Author: coachdebruyns
Relationships
Are Masculine Traits Really Toxic?
The phrase “toxic masculinity” has become increasingly common in contemporary discussions about men, relationships and society. It is often used to describe behaviours such as aggression, dominance, emotional restraint, competitiveness, risk-taking and the desire for authority. Some of these behaviours can certainly become destructive. Violence, abuse, coercion and uncontrolled aggression are harmful regardless of whether […]
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Relationships
Toxic Masculinity Is a Slogan, Not a Diagnosis
They keep asking whether masculine traits are toxic. The question is already loaded. It assumes that the problem is masculinity, not the collapse of it. A generation of boys has grown up hearing that their instincts are a public health crisis. Strength is “domination.” Ambition is “insecurity.” Leadership in the home is “control.” Provision is […]
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A strong body
My Husband Isn’t Attractive to Me
I was lifting weights in the gym. The entire time, there was this woman watching me go through the motions of my routine. After about 45 minutes, I went to the bag, put my one leg over the rail while I wrapped my hand in a hand wrap. I then put my other leg over […]
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Relationships
Stories
The Satanic Origins of Feminism
Thandiwe is a single mother with five kids from five different baby daddies. She’s 35 years old and currently pregnant with her sixth child from her 12th boyfriend. Deep down, she’s hoping that this one will stick around, but she’s not all that invested in him anyway. They always run away. Staring out the cracked […]
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Islam
Relationships
The Marriage Contract
Allah advises that the believers marry. It is not ideal within a believing society for there to be many single men and women. Rather, it is better that people who are able to marry get married and to even forsake material demands in the interest of society and the chastity of the believers (24:32) Marry […]
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Islam
Forced Marriages and Consent
The first legal and ethical principle we must adhere to undermines our culture of forcing people to marry. We force people to marry when we do not allow them to object, and/or we threaten to disown our own children when they disobey us. We do this using religion no less. The Qur’an states (17:23): And […]
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Islam
Marriage and the Quran Part 3
The Qur’an often discusses marriage and concubinage together. In many translations, the word nisa is wrongly translated as wives when, in fact, it just means women. There are also places where the Qur’an does use the word that could be translated as wives (azwaj) when exclusively referring to wives and not concubines. However, when the […]
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Islam
Marriage and the Quran Part 2
A Cultural Shift We’ve noted that, practically, the loudest people on the block live in a cultural paradigm that bears little resemblance to much of our recent past. The technological era has created abundance for those few people who form the majority of popular discourse, and for whom there exist real existential problems. To begin […]
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Islam
Marriage and the Quran
Introduction There are hundreds, if not thousands, of books written on the subject of marriage. Most of these books are prescriptive books that tell men and women how to go about getting married and how to behave appropriately within marriage. These books are typically also romantic and far from the actual experiences people have in […]
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Islam
Helping Others
In the Name of Allah the Compassionate the Merciful To give charity publicly is good, but to give to the poor privately is better for you, and will absolve you of your sins. And Allah is All-Aware of what you do. (2:271) When I was a kid, I was raised to believe that helping others […]
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