Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Thursday 03 November
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
There’s lots of different kinds of intimacy - emotional intimacy, sexual intimacy, spiritual intimacy. And it can be shared in many different relationship constellations - with friends, family, community, a faith, with lovers, strangers, through art, and in our interactions with the greater world.
Romantic relationships are distinguished from our other relationships by sexual intimacy. And yet this crucial ingredient can be particularly difficult to maintain, let alone grow. In this confronting forum, three special male guests explore why they can lose the spark that unites them with their beloved. Why at times they have stopped revealing their deepest truths to their one-time most trusted confidant. Why they have experienced resenting or rejecting the aspects of their partner that they first fell in love with. Why sometimes a third party has entered their sacred union. And how they have learnt to cultivate the sexual and emotional intimacy that help long term relationships thrive.
‘What Men Really Think About… Intimacy in Long-Term Relationships’ is part of an emotionally confronting yet humorous series looking at men in a society famous for male repression. Guests speak with stark honesty about issues most men usually never talk about - and especially not in public. Everything from love to the desire for status to purpose to parenting to porn to mental health to body image to death, and more. This kind of raw honesty turns on its head the notion of the closed-book Aussie bloke by unashamedly revealing what men really think and feel. The series investigates the costs and consequences of living by a silent code of self-censorship, why men don’t communicate their feelings, and what happens to them (and everyone around them) when they do.
To watch previous forums in the series, to read the stories of the panelists and to contribute your own story, visit www.whatmenreallythinkabout.com.
Featuring
Alan Close
Alan Close’s most recent book is Before You Met Me: A Memoir Of One Man’s Troubled Search For Love, a candid examination of his difficult relationship history.
Alan also edited the anthology Men Love Sex, a collection of stories by men about love, sex and relationships. He has written widely on men and relationships in the national print media and was a columnist on men’s issues in Good Weekend magazine. He lives in Mullumbimby, NSW with his partner, the writer Sarah Armstrong, where they run writing workshops and retreats and mentor writers online. They have one young daughter.
Lee Trew
Lee Trew is a qualified psychotherapist who teaches wilderness survival skills for therapeutic purposes and acts as a bushcraft consultant for film productions.
After training as a psychotherapist, Lee studied indigenous survival skills and spent a year in the bush, finding shelter, water and food in the landscape. Now he brings psychology and bushcraft together for ’re-wilding' - helping people of all ages to reawaken their wildness and deepen their connection with the natural world. Recently, Lee presented a seminar on re-wilding at the Ultimate Health Event in Sydney, and was the ‘bushcraft and trapping consultant’ for the recent Australian film The Hunter, starring Willem Dafoe. He lives with his wife and daughter in Jervis Bay.
Kim Farrant
Kim Farrant writes and directs drama, documentaries and commercials for film and TV.
Kim’s work has screened and sold all over the world. Her credits include the TV drama series Rush, as well as the documentaries Naked on the Inside, The Secret Side of Me and Out of the Saddle. She is renowned for unearthing and exploring the core of people, something she loves dearly.
Gilbert Rochecouste
Gilbert Rochecouste is recognized both nationally and internationally as a leading voice in sustainable communities and businesses.
Gilbert is known for his innovative thinking, dynamic engagement processes and inspirational approach to community activation. His catalyst ideas have regenerated iconic places and enlivened many urban and rural communities.
Gilbert has worked with hundreds of mainstreets and businesses over the last 17 years to create more vibrant, connected and resilient communities. He is one of the world’s leading place-making practitioners and passionately promotes the new story of living, playing and working in ways that support the cultural, social and environmental elements unique to each place. Learn more about Gilbert at www.villagewell.org