“Ritual offers us the two things required to fully let go of the grief we carry: containment and release.” - Francis Weller

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There I sat, in a circle with sixty other men. Stark naked.

I didn’t know I’d be putting my bare ass on a towel when I signed up for this men’s retreat. Nor that I’d be lined up to have ice cold showers and carry heavy pieces of wood back and forth—though, perhaps, I should have seen those coming.

But that circle changed my life. Wonderfully so. Sitting amidst those nude dudes broke open the pernicious patterns of patriarchy and transformed my capacity to have real friendships with straight men. And like all good stories, this one ends with a wedding.

Hesitation and homophobia

As a gay teen, I’d followed the cliché: falling for what I couldn’t have. The straight guy. As a young man in my twenties, I’d started to develop friendships with straight men but always felt an impermeable membrane between us. Theologian Mary Hunt describes it as the modus operandi of male-male friendships, that they are always seeking mutual enhancement. “Power meets power and produces more power,” she writes.

By my mid-twenties, I was tired of that enduring separation. I’d realized it wasn’t all their hesitation or homophobia that kept these connections shallow–it was also my fear. My well-earned sense from childhood that these guys weren’t safe to connect with. That they didn’t like me. But that was no longer true! Now there were men who wanted to be my friend, but I kept getting in the way. That’s why I signed up for this men’s retreat, even though there was another session specifically for gay, bi, and trans men, too.

In particular, back in 2013, I was growing my friendship with a straight guy called Dan. We’d been in each other’s orbits for about five years, especially as climate activists, but that year we took a trip together. A new depth of shared experience.

Dan made me laugh. We drove way too fast across Iceland to get to a rafting trip on time. We watched puffins while sitting in a naturally-heated rock pool. He was fearless and smart and I liked him a lot. And I didn’t want things to get weird.

So I went looking for help. I wanted to be pushed out of my comfort zone and to find a better way to relate to Dan and other men like him. I knew I needed a container: some place or process that would hold and guide me towards calmly and confidently just being myself.

I signed up for the men’s retreat.

Witnessing the impossible

There we were: no clothes on, sitting mostly cross-legged on the floor, aged from our early twenties all the way up to mid-seventies. Across the room sat a father and son. Next to me, a burly man in his fifties. My eyes darted around the room, trying to rank myself among this group of strangers. Holding my shoulders back. Sucking my belly in.

We were told the purpose of this session was to talk about our bodies: a conversation I’d never had with straight guys before.

One by one, each man spoke for a few minutes. Some of the leaders of the group went first, setting the tone. One talked about his hairy back, another about his weight. I breathed a little deeper. Soon, men were sharing all sorts of experiences of body shame: the size of their penis, the lingering physical impacts of cancer. Their disordered eating. Aging bodies. Erectile dysfunction.

Walking in, I was worried that being around so many naked guys would be a turn-on. I remembered my boarding school's open showers. But this was different. All my energy was in my heart. I felt pure and deep compassion. Now and then, tears came as these guys told their stories.

Not only was this a new experience for me. Deep down, I hadn’t assumed something like this was possible.

Surrounded by guys who, only a few hours ago had been bro-ing out, shouting as they lifted heavy things through a forest; here I was, watching a straight, middle-aged man weeping in his neighbor’s tender arms, talking about how he never felt good enough.

To be clear, these were not Brooklyn hipsters processing their recent ayahuasca retreat. These were suburban hockey dads, more than a decade ago. Therapy-avoidant straight dudes, married with kids, whose idea of bonding was debating their picks for a fantasy football league.

So, what made it possible for such a countercultural experience to happen?

Containers for transformation

The answer is that the retreat had a strong container.

Let’s get clear about that word “container”, because creating containers is one of the most important skills in building transformative relationships, and therefore in the work of social and cultural change.

My friend and social critic Erica Williams Simon describes a container as a space for sharing and growth. Crucially, “that doesn’t mean you’ll feel comfortable all the time, but you should always feel safe, even when in some discomfort.” Containers work their magic precisely when they take us beyond our own desire.

That’s a really important and nuanced point, so let me say that another way.

I live in a culture where I am constantly catered to: choice reigns supreme. That means that I can often avoid doing the hard thing, because the easy thing is also on the table–even when my values or my integrity tell me that the hard thing is what I should do.

A container gives me the focused time, space, and just-enough social pressure to do the hard thing that I know, deep down, is right.

That’s why exercise classes work. It’s why canvassing during election season is better in a group than alone. And it’s why initiation ceremonies have been a staple of human culture for tens of thousands of years.

But whereas containers came as standard in much of social history, we live in an age of institutional decline and community decay. Author and educator Martín Prechtel puts it this way, “We don’t have a village, we only have a public.” In an age of social media, we have endless opportunities to perform, and very few places to transform.  

Transformation was possible in that circle, because, unlike most group events where connection forms slowly under the guidance of one or two leaders, this men’s retreat had twenty five participants among thirty-five staff.

Think about it. That’s more staff than participants!

And most incredibly, only four of the thirty-five were paid to be there as facilitators. All the others had paid to come back as staff–spending their dollars for the privilege of cooking, cleaning, organizing logistics, and leading smaller exercises for us new folks.

We didn’t walk into a workshop. We walked into a village.

It was an existing community, with existing norms. Like sitting naked in a circle talking about body shame. This was a strong container in which there were clear shared intentions, high trust in the facilitators, compelling modeling of expected behaviors, and strong leaders who weren’t afraid to course-correct participants when they went off-track.

That circle of naked guys was a container for my transformation.

A toast: to friendship! (With straight dudes)!

While sitting butt naked on the floor, looking around at all these straight guys in every shape and size, I finally got to see how profoundly normal they all were. In this moment, there was nothing to be afraid of. And really, nothing to desire either!

The container put me face-to-face, or perhaps just as importantly, cock-to-cock, with this group of heterosexual men and melted away the distance that had previously felt so insurmountable.

Since that retreat, Dan and I have traveled together often. Riding roller coasters in Dollywood. Bathing in the hottest, smallest hot tub I’ve ever seen in Japan. Our friendship has grown into a beautiful, brotherly bond. I love Dan deeply and uncomplicatedly.

And I know he loves me too.

This year, he honored me by asking me to be a Best Man at his wedding. Both at the bachelor party, and then again while toasting him on his wedding day, I felt immense gratitude. Grateful to have him as a life-long friend. And grateful for that circle of guys who helped me know that this kind of friend-love is possible.