Masculinity Isn't Toxic. Our Erasure Of It Is.
Those who wrote off masculinity as 'toxic' just never understood the concept.
Welcome to Social Justice Redux, a new conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. Every other week, I’ll be dedicating this space to finding answers on how we can all secure a long, healthy life where we can still climb mountains in our 80s.
Sam Smith does not look healthy.
Last week conservative journalist Andy Ngo published screenshots of the singer’s Instagram page. On the left, Smith is seen handsomely seated with a prestigious Oscar trophy enjoying the evening. The ensuing photos highlight an attempt to transition into someone who is “non-binary,” individuals who believe they were born a third gender. The logic defies everything we know about human biology down to the binary of the XY chromosomes.
No one seems to know what a woman is these days, but does anyone even remember what a man is? It’s not just women who’ve had their gender (their femineity) manipulated.
Smith’s progression in Ngo’s photos underscores the erasure of cultural masculinity declared “toxic” by millennials. When you lose the concept of what it means to be a man, what it means to look like a man, act like a man, and live like a man, you inherently lose values of masculinity at its foundation. But our culture doesn’t even know what a man is.
Around this time last year, my colleague at The Federalist, John Davidson, tried to provide an answer to that question.
“If we’re going to defend manliness as good and virtuous and necessary for a healthy republic, then we need to be clear about what it is and what it is not,” he wrote.
Yes, men should be physically strong. They should also exemplify traditional masculine virtues like courage, independence, and assertiveness. But why? Not so they can sh-tpost about how ripped or good-looking they are compared to libs, but so they can protect and defend those who are weak.
That is the organizing principle behind the entire concept of manliness: it is not a style or a pose or an adornment. It is a way of being, of living according to the principle that you are responsible for the welfare of others, and should sacrifice yourself for their sake.
What does that mean in practice? It means stepping in to help those in need, whether it’s a woman being harassed or a stranger whose car has broken down. It means risking your own safety to protect someone being attacked, instead of just filming the attack on your phone and posting it online like a beta.
It also means marrying and remaining faithful to the same woman your entire life, and raising a family with her. It means working whatever hours and at whatever job in order to provide for that family. It means going to church every Sunday, whether you feel like it or not, to pass your faith on to your kids. It means getting up in the middle of the night to feed a colicky baby. It means taking your two-year-old daughter to swim class and singing all the songs — your own sense of dignity be damned.
I’m not sure I could write a better definition, amplifying the stoic virtues of physical strength, mental fortitude, and sacrificial living driven by desire to strengthen the weak and protect the vulnerable.
Where we break is sexuality. As a gay man, there are fundamental differences that we’ll never see eye to eye. Under Davidson’s worldview, I may never live up to being a full man, and I may never have kids, but we can agree to disagree like adults. And that’s where the left has gone mad.
Gay men are often allergic to any kind of conversation surrounding masculinity because they’ve been traumatized by a perverted version that picked on the “queer,” a slur-turned term of endearment that qualifies one for privilege points. True masculinity, however, extends safety for the victims. Those who vilified masculinity never understood the concept.
Before my colleague’s column, I’m not sure when I can remember even thinking critically about manhood. Maybe it was a conversation with my father in high school. But beyond that, these discussions seem to have been entirely erased by a culture eager to dismiss masculinity as universally toxic.
If you question Smith’s transition, the legitimacy of it, the integrity of it, and even the consequences of it, you’re a heretic to the woketopian ruling class that’s hellbent on dictating acceptable speech.
Nearly 60 percent of people with gender dysphoria have been diagnosed with at least one mental health disorder. Considering how difficult it is to even diagnose one, it’s almost certain that number is far higher. Gender dysphoria even has its own DSM-5 criteria.
But why are we not allowed to call this a mental illness? How is this not a mental illness? And why, on Earth, is it unacceptable to ask that question?
These people are obviously struggling with a pain that’s very real. Their gender might be made up, but the pain undeniably exists. Contrary to the parental blackmail by family therapists, the data shows they’re even more likely to commit suicide the more they move forward with some kind of gender transition.
The intolerance of those questions is baked in the elimination of masculine virtues that pride peace and coexistence, if not the allure of a $5 billion-dollar industry by the end of the decade. But we need to understand what in the world is going on with men, and we need to be able to ask those questions.
Men today are not working. Their suicide rates are rising as high as their testosterone levels are falling low. While men make up nearly half the population, they are 80 percent of suicides. Testosterone levels have dropped by double digits since the 1980s.
Mens’ low testosterone levels reflect a population that’s not eating right, not exercising right, not acting on their underlying ambitions. They’re becoming apathetic dope smokers stuck in the pursuit of cheap dopamine hits through Netflix and porn.
The death of masculinity, its conviction brought about by its supposed toxicity, is the existential crisis nobody’s talking about. Low testosterone levels are threatening fertility already on decline in the long term, while guaranteeing a generation of fat, lazy men with no hormonal motivation in the short term.
How might changing culture norms be driving testosterone levels off a cliff? What are the implications of that? Where is that about to lead for the future of our children? How much of it is linked to what we eat? Should we be on a meat or vegan diet? 40,000 years of evolution point to meat. What’s the best way to exercise? How harmful is the marijuana everyone is smoking? Why can’t we have an honest conversation about health and wellness without accusations of “fat-shaming?” How are we at a point that parents are recommended to help their children lose weight by injecting them with pharmaceuticals over forcing them outside? And why is the nation just giving up on the obesity epidemic altogether?
These questions form the purpose of this column newsletter, where I’ll dedicate a column every other week to reporting on these issues. So, if you find any of these topics interesting, please subscribe.
Photos:
<a href=“Marcus Aurelius | The head of Marcus Aurelius found in the P… | Flickr“>Bradley Weber / Flickr </a> / <a href=“https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/“>CC BY 2.0</a><a href=“Colorado Morning Afterglow (Explored May 2022) | WEBSITE Flu… | Flickr“>G. Lamar/ Flickr </a> / <a href=“https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/“>CC BY 2.0</a>