Let's Talk Bruh

Happy new year LTB fam! We're back and hitting yall with another episode.  This time we're talking about the silent epidemic considered to be the biggest threat to public health over heavyweights like heart disease, diabetes and cancer.  We're talking about loneliness.

It's something that impacts many of us, but few of us are openly talking about it, and why would we? As a man, we're forced to follow the "rules of masculinity" which forbade deep emotional connections with other men.  And technology these days has made it so easy to stay in contact digitally with folks that there's virtually no reason to actually pull up. 

Well, because we know better, we know the importance of intimate connection with each other and we also know about the major health consequences associated with loneliness.  So we invite friend of the show Dr. Justin Hopkins to break down how we can overcome this isolation epidemic. 

A few resources used in this week's episode:

• The Bromance Myth: How Men’s Health Suffers from Their Lack of Friends
• Men Can Have Better Friendships. Here's How
• The Terrible Price of Our Epidemic of Male Loneliness

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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

It's the end of the year, the end of the decade so it's time to rest up and plan for a new year.   There's enough W's for all of us, but it starts with a solid foundation and goals in place to achieve the wins we have in our sight. 

This week we catch up with Mike Powell of the Powell Consulting Group to break down his vision mapping process. It's helped him, his clients, and it can help us too.  Tune in for the gems.

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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

It's the end of the year so we're breaking from our regularly scheduled format to talk about all the wild events that have happened in 2019 regarding masculinity. 

We cover everything from John Legend being named the sexiest man alive, Tank's comments on sexuality, Malik Yoba speaking about being attracted to trans women, GQ's "new masculinity" with Pharrell, T.I.'s terrible parenting, Billy Dee William's misinterpreted comments on gender fluidity, The Wade/Union family, Male birth control, men finally embracing paternity leave, Jay-Z & Colin Kaepernick and much more. 

Not to mention we didn't even cover the Gillette Ad & APA's New guidelines for boys and men, but you can listen to LTB's thoughts on that here.

And last but not least, this week we were joined by a special guest and familiar voice who returned to the podcast for our final episode of the year. 

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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

Trigger Warning: sexual assault, sexual abuse, rape culture

What should a man's role be in the Me Too Movement? How are  we defining consent? What is rape culture? 

If you're like us, these are questions you may have been asking yourself the past few years.  To get a few answers, we invite Ricky Pulley, the Underserved Survivor Outreach Coordinator at the Sexual Trauma Services of the Midlands in Columbia, SC to chop it up about how rape culture has showed up in our lives, ways we have participated in it, the Black community's response to the Me Too Movement, and what does healthy consent really look like. Tune in now. 

A few resources used in this week's episode:

• 45 Stories of Sex and Consent on Campus - NY Times
• Black Men Should Care About Survivors, No Matter How Many White Men Are Accused by Preston Mitchum
• 6 Black Men Who Call Out Rape Culture in the Era of Me Too
• A Black Man's Guide to Rape Culture
• 8 Ways Black Man Can Fight Rape - Colorlines
• What April Teaches Us About Rape Culture and What You Can Do About It - Mama Black
• The Impacts of Gender Role Socialization on Health and Culture - Lehigh University

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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.

This. Is. The. Remix.

You can also consider this a sequel to last year's episode on the same topic.  Either way, it's that time again and we're talking about Black Male Privilege.  

Last year we dropped an episode called, "Black Male What? | The Black Male Privilege Episode" and it received a ton of feedback. So this year we're dropping part 2 of that conversation featuring our guest Bemo Brown who had very strong feelings towards the episode.  

So we get into what Black Male Privilege is, a definition of it from L'Heureux Lewis and why this conversation is important when we talk about the future of the Black community. Tune in now. 

A few resources used in this week's episode:

• Black Male Privilege? - NPR Interview with L'Heureux Lewis
• Black Male Privilege Checklist by Jewel Woods
• Black workers have made no progress in closing earnings gaps with white men since 2000 - Economic Policy Institute
• Challenging the Myth of Black Male Privilege - Hasan Johnson
• What exactly is "Imperialist Capitalist White Supremacist Patriarchy?"
• A Woman’s Response To ‘Straight Black Men Are The White People Of Black People’ - Huffington Post
• It’s past time for Black men to become traitors to the male privilege that protects us - Black Youth Project
• Black Women's Triangulation of Rape - Sasha Center

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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.

Black man to Black man. What does it mean to love each other? 

On this week's episode I was joined by Jay Barnett, former NFL Player, Current Family Therapist, Founder of We Build Projects, The Kings' Program and 2019 Black Enterprise Modern Man of the Year.

Today we talk about the importance of Black men loving each other,  how trauma, jealousy, and fear prevents us from loving one another, why we have anxiety around saying, "I Love You" and at the end of the episode Jay talks about the most important aspect behind loving each other. 

20 Ways Black Men Can Support Each Other

Follow Jay on IG: @kingjaybarnett & Twitter: @kingjaybarnett

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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.

When it comes to intimacy, how far are you willing to go? How open could you get? Would you bare it all with your partner on camera? Maybe that's not your cup of tea. But for many it is. 

Today my guest, Aaron aka Expressions Untold, is someone who captures those intimate moments on camera for a living and he joins us to talk about his beautiful art as well as how intimacy plays a major role in his work. 

We also discuss how as men, we often want to feel desired by our partners, because who doesn't love a good ego boost every once in awhile? But because of strict gender roles we find ourselves in positions to always be the initiator, to not express this desire for words of affirmation and end up feeling less than attractive. Moral of the story, we like compliments too. We wanna get chose too. Gas us up babe! But it also takes us expressing that need to our partners.

"I want you, but I want you to want me too." - Marvin Gaye

Tune in now to hear Aaron and I discuss it all.

Additional Resources from This Episode:

• 5 Ways to Help a Man Feel Desired - Dr. Sarah Hunter Murray

Follow Aaron on IG: @exuntld & Twitter: ExpresionsUntld

Visit his website (a little NSFW): Expressions-Untold

And when you're finished with all that, check out my interview with We Inspire: 

• Jeremy Herte's Podcast Helps Black Men Deal With Their Masculinity

Follow Let's Talk Bruh on Twitter & Instagram

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.

The Few. The Proud. The Nutless. Some may say, it takes an insane person or insanely willed person (depending how you look at it) to go 30 days without sexual pleasure, but that's what a group of men do every November. It's called No Fap or No Nut November and every November millions of men take this 30 day journey. But why you may ask?

The No Fap community on reddit lists a few benefits of No Fapping including: better sex, increased libido, self control, mental libido and much more.  And yes while, all that's good and well, others aren't completely sold on this movement. Why deny ourselves the pleasure we deserve? And what does this movement even mean for Black people who have historically been denied ownership of our pleasure and our bodies?

Today we bring yall back into our facebook group as I speak to 4 guys to get their thoughts on Nutless November. Tune in now.

A few resources used in this week's episode:

• What is No Nut November? - The Metro UK
• The Top 10 Most Common Benefits of No Fap 
• No Nut November Spoken Word Poem
• Let This Be The Last No Nut November - Vice
• Cornflakes Were Created to Stop Masturbation - McGill University
• Queer Black folks talk about masturbation, confront shame, and affirm their right to self-pleasure - Black Youth Project

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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.

This week on Let's Talk Bruh, I catch up with Gerrard Davis. If you've been keeping up with the show, then that name might sound familiar. 

Gerrard joined me for a mini episode last month because Gerrard was the one who set our facebook group on fire with a conversation on whether or not it was gay for two men to cuddle. And without going down that rabbit role today, feel free to check that episode out for yourself.

Now if you thought that was an interesting episode, you're in for a real treat today. Gerrard wrote on an article on their experience being both non-binary and bisexual (link below) and shared it in our facebook group.  So I speak to Gerrard about their article and we get into quite the interesting conversation on sexuality, gender identity, what it means to have gender imposed on us, and imagining a world with no gender.  

A few resources mentioned in this week's episode:

• Living Non #Bi nary by Gerrard Davis
• How Black Mirror’s “Striking Vipers” episode failed bisexual men & trans women - BYP
• The Invisibility of the Bisexual Black Man - Popular Sociology

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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.

We've all seen the phrase, #MenAreTrash, so need for a long introduction.  And for many of us men folk, we have a tendency to either 1) dismiss the phrase completely or 2) assume those tweets ain't talking about us because we know we ain't trash. 

And if that's your response? We're challenging you to change your perspective.

Today I was joined by my good friend Backpack Matt from the Over The Shoulder Podcast to tackle all things related to the men are trash movement, where it stems from, why we can't resort to, "Not all Men" or "Not Me", our experiences embodying trash behavior and how we can collectively hold ourselves accountable to not be trash. 

 A few resources mentioned in this week's episode:

• "Straight black men are trash": Do I have to agree? - Salon
• Here's Why Women Really Say "Men Are Trash" - Refinery
• Straight Black Men Are the White People of Black People - Very Smart Brothas
• A Woman’s Response To ‘Straight Black Men Are The White People Of Black People’ - Huffington Post
• “Men are trash”: the surprisingly philosophical story behind an internet punchline - Prospect
• RW Connell's Masculinities

Follow Let's Talk Bruh on Twitter & Instagram

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.