It's All Good.

Good Really Is Good, Says The Smoking Poet

from The Good Men Project Magazine

The Smoking Poet is a literary magazine and website devoted to good writing, good times, and Good Causes. We’re thrilled that they’ve chosen to feature the Good Men Project and interview our Lisa Hickey.

Good Really Is Good, Says The Smoking Poet

February 4, 2011 By the Editors of The Good Men Project Magazine

The Smoking Poet is a literary magazine and website devoted to good writing, good times, and Good Causes. So we’re thrilled that they’ve chosen to feature the Good Men Project and interview our (very popular) CEO, Lisa Hickey.
Here’s an excerpt:

TSP: Your magazine states online that you “talk about sex without selling sex.” Explain? Because we all know when you hear “men’s magazine,” a certain image comes to mind and it’s got lots of skin with little to no need for personality. And a chasm begins to open between the genders when that happens. No one wants to be, or should be, objectified.
Lisa: We certainly admit that sex is wonderful, worthy of celebration and discussion. And, in fact, we talk about it a lot. But we also understand that sex occurs in context with a whole lot of other stuff—relationships, parenting, moral and ethical questions around sex, violence, communication, marriage and infidelity, societal norms, health, homosexuality, sex as a commodity, pornography, what we teach our children. About the only thing we don’t do is say, Hey, here’s a hot girl, wouldn’t it be great to f**k her?
TSP: Good is good, but bad sells. That’s what we hear, at least, or it that just something else we are being sold? What kind of reception have you had for the magazine? Are men interested in being good? Are women interested in the good guy? Does that bad-boy image really seduce as much as we seem to think it does, or is that just adolescent tripe? Deep down, women long for the man who is tender and kind and knows how to run a vacuum, and deep down, men wish we’d let them cry now and then without losing their dignity … ?
Lisa: The thing that we’ve found is that you can’t talk about the good without talking about the bad, and that’s what makes “goodness” so interesting. So we can’t talk about loving relationships without also talking about pornography. We can’t talk about being a good parent without also talking about the times we screw up. We talk about how you can be a good person when you’re behind bars in a jail cell.
Good does not equal boring. Good can be an action word. Good can be about strength. Good is what you bring to the table, in all its glory.

For more interviews (and some excellent art and literary work ) check out The Smoking Poet here.

Image courtesy of The Smoking Poet


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