Manliness is not the size of your gonads but respecting those you love.

Word-Shop Goal: Create an impressionable male character who judges national leaders and the decisions made on behalf of their voters. I want to illustrate the hypocrisy that ultimately leads us into war. It is their public presentation that contradicts their emotional needs.

“We negotiate with bombs.” A politician claimed this from the podium. The tone of voice was one I had heard inside the boys’ locker room. Then it was to disparage teammates suspected of being gay. Now it seemed a staged bravado to stir the testosterone among the military leaders he needed to incite for war.

Inside that high school gym, I had remained silent. I was fearful of becoming a target. Yet, I knew the provocateur was my lover.