“Real Men Feel No Pain” involves projection, stillness, and country music, to question cultural patriarchy and the social acceptance of gendered, private affect. To quote Bell Hooks, “The masculine pretence is that real men feel no pain. The reality is that men are hurting and that the whole culture responds to them by saying, “Please do not tell us what you feel”." I hope to question “acceptable” vulnerability in the search for non-gendered intimacy.