Virility

This is probably one of the most difficult subjects to talk about to a varied audience, yet it also one of the most important subjects—maybe that's what makes it so difficult. It's also so hard to define, and yet so many people think they know exactly what makes, well, a man a man and a woman a woman. Even if you agree that most definitions are arbitrary and related to world views, you also probably agree that satisfying your own personal vision of your gender is very important to your overall sense of fulfillment.

How can one do this, however? Our ancestors based their judgments on what makes a good male or female on characteristics they believed would best fulfill their biological imperative, and this could mean anything from personal strength to growing an awesome peacock tail. In some ways, what makes us attracted to each other is based on this ancestry (and we can't deny the role sex plays in gender perceptions). Thankfully for us humans we also have a lot of brain matter—or a soul—and that allows us to have more social and intentional ideas about gender that will make us happier, and not solely to have offspring that survive to have their own children.

This means the first thing to do is to have a good grasp about what your gender means to you. Even if this is something you haven't thought much about before, trust me when I say that you have some strong, preconceived notions about your sex. Your job now is to find out what those notions are. Think deeply about them, perhaps writing your ideas down on a piece of paper. If you have trouble coming up with your own ideas, spend some time thinking about you think the preconceived notions of those around you are; if you take the time to think about it, you will probably discover that those ideas affect how you perceive yourself everyday, even if you don't necessarily agree with them.

Now that you've discovered what your ideas are, it becomes important to realize that the ideal for either gender—sometimes even your own ideal—is not something you should even necessarily try to live up to. The goal is to be comfortable with your expression of gender and your sexual nature. Your ideals may be very similar to whatever is considered traditional around where you live, or it may be something different, but in the end what matters is that you live up to an ideal that you are comfortable with and can make you happy. The role you end up happy in might not be a mirror image of the one you consider to be the "ideal".

Finally, what you should do to actually fulfill your sense of virility is two fold: one, work on changing your ideal into one that you can be happy with and is realistic for you—trust me when I say that most ideas about gender, even yours, are mostly fabricated, and you shouldn't feel beholden to one if you're miserable. Yet, changing your outlook on what it means to be a man or a woman can have a real, tangible effect on your self-respect and confidence. Secondly, you need to try and live up to your ideal. If you were to write down the good qualities you think your gender should possess, you would in fact probably be writing down your own set of virtues! As long as your vision is healthy and realistic (and doesn't depend on physical features), you can work on improving your gender-linked characteristics much like you would any other virtue set, probably continuing with these virtues with this self-discovery in mind.

Now, as a final note, I bring up two things. One, for those of you that were thinking that virility should mean more confidence in the bedroom or a more exciting romantic life, I suppose that could also be a part of your sense of virility, but really, being comfortable with your sexual nature and what your gender means to you, and finding someone who can empathize or at least be compatible with that will often go a long way to do the trick. For more detailed advice on improving virility, you will need to find another sort of guide or see a professional medical doctor if you want further help in this area.

As a second note, I see that it probably seems like I've been alluding exclusively to hetero or homosexual lifestyle decisions, and that's not the case (although that's definitely a part of your sexual nature). This is such a subject of sensitivity that I don't think it behooves a guide about virtues to give you advice in it. Simply remember that the decision of how you identify yourself is ultimately yours, and that almost all sexual-related shame is endlessly blown out of proportion let alone this one form of sexuality.

Anyway, here are some activities that may help you hone in on your virility: