Is the manosphere making men incapable of love? w. Patrick van Straaten

Research shows it’s love – not money or social status – that can soothe the suffering many men are feeling today. But is the manosphere taking this balm away from men? It encourages men to see women as stereotypes and as commodities. This could render them incapable of romantic love with a woman, according to many philosophers of love. And if we want to turn our backs on Andrew Tate and co, is there actually a healthier alternative form of masculinity to which men and boys can turn? I asked therapist Patrick van Straaten. Our chat emphasises vulnerability, authenticity, and real connection with other human beings.

With thanks to Lucia Cucchi for her very helpful guidance on these topics.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

The Manosphere Is it wronging women or is it merely dishing out home truths? Is it also harming many of the men it attracts? Is it making men incapable of romantic love? And is there a more positive conception of masculinity to which men can turn for guidance and self-esteem? Hello and a huge welcome to Surprising Ethics, where we excessively explore some of the most intriguing and surprising ideas drawn from ethics and political theory. I'm your host, William Gilday, a researcher in philosophy at McGill University and the Centre for Research in Ethics. And thanks to the Centre for Research and Ethics, an academic research center based in Montreal, for their generous support of this podcast. Today we talk about the Manosphere, an online world built around masculinity, dating, sex, strength training, and getting rich. It's an electronic ecosystem that tries to coach and motivate men and boys, but it's staunchly anti-feminist and stands accused of being anti-women. We'll get into that accusation. But let me say right off the bat that many of the Manosphere influencers at least correctly identify that men and boys are struggling, that they do face serious problems, and that there's pain, real pain there. Many men and boys are facing fear, anxiety, even shame. And there are often few avenues clearly available to them to actually process and deal with those difficulties. But the question in this episode will be whether the manosphere is offering a tonic to that pain or whether it's ultimately going to deepen and make sharper that pain by removing a key part of what can actually heal that suffering. As well as swearing, this episode contains audio clips and themes that many listeners will find deeply offensive. So please do bear that in mind. But it's high time that we discuss these difficult ideas because the manosphere has become huge and its influence should not be underestimated. Let's begin with a one-minute dive into the manosphere.

SPEAKER_08 2:29

People ask me why Miami. That's a fact. People think that we don't like women.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

That's their main agency and their value is their sexuality, which does deals with their looks. Men are better than women at almost everything. And to say, oh well, they're prettier, well, that's their job. Right? Like their their job is to be pretty this is how this is a woman's main, it's they're really their only agency, is their sexuality.

SPEAKER_05 3:14

Okay, so that's a taster of some of the more extreme content that's circulating. As always, we begin with the status quo about a topic before looking at a surprising alternative theory. So what is the status quo view about the manosphere? It's that the manosphere harms and wrongs women by encouraging men to behave immorally towards them and by mainstreaming misogyny. And here are some clips to illustrate that status quo. Here's Julia Gillard, the former Australian Prime Minister.

SPEAKER_06 3:46

I think now with the online environment, there are plenty of ways of letting your inner misogynist out without paying any price. There's something disturbing going on in our schools.

SPEAKER_05 4:00

This is a news report from ABC.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

In every school and every postcode, rape jokes and rape threats are completely and utterly normalized.

SPEAKER_07 4:09

It starts on social media, but misogyny is mounting in classrooms. Why was it that these 14-year-old boys were sort of really, you know, getting to me?

SPEAKER_06 4:20

In a primary school setting, boys make sexualized groaning noises as teachers walk past.

SPEAKER_07 4:28

Female teachers are leaving the profession, and female students are on the front lines. One of them would be crying every day before she had to go to school because she didn't feel safe in her classroom.

SPEAKER_05 4:41

I think the status quo is correct, but incomplete. And the surprising alternative view is that the manosphere is also harming, shortchanging, and even wronging many of the men it draws into its web. Even in the case where the manosphere is successful in giving those men more social status, more money, and a girlfriend, because following the manosphere's advice makes these men temporarily incapable of romantic love. But in this episode, I want to begin by defending the status quo on the manosphere as far as it goes. Because some might think, look, the manosphere is right. So rather than extending common critiques of the manosphere, we should be rejecting those criticisms altogether. So the episode has three parts. The first asks is the manosphere sexist or is it actually right about dating and relationships? The second asks, could the manosphere be removing men's ability to love romantically? And the third asks, is there some alternative idea of masculinity that we could embrace if we want to reject the manosphere's idea of masculinity? And in that third part, I'll be interviewing Patrick Van Straten, an exports journalist and therapist who works with many men. So please do stick around till the end. Okay, part one. Why aren't these manosphere influencers actually right about women when it comes to dating? Let's consider the Manosphere's arguable leader, Andrew Tate, and what he has to say. His view is this men and women have and should have very different roles. A woman's role is to respect and obey her man, and a man's role is to protect and provide, which mainly means providing financial resources, but also means providing physical security. And this analysis of the role of men and women leads to Tate's dating advice.

SPEAKER_09 6:37

A woman should judge a man based on his ability to protect and provide, which is physical and financial, and a man, in my perspective, and I am a man, should judge a w based on her submissiveness and her chastity and her capability to rear children and her lack of the fact she doesn't go to the club. I don't give a f how much a girl makes. I will date a broke girl, a rich girl, it makes no difference to me. Whereas I don't believe should actually be dating broke men.

SPEAKER_05 7:04

In his different videos, Tate slips between different ideas and different claims. But the overall advice seems to be men should get rich, they should get muscular, and they should gain social status. So this triad of wealth, status, and looks is at the heart of the recipe he provides to boys and men online for getting a girlfriend and for navigating the world of dating, and it's also a values-based recommendation too. Is this view harmful to women as the status quo claims, or is it just correct, a hard truth that we need to swallow? I think the view portrays women as uniformly money grabbing and shallow and fickle and strategizing. It also seems to suggest bizarrely that women are too unintelligent to run their own lives, or at least that they wish to ignore and set aside their own intelligence, and submit to whatever life decisions their man happens to want for them. But I won't waste your time arguing against Tate's absurd claims that women are less intelligent than men, that an inegalitarian relationship is better than an egalitarian one, and that men look for virginity, loyalty, and submissiveness. Speak for yourself, Andrew. Or that all women are secretly wannabe trad wives, who even in the 2020s, all want men to provide for them so that they can stay at home all day. I want to focus instead in this section on Tate's theory of the role of men and how men should go about trying to attract women, because these ideas may actually have a bit more currency among men. So for Tate, the role of men is to protect and provide. Now that might sound good in the abstract until we ask, well, what are men supposed to provide exactly? And why are women barred from protecting and providing? Tate thinks that men should provide money and physical security, but that leaves out something crucial. Emotional protection and emotional provision. That's crucial to relationships and it's crucial to families. And in any case, if men's only job was to provide cold hard cash and physical security, then each and every man would be entirely substitutable and replaceable by millions of other men. Because it doesn't matter whether cold hard cash comes from this source or that source. But unlike money, individuals should not be fully replaceable. Also, why can't women protect and provide? Women can and do protect and provide, even on a traditional model of femininity that involves care, support, and advice, one of a sort that Tate would favour. Okay, on to the triad theory of what women want from a man. And Tate mates a lot of how he has the answers to the question of what women want from men, and that women themselves don't have those answers.

SPEAKER_09 9:56

Women don't know what they want.

SPEAKER_07 9:57

Ah, here we go.

SPEAKER_09 9:58

They don't. Women want things that they women think they want things and then they get them and they leave the dude. Women, women don't have a clue what they want. I want a guy who's sweet and sensitive and takes care of my needs and thinks about me, blah blah blah. They're all out there, none of you are with them. Why? Because women don't want that. Women don't actually want that.

SPEAKER_05 10:14

Another big hitting manosphere influencer, Myron Gaines, has a similar sort of view about the depth of his own insight.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

I love women and I actually understand them. So since I understand them, I know what's best for them. You think you know better than they do? Yes, in many ways, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:31

The triad of wealth, status, and looks might, I concede, help many men to get a foot in the door to be recognized quickly by women who are looking for men. But other things are crucial. Other things are bread and butter. Unlike Tate, I don't want to pronounce on what women want from men. But it would seem in my conversations with women and in my research and reflection for this episode, the other things that Tate does not mention are critical. Having respect for women, having emotional capacity, and of course, personality. Respect for women and non-misogyny is generally crucial. As a female colleague put it to me, women don't want someone misogynistic because they don't want someone who hates them on the basis of their gender. Why would you want someone who dislikes you because of who you are? And it's also clear that personality is important and that emotional capacity is important. These are things never really mentioned by Tate apart from to disparage the idea that these are important features for men to develop if they want to be well liked by women. But key to human happiness is the quality of relationships, and I'll get to studies including the Harvard study of adult development later. But we are social animals who have deep social needs. And these traits, personality, the ability to relate to other people, and emotional capacity provide for those deep social needs. As the psychological literature shows, these social needs are absolutely basic. And if you deprive humans of social contact, they will go crazy. The foundations of their physical and mental health deteriorate to shocking degrees, making many academics claim that these social needs are on a par with basic physical needs. Money and social status and looks do not provide for these deep social needs. Now again, unlike Tate and his generalizations, I'm willing to concede that maybe this doesn't hold for all women. There may be women who do simply want the triad of looks, status, and wealth. But unlike Tate, I don't think we should defend having built a society where people through socialization want those things and where someone is reduced to their wealth and looks. So having argued against Tate's theories, allow me one ad hominem remark. I wonder whether men really want to be listening to people like Andrew Tate for a number of reasons, but here is one. His theories don't withstand even passing scrutiny. And the following clips should further make us concerned about his ability to construct a coherent view of the world.

SPEAKER_09 13:27

So I went to my sister's talent show when I must have been eight or nine. And some girl went up there to start playing violin, and she made a mistake, played again, she made a mistake, and then she played again, she made a mistake, and starting. Everyone cheered for her, clap for her, like, oh come on, and then she finished. And my dad goes to me. Oh that's not. I was like, my sister had a violent. It's a violin and goes by the violence. I can't wait to that girl with chair once a terror. You can't even do that. Like you go for the violence. I can't watch the two shit. Beat the fuck out of that. Next time I was asked, What do you think of that skateboarder? I was like, I can't do that. So I respect them. Maybe they fell off, but I can't do it. If I want to have an opinion on them, I have to become confident in that field. You read me books? I don't read. I've only read one book and I was in jail cell. I know there's a lot of knowledge in books, and I respect people who read because it takes a degree of patience that I don't have. For me to try and read a book, I'm just like, oh, hurry up. I'm literally thinking hurry up as I read. It just takes too long.

SPEAKER_05 14:18

Okay. So if we should have respect for people who know about a certain thing, then where, Andrew, is your respect for actual scientists? Where's your respect for careful thinking or for the scientific method? And if you don't read, if you don't understand the field, then why are you pushing broken generalizations and trying to build theories about gender and about sexuality that require serious thought and where mistakes about those things can have seriously bad implications in the world? Okay, and with that slight bit of indulgence done, let's go on to the surprising alternative theory. And please do hit follow if you want to help make philosophy a bigger part of people's individual and collective lives, and if you want to support my journey in promoting serious and careful thinking about the most interesting and important topics. Thank you so much if you can hit follow or subscribe. Okay, so the surprising alternative is this. The status quo is true as far as it goes. That is, the manosphere does indeed harm and wrong women. But the status quo misses something. That even in the success cases where the manosphere does help someone to get a girlfriend, that does help them to get motivated and get up in the morning and work out and get a better job, even in those success cases, and I wonder how many there are, the manosphere harms the men that it purports to help. And it harms them because it leaves them unable to steer a path towards romantic love. Insofar as they follow the guidance of the manosphere, they will not be able to love. The claim is not just that they won't have a lasting love, they won't have a rich love. The claim is that they will not be loving. That this is not love. The relationships that the manosphere will get for men, if any, will not be ones of love. And if true, that's important because love is central to a good life. It's central to avoiding loneliness, which in it addition to its severe pains mentally has huge health impacts. Love is central on so many different views of a good life, whether they're based on virtue, whether they're simply based on pleasure and avoiding pain. Love is central. And here's the rough reason why the manosphere does this. The manosphere encourages men to stereotype women. It encourages men to see women as all looking for the same thing in men, as responding purely to the same biological drives, as being status and money obsessed, as being superficial, strategizing and fickle. And it encourages men to see women not only as generic in these ways, but as commodities. Something you get, something you win via competition, something you control. But if a man sees a woman through this prism, he is not able to pay attention to the particular woman in front of him. And that in turn renders him unable to love her romantically. Why? Well, we need to ask what love is, and draw on the long tradition of the philosophy of love that stretches from Plato to the modern day. And before we get into this, I should thank for this idea Paul Buhabib, a professor of political theory in Essex University, who got me onto this idea of philosophy of love as shedding light on what's so disquieting about much of the manosphere. So philosophers agree that love is deeper than mere liking. I can like an acquaintance and yet not love her. Romantic love involves depth. But what is that depth? What do we mean exactly and what makes love love? And here I want to focus on a theory developed by Monique Wanderley in a paper in the American Philosophical Quarterly. Here is Wanderley's theory of romantic love between people. She says, look, if a relationship is entirely selfish, it cannot be love. Suppose Bruce sees Barbara just as a tool for sex, food, and fun. This is in her words a particularly egregious offence against love because one must see one's lover. One must see one's lover and appreciate them as an individual, and as someone who matters in their own right. They're not a generic commodity providing fungible goods, but a particular individual with inherent value. Okay, so for Wonderly, a selfish, entirely selfish relationship cannot be a loving one. But she also argues that an entirely selfless relationship also cannot be a loving one. Imagine that you say to your lover, I'm off to the other side of the world for five years for this really important job. And your lover goes, Yeah, mate, fine by me. No worries, mate, like cheers, thanks. That is not love. Maybe your lover should let you go, right? Should should let you make that decision, but but if they're not sad about it, if they're not concerned about your absence, if they're just saying, Brilliant, great stuff, it's good for you, so what can be the problem? That is not a loving response. So for Wonderly, love has to involve some self-interest. It involves self-interest as well as concern for the other. But not just any old self-interest composes part of love. The kind of self-interest that is part of love that's essential to love for Wonderly is attachment. Seeing the other as essential to your sense of safety in the world and being attached to them in that sense. You have to care about them, and that's other centered, but you also have to be attached to them, which is in fact self-centered. And it's not love without the self-centered attachment and respect for the individual and for her welfare for her own sake. And so because love requires respect and caring about someone for their own sake, and because it requires attachment and the vulnerability that that involves, and because for both those things it requires seeing the individual that's actually in front of you, rather than seeing the individual through the prism of a generic woman. You cannot love another person romantically, Wonderly argues, if you see her as generic, or indeed if you don't respect her, but it's a lack of respect and a lack of specificity and individuality that the manosphere encourages men to see in women. Now, there are obviously many other theories of the philosophy of love, but it seems that across the board almost, other theories of love that philosophers have come up with also place conditions on love that the Manosphere style love won't meet. So Wonderly rejects selflessness as loving, but a lot of philosophers have argued that love is selfless, and I don't think Andrew Tate is pushing a selfless approach to relating to women. And many other theorists also think that individualized attention is required. So here are just two quotes. The philosopher Richard White says love involves a very deep appreciation for the absolute value of the other person. And David J. Vellerman argues that love is, quote, an arresting awareness of the value inherent in the other, and that to love. Another, you have to see them close up. You have to see her value, which all relevant beings have, close up. So, what could the Manosphere influencers say in response to this argument? Someone like Andrew Tate might argue along these lines. How is it harming someone to get them able to compete, to enable them to get rich, and to enable them to find a girlfriend? Who cares about your conception of love? When what matters is someone's material and social situation? And if I give them that girlfriend, if I give them that money, if I give them that confidence, if I motivate them, how is that harming them? How is that wronging them? I think the answer is that focusing entirely on the material and on social status is no way to live. It's no avenue towards happiness. So to unpack this, let's sketch these two routes. We can either go for status and money, or we can prioritize love. Well, we know that love and relationships of quality are critical for happiness. And that's what the empirical research shows. Here's a brief clip from the Harvard study of adult development.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

There was a recent survey of millennials asking them what their most important life goals were.

SPEAKER_05 23:15

This is Harvard Professor Robert Woldinger.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

And over 80% said that a major life goal for them was to get rich. Since 1938, we've tracked the lives of two groups of men. The first group started in the study when they were sophomores at Harvard College. They all finished college during World War II, and then most went off to serve in the war. And the second group that we've followed was a group of boys from Boston's poorest neighborhoods. Boys who were chosen for the study specifically because they were from some of the most troubled and disadvantaged families in the Boston of the 1930s. The clearest message that we get from this 75-year study is this. Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Just like the millennials in that recent survey, many of our men, when they were starting out as young adults, really believed that fame and wealth and high achievement were what they needed to go after to have a good life. But over and over over these 75 years, our study has shown that the people who fared the best were the people who leaned into relationships with family, with friends, with community.

SPEAKER_05 24:52

What's more, the chances of becoming a millionaire and of landing a properly prestigious job are so much rarer than the chance of developing love. So we can look at this in terms of an investment decision, which the Manosphere is very fond of. Do you run after a say 0.5% chance of becoming a millionaire with a with a high prestige job? Where those riches are misaligned with happiness, so that the payoff is actually slim in real mental terms, in real terms of welfare, or do you go for the payoff that the research shows is much bigger and can actually lead to durable happiness and have a bigger chance at it? Because it's a lot easier to relate to people in a way that fosters love than it is to become an outsize millionaire. Okay, so I've argued that the manosphere is indeed sexist and harmful to women. And I've argued that the manosphere is also harmful to men and uses the pain points in their life to draw them into a way of thinking about women and relationships that then poses stumbling blocks for their ability to actually love the girlfriend that the manosphere promises them. But I thought let's actually look at some positive alternative in this third part. What positive alternative of life and masculinity is actually on offer? So I interviewed Patrick Van Straten on this question. Patrick is a therapist and works with many, many young men. He also hosts two podcasts, one on masculinity called Man Down, and one on football, the transfer flow. And he's worked as a journalist for Sky Sports. So he's highly knowledgeable when it comes to masculinity, but also when it comes to relationships, self-esteem, and what might be a sensible group out of life struggles and towards happiness. And here's my interview with Patrick. So firstly, I want to talk about the struggles, if any, that you think might be unique to men these days.

SPEAKER_04 26:52

Mm-hmm. Um it's a difficult question in a way, because some of the struggles that men have feel like they're of men's making in a larger way, right? So for example, a lot of men are very bad at maintaining their social connections with other people. Um, I think anecdotally, probably a load of us recognize that if we're men, we maybe see our friends every couple of months while the women we know are much better about keeping in contact. I think that's a real problem. I think whether it's been socialized into us or not, this is a problem that a lot of us face. It does seem that whenever there is loneliness on the rise in our society that it that men feel particularly hard hit by it. And then there are things like dating as well. Dating mostly happens now through apps. The apps do seem to be particularly bad for men to be visible and to get noticed, and it also seems like it's um made this idea of kind of the the the checkbox culture around dating more prevalent, which has not been good for male self-esteem, I can say, as a therapist working in this area.

SPEAKER_05 27:59

And if the if the manosphere isn't something we want to look to for a model of masculinity, how where else can we look? What what how can we get a model of masculinity that's more positive, that's more healthy than the manosphere?

SPEAKER_04 28:15

This is a difficult this this one feels like it should be more for you as the philosopher than for me as the therapist. Um but I'll allow you to attempt the dodge. I think it's um I was thinking about this coming in here, and anything, any definition I try and come up with feels like it would also include other sorts of people. So if you say, you know, a masculine man protects and provides for his family, would this not also apply to mothers? Um and so when when I was thinking about it, I just found myself coming back to those Judith Butler ideas of gender as performance, by which I'm much persuaded. And so when people talk about masculinity, I think, well, what you're really talking about is communicating to other people that we are big butch, self-reliant men rather than talking about a set of actions that are inherently masculine, you know. Normally when you talk to people who have a very strong idea of that that we should try and be masculine and of what masculinity is, it turns out that there are things in there that they are denying or hiding from themselves. I think you can see this when people talk about therapy, for example. They say, Well, people coming back from the war didn't need therapy or whatever. A client told me a client told me that once and said, you know, why do I need why do I need help with this stuff when you know my grandfather came back from the war and he didn't need therapy? A couple of weeks later was telling me about the night terrors that his grandfather would have where he'd try and you know throw his grandmother out of the window. And I thought, okay, let's be realistic about the fact that there was a cost to these images of masculinity that we've ended up with in our culture. Um ultimately, though, I I am dodging the question. I I can't really give you an idea of masculinity except that I can push back on things in the therapy room. Um, and to some degree as well, I want to model a different kind of masculinity. If I can sit there with my client and allow them to be vulnerable and still care about them and still see them as a man, then I think that that can show them that if masculinity is the eye of the is in the eye of the beholder, maybe they need a better beholder.

SPEAKER_05 30:25

Yeah. Maybe then we need to kind of almost shift away from what it is to be a man to talking about the experience of being a man. So there's no essential content to being a man, uh, and talk about trying to make change or stand up for the vulnerable or whatever it might be, expressing anger in a political context or whatever it is, then women also do that, right? So instead, maybe we need to think uh about the experience of of being a man. So given that there are social expectations that apply to men and not women, then maybe it's more about the experience of how we deal with those expectations and kind of guidelines, and we can break them or push back against them or accept them, but there's a kind of a there's a struggle there to react to those guidelines.

SPEAKER_04 31:12

I'd say that most men are happy pushing back against certain norms, but there are others that feel like they're harder to harder to argue against. So then you'd want to start kind of breaking apart those ideas. Let's try and dig into that and see what parts of this belong to you and what parts belong to other people. Um, because of course that there's this weird there's this weird tension, I think, in a lot of the manosphere thinking where it's you should be masculine in the way that we're telling you you should be. But also the most masculine thing is to not care what anybody else thinks and to live this life entirely for yourself. You know, you're you're in this situation where you're kind of a um you're exalted, but you're also a loner. You're you're elevated, but you're you can't rely on anybody around you, you know. It's um and to me, I would want to start kind of teasing apart that tension. And maybe there the solution is also to try and get yourself into better circles. Um because I don't know, you're shaped by the conversation you consume, and so again, the clients who I come in with a lot who come in with a lot of resentment against women, it's because they consume a lot of dating content from women telling them that they're not good enough because they're not tall enough or they don't earn enough money. Um there, I kind of want to say, is this a social standard or is this clickbait that's designed to make you angry with women? I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 32:39

Yeah, right, yeah. Uh so maybe any idea of masculinity has to come kind of below autonomy. We kind of have to only accept those ideas of masculinity that we can think are good for ourselves and that we can endorse for ourselves, rather than just blindly thinking, okay, I've got to provide as a man, and that means income, and that means this job, and that therefore I've got I've got to follow this, I've got to kind of race towards this to feel comfortable, rather than saying maybe there's a comfort in in endorsing my own idea of masculinity uh that might be more my own as an idea.

SPEAKER_04 33:15

Yeah, I think I think because the other route is a life of fear, right? You know, if you're if you're trying to hide parts of yourself in order to conform to an idea of masculinity that's been given to you, then you're gonna live in constant fear of being found out, and when you live with that sort of fear, it turns into shame. And shame is obviously it it causes you to lash out in lot in lots of different ways. Um, but it also feels like it's very hard to think of yourself as masculine, the more sort of masculine actions you perform while living with that shame, the more of a phony you will feel, and ultimately the further away from the people around you you'll feel. Plus, you don't really get to be yourself.

SPEAKER_05 34:14

So let's talk about kind of connection then and and the and its place in all this. So do you think connection is the way to build self-esteem rather than competing for money, competing for social status, and competing to sort of seem more masculine than the next guy?

SPEAKER_04 34:32

Uh yeah, I think I think so. I the In an ideal world, of course, you would want to be we want to end up at a point where you would believe that you had worth even if you were living in a vacuum. But the way to start building that stuff when you don't have it is to is to recognize that you can still do other things for do things for other people, connect to other people while not feeling good about yourself. And the more you do this stuff, the easier it is to feel good about yourself. Um I think that when we're when we connect to other people, we often are our best selves. We we can be generous, we can be loving, we can be um selfless and self-sacrificing and all these other things which I think are kind of like the higher human values. Um and I think as well that the manosphere kind of preys on this idea of it preys on loneliness to be sure. Um so the more connected you are, it feels like the less susceptible you are to this particular way of thinking. When I think about the manosphere, it feels like what it's really doing is promoting a kind of paranoia. Um but it's a paranoia that comes with a very gratifying and soothing worldview in a way. Because it really simplifies things, and it feels like all this stuff is a way of making sense of a very big, complicated, and um unintelligible world. The more you connect to other people, I think the more you start to see other people as being as deep as you, as being motivated by the same sort of things that you are, as having the same struggles that you do, and as a result, that normalizes your struggles. Um and also I think connects you to the people around you.

SPEAKER_05 36:31

So, what is real connection as opposed to like shallower forms of collegial relationships or acquaintances or people who who maybe like you, whose popularity you're kind of trying to amass, or whatever, or or women who someone might be having relatively shallow relationships with, what is this real connection that that leads to self-esteem?

SPEAKER_04 36:53

Hmm. I think there's something there about being truly vulnerable and being honest about who you are. Um if you are trying to show yourself as being respectable or trying to show yourself as being, you know, very butch or whatever, then it feels like you're always holding somebody at arm's length. And we know those people in our lives, right? There are those people who are very concerned with class, for example. Um and you never feel like you're quite getting there because it feels like they're more invested in a particular image of themselves, in presenting that image than really giving you the real thing.

SPEAKER_05 37:31

Yeah, I think that's right. So it's vulnerability, but also maybe the the honest and deep conversations that come with that. So is it partly about topic of conversation, like not just talking about the football or about sport or something like this, but also talking about fears and hopes and and values and that kind of thing? Does that is that an essential part of it, talking to friends and people about these these deeper things?

SPEAKER_04 38:02

I I I think yes, but but in theory, you could have any conversation and have real connection in it, right? Like we've all experienced that as well, where we've been talking to somebody about some nonsense, but it feels like you're really understanding each other on some deeper level because maybe what you're really doing is a stab is showing that you have a shared emotional language or that you have similar ways of thinking about things. I think those are forms of connection that could happen in a conversation about movies you like, for example. But at a certain point there's going to be there's going to have to be vulnerability there, and I think as well a a kind of transparency about what you want. These are the values I have, these are the desires I have. Um and let the other person see those and accept them. Otherwise, you're gonna be stuck in the first sort of six months of a relationship for the rest of your life, uh, where you're you're performing.

SPEAKER_05 39:03

Yeah, yeah. And assuming that like fear is the main reason why men don't have more real connection, fear of being laughed at, fear of um of wanting a friendship, for example, more than the other person wants it, or fear of seeming just weird, just out of line with social norms. Are there any ways you can think of that men can kind of overcome that fear or or or set it aside?

SPEAKER_04 39:35

So part of the work here I think we talk about what you do admire about yourself, what you do like about yourself. Is it that I am thoughtful, that I ask good questions, that I'm interested in other people, that I am intelligent, that I'm funny, all this kind of stuff. If they start to have those ideas about themselves, then there's something for them to fall back on when they get that rejection. It's not that I'm not funny, it's that this person doesn't like my sense of humour, you know. Um but I also think you can start these things in a fairly low-stakes way. So my recommendation would always be have a conversation with somebody you often have conversations with, like a co-worker, but just be a little bit more revealing about yourself. Talk to them a little bit about your private life. If if you're talking about a film that you've just seen, maybe give them something about it, you know, about what connected you to it or what you didn't like about it. I very often find that um clients I know who are who are lonely, they become very scared of pushing away any potential connection. And as a result, they end up being kind of boring because they don't want to run the risk of offending, so they won't make jokes and they won't really show themselves. They're just trying to be completely bland and acceptable. They're kind of they're trying to be like oh negative person, where where it's just like everybody can accept them, and that again that can get you to being somebody's acquaintance or their work friend, but it's not going to get you any further than that. So there is gonna have to be a little bit of risk, but it doesn't have to be I walk up to a woman in a bar and ask her out, you know, it can just be I talk to the person next to me on the bus for five minutes, I offer to help somebody with their bags. And honestly, when I'm going through a period where I'm feeling where I'm feeling low, I try and seek out opportunities to do stuff like this because I feel better afterwards. Yeah, you know, nothing makes you feel more magical than helping somebody, you know, carry their pram up a flight of stairs. Um it's very hard to see yourself as valueless when someone's looking at you with gratitude and saying thank you.

SPEAKER_05 41:53

And then I I wondered what you thought about why these Manosphere influencers believe what they believe. Like what is emotionally speaking, given that we know that the logic doesn't really stack up, what is it that's motivating them to believe the things that they do?

SPEAKER_04 42:12

Well, I think it's I think it's kind of an interesting area. Because it's um yeah, obviously I'm not gonna like I'm not their therapist, so that's there's a limit to what what I can say about it, but I do think it's interesting that people um that it seems like they've decided I will simply not be hurt again. I will not rely on anybody again. And the best way to do that is to kind of separate myself from everybody. But in a way we're doing we're doing a favour to the Manosphere guys by imagining that they have a coherent ideology. I think some of them do, um, but most of them seem like fairly straightforward grifters where they're where they say, I will sell you this idea of masculinity, but what I'm really selling you is my private telegram channel or my investment app. And I do think that that's kind of worth going over with a client if they were attracted to this particular area, because do these people care about you? Do they care about creating any kind of connection with other men? Do you think they do? Um because I don't think they do. And and the another thing I saw that that really interested me, I just watched that Louis Thoreau documentary. Yeah, and I don't know if you noticed this. I did you watched it? Yeah, I saw it, yeah. There were so many bits of b-roll, you know, just interstitial shots, where they had these these masculinity guys just kind of, you know, rolling around the beach or doing whatever. And so many of them were shadow boxing or you know, doing the punch bag game or whatever it was. And it j I just found it really interesting that they think that that's actually how you have to engage with the world in order not to be swamped by it. And a lot of people feel that way. Um but to me that is a fearful that's A fearful response. That's that suggests that you you have your fists up all the time. You can't be reliant on anybody because otherwise you give somebody you know a moment's vulnerability and they will destroy you. That to me would be a very reasonable response to I I guess formative experiences in childhood. I'm not saying that has to be the case, but if you did have instability in childhood, if you did feel out of control, if you did feel scared, if you did feel like your love of your siblings or your mother or something was being weaponised against you by somebody scary, it would make sense to try and lop off all those parts of you. You know, the belief that you develop in order to keep yourself safe when you are 10 years old is not just going to disappear the second you don't need it anymore. It's probably going to stick around and resurface multiple times as you get older. And so my guess is that there's something like that, there's some formative experience for most of these guys, which has stuck around for them. And because they don't want to look too closely at it, they've never really been able to differentiate it from who they are now. They're stuck in that position forever of almost reliving that same, that same issue. Even if it ended 20, 30 years ago.

SPEAKER_05 45:17

Yeah, and when you frame it in terms of childhood, it's kind of sad. I think it's sad that a lot of these influencers are forging a belief system out of emotional impulses because of emotions that they might not understand and don't know what to deal with, when they're trying so desperately to be the rational male. So the the title of the the sort of founding text apparently of the manosphere is called The Rational Male.

SPEAKER_04 45:45

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_05 45:46

If you're rational, you're meant to form beliefs out of evidence and reason and not out of this emotion that's coming to me, and I've got I've got to find a way of tackling it, of managing it, of of pinning it down and pushing it away. That's not how you form beliefs about society and about ethics. And it's kind of embarrassing or sad, I don't know quite what it is that they're so driven by emotion, I think, in quite plain ways a lot of the time, and yet they're trying to present themselves as we're the rational people, we're the men, we're the men who are, you know, and brackets, women are, you know, irrational and kind of hysterical, and we're not, and we know what's happened, and we know what the conspiracy theories are, and so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_04 46:37

Yeah, there was um I listened to a couple of your episodes in preparation for this, and one of the ones that I thought um a lot of the stuff you said in the New Year's Resolutions episode I think is really relevant to this stuff as well. Um, you know, the idea basically of of being more process oriented rather than end-oriented. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I think that a load of these people in the manosphere are thinking the important thing is that I get money, the important thing is that I get a girlfriend, and they're not really looking beyond that point. Yeah. And as a result, you know, when they get there, they're probably not going to be satisfied or they're going to probably lose what they have immediately.

SPEAKER_05 47:23

So thanks so much to Patrick for that really interesting conversation. I want to just end with some concluding thoughts. I think we have a choice between a puffy-chested masculinity rooted in fear, fear of vulnerability, fear of the other, and fear of revealing your weaknesses, and a more positive masculinity based on a more nuanced way of trying to navigate this world as a man, and based on the value of friendships, of proper relationships, and a real connection. If you're a man or a boy listening to this, you're enough without being rich or strong or feared. You don't need that. You need to live your life in your own way and according to your own values. And as for feeling valued, people respond better to feeling look, you value them, that you like them and respect them, more than puffing up your chest and trying to look strong. So take that leap and recognize that your mate is funny. Tell them that. Tell them that you value them. If your date is talented and clever, tell them that. It's the quality of relationships that will make you feel better. And quality relationships involve risk and they involve vulnerability. Remember that you are valued, and that there are many men and others in your communities who do value you and who would show you that if they were given the chance. They care about you more than Andrew Tate does. And if there isn't anyone in your life at the moment who gives you that sense, there can be in the future. I'm not saying forget masculinity. There are many great things that we would associate with masculinity. Sure, you should shout from the rooftops to change society where you see a case for that, but do it for the right goals. As men we can stand up for the vulnerable to protect vulnerable humans and animals, rather than falling for some irrational hatred of four billion people because one of those people said she couldn't be with us anymore. Because we're better and more rational than falling for such nonsense, for these nonsensical generalizations. Sure, go to the gym and work out and get strong, but don't do it because you want to prove that you're better than the next guy, or because you're giving in to the idea that it's shameful to be a man and yet not muscular. Do it for your mental health, for release from stress and strain and negative emotions. Do it to feel more connected to your body and to be better to other people around you. And for God's sake to live a longer life, to die later. And I want to end with a story from Scott Benglin, who wrote a re who wrote an article recently about masculinity. He writes this For 30 years I was the model of male performance masculinity. I ran the model better than most. Division I football. The jersey spoke louder than I ever needed. Then a career in commercial aviation. The epaulets on the shoulders carrying all the weight and authority. After that came day trading, short selling equities, the purest form of the performance model there was, daily spreadsheets, some showing six digit profits, all verifying you know more than most men could see. I ran the Manosphere model most of today's influencers could only dream of. And at fifty, I tore it all down. A realization that outward performance does not build real relationships. A wife and three daughters who managed me rather than knew me. A house that from the outside looked like the American dream, and yet inside it was empty. What I had built didn't produce any real relationships. And for this generation of young men it's even more devastating. The Manosphere produces outward confidence, but nothing inside. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for men in their twenties and thirties, not accidents, not illness, but disconnection turned inward. The Manosphere performance model has been running now for twenty years. The loneliness numbers are not improving. The suicide numbers are not improving. The performance model does not just fail to produce the connection we wanted. It actively prevents it. The performance was not protecting me. It was insulating me from what I was trying to build. Connection. Connection requires access. She wants access. When she gets it, she feels companionship. The performance model was designed to prevent exactly what she needs. The other door exists. The research has been pointing at it the whole time. It does not require becoming less. It requires becoming more honest about what we have been doing and why it's not working.