Before I even get started, please let me assure you, my readers (especially those of you that happen to be women), that this essay is not going the way you would imagine by reading the title. My aim is to pleasantly surprise you; maybe even instill in you hope that guys – especially American guys – aren’t all the embodiment of everything that is wrong with how women are viewed, or objectified in today’s world. Also, yes, technically this is a travel blog that I'm doing all of this writing for, but given the international notoriety of the recent scandals surrounding this American shit-storm we're all referring to as the 2016 Election, I feel obliged to make a statement on behalf of all men falling into the criterion described above. That being said, allow me to bring about a bit of insight regarding myself - hopefully painting a nice metaphor for nice(ish) guys everywhere.

Yes, I’m a man, a heterosexual man. And like many others before me, I’m very much physically attracted to women. To me, the female shape in and of itself is just simply gorgeous. Women are naturally just well-designed beings, whereas, well, men – men are pretty crude organisms. We’re hairy, we’re rough around the edges, and frankly, our skeletal and muscular structures were designed for brute force, which doesn’t particularly make for physical beauty – in any definition of the word. Either way, I digress…

Looking back to my time as a child, there were no boundaries, no lines drawn in the sand or tensions among the genders. I associated myself with just as many girls as I did boys, and, more or less, there was no difference in the manner in which I conducted myself around either. Then a few years down the road puberty kicked in, and all-of-a-sudden there was a completely separate component to my view of women in the world around me. Girls became pretty. Girls became “hot.”

Nearing in on high school, inevitably my friends began talking about seeing girls, chasing girls and pursuing girls. Yes, I definitely was a part of that, as it was a certain shared trait among boys of a certain age to become sexually intrigued by the other gender. However, even with all the other guys around partaking in exactly the same conversations and likely consuming the same questionable reading (and viewing) material, there was a deeper part of me that did possess an inherent guilt partaking in all of it. What happened to those same girls that we all played with on the jungle-gym years ago?

The thing is, certainly reflecting on my adolescence, the feelings I had were not so much guilt of circumstance, more so guilt driven by sensitivity. The girls from high school were literally the same ones all of us boys were surrounded by in elementary (primary) school, and I still thought of them in that way. Even today, I carry with myself this radical notion that every man or woman is ultimately a human being. Ultimately, isn’t that really what feminism is all about when all’s said and done anyway?

It’s that same revelation that has shaped my perception of women so much for the better today, because just as there’s much more than physical attributes to the female gender as a whole, there’s also so much more than just looks in what makes someone attractive. Just like guys, girls are more than mere bodies. Everyone on earth is his or her own individual, each with a unique character to match. To me, one of the most attractive things in the world is a woman who truly embraces her own style and personality.

Yet, as a dude today, it is sad to firsthand witness the detrimental effects of the objectification of women on the male population as well as the female; seeing women forecast in such a physical, often lurid nature socializes us to believe that that is the sole perception of attraction to them. Often the driving force in looking for partners is just that, and all-too-often (especially in this particular election cycle) you see men touting beauty of their relative partners in overt displays of masculinity – as if parading around their spouses would determine their own worth…

Contrarily, I was brought up not only with a healthy sense of self-confidence, but more importantly, believing that one of the strongest traits to possess is to be true to oneself – not to be afraid to show compassion, sensitivity and intellect. As a result, it’s today that I look for each of these in my own companions, and that’s why I’ve come to embrace what contemporary feminism represents. By casting aside the hyper-masculine stigma in male heterosexuality, modern men place much more value on the female psyche and intellect, and in recognizing that, carry much more wholesome relationships as a result.

In my mind, confidence is the most gorgeous thing a woman can wear. Like minds attract; strong men gravitate towards strong women, and all should embrace feminism completely because in the end, it’s both genders that will benefit from it.