there is a sentence that always occurs to my mind whenever I hear or see a person doing a bad thing to another person or to himself , and that is there is no smoke without fire.
when I think of how Abused and neglected children are 9 times more likely to be involved in crime ,I wasn’t surprised that much when I knew that 1 in 6 boys is sexually abused.Or how is 90%of homicide perpetrators are male and over half of all boys are physically abused .I started to connect all the dots,if they can’t cry,can’t express there feelings nor show their weakness to others and at the same time they have a lot of pressure to become this ideal version of a man in this society ,they will eventually have to let all these bad feelings go in some sort of a way,so they tend to be aggressive they use curse words they scream they fight they bully they might even kill themselves or others.
All these prisoners that where in the documentary they witnessed abuse in so many awful ways it gave me chills and so much emotions just by hearing there stories and knowing how they ended up there.
The truth is,only when we move away from what we’ve subconsciously learned can we ever truly find and know who we are.
Carlos words basically shows the struggle of everything he had taught about masculinity and what pressure has society put over him,and how much he was tired of hiding his emotions and sensitivity and how tired he was of being stigmatized for wanting to communicate and express himself.The documentry helped me understand his struggles by showing me how man are forced to bury all their emotions and fears because they will get bullied on .How they always have to be strong tough powerful to create this ideal man to satisfy the society.and unfortunately how bad it’s affecting them and the world.
Carine Saiori
Lovers and Fighters | Section 22 