IIn my early 20s, I worked as a naked dancing ghost. I was a late-night double for a production of Richard Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman. A few nights a week, I would stroll in the dark to the functionalist building of the Malmö Opera, with its marble-clad columns and huge, warmly lit expanses of windows.
Backstage, in the dressing rooms, the atmosphere was almost the same as before a lower league football match, the boys chatted and talked nonsense, only that when they came back one by one from the dressing room where the make-up was applied, they were naked and deathly pale, their bodies covered in black splashes. Their lips were chalk white and their eyes were adorned with dark circles that gave their faces a frightened expression.
The makeup artist had received insulting comments from one of the ghosts who had been fired. So I got the job – at short notice. I started dress rehearsals that same evening in front of an audience of almost 1,000 people.
Despite the cultural stereotype that Swedes are completely at ease with being naked and constantly undressing in public, I was embarrassed and ashamed of my body. That’s exactly why I applied for the job. I hoped it would be a kind of therapy. If I was naked a few nights a week, the shame would disappear, I thought. The outside would heal the inside with the help of the audience’s burning gaze.
The body shame wasn’t really the biggest problem, though. Deep down, I was ashamed of not being able to control myself, of drinking, lying, and acting like an asshole. I was convinced that if people found out what I was really thinking, feeling, and doing, I would be abandoned. When I was drunk, which I was constantly, my body craved validation from women, regardless of whether I had a girlfriend or not.
BAgner’s opera is about a man who endures unspeakable inner torment: a captain condemned to sail his ship across the seas for all eternity. Every seven years he must go ashore to look for the woman who will love him faithfully until his death. This may be his only salvation. Essentially, The Flying Dutchman is about the possibility of forgiveness.
In a strange way, perhaps I hoped that a similar release would rub off on me: I would at least gain clarity and regain boundaries for my body and myself.
On stage, The spray paint made our pubic hair stand on end and the voices of the opera singers made our hair stand on end as we danced with them in the illuminated darkness, our expressions frozen. A captivating experience of sound, light and movement.
We were fragile, powerful, ridiculous and funny all at the same time. Our cocks dangled in unison with the music. Male togetherness, which is so often difficult to associate with presence, vulnerability and meaning, seemed simple and natural in this context.
I used to be afraid of being around men in groups; I just couldn’t hang out with a group of men without freezing But that was different.
I I have been thinking about this experience since the war returned to Europe. Sweden has abandoned its neutrality and we are told that we must be prepared for the threat of Russian aggression, for war. The military has long been one of the one of the most glorified forms of male bonding in our culture, in movies and books. A strong, noble male bond is formed by a shared will to stand up to another group of men, to the death if necessary.
The military may be an outdated image of ideal male camaraderie today, but large groups of men doing anything together other than playing sports, performing, drinking, or fighting are still hard to imagine. Intimacy between men in groups, when it occurs, is traditionally created by an external threat, imagined or real. In the absence of that pressure, we still often become incapacitated due to a lack of common ground.
Group constellations in which men are allowed to be sensitive beings are hard to find outside the high-pressure arena of professional sports. Within the limited boundaries of these ritual forms, all the emotional and relationship issues that men struggle with must be addressed.
But the oppression is palpable. You only have to leaf through the Swedish sports newspaper Sportbladet to read, beneath the thin facade of competition, headlines about what really hurts: infidelity, violence in close relationships, illness, friendship, love and gossip. “Mother’s anger: My son was weak and sick,” screams one headline.
Others include: “I won’t hide anymore – football star comes out as gay” and “The handball player’s strange shoe addiction”.
The male community I experienced during The Flying Dutchman was almost utopian; we were masculine in our nakedness, but shared a situation in which the usual strategies for building a connection did not work.
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Although we put on a good show as naked men and received the most boos and cheers every night before the curtain fell, we were kept away from the main actors between acts.
We sat in the smoking room, all dressed in our dressing gowns, waiting for our next call. We felt free to sit there and chat about anything and everything. After a few months of stripped-down waltz dancing, the arias and the community had become so deeply ingrained in my body that 20 years later I still struggle with the impulse to take off my clothes and dance when I hear the sounds of Wagner.
EExpressions of male friendship have changed since then. I now go to the gym two days a week with my fitness buddies, and while we work out we can talk about almost anything. A friend and I recently started a podcast about culture and masculinity. I’ve learned that modern male friendships can be intimate and open – a recipe for better health and more fulfilling relationships and careers.
But it’s complicated. While there’s no shortage of male influencers leading the way to a more modern masculinity, they’re often controversial. The recent backlash against US podcaster, male influencer and wellbeing bro Andrew Huberman prompted Swedish columnist Catia Hultquist to wonder if this was a sign that expectations of male friendships had risen and the start of a movement of male disillusionment – less #metoo and more #brotoo.
The big problem we still have with masculinity and friendship is that friendship, like art and literature, is about giving up control and becoming vulnerable in the eyes of another person. Masculinity doesn’t have to be about football and bar-room behavior, any more than it has to be about war. Likewise, male mutual support can be found in the most unexpected places. But my question would be: has the male community modernized sufficiently to allow for this vulnerability?
EAt the beginning of the summer I travelled to Berlin with Författarlandslaget, the Swedish national football team for writers. Over a weekend we played against England, Italy, Germany and France in a European championship and helped to forge a male European community of writers together.
At Författarlandslaget I know people who taught me something about vulnerability. Our team captain Fredrik Ekelund came out as a transvestite, and I played with Martin Bengtsson, who gave up elite football after attempting suicide and became a writer and musician. The yoke of having to appear big and strong that we men constantly carry around with us is temporarily lifted when I get to wear the yellow and blue jersey of the national team.
The everyday anger and aggression that surrounds us forces us to build up defenses, but when we strip away the superficial layers of our culture, masculinity can really change. Men in a group can open up to each other about their hidden fears and insecurities, talk about what makes us tremble with shame, about the emotional and actual violence we can inflict on each other, women, and ourselves. The paradox of shedding our defensive, buttoned-up outer layers – as I discovered naked and ghosted in front of an audience of operagoers – is that it puts us back in control.
When we reveal our true selves, we can break free from the trap of preconceived notions of masculinity. We can acknowledge our fundamental fragility and become more human in the process – even at the risk of disappointment.
