Tom Matlack explains his decision to allow Penthouse to republish five essays from the Good Men Project book.
Five essays from the Good Men Project book will appear in Penthouse. If your knee-jerk reaction to this news is surprise, confusion, or disgust, you’re not alone. The decision to team up with Penthouse in this way has stirred up controversy among some of our readers—and among several of our foundation’s partners.
A well-known on-air female personality with whom we had discussed a pilot television program built around the Good Men brand, for example, sent me a blistering email saying she would never be associated with an organization that affiliates itself with pornography.
Here’s the thing: I am not good enough to tell you how to be good. I firmly believe that “goodness” is like faith—I shouldn’t tell you what yours should look like, and you shouldn’t tell me what mine should look like.
That doesn’t mean that the pursuit of goodness is a solo journey; in fact, it takes others to see the light, to set an example, to help us awaken from the slumber. That is the whole reason for the Project. We’re hoping to prompt a discussion, to allow men a space to tell their stories with brutal honesty, to talk about the very issues that are causing men to suffer but that we don’t usually have the guts to face directly.
But nowhere in our magazine, in our book, or in my columns will you see an attempt to judge, to proselytize, to be prescriptive in the very meaning of what it means to be a good man. I have my own hard-earned definition of what goodness entails: loving my wife, showing up for my kids, doing something for someone other than myself on a daily basis, and telling the truth. I can’t get anywhere if I’m duping myself. As a hairdresser friend of mine once asked me as we entered a locked rehab facility to speak, “What’s the con you’re still telling yourself, Tom?”
The reason that I chose Sing Sing as the first stop on our book tour was to make the point that no one (no matter what they’ve done in the past) is excluded from this conversation about being a good man. What I found in talking to criminals and convicted murderers—and other men with profoundly different backgrounds than my own—is that I usually learn the most about how to be a better man from men who are the most different from me.
They cut through the bullshit, touch my heart, and prove to me that we’re much more alike than I would have ever imagined. I’ve learned more from construction workers in South Boston than I ever did from my MBA classmates at Yale.
♦♦♦
If there was a “goodness club,” I don’t think I’d be allowed through the front door. I have made some terrible, shameful mistakes in my life, mistakes for which I am still making amends. But as my late grandmother, a woman of simple Quaker faith, told me at my very lowest point, “It’s not how you fall in life that counts, Tom. It’s how you pick yourself up.”
Nothing about the Good Men Project is intended to inspire a discussion of why others are bad, evil, eternally damned to hell. This is about men talking about the road to their own self-defined goodness, about guys getting real—about the moment of transformation when a new, better self emerged from the ashes.
That’s what I always find inspiring to listen to Ron Cowie talking about raising his daughter despite her mom’s sudden death, Julio Medina talking about coming back after a life prison sentence, and Andrew Sullivan talking about scratching his ass (OK, it’s not heroic, but it is damn funny).
So back to Penthouse. As you may know if you read my columns regularly, I’ve developed an interest in certain topics as they relate to manhood: War and post-traumatic stress. Prison. Death. Divorce. Fatherhood. And men’s sexuality, with a particular attention to prostitution, porn, and sexual abuse.
These are issues that we need to talk about more often—and with a lot more candor.
But I am not God (thank God). I don’t have all the answers, and I’m not here to judge anybody. So when Penthouse proposed running a series of essays, I accepted.
We want to invite as many men into this discussion as possible, and the six stories Penthouse has chosen to publish all have a blunt and positive message about what it means to be a man in pursuit of goodness. The fact that our written words are next to naked women doesn’t bother me. Frankly, it’s the ideal place for us to reach guys, whether or not they have any misgivings about pornography.
To the many women who support the Good Men Project, I hope you won’t turn away from us. We are not abandoning you by doing this. In this case the articles, not the pictures, are the whole point.
In Search of Real Men
No One Saw a Thing
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In September, 2009, Tom Matlack, together with James Houghton and Larry Bean, published an anthology of stories about defining moments in men’s lives — The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood. It was how the The Good Men Project first began. Want to buy the book? Click here. Want to learn more? Here you go.
As a female, I see not one thing wrong with pictures or videos made for sexual titillation. I probably have a bigger porn collection than most commenters here. But I understand why some (ok, lots) of pornography bothers people. Some of our worst social inequalities and anxieties tend to be projected in porn. Racist porn? Check. Misogynistic porn? Check. There is nothing new about this and even a cursory glance at porn from the way back machine will demonstrate this phenomenon. I have a small collection of books with very graphic porn etchings from the 18th century and I started… Read more »
Tom, I’m with you on your Penthouse decision, but as explained below, I’m disturbed by the way you have defended it. A friend of Thomas Paine once said to him, “show me a land where there’s freedom. That’s my country.” Paine responded “No, show me a land where there’s no freedom. That’s MY country.” Penthouse is a place of great unfreedom. Good Men should go there. There is a terrible cost in having a rule that says “don’t associate with any thing or person that’s tainted by wrongdoing.” One of the most famous violators of that rule was Jesus of… Read more »
I applaud your decision Tom. In the end, it’s all about visibility. You want to get the GMP in front of as many eyes as possible. Publishing in Penthouse helps accomplish that. Some people are upset about aligning yourself with a pornographic magazine. I find this hysterical. Good men indulge in porn occasionally or frequently. Not every man who watches/reads porn is a sex addicted jerk. And not every woman in porn is a poor soul who has been taken advantage of. In fact I’m willing to bet some of these women feel that wielding their own sexuality freely and… Read more »
A full response to the Penthouse decision here:
http://hugoschwyzer.net/2010/09/14/good-men-in-penthouse-tom-matlack-misses-the-mark/
I can think of a number of good reasons to publish in Penthouse and a number not to. I read your reply with interest, but was disappointed you didn’t say more about your reasons. I agree we’re not trying to tell others what their definition of “good men” should be, but the Good Men Project, has certain values and I think its a valid question to ask if publishing in Penthouse supports those values. Penthouse, like many publications that are in business to make money, want to include to legitimize their brand. By publishing with them you help them do… Read more »
Like misery and politics, creating a national dialogue about men inevitably makes for strange bedfellows. It sounds like you’ve thought this through with care, Tom, and come to the best decision you could to advance your worthy projects. I hope you gain new supporters, and broaden and deepen the conversation. These issues regarding pornography, objectification of women, personal freedoms, exploitation, coercion, capitalism, violence, sexuality, mind-control and manipulation, uses and abuses of power, judging one another, etc. — they are extraordinarily complex and painfully loaded. Unfortunately, pornography is pretty much a matter of scale these days. Everywhere you look, it’s influence… Read more »
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Great decision and a bold one that I support.Since the raise of Feminism(which I support).The space that Men share with each other has been shrinking.I haven’t read a Penthoue magazine in awhile but from my recollection they always had thought provoking articles.To be human means being stimulated…visually,spiritually,emotionally and intellectually.A person’s faith helps them bring balance and simplicity in those arena’s..I don’t nderstand how in the name of Religion some people separate and define other people’s humanity and sexaulity.Maybe if Men and Women could have a more open conversation about sex and relationships the porn indusrty wouldn’ exsist.Good luck with the… Read more »
Tom, I have to say I’m with you on this one. From the beginning, my understanding of the project has been to stimulate dialogue, to ask the question of what it means to be a good man. We’ve asked that question in many different forums, posing it to a variety of men (and women) representing many subtle shades of “goodness”. Here’s an opportunity to extend that dialogue to a big readership. Press on.
Are good men not allowed to indulge in pornography? Is pornography an innately evil institution? Is it wrong for men to indulge in and explore their own sexualities? While there is much debate to be had regarding pornography, its objectification of women and presentation of sexual discourse from a strictly “male” perspective, I think it is exactly that: a debate. I don’t think that it is valid or fair to make assumptions about those that affiliate with or enjoy pornographic material. As such, I don’t think it’s necessarily valid to consider the notion of being a “good man” and Hustler… Read more »
*Penthouse, apologies.
I believe in freedom of choice, a divine right throughout the universe. Women have the choice of posing in Penthouse and men have the choice of buying the magazine. Who am I to judge them?
You present an interesting ethical dilemma: By using this publication to reach a particular audience, is your presence (and acceptance of payment I presume) in the publication an endorsement for its values? You are stating that it does not. I agree that judging others and their choices is never productive or appropriate, and I certainly don’t want to sit high and mighty above others. I have enough of my own bad behavior to worry about. But I do see the other side. I don’t have daughters. The women exploited on the pages of Penthouse magazine are somebody’s daughters. It is… Read more »
this gave me chills. especially the part about learning more from those different than those similar. on saturday night while in atlanta for the m3summit, i was approached by a man who looked to be homeless. we sat down and spoke together for about ten minutes. he had just gotten out of jail 8 days prior for stabbing a man who had “done (his) sister wrong.” he was surprised i didn’t run away from him. he was surprised i wasn’t scared. he asked me why. “i got sister, man. i love her, too.” we are more alike than many of… Read more »
Thanks Brandon and Boysen. I appreciate your thoughtful responses to what is obviously a complex issue. In the end, for me, it’s a matter of being will to stand up and speak my own truth wether that is in Sing Sing or on the pages of Penthouse or a boys’ Prep School populated by affluent young men.
I, too, was shocked when I read this yesterday. Ultimately, I support this decision. For me, the question is … What now? Men use pornography. Porn is big business, hidden business, violent business. Male sexuality is the dragon that most of us run from rather than confront. So my question is what do ‘we’ do with the men that make the connection to the Good Men Project … is there some way in which their interaction with the intensely complicated world of porn will be met? Is there some way in which men’s eyes will be opened to the ‘body… Read more »
Tom, I have alot of respect for this decision. I have always felt that you must know your ‘enemy’ in order to beat him. Excuse my aggressive example-there aren’t enemies in this situation-but the point is that there is a great benefit to having our messages of being a Good Man in a magazine that teaches (consciously and unconsciously) men how to feed their hypermasculinity. Yes, pornography portrays images of the ‘dark side of masculinity’ (it perpetuates misogynistic believes amongst our society), but millions of men partake in this behavior and it could serve as a billboard to touch the… Read more »
Well said.