When I ran into Art Burshy yesterday evening and asked about his day he sighed and a serious frown shaped his face while it lost its kindness.
The words that came out seemed to be pushed by a stronger force inside, sourced with a barely controlled anger and concern as he started his story.
The night before he had seen his daughter go out; she was going out with a new boy friend.
Sure, she had described the boy friend to him; he is a few years older and was very popular at school. He had doubled a class and was now in his last year.
Art had been pushing his prejudices away, wanting to trust the judgement of his daughter.
He had stopped himself asking how much older the boy was, because a 'few' years older can be in a range between 2 and 8 years... quite a difference (at least at this age).
In his imagination he had thought of several things to do:
- follow his daughter to check out the boy...what does he look like, how they are together...and maybe then then he would show up all of a sudden and confront the boy with a BIG smile, shaking his hand firmly.
- search the boys address and pay him a visit with a clear low-voiced message: "if you hurt my daughter I will break your legs", or
- check out who his parents are, and call them with some questions...did the boy already talk about Art's daughter, or is this one of his many flirts...
But he pushed these ideas away as he knows this will not work in the end, ad\nd damage his relationship with his daughter.
But now he saw her just before she left he was shocked on how little she was wearing.
He lost his regular calmness, which normally allows him to explore and influence his daughter (at least that was what he told himself).
He threw out the words while noticing his own voice was louder than he had intended. But it was too late, the words had been said, and the tone had definitely had an effect on his daughter.
"You can't go out like that!!! All men are basically sexist manic perverts" seems to be what he had said.
Pretty heavy stuff for a self proclaimed open minded artist.
She became silent, and carefully selected her words when replying:
"But dad, you are a man yourself"
These words echoed in the room and Art realised he had lost more than just this battle of words.
His daughter, gifted with a sharp brain and sense of opportunity had hit a very delicate spot here, and selected the right mental-chess-move.
Either Art should take back his statement and saving his daughters image of him as a respectable value-driven father, far away from classifications related to sex, pervert subjects and manic behaviour. Or he would maintain his statement to warn her for mankind, while accepting the consequences of how she sees him.
Either way, in 5 minutes this could not be managed, just before sending her off on her way to a party-dance-and-whatever-more night.
So he did the only thing he could reasonably do; he said to her he had been too firm in his statement, that it would be good to talk about it later, and he wished her a wonderful night with her caring and gentleman-boy-friend. This is what she deserved, and he wanted to let her leave only with a great sense of confidence and expectations that would guide her behaviour and experience that night...
Looking back while both drinking a cold glass of liquid bread (the way we refer to beer), Art started reflecting on what happened.
Art has been young too, something which is hard to imagine for his kids. Behind the wrinkled bearded appearance of this artist lies the same soul of the little boy that had been uncertain and low in self confidence when he was young.
As a boy he had noticed what happened between boys and girls, and having had enough time to reflect on it, he had created his own theory.
Girls fall for self-confident boys, or in fact boys that act confident and are 'cool' or 'chill' or whatever term is used by youngsters at the time.
When boys are truly in love with a girl, especially when being young, the last thing they feel when being close to her is: confident. So generally girls spend 0 attention to these boys.
The boys who actually do not deeply love the girls, but fancy some sensual (and mostly sexual) experience, they do act confidently, and get the attention.
The girls adore these boys and somehow these boys get their girls to do much more than is good for them, or that fits with the level of sincere passion involved.
Sure, Art Burshy knows now that there could be exceptions, and he hopes he can raise his children to be confident and look for the right qualities in others. But still he observes the same mechanics in place nowadays. He heard that nowadays boys come up to girls in parties and rub their bodies against these girls, and these girls just have to accept it. Frequently multiple boys at the same time. It's like dry sex in a way.
Art feels sometimes like his own parents, when they had warned him for certain parties, for drinking alcohol and for sex-related fears. He does not want to feel like such an old-fashioned parent, but what-the-f**k...this is shockingly disrespectful and pushes daughters into a behaviour and view of their body that is not good, and undermines their sense of self.
And Art truly still feels that many (if not all) men have a deeper natural desire for sex.
Deep down they have this sleeping hunting-instinct, and for example also Freud has clearly described this sort of subconscious mind-triggering instinct. And the only way to influence this mind-domination Art explained to me in a formula.
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Art's drawing in the cafe Replacing B by an atractive C |
Then the only way to prevent men to go to B is not to forbid it.
Generally forbidding things actually focuses the attention on the negative, creating even more triggers.
Like when you say "don't look down" to your kids when climbing a mountain. The first thing they do is look down below.
So the only way to prevent someone to go fro A to B is to provide a very attractive alternative C.
In case of men this traditionally could be religion and/or a sort of strong belief.
But better is if C would be a deeper love for a muse, a woman they truly adore.
The same philosophy about A-B-C he normally applies with his children.
If there is truly something that he feels is not good for them, he tries not to focus on that topic, and just provide a very attractive event C that will capture their attention.
But this requires a controlled state of mind, and clearly this night this was not the case, and he had destroyed more than ever his relationship.
Well, after drinks Art slided of his chair, crawling to get his coat and with low eye brows he started his long walk home.
I wish him wisdom and strength for the battles to come.