I am working on a full blog post about Masculinity, but the scope of that post just keeps growing and growing… so in the name of publishing more, I’m putting out this brief outline of points in the meantime.¹

A while ago I saw someone asking about masculinity on threads.net, and here was my own general answer:

Maybe this is really all that needs to be said. Focus your time and energy on what you want to see more of. Maybe everything else is just side commentary.

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I kinda know the traits I like to see in men. Things like:

• Confidence
• Makes space for others around them to be comfortable
• Knows how to have a good time
• Passionate about his interests
• Agentic, self-sufficient, competent, can figure sh*t out on the fly if needed
• Emotionally healthy, and supportive
• Takes care of himself in some form (e.g. fitness, grooming, job security)
• Reliable, there for his friends

But then you look at society, and the you get a whole host of conflicting messages. There’s calls to attain external things like money, status, getting girls, etc. (which you eventually learn don’t bring lasting fulfillment). There’s calls to re-embrace tradition and traditional gender roles. There’s calls to recognize your male privilege and use it to be an ally and support marginalized groups. There’s calls to just go to therapy already (more on this below).

And many men haven’t looked within themselves very deeply and don’t know what they want², so they end up following whatever voice is loudest. Or they just try to do their own thing and ignore all of the noise altogether.

So what direction should we be oriented in? What is healthy masculinity? Where is the guidance? And where are the leaders?

What do we do about all of the anger, hurt, struggle, and dysfunction? Red Pill stuff, incels, the high rate of male suicides, normative male alexithymia, men’s reluctance to share their struggles (or feeling like they can’t), men having far too few close friends, etc. There is the general Meaning Crisis, and then I think there’s a male-specific sub-strain of it.³ There’s a hollowness here, and it seems to be getting worse.

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On Red Pill stuff: my low resolution understanding of it is that it has a following for a reason. And it’s worth trying to understand why. What are the human problems at the core here?

One observation is that when guys get hurt (inevitable in life), they often turn to anger (because that’s what we’re taught as kids is acceptable), and anger can turn into misogyny (because it’s an easy scapegoat). And then angry guys find each other. Here’s a quick clip with more on this.

Another observation is that this sphere seems to (1) actually acknowledge that, yes, being a man comes with its own set of challenges and difficulties, and (2) ask “What are you going to do about it?” and provides guidance on achieving tangible results in the realms of quality of life, money, status, getting girls, etc. And this kind of problem solving approach is one that men understand and comes naturally.

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On therapy: I think therapy would help a lot of guys. One example topic worth examining IMO is one’s self-worth and how it gets tied to material success and how well one can provide for one’s current or future family.

But therapy kind of sucks for men. Whatever the reasons, men are as excited about therapy as women are about doing bench press.

Unlike problem solving, talking through and/or feeling feelings is not something men are comfortable with, on average. Guys are expected to just deal with it, fix the problem, and move forward ASAP. Guys are socialized to not talk about their feelings. At a meta level, even talking about these struggles can be seen as low status, and met with rejection.⁴

Also, shaming people into trying therapy does not work and actively drives people away from it.

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In general, I think we as men are the only ones that are going to get us out of this hole of (un)healthy masculinity. We need more men figuring their sh*t out, talking about it, and creating spaces to help each other out and build each other up.

As an individual, learn how to talk to your guy friends about your emotions, and learn how to ask them about theirs. Get more comfortable identifying and expressing your emotions. Think about what healthy masculinity looks like to you. Examine your own self-esteem and self-worth.

In your local community level, I think the lowest hanging fruit is still just breaking through general social-isolationism. Hang out with friends more. Host supper clubs. Then maybe figure out some way to host recurring men’s groups where you can actually hold space for each other and have conversations about emotional stuff (and then let me know how you did it).

Then idk hopefully this feeds into the broader macro level changes that are already happening (more men getting in touch with their emotions, more women wanting partners that go to therapy and can communicate well, more people asking questions about healthy masculinity), and things get better for everyone.

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That’s all for now. Here’s a funny video.

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