Let's Talk Bruh

With the rise of social & political activism movements picking up steam on social media in the last 4-5 years, we've seen several topics usually relegated to academic circles enter mainstream conversations. Feminism being a major one.  

Generally speaking, we believe this trend to be a positive one, however many times as men, we have failed to really grasp what Feminism is and specifically what Black Feminism really is.  

It's important for us to have this conversation because there are a bunch of wild myths claiming feminism to be the destruction of the black family structure and that all Black feminists hate Black men.

So today we talk about feminism and because we don't want to mansplain this topic, we invite the homie Jasmine, a future PhD Student in Women's and Gender Studies on the show.  She identifies as a Feminist and drops some gems for us and yall. 

Black Feminism for some Black women often provides a framework for liberation which, newsflash, Black men can also learn from.  So for our brothers out there, for the next hour and change, remove your biases and take a listen to this week's episode.

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This week on #LetsTalkBruh we break from our regularly scheduled format and discuss the panel we participated in last week entitled: Let's Hear it From the Boys: Black Masculinity in the Age of #MeToo.

We recap our thoughts on the panel and open up the conversation to those of y'all who couldn't make it. Obviously a conversation surrounding Black men and the role we play in the MeToo era deserves more than just a recap type of conversation, so definitely expect for us to cover this topic in more detail at some point this year.

In addition to the panel recap, before we close the episode we also give a brief Valentine's Day recap. Tune in now.

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Email us your questions/comments/feedback at [email protected] and we'll read and respond to your email on an upcoming episode.

When's the last time you embraced your boy for more than the usual dap + hug combination? We're talking a good, long lasting 5-10 second hug.  It's probably been awhile, right? 

Well if you're anything like us, we can certainly relate and for good reason.  For most of us, we're usually taught that the two types of acceptable touch are reserved for the 2 F's: fucking or fighting. So anything longer than the usual dap+hug makes us extremely uncomfortable. 

So that brings us to today's episode on Platonic Male Touch. Our guest Kent Johnson of the Ungentrified Podcast and Co-Founder of Black & Abroad brought the topic to us and he explains how his overseas travels started to change his perspective on platonic male touch.  If our brothers in African can embrace it, why can't we? 

We spend the next hour breaking down whether or not Platonic Male Touch is important for us.  We also discuss the ways in which we are unlearning the homophobic remnants of our upbringing to embrace this type of touch as a way to spread love to our brothers.

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Email us your questions/comments/feedback at [email protected] and we'll read and respond to your email on an upcoming episode.

This week on Let's Talk Bruh we talk about the revolving door of fetishisation.  Often times, if our masculinity revolves around sex, we unintentionally become complicit in our own fetishisation.

There is a history in this country going back to slavery of both white men and women using our bodies for labor, sex included. When we weren't in control of our bodies, we subsequently lost control of the portrayal of our bodies in media. Thus creating a particular narrative, stereotype, and racist sexual fantasy for both white men and women.  This stereotype prioritizes a certain type of black men over others due to the amount of physical labor he can endure, inhumane sex drive, and above average dick size. 

When we fast forward to the present day we still see this fetishisation play out in media and in real life. We talk about a few on screen examples of white women fetishing black men in both Insecure & He Got Game.  We also talk about why this happens in real life and what we can do to be more aware of these scenarios in order to prevent them from happening.

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Join our Men's Facebook Group here: Let's Talk Bruh Facebook Group

Email us your questions/comments/feedback at [email protected] and we'll read and respond to your email on an upcoming episode.

Back in August of last year we dropped an episode on male friendships. We covered how trash we can be as friends sometimes and even brought in research that suggests men struggle at maintaining fulfilling friendships. We also talked about what men can do to establish deeper connections with each other.

So today we revisit the subject but dive a bit deeper on the subject and cover not only male friendships, but the rise of Men's Groups popping up around the country. However when it comes to Men's Groups there's the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. 

So we talk about Men's Groups today because believe in the importance of all male safe spaces.  We also announce the launch of our own Men's Group on Facebook: Let's Talk Bruh Facebook Group

And sorry ladies, the Facebook Group will be an all male space. Many of us at times depend on women for our emotional outlets so we want to be better at creating spaces for us to heal with each other.

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Join our Facebook Group here: Let's Talk Bruh Facebook Group

Email us your questions/comments/feedback at [email protected] and we'll read and respond to your email on an upcoming episode.

Have you ever felt emasculated? In a relationship? At work? By just being a Black man in this country? Coming off of last week's new Gillette #TheBestMenCanBe ad, and the American Psychological Association's new guidelines for treating men and boys we discuss the response from large numbers of men who felt that these efforts are emasculating men and taking part in the constant effort to attack traditional masculinity. 

We talk about why these efforts are NOT emasculating men and discuss through healthy visions of masculinity, emasculation does not exist. However we do acknowledge that for some men who may have not yet defined masculinity for themselves, emasculation does exist. 

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Email us your questions/comments/feedback at [email protected] and we'll read and respond to your email on an upcoming episode.

We have a full slate of in-depth topics to hit yall with in 2019, but before we get too deep we had to catch up with a good ol venting session. 

Why is that the holidays are so damn stressful? From panic attacks, to thug tears, to family relationships, the holidays bring on a lot. So we take some time this week to recap our holiday breaks this week. 

We also pivot near the end of the episode and discuss our conundrum being the center of attention when folks ask about our podcast. 

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Email us your questions/comments/feedback at [email protected] and we'll read and respond to your email on an upcoming episode.

By now, if you've been on social media at all over the past 5 days you've seen your TL discuss the new Lifetime documentary, "Surviving R. Kelly" produced by dream hampton. 

Today we talk a bit about the documentary, our own experiences growing up in close proximity to R. Kelly, and a look at the impact of the documentary going forward. 

We hope the impact of the documentary helps to bring justice to the survivors of R. Kelly and end the decades of sexual abuse and trauma they have endured. 

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Email us your questions/comments/feedback at [email protected] and we'll read and respond to your email on an upcoming episode.

If you could describe your 2018 in one word, what would it be? 

Growth? Transition? Trash? Well, hopefully not that last one.

Regardless of how you look at it, we've all made it to the end of the another year so there's gotta be at least ONE W in there we can all be proud about.

And speaking of 2018 W's we talked about our personal 2018 wins this year as well as the following:

- 2018 Wins: What we're proud of

- 2018 Losses: Areas of improvement

- What we've unlearned this year

- 2018 Let's Talk Bruh recap and 2019 forecast

We gave a slight preview of what you can expect from Let's Talk Bruh in 2019, mentions of our favorite episodes, and a reflection of 2018 as a whole. 

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Email us your questions/comments/feedback at [email protected] and we'll read and respond to your email on an upcoming episode.

We're back for round 2 and this time we brought the professionals with us.

This week we were joined by Tasnim Sulaiman from Black Men Heal. She's a therapist who comes across sex and sexuality related issues with her clients so we had the great opportunity to ask her all the questions that we couldn't get to the bottom of in last week's episode like:

• Can sex be considered successful without an orgasm?
• Who's really responsible for your orgasm?
• We also get to the bottom of PE because what does it really mean to finish "too early"?

Taz also talked about the importance of consent and added some clarity around the differences in sex drives between men and women.

Taz was joined by her Black Men Heal co-founder and fellow therapist Kevana Nixon who also hopped on the mic to drop some gems of her own.

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Email us your questions/comments/feedback at [email protected] and we'll read and respond to your email on an upcoming episode.