This article was inspired by my last post. This should go out in Tuesday's edition of The Spectrum. I hope you like it.

"I am not your typical college-aged guy. I never had a drop of alcohol until I was of age, and even since then I’ve never been drunk. I don’t watch sports. If you ever see me watching ESPN it’s either because my roommate has taken control of the remote or because I’ve gone clinically insane. I’ve never had sex and I’m proud of it. I’m not afraid to cry in front of others. It’s true. I am far from the stereotype of an American male. And that’s perfectly fine by me. I’m content not being the stereotype, because I think true manly men are an entirely different sort than what we think of as the typical guy.

Manly men have character. They have convictions they firmly believe in. But they also admit when they have done wrong. They love hard because truly loving takes the most strength of all. They strive to do good in all things, accept responsibility for the times they fail and work to become a better man. This is where the idea of masculinity has gotten severely warped and twisted. Society tells us today that men are fundamentally screw-ups. American culture endorses this “I’m just a guy” mentality that allows us men to get off scot free if we mess up. In the long run, it’s okay if we forget an anniversary here or a birthday there because, hey, we’re just guys. It’s not my fault if I don’t understand my girlfriend’s not fine when she says, “I’m fine,” because once again, I’m just a guy. If a girl gets sexually assaulted or raped part of the blame falls on her. Because she shouldn’t have dressed so provocatively or pushed him so far physically. Real men rise above those temptations and realize how sick and twisted those actions truly are. Guys, it’s high time we own up to what we do. Yeah, we screw up a fair amount of the time. We’re humans. It happens. But when we pass our failures off as “just being guys” we’re copping out. We undermine our true strength when we fail to take responsibility for our own actions. “Just guys” have no idea of what a man truly looks like.

I long for a return of the manly men. I want to see a generation of men who walk tall and justly because they do the right thing. Men who love hard. Men who aren’t afraid to cry because they know that the beauty and sorrow of this world both move a real man to tears. Men who own up to their failures and constantly seek to improve who they are for the benefit of those around them. These are the manly men. Those who have disappeared from our mind’s eye of what a man is, but still live out what a man should be. We may not see them much today, but one can only hope they return.

The world could always use more manly men."