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I came across an article on a war jounalists views of why young men are drawn to the military. https://medium.com/war-is-boring/sebastian-junger-knows-why-young-men-go-to-war-f163804cbf6 The article doesn't present very good evidence and puts forth a lot of things without substantial arguments, but it did get me thinking on rites of passage. Junger says that young men are drawn to the military because it's one of the only ways they know to become a man. It occurred to me that young men have no direction from school, family, or media what they have to do to transition from boys to men. So I'm curious, what modern rites of passage have you seen, and how do boys transition to men?

Hello I am new to the forum I have listened to a few podcasts and enjoyed them. I have a slightly unusal profile and I will talk, see where this goes. I am now a 21 year old male Michigan, USA. I now work as both an Emergency Medical Technician and a Firefighter. I have had several issues whilist growing up and many of them impair me now. The short version is: low self esteem to the point of an inferiority complex, small male member (yes I know what the average is and I know what micro penis is. I can look at pictures on the internet and most small ones there beat me.) I have body odor that I have yet been able to correct (I also wet the bed until 14 years old due to medical issue and my dad was a smoker so cigarette smoke gets added to the aroma), I have crooked, yellow and decaying teeth. I am 40 lbs overweight (slightly fatter than average), I do not like looking people in the eyes, I do not like attention (praise, anger, or even just looking) directed at me, I am lazy, depressed, I manipulate others in order to hide these things as best I can (I am surprised at how well I can do it), I don't tell people what I really think deep down. I was also molested and physically abused when younger (by peers, not by family) I have an okay relationship with my parents. They are christian and drug me to church every week and as I got older I started asking questions about it. They never gave me good answers or complete enough of an answer to be defined as a bad reply. I started lying about being sick or arrange to go to friend's houses to avoid church. They never hit me or yelled at me for not liking it or rejecting it. But they would always tell me they were doing me a favor by dragging me. My parents went to church but never read the bible at home, the most christian thing I see is my father pray before meals. My parents promoted freedom for their children but they gave too much. I feel I was neglected and thus these problems were never noticed or even addressed. My dad goes in one part of the house to be on his computer where he mostly amuses himself. My mother will clean the house, prepare food and go on her own computer on the second floor of the house. Throughout my childhood these two seem oddly distant for a married couple. They sleep together and I see them kiss. but for the amount of time they are both in one house they might only be together 25% of the time. The amount of time with children is even less and the amount of time they are both together with children is not even 10 minutes per day. This is not because they are busy. We still went on vacations and other normal family things but the day to day stuff seems really weird. I even have friends who have told me that my family is really weird. I think my friends are normal but I don't have a solid enough frame of reference. That is the short and concise list with no back story. I doubt I can ever have a girl friend (I can't embrace her because of body odor, I cannot kiss her because my jacked up teeth will stab her and my mouth has odor with odd taste no matter how much dental hygeine I practice).If I had a girl friend I have no idea how we would act, I have no exposure to a normal relationship. I see movies and I have my parents' model but I don't like either. Of course that means no sex because of male member. I have an extreme self persecusion and inferiority complex that makes interacting with others an internal struggle. I do not like eye contact but I will glance at faces once every few seonds around the eyes. I like to keep people 1 meter away from me or more, so they do not smell me. I consider others more important and I consider them "real people" while I would consider myself "broken". I am not a humble saint, this is artifical humbleness so that people are not bothered by my inequality. I am not able to function the same way in society someone who does not suffer from these problems can. I feel considering myself unequal or even a 3/5ths person is not far off, if someone were to label me as such I would not be offended. So these problems are not that rare but the combination is a little more unusual. This obviously causes depression but I somehow became a firefighter/emt with these issues. Everyone is very nice to me at my job, I do my best everyday and not once have I brought up any of this but I strongly suspect everyone thinks about it loudly. So I realize I left out a lot of details but this is the gist of it. Considering yourself not to be an equal person allows very odd personnnel devolopment and perception of issues. Societal trends or fashions have almost no impact on me. When I know I will probably never have children or a wife, I can take a very neutral look at things. So I guess I would say thank you for reading and tell me what you think or ask questions. If this is the wrong section then I apologize.