of the group, working to undo the social disconnect many young black men experience demands far more attention that it is receiving.

This post was, I need to say now, was inspired by among others Jean Redpath's article on the disconnectedness or otherwise of young black men in Busines Day of 22 August 2011. What I liked about the article is Redpath's stress on the importance of connection. After reflecting on the disproportionate homicidal victimisation of young black men in South Africa and Brazil, Redpath states that from her research on victimisation in Galeshewe township in Kimberly, Northern Province of South Africa, the most important protective factors against becoming a victim of violent crime is associated to the connectedness of men. Actually, we know from some very good studies on schooling and organisation, connectedness is of uncontested significance to many other things and not just victimisation. I'd say it's time we reverse the serious and mind-boggling neglect of the concept in present-day South Africa, especially as it has do with young black male lives. It's time to restart reconnecting because being connected to others is a predictor of things like staying and finishing school, performance, health, and happiness, not just staying alive. Ok, let me say that again: in South Africa, connectednes is important because it can save lives, specifically of young black men. But surely it is important for each of us and the cohesiveness and conviviality of society .