What Defines a Man?

I'm sure that everyone who uses the internet has heard of Maddox, the writer of so many well know rants. Well I'm not intent on copying him today, but I got an idea from him, and idea for a list of manly men, but only ones from television, or what I think is manly. Although my criteria is a little different, I hope that you'll all stick around to see who makes the cut.

First off lets talk about being manly, many times people mistake these macho muscle bound freaks who parade around shouting orders and beating stuff up for being manly. Manliness has nothing to do with how many muscles you have or if you can raise your voice to effectively bark orders at some poor helpless sap. What it does have to do with is a lot of behavioral stuff, while some of the entries on this list might be a little funny others are serious, just take a look at them, you'll be able to the tell the difference.

1. Briscoe and Green

First up, we have two guys that I decided to stick together because of their close involvement on a television show. Detectives Briscoe and Green from Law & Order, both of them bring to the table different and important attributes. Briscoe is this colder harder cop who had the drinking problem that he kicked and he's loyal to the police. Even when tested by a former friend he doesn't lie or cheat to keep his friend out of trouble. And he never wails on a suspect to get them to talk.

Green on the other hand is a little more compassionate, from the very first episode of L&O he appears in he is helping people out, and while he beat a suspect to get what he needed, at least he was sure that it was the guy that actually did the killing. And the guy had killed like 15 women in a park with a machine gun, who wouldn't mop the floor with his ass? So these two are my first entry into the manly list!

2. Gendo Ikari

Whoa, I don't know about you guys, but I don't think that anything could make you more manly than killing one third of the world in some vain attempt to control all of the beings on the planet. Out second entry Gendo did just that and more. Not to mention that he slept with a mother and daughter years apart. Wow, its amazing he still has that kind of play, good for you man! before you go getting all mad that was the joke.

3. Special Agent Fox Mulder

Alright, I know what you are all thinking, This guy is just gay for Mulder, that's not the case at all. It's just that he's so damn cool. He chased the same dream for over a decade, never giving up and never faltering until he reached his goal and even when it seemed like someone was handing him exactly what he wanted to hear, instead of taking that shit at face value and swallowing it down he checked into it and made sure it was all legit.

Not to mention how he took care of Scully, a woman who he had thought was first going to betray him, he made sure that she was alright and managed to save her life countless times. [she saved him a lot too]When he had a son he went into hiding just to make sure that the baby would be safe and when it came down to it, he came back from hiding to protect it. He wasn't too man to cry or to hold someone's hand. And unlike most guys would have tried to do he never once mistook sex for consoling a woman.

4. Tom Delonge

I know he's not really on a television show, but I have to talk about him anyway. He's a noble guy for someone who gets off on making dick and fart jokes. But in reality he is a family man and he even stopped touring to spend time with his wife and kid and even though I love Blink-182 I can really see how much more important that family is.

After all these guys traveled almost thirteen straight years making that band big, helping punk hit the mainstream. We wouldn't have our Taking Back Sundays or our Brand News without guys like this and bands like Blink we wouldn't have punk in the limelight. Some people call them sell outs and maybe they are, but I can respect a man who sells out something as trivial as music when he has a family to consider. If its just you and you want to keep this hard core street credibility then by all means do it. But never at the stake of a wife and kids.

No matter what, my wife and kids will always be taken care of before my fucking ego.

5. Jesus

Okay, someone had to see this coming. I mean how could he not be on here, how manly is it to still have people talking about the stuff you talked about 2000 years after you died. And he made the ultimate sacrifice. I don't want this to turn into preach-a-thon 2005, but I have to say this. If you think he wasn't strong and stuff, he did handle business when he found those guys selling things in the Church, he tore that stuff up. Plus since he was God and all I guess he could like manifest strength and throw cars and stuff, if he wanted to, or like pick up a car off some hurt person. You can tell I didn't rehearse this, you can't make this shit up.

But the basis for all of this stuff is just to let you know what I think manliness is. It's not that stuff you see where some guy just goes and sleeps with five women in one night and doesn't care for any of them, its not most of the stuff people attribute to being a man. It's taking care of the ones that you care about most, its loving and respecting women and people in general. It's making sure that you take care of what you say you will, its crying when you have to but picking up the pieces and knowing when to move on, its beating the ass off of anyone who hurts or takes advantage of others while still having the compassion to help that other person out.

That's what I think being a man is.