Mean Boys A Personal History

"

And it's basically just that trying to reconcile that. So, you know, a good feminist doesn't say what I'm saying. So a good feminist supports women no matter what. And yet a good feminist actually doesn't support all women.

"

I love this question, and the honest answer is, I barely even have a view much less the answer. This is something I struggle with every day.

I know you're working on a book about boys, and I wonder if you have any insight into what I can do to give my son what I had, which is the opportunity to go out into the world and slay a dragon of his own.

"

And I was just like literally reading a chapter about how like empathy is the only way forward.

And just- It's usually these broken men.

I will say that book was excellent and I was really happy that I read it and I've been thinking about it a lot because I've been thinking a lot about like the drug culture amongst the gay community.

And I think that was, and I really told you the next day, I was like, I think it's a really good thing that you did that.

I think we're all just trying to be cool and individuals and we're all trying to like be interesting and we're trying to find community within community and we're all out here.

And a lot of what this book talks about is like the way that fashion and politics speak to each other and the way that culture, they say politics flows downriver from culture.

And so there's a whole chapter about, you know, people going to Art Basel in Miami and how that's really more about partying, like exclusively about partying and not really about art.

It's like everything, it's like going to that party, this thing, that, being pictured this way on Instagram, looking this way, wearing these clothes.

And it sounds like a dark book, and in many ways it is, but it was also very illuminating and I think very true.

Yeah, and I really, really love that. I'm going to read that ending, I think forever. I love, he ends on this hopeful note of like, empathy is the only way forward. It's like, it is the thing that like, it makes me think of, sorry, but like, Fleabag, like people are all we've got, like other people are all we've got.

And I don't know, it was just really refreshing almost to feel it put like that and a lot of reading it was very tough, but I recommend it, especially for gay men our age or queer people our age, really, or anybody. It's very good.

"

I'm reading "Martyr" by Khabib Akbar. So good. You would love it. I think you would really love this book, too.

Actually, you know what? I have that book. They sent it to us, didn't they? Yeah, I think they did. Somebody sent that to us. Somebody said it to me. I was like, who sent me this? And then, like, I let the galley sit on my shelf.

Seth Meyers loves this book. Best five hands down.

And I read it and I was just like, oh, this fucking rules. This is exactly my shit.

You would love it.

"

And actually kind of on face value, it kind of speaks to Mean Boys a little bit, too, because that book is a lot about how culture, about politics flows downhill from culture, like and just about like interesting things to think about as of late.