Modern Wisdom - #692 - Connor Beaton - Why Are Young Men Struggling So Much?

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

Connor Beaton is a men’s life coach, founder of ManTalks and an author focusing on men’s wellness and personal growth. Men are often told that their problems would be fixed if they stopped being so stoic. If only they ceased hiding their emotions and started being more vulnerable, their mental health would improve. But is this actually the case? Does the world actually want vulnerable men? Expect to learn whether men actually can show their vulnerability to the world, why a man’s pain is so important for his growth, whether modern therapy is failing men, why men have so many surface level relationships, how men can embrace anger and take back control of their minds, why so many men gauge their worth on how their business and relationship are doing, and much more... Sponsors: Get $150/£150 discount on the Eight Sleep Pod Cover at https://eightsleep.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours with your first box at https://www.drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 4.0 at https://manscaped.com/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Connor Beaton. He's a men's life coach, founder of ManTalks and an author, focusing on men's wellness and personal growth. Men are often told that their problems would be fixed if they stopped being so stoic. If only they ceased hiding their emotions and started being more vulnerable, their mental health would improve. But is this actually the case? Does the world really want vulnerable men? Expect to learn whether men actually can show their vulnerability to the world. Why a man's pain is so important for his growth, whether modern therapy is failing men, why men have so many surface-level relationships, how men can embrace anger and take back control

of their minds, why so many men gauge their worth on how their business and relationship is performing. And much more. Connor is absolutely great. He has a very holistic view of personal growth and masculinity and men's roles in the modern world and how they can actually transcend and integrate their emotions. He's great, you're really, really going to love this episode. There is so much to take away from this one. This Monday, Sadia Khan joins me again on Modern Wisdom. We recorded while we were both in London, and this episode goes for nearly two hours, and it covers everything, from confidence to charisma, how to be less nervous around your partner, the real problem of online dating, and an awful lot more. You do not want to miss this one. This episode is brought to you by 8Sleep. I am currently dying in Austin because it's

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Head to 8sleep.com-modernwisdom to save $150 or £150 on the pod cover, that's the best offer that you will find, but you must go to eightsleep.com-modernwisdom. This episode is brought to you by element. Stop having coffee first thing in the morning, your adenosine system that caffeine acts on isn't even active for the first 90 minutes of the day, but your adrenal system is and salt acts on your adrenal system. Elements contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio of sodium potassium and magnesium with no junk, no sugar, no coloring, artificial ingredients, gluten fillers or any other BS. It plays a critical role in reducing muscle cramps and fatigue while optimizing brain health, regulating appetite and curbing cravings. It's how I've started

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This episode is brought to you by Manscaped. If you are a guy who is still using an old face shaver from four Christmas's ago to trim your gentleman's area, grow up. Come on join us here in the modern world. There are purpose-built tools for the job and Manscaped lawnmower 4.0 is the best ball and body head trimmer ever created. It's got a cutting edge ceramic blade to reduce grooming accidents and 90 minute battery so that you can take a longer shave, waterproof technology which allows you to groom in the

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plus a 20% discount. If you go to manscaped.com slash modern wisdom and use the code modern wisdom, a checkout, that's manscaped.com slash modern wisdom andistem, a checkout. That's manscaped.com slash modernwistem and modernwistem. A checkout. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Connor Beaton. What is the one rule of men? The one rule of men is very similar to the one rule of fight club. Right. You know, everybody's kind of seen fight club.

It's like a tour de force on masculinity in many ways. But the first rule of fight club is everybody's kind of seen fight club. It's like a tour to force on masculinity in many ways. But the first rule of fight club is you don't talk about fight club. And the first rule of men, the one rule of men is that you don't talk about what it's like to be a man, specifically a man who is suffering or struggling. So if you're having a hard time, the rule is don't talk about it. If you're going through the ringer, wife's left you, you know, your pickup trucks broke down. Your kids are having a hard time, you're having a hard time at work, you hate your job. Generally, the rule is don't talk about it.

And so I think that that's one of the main things that we see a lot of, I see a lot of men battling against, you know, they've sort of been compressed underneath this rule for a long time. I know this was what I went through for a very long time. I grew up in what I call the Texas of Canada. You know, we have big trucks. We got oil, we got guns and cowboys,

but it's minus 30, six months out of the year, right? So a little bit different in that front. But I think that one rule is the thing that a lot of men really struggled to get out from underneath. And what it leads to is some type of rock bottom. And I think a lot of men are convinced. Again, at least this is this is my experience. This is the what the path that I sort of fell down. Convince that things aren't actually going to change until they bottom out because there's nowhere else to go when your version of strength is,

I have to suppress. I have to push things down. My anger, my anxiety, my sadness, my grief, from having the woman that I love leave me or whatever it is, when you have to suppress and you've been told that if you can push things down long enough, if you can avoid things for long enough, that you will somehow be stronger for it, it creates a very strong part of you that is actively working against you.

And so we can talk about that in a sec, but that's the one rule of men. And strong part of you that is actively working against you. So we can talk about that in a sec, but that's the one rule of men. And men I love fight club. I just got to say it's such a good movie. It's so, so many ways. Seeking strength through suppression is such a lovely frame, I think. And it's so nicely encapsulates what men are doing. And it's the seeking part as well.

You know, it's grasping for it. It's almost like a wistfully hoping that it's going to appear. If I just push my emotions down enough, and the other thing as well is, it's not all untruth, right? There is a part of male mastery, which includes standing up under pressure, which includes being able to be a bulwark against difficult things, the vicissitudes of life.

You are the one, you know, what's Peterson's piece of advice, be the strongest man at your father's funeral, right? Like that, you know, there are times for this where it is your job to be emotionally sto? Like that, you know, there are times for this where it is your job to be emotionally stoic and to do this stuff. But as with almost everything taken to an extreme, it ends up becoming a toxin instead of a tonic. Yeah, when, when that modality becomes our way of living, right? This modality of all gain strength through suppression all gain strength by ignoring the things that I'm, you know, the areas of my life where I'm hurting, right?

The fact that I hate my job or, you know, my relationship is really challenging or going through a hard patch and I can't don't feel like I can talk about it or whatever it is, when we buy into that method of trying to develop psychological strength, we are actually weakening ourselves in a very real way. And again, like you're saying, that's incredibly true, right? Men have this wonderful blessing and a curse. We are blessed with the capacity and the ability to sort of muster up the courage and the strength to push through some of life's greatest challenges. And I think that's society in many ways in the world that we see today in many ways has been built on the backs and on the shoulders of men who have gone through some really hard times, some really brutally hard times. But again, when that becomes your way of living,

all of these other frameworks start to get built to help you cope with the fact that you have no outlet for your pain, for your grief, for your sadness, for your anxieties, for your anger, for your loneliness. And I remember in my 20s, my early 20s, I really, I came out of high school, I barely graduated high school. I failed grade 12 English, I failed biology,

I was more interested in sneaking out at night and going to parties and hanging out with my girlfriend and that's all that I really cared about, right? And so I had to go back and do it over again. But anyway, in my early 20s, I remember working construction. I was working in a gravel pit in Northern Alberta. It's like minus 40.

I'm doing a night shift from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. I hated it, but I needed the money. But at the same time, there was this part of me that was like, what am I gonna do with the rest of my life? Like is this it? Am I destined to drive a bobcat and shovel gravel until I die? And there was this sort of internal sense

of anger and frustration and bitterness towards the world and towards myself and towards my life in some ways, this kind of victim mentality that we can all get sort of gripped by. And I think that if I had sort of bit down and just stuff that down, you know, I could have gotten through it, but I probably would have had to drink more than I was comfortable with and smoke more weed than I actually needed and watch more porn. And that was my life at that time, you know. And so I think that a lot of guys today are doing relatively the same thing.

And there was actually just a stat, a piece of research that came out, I think, Professor Galloway posted it. I think you've had them on your show before. And it was talking about how comfortable our people are with crying. Would you feel uncomfortable crying in front of someone of the same sex and men between the ages of 18 and 24 said, you know, 60% of them said, no, yeah, like I wouldn't feel comfortable. I would feel very uncomfortable crying in front of another man.

And so, you know, it's a bit of a double-edged sword. I think a lot of men live under this pressure of, is it okay for me to talk about my hardship? Is it okay for me to talk about where I'm struggling truthfully? And I'll wrap this up with one story. After I bought them down, and one of the things that I've written about is this period of time where I lived at Chateau Walmart. That's what I called it. I lived out of the back in my 2007 Pontiac G5

with wonderful racing stripes and this beautiful fin on the back and chrome wheels. It was really, I'm like six, two, just jammed in the back seat of this two-door coupe. After I spent some time there after bottoming out, I decided to have some conversations with people in my life and tell them what had been going on. I'd really been struggling.

I'd been unfaithful. I got caught cheating. You know, all this stuff has sort of happened in my life. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my career. It all collapsed. And I had a conversation with a buddy of mine who I'd gone to university with and I sort of laid all the cards out on the table and just told them everything that had been happening. And after telling him what had gone on, there was sort of this awkward pause because, of course,

I've just sort of like emotionally vomited onto this guy, it's poor guy. And, you know, after, after telling him everything, there was this pause and he looked at me and he said, thank you. And then he proceeded to tell me that he had tried to take his own life six weeks before He had tried to take his own life six weeks before this very conversation. And it was a very stark moment because I kind of knew everything about him. I knew the scotch he liked to drink and the women he liked to date and all the stuff. And it was just this indicator that there was parts of us, there was parts of me as a man that I didn't feel like I could talk about because I had to create this appearance of strength, but I didn't actually feel strong, right? I feel like an imposter and he felt like he had to do the same thing, right? He had to create this appearance that he had all of his shit together and he has all his ducks in her own. He was totally fine.

When in reality, there was parts of both of us that we were incredibly challenged by, parts of our life, parts of our childhood, parts of our current existence, that we struggle to just talk about. And I think that that's the case for a lot of men, that they are living alone with things in their life, with aspects of their life, that they have no idea how to grapple with. And it's a kind of existential aloneness that I think is crippling in a lot of ways. And it doesn't produce the strength that we want. When you hear people like Jocco Willings and David Goggins, like they are facing the hardship,

they're not saying sequester it away in your life. They're saying confront it. Right. So there's no growth. There's no change without confrontation. Where do you think this expectation for men is coming from? I think it's coming from a number of places. I think, I think, historically, from an evolutionary standpoint, life has been very hard. And we've had to do some incredibly hard things to, you know, to just survive. I think that that's the nature of our existence. I think to ignore that is, you know, infantile. I think that's part of it.

I think socially we sometimes buy into a narrative that we have to be more together, more sort of put together than is necessary in order to get women's attention. There's this notion that if you're a man who is just supremely put together, that that's the ultimate sort of attraction point for a woman. And so I think that's another part of it. And then I think that there's a, I think that a lot of us as men have competition-based relationships where we're subtly competing with one another in the background of their relationship.

And it doesn't leave a lot of room, right? If you're in competition with somebody, the one thing you don't want them to know about are your weaknesses, right? So if I'm competing with you, even though we might be best friends, we might have known each other for a decade. The last thing that I want you to know, if I'm unconsciously competing with you, is where I feel weak, where I'm really struggling. So men are more likely to withhold where they're struggling financially or sexually in their

relationship or whatever. And then I think the last piece is we're living out the generational, I almost hate to use word, but we're living at the generational trauma of the world wars that sort of rocked men globally, who were told to man up, who were told to suck it up and get into the tanks and go and die and get into the planes and go and die. And then came home and had to switch from killing mode, from this hyper suppression of I need to survive. I need to do whatever the hell it takes to survive. And then went home and walked in the front door to their wife and their children that they

hadn't seen in a number of years. And then we're just expected to go back and mold the lawn and go sell a dishwasher and a dryer and shit like that. I mean, that probably came a couple decades later, but you get the point, right? So I think that that's a big part of it. You know, when I look at my grandfather who was a pilot in World War II,

I remember him telling a lot of stories to me as a child. He was a pilot of what he saw, what he went through, what he experienced. And he had to live that. He had to live that modality of just do whatever it takes to survive. And it creates a kind of hardness, I think, where vulnerability and weakness are the enemy. So you don't talk about it, you don't show it, you don't do any of that. But the reality is that in any strategy,

the best, whether it's war strategy or military strategy, the one thing you look at is what are our weaknesses. Where are they objectively? You really want to know what your weaknesses are and where the enemy might actually come through. But we've created this kind of narrative, I think, within our culture, where that is not so much the case.

I think that those are some of the contributing factors for sure. What are your thoughts? Dude, that's a gorgeous conception. It's a fantastic framework to break those things down. That's really, really, really impressive. The competition point, I think, is completely overlooked by men because there is camaraderie and competition. You know, all of the guys that work for me chase my YouTube strategist, Dean, my editor that's been with me for six years.

Like we're on the same team. We are completely on the same team. Our values are aligned. Our goals are aligned. If they win, I win, if I win, they win. And there's still probably lurking in there somewhere. Just men are so... Status is the currency of men, right?

Fundamentally, it is what we are transacting with. And yeah, I think it's probably there. As much as as much self-work as we try and do to deprogram it, I think it's, I think it just remains. I had this conversation with a friend who does a good bit of mens work here in Austin. It was the first time I'd actually heard about the name of your book, mens work. The first time I'd ever heard that was from this guy. He'd done, I think he was about to go and do eye-wasker and he'd done a ton of psychotherapy in advance, which I respected, as opposed to just being a spiritual tourist and jumping into the deep end. He tried to do some of the work at Ground Zero first. And he had this conversation with his therapist

and he sort of kept going and kept going. And maybe it was an MDMA-assisted thing before he went away to do the Iowaska. And he found that he'd been constantly comparing other men to him, mostly in a derogatory fashion, mostly inside of his own head. So he would see another man out at dinner that's his wife's friend or is somebody that he's known for ages, catching up with or somebody knew or whatever. And he would just have this very

like vitriolic comparison going on inside of his mind. And he, it took him a long time to kind of open up about this even to his therapist and his therapist said something along the lines of yeah that's what being a man is you're permanently comparing yourself to where am I in the status hierarchy how's he doing is he ascending oh do I need to do I need to watch out for him he might be he could be a threat is he is he an ally but even if he is ally, he's still kind of a threat because like, you know, ascension is good,

but it's also kind of not good. So that, and then dude, this emotional inheritance that we've got from a post war, you know, what, three post war generations, like, 1910, 1940, 1960, three post-war generations. And then, you know, I don't know what the kids of the desert storm guys will be like, but, you know, fucking hell, like they've seen even more shit in some regards, right? It was become more lethal, more support, but maybe in some ways more trauma too. So yeah, this emotional inheritance,

it's a malignant emotional inheritance in some regards. And you do wonder, that's the first time anyone's ever said it. It's the first time that anyone's ever brought up the fact that we did pretty much, you know, a huge chunk of men for the best part of a century got sent off to war, right? And what does that teach them about how to deal with their emotions? And then they come back and they pass that down to their kids and they pass that down to their kids and they pass that down.

I've been thinking for a little while, you know, there's a real inflection point I'm seeing with the advent of introspective mindful content on YouTube and podcasts and books and stuff. There seems to be a real step change between our generation's parents and our generation. My dad didn't have the tools to be able to understand whether he was enacting his logos forward, like his dad smoked and his dad was an engineer and my dad became an engineer Dad didn't have the tools to be able to understand whether he was enacting his logos forward. Like his dad smoked and his dad was an engineer and my dad became an engineer and blah, blah, blah, blah.

Like, you know, the coping strategies were just like inherited down and there was no orthogonal elders, we could call them. There was no one outside of the existing frame that says this is something, this is a pattern interruption that you're not familiar with. And this might be precisely the thing that you need to hear. And I wonder whether I've been thinking about it for a while, if this is an inflection point, if we're going to see Gen A kids

be more emotionally in tune, be able to deal with their emotions more. Now they have other things to deal with, like fucking TikTok and social media and comparison and too much time inside and not enough time touching grass and not enough exercise and everyone's fat and full of seed oils and all the rest of it. Like I get that, but like from an emotional education perspective,

the tools that at least me and my friends have a million miles away from what our parents did, but this aftershock, this sort of recurrent tremor that's been inherited through the generations, it's almost narcissistic to believe that so much war for so long to so many men would not have... Oh, it's over now. Grow up. Would you mean grow up? Like, I'm fucking half of my friends died in a five-year period. Or I did this. I saw war and destruction, or I was a fucking medic, and I tried to fix people that I couldn't help. So yeah, I think the competition point is massive, and if guys were to assess themselves, that degree of comparison that they have, which is different to women, women fucking hell,

like if you want to go down the comparison route, like girls, you've got it where it was. But guys have it worse in a much more, I think like a vissaral way. It's just like, where am I? And what's that? And we can be more positive some than women can. Like women's relationships are brutal. I'm so, so glad that I'm not one. But yeah, competition and war, I think,

are fascinating insights. Well, I think that the competition piece is insidious in the sense that it's largely unconscious for men. Women, when you talk to women and you hear how they interact with other women or see them, they're largely, they're very aware of, oh yeah, when I walk into a bar restaurant or a party, they are scoping out the other women to see, you know, what are they wearing, how do they look, what's the man that they're with?

You know, like there's there's this sort of sizing up that happens. Whereas men, it's it's very much in the background. You know, it's in the background of the conversation. It's in the background of the walking in and sizing yourself up. Maybe sometimes it's more direct, like, could I take that guy, you know, like, or, you know, how does his physique compare to mine or what's the watch that he's wearing or, you know, those types of sort of like materialistic things. But I think that we, we forget that, and, you know, if you look at an evolutionary standpoint that that's baked into us, you know, that sort of sizing one another up, where do I fit within the hierarchy? Well, the other thing is that status is a game that you lose the second that you talk about

it. Right. And that means that this competition thing is also something that's very difficult to think about or to open up about, because as soon as you admit that you think about the fact that another man might be competing with you or that you feel like there is a status rivalry between you and him, you lose the game. Right. It's low value, it's low status to talk about status. Interesting. So I had friends to wall on my podcast,

who's like the alpha male. Yeah, one of the like the world's leading primatologists. And it was fascinating because he was talking about how his whole take on alphas was wildly misconstrued when it first came out, like when it initially came out. And how really in nature within primates and chimpanzees specifically, who he was studying, yes, you do have this hierarchy where there's an alpha that's sort of ruling by dominance and aggression, right?

That does exist. But one, they generally speaking have a shorter lifespan in period, and they generally speaking have a shorter leadership span. So they actually lead for less time because there's so much controversy. And then the alphas that tend to lead longer are actually not ruling through dominance.

They're actually ruling through coherence. Yeah, and prestige. And so can you create coherence within the tribe? And so it's kind of interesting, right? Because I think what you're saying is accurate in the sense that when you talk about status, that's low status, right? Like how do I compare against other men? But I think when you are talking about a sense of coherence amongst the group, that's a bit of a different conversation.

But the competition piece is interesting. I think the the the war piece, you know, coming back from war and how that's, I think one of the biggest challenges that that I've seen time and time again is how it affects a man's ability to relate to other men and to feel safe and to trust them. You know, I've worked with a lot of veterans. I've worked with Navy SEALs over the years, and they come back and to interact with civilians and to trust civilian men in the way that they've trusted men that they've gone to war with is like almost impossible. And so there's this isolation that starts to emerge within a lot of those men.

And so that's one part of it. I can't trust these other men the same way I could. Go ahead. Yeah, thinking about the impact of some emotionally damaged men in a barrel of other emotionally okay men. And I remember reading this study about how if they wanted to work out whether poor performers bring down a team or whether great performers raise up poor performers. And they tried putting different combinations of high performers and low performers in a team together. And they presumed, you know, we've got a team of six, five of them are amazing. And one of them is lazy, and we're going to test and see what goes on.

Surely the five people are going to bring up the one. And they didn't. The way that it seems like sort of human team working and human emotions work is that it kind of meets at the lowest common denominator. And I wonder whether in a group of guys, if one of the dudes, not everyone's father has military history, mind do, but not everyone's do. But how many military

emotional inheritance men do you need in order to be able to like spoil the barrel, so to speak? One of my favorite quotes that I've learned from you as well is, men face a conundrum, have your shit together and also be able to talk about it when you're struggling. I love that conception. I think it's really right. Yeah, there's this double standard that shows up with men's vulnerability and men's aggression in the sense that you should be able to be vulnerable or be aggressive, but you should also be able to temper it at your whim, right? Like you should have complete control over your vulnerability. You should have, you know, you should be able to talk about it when necessary, because that's the big push

that we sort of hear socially, right? Like men just need to be more vulnerable. If men were just more vulnerable, you know, society's problems would change, men's problems would change. And, you know, I've kind of railed against this. I love what George brought up from the Tin Man on your conversation about that study in the UK with men who were suicidal, or men who have taken their own lives that 92% of them, 92% of men in the UK that had taken their lives were in therapy.

Right? They were talking about their issues. And then 80% of those men that were in therapy that had taken their life were labeled as no risk or low risk, right? And so we, we were so culturally and socially almost inept at being able to identify a man who's really struggling. Like we are, we're in napped, you know, it's pretty bad. And I see a lot of men who come in, who come to our weekends, who come and work with me, you know, some of these guys are incredibly high performers, you know, mainstream rappers, Navy SEALs, entrepreneurs, et cetera, et cetera. And then just everyday guys, they're just, you know, trying to make living, you know, feed their kids. And across the board, it's shocking how many of

them on the outside look like they have their stuff together, but internally are really struggling. And one of the main pieces that they talk about is that they know that there's a risk for being vulnerable, right? They know that you've got your idea, the myth of male vulnerability. Yeah, the myth of male vulnerability is pretty simple. The myth is that all of men's problems will just disappear if men are just more vulnerable. That's the societal narrative right now. That men are being told, ad hoc. If you just open up and talk about it, then you'll feel better. Women will feel better. Relationships

will be better and men will be better. And it's a very female-oriented approach to male problems. And it misses, much like I think a lot of the therapeutic industry is missing. It misses the actual challenges that men are experiencing. And so the myth of male vulnerability says, you'll be okay if you open up. And it, and it also misses out on the consequences of opening up, right? That you might open up to the wrong people and they'll be like, ah, dude, you're such a, you know, pussy and like, what the hell is wrong with you and just shut up. And you know, see, it might open up to the wrong people and it might not go well. You might also miss out on the consequences of if you

open up to your girlfriend or your wife, and that might not go well, right? She might not know how to handle it or receive it. One of the things that we don't talk about culturally is that a lot of women do not know how to be with or receive or see a man's vulnerability. It's for a lot of women, it's very frightening. It's foreign, right? Imagine being a woman who grew up around a grandfather and a father who never cried, who never opened up, who never talked about their feelings. And then all of a sudden, here's your husband or here's your boyfriend of a year opening up, spillin' his guts out emotionally, crying in front of you and you're just like, oh shit, like what do I do with this? And so I've heard, you know, some pretty bad stories where men have opened up to their girlfriends

and all of a sudden two months later, their relationships over, right? Or the sexual attraction is gone. Or the conversations suddenly get stilted. And they're like, wait, what's happened? I thought this is exactly what you've wanted. I thought you wanted me to open up. But the reality is, and this is a, this is a funny one. I posted this the other day. I said, women don't necessarily want you to be vulnerable emotionally. Women want to know that you know what's happening inside of you, that you can communicate what's happening inside of you, and that you have the resources around you to support you. So that's the real crux of it. That's that when women say I want you to be more vulnerable, that's generally what they're saying. They're like, I want you to know what's going on inside of you and be able to communicate it and maybe have some resources, but I don't want

to be responsible for supporting you with it. That's generally what I've seen a lot of people saying. So yeah, there's consequences. There's parts of it where guys, I think, are sort of battling against some of the things that we've been talking about, right? The notion that if you do open up your week, if you do share your week, you know, you're gonna be ostracized, you're gonna be isolated even more than you already are.

And then there's the resource problem, where a lot of men enter into therapeutic conversations or environments and are not actually given the tools to solution their problems. They're treated in a very feminine oriented way, where it's like, well, let's just talk about what you're going through. Yeah, the Christine Emba article from The Washington Post, which was just so great.

And I brought her on and she was fantastic. She has this wonderful line where she says, to the extent that any acceptable version of masculinity is ever put forward, it sounds an awful lot like stereotypical femininity to me. Yeah. And you know, the sanitization narrative around men is that they are defective women. If you just stopped being so masculine, if you just stop being so non-feminine, all of your problems would go away. And we know that this isn't the case, right? Like why?

There's a trend on TikTok that I'm sure you've seen at the moment of liberal women saying, why are the only men that I can find who want to open a door for me and pay for the first date conservatives? And you know, like this, this massive swath of liberal women who want to have a partnership that is somewhat more traditional, struggling to find that from liberal men. And I'm sure you've seen as well the stats around school kids now that girls are diverging massively

toward being liberal and guys are diverging massively toward being conservative. So yeah, there's gonna be some awkward Thanksgiving dinners in a couple of decades time perhaps when all of these people sit down. Like one third of Democrats, one third of Republicans and half of Democrats feared that their child will marry a person from the opposite political party, and that's another Scott Galloway

one. But yeah, I think this myth of male vulnerability thing is super interesting to me. And I like challenging, especially, manosphere and red pill notions that are wrong. And as with many things, there are some kernels of truth in it, streaks of piss in a pile of shit, as my dad would say. That's good, I like that. And I agree, opening up to the wrong woman at the wrong time about the wrong thing, bad idea. Could it kill, could it be the one inflection point that muters attraction for the rest of time? Could this be the end of your relationship because of a single moment of opening up and vulnerability?

Perhaps, frankly, if that's the way that your female partner behaves, presuming that this isn't the third date, like, if that's the way that your female partner behaves, as soon as you show any emotion that isn't just like stoicism and directions, I think that it's genuinely a good thing that you found out now, because that person isn't ready to have a real relationship.

So first off, if that does happen, see it as a good thing. But to sort of do a callback to what we spoke about the very beginning, was it 64% of men aged 18 to 24 would feel uncomfortable crying in front of someone of their own sex, right? So the common internet advice is don't open up to your girl, that's what your boys are for. Hang on a second. Two fucking thirds of men aren't prepared to even do that. Okay, so tell me at what point people, and this is the best use of the word man up. Like tell me at which point these guys are actually going to man up,

and integrate and transcend and include all of these emotions that they're facing. Like, when are you actually going to let them rub and meet the road with this? Yeah, I mean, I think that's why, you know, when I look out at the internet today and you see this huge swell within men's work, within the manosphere, within Red Pill, you know, certain figures that are online that have just had a meteoric rise. In many ways, it's because they're speaking to the sort of cultural underpinnings of what

men are experiencing. You know, we're living through one of the first times, in my opinion, in almost all of history, all of known history, where masculinity isn't getting defined by men. Culturally, if you look at what makes a good man and what makes a man masculine, they're sort of this battle for being able to define it. And I think it was Yuvile Horare in Sapiens, where maybe it was Homo Deus,

where he talks about how in the future, the wars will be fought within intersubjective reality, within the reality of story, within the reality of narrative. And I think that that's where a lot of the quote unquote gender wars is are happening right now. It's within the realm of story and within the realm of narrative. So, anyway, that's a little existential, but to pull it back down to reality, I think you're right. There's this very big challenge that a lot of men feel, which is they're being told,

specifically by a lot of women to open up by society, by Instagram, by Facebook, it's like, open up, be more vulnerable. And then there's a bit of a mixed bag when they do it, or they don't feel like they have the proper resources to go and do it, right? They're not sure what's gonna happen if they open up and say, hey man, listen, I'm really struggling.

Like I'm struggling to get a bed, I freaking hate my job. Like I'm barely getting by, I don't know how to support myself. I'm really struggling, what should I do? Or what have you done? And so I think that that's the inflection point that a lot of men find themselves at. And the challenge is that when we talk about some of the issues that men are going through

because statistically speaking, in a lot of ways, men are in decline, right? In decline in the workforce, but not going to college as much. I mean, it's all stuff that you've talked about on your show before life's fun health span life span health span They're living at home longer. They don't have as much money. They're not buying properties as much They're not graduating from college. I mean, it's just like across the board testosterones down It's like you know There's some big things that we as a a culture and as a society, should be talking about.

But what I've noticed is that when we want to talk about men's problems, if we want to talk about men improving themselves, everybody's for that. Thumbs up, greenlit across the board. If we want to talk about the issues that men are having, that's a very different challenge. What men are usually met with is the solution of be more vulnerable. It's like, oh, you hate your life because your wife just divorced you and left you and took the kids. And half of your net worth just be more vulnerable.

Just open up and talk about it. And that'll solve it. And it's like, well, but what about the judicial system? What about talking about some of the things that are actually infringing and impinging on men's lives? I think some of these things are, I think that they're coming to a head in a lot of ways. I had a post that I put up on Twitter that I got a lot of shit for, so I'm going to say it again. Publicly trying to work out why men are struggling is largely a thankless task. This is the zero sum view of empathy.

There is an assumption that any attention paid toward men takes it away from women or some of the minority group who is more deserving. After all, haven't men had it good enough for long enough? Maybe they should just suck it up for a while. But empathy does not work this way. It's not a limited resource. Recognizing the plights of men does not ignore the plights of women. And ultimately, women end up suffering, in any case, as it's this increasing cohort of apathetic

checked out and resentful men who contribute to the exact lack of eligible partners that women say they're struggling with. Women who post boo-hoo, poor patriarchy sad, whilst also complaining about where or all the good men at, a committing mating logic Sepuku. If one sex loses, both sex is lose. Male blame is something else that I see a lot and this is what triggered what you just said. A common question is why don't men just do better?

Surely they can work harder in school, employment and health? Chop chop men hurry up and stop being so useless. Well, no other group is told that when they suffer with poor performance or accolades in the real world, that they should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps. We don't tell any other group to talk about their problems. Instead, we spend billions in taxpayer money and private charity to set up committee's departments, campaigns and funds to solve the problem. In simple terms, if a woman has a problem, we ask, what can we do to fix society?

If a man has a problem, we ask, what can men do to fix themselves? In elder. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that summarizes it in a nutshell. Right? The myth of male vulnerability is that it's wanted. And the reality is that society and people generally don't know what to do with it when it arises. Because when it comes forward, there are very real things that we have to look at socially in terms of altering. I mean, Richard Reeves, who I think we both interviewed and talked to, talks about red-shirting boys.

And it's like that created so much controversy. Just that one thing. You know, a lot of people were against it and you know, we shouldn't be treating boys and girls differently and you know, some people are on board with it, which is great, but I think that in large part, that's the attitude that society and culture sort of pushes back on men is, well, you guys just need to go and figure it out.

And I think that a lot of young men hear that in today's world and are just checking out. Like I think that a lot of young men hear that in today's world and are just checking out. Like I see it in my YouTube comments. You probably too too, or it's just like, you know, I did a video on, I did two videos one on, you know, should you bother getting married or is marriage is marriage dying? And then, you know, should you bother having kids. And it's very interesting to hear and see people's responses and to get the DMs back from it. And, you know, I think in large part, there's a huge cohort of men who are just like checking out from marriage, from having kids, from society in a very real way.

And that should be cause for concern. That shouldn't be like we should not be approaching that problem. If women were just checking out from culture and society, like in large numbers, I do not think that we would be approaching that problem with the sense of, well, you either just need to get your shit together or you just need to sit down and talk about it. We would be looking at what systemically are causing some of these issues and how can we actually go about creating a robust plan and structure to actually do something about those challenges that they're facing.

So I think we need to bring that into, and I think that's an important part of any man's work, to really be in the conversation of, where do I feel stuck? Who can I talk to? Who can I open up to? Are there challenges that I feel stuck? You know, who can I talk to? Who can I open up to? Are there challenges that I feel bogged down by in my life that aren't just psychological or emotional,

you know, that are maybe financial, that are maybe structural within my life that I'm frustrated by, and to be able to have some conversation and to work on those things, I think is incredibly important. Yeah, I got in trouble from a different group for saying limits on speech or limits on sincerity, that if it doesn't make you any less vulnerable to not talk about your vulnerability, like if you're so much of a pussy that you're struggling with, the things you're struggling

with, and then you layer on top the amount of pussiness that you need to not be able to talk about it, how does that make you any stronger? And a lot of people brought up the, you bring it up to your goal, and these things are going to go wrong, and then she's going to leave you with the postman or whatever. And it's coming back to that start, the start, about men not even being able to open up to other men. And like, I'm speaking to myself, right? Like, I'm speaking, this isn't me from a fucking high horse with like masculine virtue saying that I've got it all figured out. But I do think that re-assessing what we mean by vulnerability and the frame that is placed around these

sorts of conversations. And again, for the women that are listening, like these are the guys that you're going to get into a relationship with. These are the guys that are going to have to be up five times a night when the baby's got a stomach bug at six months old or whatever, right? Like this is the degree of resilience that you require from your partner is not just in terms of their resources. It's emotionally as well. And the, I fucking hate hate it when people go, this is gynecens capitalism at work. I'm like,

dude, like fucking hell, you really think that like women could coordinate, or anybody could coordinate like some mass move toward one thing. It's the popular view at the moment because it makes you seem empathetic. If you support women, it makes you seem like you're standing up for the little person, right? It's the same tyranny of the minority rule that we see in everything. It's why trends, athletes in sport are such a big deal.

It's why kids getting hormones are such a big deal. It's why ensuring that we can move gay rights into the Middle East is such a big deal, blah, blah, blah. Like fine, totally fine. Like, you know, not fine, but, you know what I mean? Like, fine for you to talk about it, you can fucking open it up as a big deal. But it's not the same case when you're talking about

male problems through a female frame. Like, the presumption, it's, the term from evolutionary psychology is a failure of cross-sex mind reading. And I don't know why it's the case. I understand why publicly this tyranny of the minority or like the upheld, the upholding of the underclass thing, like I understand why that makes sense. Like it's got some status associated with it. What I don't understand is how it actually gets pushed into capturing the frame of a conversation

around like what men should do. Why is it that you sent me this insight from the American Psychological Association. Traditional masculinity is defined as harmful and damaging to boys and men's mental health. Modern therapy basically treats men like defective women. Yeah, that's the bit where I actually think, well, fucking hell, that is gynecensors at work. Even if it's not coordinated by some cabal of fucking hooded women, like big, titty, like that is gyna-centrism at work, even if it's not coordinated by some cabal of fucking hooded women, like big titty hooded women, like all drinking male adrenic rum or something and eating fried four skins, like that's not necessarily what's happening,

but in terms of a cash value of what's occurring, I do think that that's what we're ending up with. I'm just waiting for the animated videos of your commentary and then the animation on the, like big-titted, hooded women frying up foreskin. It's, you know, have you ever seen Midnight Gospel? Yeah. Spinne-yon, I'll spinne-yon all day. Spinne-yon, well, you know, I think part of this

is that you mentioned mentors before. And part of this is that there is a vacancy in a lot of young men's lives. If you're one in four kids are going to grow up without a father in the household, right? Everybody hears that stat. But when you kind of follow it through, imagine you're a young boy, you're growing up in a single mother household, your dad's not in the picture, you go into the education system, it's predominantly female teachers, right? Dominated by female teachers, you exit the education system, maybe you go into college

or not go into college, and then you're struggling and you're told, go get help, right? Go talk to a therapist and you start to look into therapy and it's 75% of therapists are women. And so you can literally go through childhood, education, mental health support and not be influenced by any man, you know, or so few men or you know, the men that you're in contact with haven't done much with their life or they're not, their life, they're not real models to begin with. And so I think that one of the challenges that a lot of young men specifically are facing, and a lot of men in our generations as well, is that there's a serious lack of role models. And there's something about being a man and masculinity that is modeled.

thing about being a man and masculinity, that is modeled. You know, if I wrote about this in the book that like part of how we as men learn how to deal with our power, our aggression, our anger is through the modeling of other men, specifically older men. So if you're not surrounded by any men that are older than you, you're probably going to struggle to learn how to deal with those things because mentorship and initiation specifically has been an incredibly integral part of young boys' lives throughout history, cross-culturally. It's just such an important piece, but we've stripped mind initiation out of our culture. We've sort of stripped mind boys' spaces specifically where a lot of young boys would have those male role models. Those are collapsing rapidly. And so a lot of young boys just do not have the opportunity even to be around older men that are going to show them,

hey, when I'm struggling, here's how I deal with it. When I'm flawed, here's how I deal with it. Here's how I treat women. Here's how I deal with my anger. Here's how I deal with my sadness or my grief or my aggression. Here's how I deal with a job that maybe I don't like. There's certain masculine qualities and traits

that I think that we as young boys are trying to emulate. But if there's no one there to emulate, then what are you doing? You're learning from Homer Simpson and, you know, Frick and Peter Griffin. And I mean, it's like, it's terrible. So I think that there's I think that there's a vacancy of mentorship. And it's why, I mean, I've been very fortunate to have phenomenal mentors. I've been very lucky to stumble across some incredible people in my life. Why did you find them? Honestly, just happenstance. You know, my first mentor, I was a classical singer, oddly enough, in my first career. That's, I went from stunting and street racing motorcycles and doing construction to traveling the world singing.

Not true, actually. Natural, yes, natural. And he was a part of that cohort, but he had in his past life, studies psychology. And so I spent two years apprenticing with him, learning Jungian psychology and cognitive behavioral therapy in Gishtalt and in return, I would chop wood and help him with his asparagus farm because he was in his 70s. And so I've just sort of stumbled across them, but they've played an integral role in filling in the gaps

that the men in our lives, fathers, whether they're there or not, aren't really meant to do all of it. Like the burden of responsibility of you becoming an integral, a man that's integrated into society and culture in a very effective way, was never their sole responsibility of the father. Even if you study initiation processes around the world, in Africa, in Eastern Europe, in Asia, and even here in America, traditionally those initiations, the men of the tribe would come and take you as a boy and take you out and process your initiation start your Initiation sometimes the father wasn't even a part of it

But in our culture today a lot of fathers just don't even have that community of men around them where the young boy is getting supported Nurtured, you know challenged by the other men that are surrounding the father So I think that there's I think part of it is that we need to reestablish masculine friendships, you know, masculine groups, where men can actually come together and not return to some ideal things. I don't think that's it, but to at least reestablish what it's like to be a man amongst other men having real conversations,

being transparent, challenging one another, supporting one another through hardship. That's the foundation that I think needs to be present. As we said before, you can be in a group of people and if there's some that are mocking or scathing or make it feel unsafe to be able to open up in the way that you want to, it can actually end up maybe even doing more harm than good,

to be able to do, to be in a group of men that make you feel silly or deficient or weak for the things that you're feeling. I was certainly growing up in the UK that I had older men around me. I played cricket for a long time at an adult level from the age of 13, probably. So from 13 to 15 half a decade, I was two or three days a week in the Pavilion or in the clubhouse or out on the field of play with 10 other guys. And at least like seven or eight of them would have been, you know, 25 plus probably something like that. So I was around a lot of these guys, and I found good lessons socially introverted, would have been atrocious

influences on me. I came up with this idea called the negative role model or the reverse role model, which is as opposed to seeing people like the person you want to be like. You see people like the person you don't want to be like. I don't want his relationship with gambling and I don't want the way that he treats his wife and I don't want the way that he shows up for his friends or not. And that is actually super valuable. It's unbelievably valuable to like, I've never gambled, never ever ever gambled once, but

saw a bunch of guys in my youth that had problems with gambling. And maybe I just not built to be a gambler, probably like, I don't find it that fun. But also, I always had said this super fucking visceral experience, right? This like real front and center. Like guys, like infidelity, really early on, like weird stuff with like, she wants more kids and I don't wanna have kids and she's trying to get me to come inside of her

and I'm fucking trying to pull out and stuff. I was like, well, I'm 15 years old, hearing like, you know, in a turmoil, but it was said in such a, this wasn't men's work opening up. This was like blasey and sort of casting it off as, you know, like and what's in the newspapers this morning type of a story. And yeah, I understand that it's a heavy lift to be able to see that for what it is, which is a reverse role model rather than an actual role model. And a slightly different genetic quirk, a slightly different upbringing for me, and that

could have been the role model rather than the inverse. Yeah, I mean, I can't help but hear your story and hear those guys and think about, you know, the men that I grew up with and the amount of men who casually throw their problems out into the locker room or into the friend group at the bar and talk about it in such a nonchalant way, you know, as if it's not that big of a deal and to be met with crickets, you know, like I think, like, did any of those guys get any solutions? Did any of those guys get any support? Or did they? They're using the humor and the casual nature of the way that they're putting it across largely to not actually have to accept the fact that it could be a big problem. Yeah, you know, fundamentally the guy that's in the marriage with the partner who'm like, no, by doing that, it makes the situation about something else.

And it allows you to deal with the surface level joke that everybody can laugh at, while it's not actually dealing with this iceberg that's kind of lurking underneath. But I think, you know, the story that you're telling, I really just want to drive home that I think for the majority of men that is the state of their male friendships, that's it. Like, you just nailed it. It's a very, it's like a mile wide and an inch deep. And I think what many men are craving are more depth oriented relationships where where because it's confronting, it's hard. You know, it's very hard to be in relationship with other men and have real substantial relationships about your life, about the challenges that you're

facing, about what you want, your dreams, you know, what you want to build and create. They're hard to build those types of relationships. And we see that, right? I think, again, there's lots of research that's come out on men being more isolated than ever before, and having less friends than ever before. And so, you know, prioritizing those types of things, prioritizing those types of relationships, I think for a lot of men is one of the most substantial things that they can do, because in many ways a lot of the issues that we've been talking about is this sort of breakdown and fraying of masculine relationships and keeping it in this very safe sort of surface

zone where we don't go deep into the muck. And the reason why when you talk to people like Navy SEALs or Marines that go into battle together, the reason why they are so close to the men and the women that they serve with is that they go through hell, but they go through it together, shoulder to shoulder. And in my current mentor's framework, he's been doing Gestalt therapy

and developmental psychology for 40 plus years. He's trained like 5,000 therapists and has 90,000 clinical hours. He has a framework around attachment. It's super simple but very powerful. He says the foundation of attachment is to go through a hard time and come out the other side. Okay. That's the foundation.

When you're a baby, when you're a child, when you're an adult, it's just, can I, in relationship with you, go through a hard time and come out the other side, okay? And that's what actually builds the blocks of relationship. But we as men are often feeling like we're on these little islands, I'm going through a hard time, maybe you're going through a hard time, but neither of us fucking know. And so how does it build the foundation underneath of I really feel and know unquestioningly that I have a solid relationship with you as a man. And if we can't get that, if we can't piece that together, then it's going to be exponentially harder

to do that with women, to do that with our children, to do that with the people at work, because there's something I believe, and this is just in my framework, that there's a kind of sustenance that comes out of our masculine relationships, and when we can go through those hard times with other men and come out the other side okay, and know that we're good. We've had the conversations. We went through the hard time, you know, we got feedback, we got support. Then on the other side of that, we have a more robust sense of, I belong.

I belong with these men, I have friends, I have people that have my back. And then I can face the challenges in my marriage at work, in my business, you know, with my kid. When he's got that stomach virus at three o'clock in the morning, and I just wanna like lose my mind. What have you found? We've spoken about fatherlessness good bit over the last few weeks on the show actually,

and then plus today, what have you been sort of learning about the impact of fatherlessness and how do boys model men when dad isn't around? What happens? I think I use the word vacancy before. And I use that specifically because over the last decade, I've sat with tens of thousands of men.

Like it's just a lot of men, virtually and in person. And there, for a lot of men virtually and in person. And there for a lot of guys, a vacancy forms within them, like an actual sort of emotional or psychological void, where when dad is in a round, it creates this big question mark, like the unknown becomes somewhat terrifying. You know, they don't know how to take risks properly, or they try and compensate for that by taking really stupid risks, you know, risks that will get them killed. They're not really too sure if it's okay to say no and to have really assertive direct boundaries. And so what ends up happening is that for a lot of guys that have no father around,

they become your classic nice guy. They start to orient themselves. Their whole orientation of how do I be a man in the world? There's no model for me to orient myself towards or away from. Because a lot of men will create a life in opposition of their father. I don't want to be like that guy. I don't want to be that drunk. I don't want to be that fucking asshole that yells at, you know, mom and, you know, beats his kids and drinks too much. They either orient in opposition of their father or in repetition of their father, right? So they're either say, okay, I don't want to be like him or he's incredible and I want to orient myself towards

how do I be like him? How do I build my body in the way that he built it, et cetera? So when that's not present, young boys, it's not that they don't want to orient themselves towards being a man, they just don't have any symbol for it. And so they start to orient themselves towards, well, how do I get affirmation from women that I'm a good man, that I'm a good boy?

And so the over validation from women starts to become very prominent within young boys lives. And again, like I said, it'll show up at home, it'll show up at school, it'll show up if he's, you know, seeing a therapist or whatnot. And it'll create a framework psychologically within young men where they will try and live in repetition of what women say is good for them, a, no, to reinforce if they're being a good man, you know, if they're dealing with their anger properly or proportionately, if they are treating the women, how they should, or they will live in opposition

to what women say. So they'll actually start to, instead of push against dad, instead of push against other men, they'll start to push against women. And you see this big movement online that has, I think in some ways, been birthed out of that, that there's this void and this vacancy of mature men that younger men are growing up around.

And so they have nothing to push against. You know, I have a two and a half year old son. He wants to push against me. He wants to jump off, you know, like Hulk Hogan off the top ropes in my couch on submit. He wants to push against me. He wants to jump off, you know, like Hulk Hogan off the top ropes in my couch on Submit he wants to push against me. He wants to test boundaries You know, he drives his truck into the wall. He wants to challenge me and he wants to see where are the edges? Where are the limitations? Where's the structure and what are you gonna do if I don't listen and that's

And what are you going to do if I don't listen? And that's every young boy. And so when we don't have that structure, and I'm talking about psychologically here and emotionally, what we start to do is we start to look at women as an object that we should push against to see and verify whether or not we are operating as a man, as a good man, as a healthy man, as a man who is accepted.

So that's what I've seen. Why do you think this people pleasing element comes in? This sort of fear of being assertive. If the boundaries haven't been placed there by dad, because dad's been absent, whether it's this, not necessarily just a single parent household, I would imagine workaholic father is probably giving you a single, a similar kind of outcome. If boundaries haven't been placed, have you got any idea about why it is the men refused

to assert them themselves? That almost seems very circular. So generally speaking, young boys are going to look for different things from fathers than from mothers, right? So Peterson's talked about this quite a bit. There's a good amount of research that shows that young kids, boys or girls need rough and tumble play from fathers. They need that risk taking those types of pieces. So, fathers generally speaking play the role of structure and orientation

towards order, which also means an orientation towards limitations. Whereas with mothers, generally it's not about structure, order, and limitations. It's about nurturing care and acceptance. And so it's about, are you good? Are you listening to what mum wants? Are you acting in a way where she's giving you approval? So it's about verification, it's about appreciation, it's about nurturing. So the orientation is just very, very different. So when a young boy is missing those behaviors

and the opportunities to push against the boundaries and the limitations to actually say, no, I don't want to do this or no, I'm not interested in that. What he, what he'll do around a mom oftentimes is just acquiesce. It's like, oh, okay, I'll go along with that. That'll keep me safe. That'll keep me here. You know, that'll keep you around. That'll keep you safe, that'll keep me here, that'll keep you around, that'll keep you happy with me.

And so, it's not that they don't push back as much, there's definitely a lot of young boys who grew up in single mother households who give their moms hell. But generally speaking, they'll have an orientation towards needing to get everything from that primary caregiver. And so they'll try and get that structure, that order from mom. And if they can't get it, they'll try and provide that order and structure for themselves by just acquiescing to everything, by just saying, okay, I'll just go along with it, I won't tell you no,

because if I tell you no, you're also my only lifeline. You're my only caregiver right now. And so I kind of have to acquiesce otherwise that might feel dangerous or unsafe, especially for young kids, you know, like three to five. And then presumably this probably shows up echoed in relationships later in life.

100%. Yeah, 100% and a lot of what happens, what happens for a lot of parents, especially if you're a boy that grows up with a mom as your primary caretaker, she might do a phenomenal job. This isn't to knock on single moms. There's a ton of single moms out there

that do phenomenal. But what will happen often is that that mother will try and discipline or create discipline for her son by reinforcing and over reinforcing where he's good, right, where he's being a good boy, where he's acquiescing to what she's asked him for. And she'll do that by nurturing him constantly. And so he will learn very quickly that how he gets feminine attention, how he gets female validation

and affection is by acquiescing to her needs and her wants. And so he'll orient himself in a very sort of hyper fixated way towards what do women need, what do women want, and my needs and my wants are on the back burner and maybe once I've insured that her needs and wants are met, the back burner. And maybe once I've, you know, insured that her needs and wants are met, then I can bring mine in. Yeah, Adam Lane Smith talks about the Good Boy paradox. And like, I just want to be told that I'm a good boy.

I want to make sure, like you basically find sorry, get mothers in each partner subsequently as you grow up. One other thing, a conversation I haven't really had much recently, but I was talking about a couple of years ago, was the pressures around men and sex. This is a real double standard, I think, in the way that we see men and women. You know, female body dysmorphia concerns about how they perform during sex. Can I orgasm through having sex? Can I take my top off? Like, you know, do I need to keep my bra on? Because I'm embarrassed about my body, you know, all of these sorts of conversations.

Like, I'm not saying that they've been fixed and I'm sure that there's loads of work that needs to be done for girls to feel better about this stuff. But the conversations largely be normalized, you know? Like, when you've got feral girls summer being like a metamine for an entire, you know that this kind of conversation around not shaving your legs or about what your body looks like when you're on your period, all that sort of stuff. Like, it's kind of been had.

Is that the equivalent of like fuckboy summer? Like is that a hash? So there was hot girl, there was hot girl summer, right? Then because of every culture, a requisite of any cultural movement is a counter cultural movement to the same thing, right? So like for every Dan Bzerian, there's a migtow and for every hot ghost summer, there's a feral ghost summer. And feral ghost summer was advising girls to

like not wash, not shave, like just completely just descend into slobbery as much as you can, because they needed every culture needs a counter culture. But you're one of the one of the conversations that's really particularly uncomfortable for guys to talk about is is communicating with the partner aboutists and women are the sexual gatekeepers, even within a relationship. How many people listening to this conversation right now have, guys or girls, have had some thought that they haven't ever brought up about who initiates sex.

Like it is so, so common, right? For that to be a point of contention, that the guy always feels maybe more often than not perhaps, the guy always feels like it's him that has to do it. And the girl's nervous about it because she's, it's the way, there's never been a requirement to train it otherwise and male and female sex drive works in different ways and blah, blah, blah, blah,

so and so forth, right? But talking about, with guys, guys not being in the mood, for a girl, if a girl does decide that in a relationship that she's gonna make the, like, let's initiate some sex this evening, but there is an expectation that guys are hot to trot all the time.

And if you've had a rough day and you're like, darling, I know that I'm supposed to just be like, stand to attention upon command in many ways. But I'm like, it's just not tonight. And then that's taken in a very different sort of way. I think that's interpreted in a very different sort of way by women because there is this presumption again that, oh, that must be because there's something wrong with me. Whereas we've seen memes, you know, the family guy, the Homer Simpson, you know, like Johnny Bravo, like trying to get physical female attention from a woman and being rebuffed is just like

sort of built into the cultural memeplex. I don't think it is in the same way in reverse. And I think that that, you know, also talking about what it is that you want in bed, what level of sexual frequency, fantasies, all that sort of stuff is such a tough conversation for men to have. Because again, it's even more of a different kind of vulnerability. Yeah, there's just this notion that a lot of men hold within themselves that they should have a certain level of proficiency. Sexually, they, you know, I think that for a lot of men, our sense of identity, our sense of value, our sense of worth, specifically with women rests on how well we can perform.

You know, a lot of men's stuff comes back to how well can I perform? At work, financially, physically, sexually, it's how well can I perform? How long can I perform for? Am I in the top 1% of dudes that she's been with? Can I rock her world for however many hours? And I think that that's definitely a part of it. And I think one of the hard things,

I'll give you an example. So I host these live weekends, and one of the questions, or one of the things that we'll do is partner guys up and say, tell your first sexual experience, and tell your worst sexual experience. And it's usually a story that most men have never told,

or they've told in a way that is very illustrious, right? It's more like, yeah, this is incredible. My first time was amazing, and it was so good. My first time was in an industrial estate car park in the northeast of England in the front passenger seat laid flat of a VW Lupo. So if you thought that, if you thought that, if you thought doing it normally for the first time was difficult, I was like, fucking, give me 10 out of 10 difficulty. Let's try and do some feng shui, like Yin yoga

at the same time. At the same time. Again. I was on my girlfriends in high school. My girlfriends, fathers, pool table, and it was brutally uncomfortable. And it didn't last a hell of a lot longer. It didn't last as long as I wanted to. That's for sure. And mostly because it was just the most awkward situation because I could hear him upstairs,

and I was like, this is bad news. But is there a meme in America of a danger wink? Do you know what that is? I do know what that is. Yeah, so you call your mum's name and see if you could finish before she came upstairs. I'm like descending back into your seven, your eight, your nine school, like jokes. But yeah, that was the, that's dangerous sex. Is the equivalent. Yeah, like that's upstairs. I'm on the pool table.

Let's see if we can get this done before he comes down. Yeah, there's there was a lot of that, but you know, I think for a lot of guys When we talk about sex generally, we're talking about our accolades, right? We'll talk about You know when things are going well or a lot of guys that are married or in a relationship and you know Maybe sex isn't going well. It's a lot of complaints that are married or in a relationship and maybe sex isn't going well, it's a lot of complaints about not getting enough sex. But I do think that there is this pressure and this expectation on men that,

the expectation that guys are just ready to go all the time. And there's a lot of performance anxiety. And I think for a lot of men, I don't think that we talk enough socially about what performance anxiety is for most men, you know, because if you're stressed out all the time, right? If you're stressed about work and finances and your relationship, the chances are is that your nervous system and your body are in a more sympathetic dominant state, which just means that you're in a more stressed out state all the time.

You're also under slept. And that. So you test us for unspropably in the absolute toilet. Right. So your tea levels are down. You're not sleeping well. You're stressed out. You've got all the stress chemicals ripping through your body, cortisol and adrenaline.

Those things, by the way, are not conducive for a hard on. If you're stressed, you getting hard is going to be a challenge. If you're stressed, you staying hard, it's going to be a challenge. If you're stressed, you're not coming too fast, it's going to be a challenge. We live in this very distracted, overstressed, always on, always hyper-caffeinated state as modern men and then expect ourselves to perform like Peter North or Ron Jeremy, which I'm dating myself, right? I'm almost 40. So I'm naming male porn stars that were famous a long time ago. I don't know who they are today.

But there was probably someone on tech. It's probably someone on TikTok. Yeah, it's a, it's so funny man, like thinking about this convergence of difficulties that guys are facing in the bedroom. So I started working with a blood testing company about six months ago in America. It's a TRT and HRT and a hormone optimization and stuff. It's just not a conversation really in the UK. And I knew I wanted to do more preventative medicine

all the rest of it. Anyway, get my bloodstone, never had my tea levels done. I don't think I'd had them done properly before. Anyway, 4.95 came back at 4.95. So I'm in the normal range, but fuck, I'm at the like low end of normal. Definitely not for me as someone who trains a lot and wants mental clarity and energy and stuff to do. So anyway, they put me on a protocol, which didn't include TRT, so nothing like super nuclear. But I needed to take boron to free at my free tea, and I needed to do like a pharmaceutical grade of magnesium glycine because the version I was using wasn't converting it in some Amiga SLS there, and more organ meats, and more blah, blah. All this stuff, right? Like, it it fucking a ton of different things. And I got my results back about two weeks ago and it was a thousand and six.

So it's come from 495 to a thousand and six and the felt difference in my mood, in my energy, libido, everything is fucking palpable. And I mean I've doubled I've like more than doubled my testosterone, so like shock horror. But realizing that, oh, I thought that that was life, I thought that was normal. And it's like, it's almost like changing the laws of thermodynamics or whatever of your existence. It's so fundamental to the texture of your own

experience, right? It really is like the parameters within which you exist. This is the way that I am, right? And yeah, you know, to fold in the waters turning the frogs gay, the like, The like That was great just everything everything at the moment seems to be very well a very conducive toward men not being able to psychologically physically, hormonally socially, archetypally, embody anything that is traditionally masculine. And ultimately,

it's not just guys that will struggle because the women out there who want to find a partner or who have a partner that they don't feel is showing up for them in the way that they could, you know, like having that belief in your partner that I know that you could be a really resilient man, a strong man, emotionally as well as physically, I know that you could be fitter, I know that you could be more disciplined, I know that you could be more stylish, you know, you could have more self-esteem, more confidence, more self-belief. A lot of these things are challenges that both men and women are facing, right? Like if one sex loses, both sex loses. Yeah, yes.

I mean, I always appreciate the picture that you paint for what men are up against in our culture, you know, in our current times. Like, I think it's challenging, you know, there's a lot of adversity in a lot of different ways. it's challenging. You know, there's a lot of adversity in a lot of different ways, but getting your health together, you know, making sure that your tea levels are in a good place is incredibly important. I'm gonna take a little bit of a side tangent on this one.

I listened to this interview, I think her name is Ayala, and she was on Luxe Friedenspot. Yeah, Ayala. She had done this study, this piece of research, I think it was just through her Twitter, that showed that on average, women want men to be more sexually dominant in the bedroom than men want to be sexually dominant in the bedroom. And so I repeated this same polling on my Instagram to kind of see, you know, what would

happen to sort of gain some insight into that and sure enough, the exact same thing came back where on average, women wanted men who were more sexually dominant in the bedroom than men were wanting to be sexually dominant in the bedroom. And I think that that's telling in the sense that a few things are playing into that one, certainly testosterone levels. Right? If your T levels are down, you don't have the drive, you don't have the motivation, you don't have the energy, you know, that's going to impact you in a very, very real way, and

it's going to impact you on all fronts, but especially, you know, in the bedroom sexually. And secondly, I think that it's a bit of a conundrum for a lot of men, because when they hear the word dominance, when they, it's like, oh, you want me to be sexually dominant, it's like, well, that's not the narrative that I'm hearing socially, right? That's not the narrative that I'm hearing online. So again, I think this is the conundrum that a lot of men find themselves in, which is you need to be able to temper your aggression or your sense of dominant, dependent on the circumstance and the situation. And you need to know, unequivocally, that you are asserting the right amount of dominance

to for the situation. And I mean, there's just so many parameters that you as a man have to take into account, like, red is fucking needle through a minefield filled with me two headlines. Right. Right. It's like, I mean, in some ways, I'm very thankful that I'm not out on the market today

because that would be brutal. I think that'd be a very brutal thing to traverse for a lot of men. He's the other thing to fold into that as well, which is every time that you make a point like this, there is, and a lot of the time it's actually male feminists that bring this point up or male leftist that bring this point up,

well, sometimes like quite sort of forthcoming gay guys too. Well, in the choice between that and the fear of being raped, like what do you wish that you'd rather have? And it's like, hang on, this is just the zero of some view of empathy again. Like we can't afford any empathy toward men because women out there are being sexually assaulted. Like, I don't want that to happen.

Like, show me where the thing is and I'll sign it, right? Like, I don't want that to happen. I'm writing a book with a fucking guy that did an entire book, a best seller, on male violence. So like, okay, like I don't, preaching to the choir. But there is something about the vestigial benefits of patriarchy, meaning that men who today don't feel like they have any of those benefits anymore, still not being allowed to be afforded any sympathy because of the sins and benefits that their fathers and grandfathers were afforded is just like, I don't know,

and when it comes to that dominance thing, dude, it's like a spiral or maybe like an ever intensifying a shortening game of tennis, where the ping pong ball bounces more quickly between each of them. Do you know what I mean? When you think about it in your mind, you start off with quite a broad conception,

which is like men and women have sex, women want some things, men want some things, women want men to be more dominant than men want to be, okay, but then there's this fear that men don't want to be overly dominant, but then you fold me to it, but then you fold sexual assaulting, but then you fold the fear of it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, all the way up. And it's like, holy fuck, like, of course, of course, of course, everybody is anxious and scared and uncertain and despondent and checking out. Because when the goal of a lot of this stuff, if it was, I'm not conspiratorial, but if it was a conspiracy, the goal of this isn't to convince anybody of any

one particular narrative. It's to firehose you with so many narratives that the truth can no longer be ascertained. Yes. Yeah. And whether that's by coordination or, like, just chance, the cash value, the net effect of what's happening is that. That is what's occurring. People don't know what the truth is. They don't know, you know, how many girls that want a man to be more dominant in bed are ashamed of having to admit that?

Because there is more ashamed than like just normal sexes, private thing and opening up about it is tough. Like, hang on, maybe this means that I've got, you know, that I'm a greater risk of being sexually assaulted. I heard about the Sarah Everard case. I hear about these girls that are like, I saw the sound of freedom. Like, you know, maybe I'm contributing to that in some way. Maybe I'm not standing up for my feminist sisters in the manner that I should or whatever, right? Like it's just, it's a rough man. It's a really difficult communication landscape

at the moment. And I think I said it to you before we started, the work that you do, the work that guys like George, Tin Men does, are like literally invaluable. And especially to be able to make it exposed to the masses, the men's work side of stuff that a lot of my boys do. There's like men's groups that I've dipped in and out of in Austin, because everyone's always on fucking LSD or something. so it's like that's like common place. But it's so progressive and forward thinking when it comes to like wellbeing and mental care.

Like it's real tip of the spear shit, even if in Austin you can like find any Wednesday night, like a ton of different houses that I've got this stuff going on. For most men it, where do I go? Like, is there a men's shed in Australia that's within a hundred miles of me? So I can go fix some guys fucking lawnmower while I talk about the fact that like I'm struggling in my relationship. So yeah, I think it's very, very important. One thing I'd love to get out of you before we finish up,

what would you say to a guy that's been listening to this or a girl that's been listening to this? And once advice on how to begin embodying that vulnerable, emotionally open side, is there anything tactically, strategically that you think are good steps in order for somebody to go through either before they do it or how to do it or who to do it with or when to do it? Yeah, I just wanted to just make one comment on something that you said before.

You were talking about the like mask confusion and I couldn't agree with you more. And if the people that are listening just envision masculinity as a physical body for a moment, then confusion is one of the most toxic things for that masculine body. And so one of the surest ways to dilute masculinity and to dilute men and their potency is to just confuse the shit out of them. And when you can do that, then you've eroded a sense of masculinity because masculinity, there's an assuredness, there's a clarity that feels safe, there's a sense of direction and an assertiveness about that direction. That's the way that we're moving, that's a direction that we're moving,

that those are some of the core tenets of masculinity. And we have eroded that, and we've allowed that to be eroded. And so if we can return to this, no, I'm not confused about X, Y, and Z. I'm very sure, right? If we can just return to that place, I think it's very, very important.

So I just wanted to touch on that. One of the things that I think is incredibly important for all men and one of the things that I talk a lot about is just a notion of confronting your own shadow, your own darkness, the parts of you that you don't like, that you don't want other people to know about, that, you know, you are insecure about. Those parts of you as a man are the elements of you that need confrontation. You know, Carl Jung had this great sort of quote where he said that the first step in any therapeutic or psychological modality is confession. And it's the same with any religious process, any spiritual process, any kind of healing

or change or transformation, whatever label you want to put on it, confession and admission is the first step. And what you are talking about, what you're confessing and admitting to, are the things that you ultimately don't want to talk about. So I would say for the guys that are out there or the women that are out there, find a place, you know, you might need to try a few, you might need to, whether it's a therapist or a psychologist or a men's group or whatever it is, find a place where you can start to break that first rule of men

to bring this full circle, right? To break that first rule of don't talk about what it's like to be struggling, to be, you know, to have some challenge in your life where you just don't know how to deal with it. And when you can do that, your psychological resiliency will start to develop, right, your confidence will start to develop. So if you can confront

these parts of you, you know, your insecurities, your fears, the decisions that you've made that you don't like, the choices that you've made, the fact that like maybe you're working a job that you absolutely frickin hate, but you don't know what to do about it. When you can begin to confront those things and bring your sort of internal truth out onto the table for other people to see, you can begin to work with it, and you can begin to get feedback on how you can shape it and how you can mold it. So I would say the first step, go and find a group. We are not meant to deal with grief and isolation.

We are not meant to deal with grief and isolation. We are not meant to deal with our anger and isolation. We are not meant to deal with our own psychological hardship and isolation. We are meant to do that with others. And we're meant to do that with others who have run the gamut before. So that's my second part is find some mentors in some capacity that you respect and that you admire. You probably listen to this podcast because Chris is somebody that you respect and admire and he brings on a ton of incredible people, but find people that you can be influenced by more people. And we think that we live in this sort of narcissistic state, and it's very arrogant state

of belief that we shouldn't allow ourselves to be influenced by other people when it's almost a necessity for human being, especially for men to be influenced by other people when it's almost a necessity for human being, right, for, especially for men to be influenced by other men, to be, that's why they're saying iron sharpens iron, right, it's other men are influencing you. So find a mentor, find a group, right, find some resources that you can dig into. And then, you know, I think the last piece is start to replace some of your coping mechanisms and maladaptive behaviors that are keeping you in place. We all have these terrible mechanisms that we use to keep us stuck. Maybe it's smoking weed or playing video games or eating shitty food late at night.

Just systematically start to replace one at a time. Don't try and do all of them at systematically start to replace one at a time. Don't try and do all of them at once, but replace one at a time, right? So choose one, okay? I'm gonna stop smoking weed and replace that with a generative habit that you can feel good about because the reality is that for what a lot of men are missing,

is a deeper knowing and understanding of competency and capability. And so these are some of the pieces that will start to move you in the right direction. I love the touch on competence and trust in your own word, because, you know, seeking validation from other people involves you often trading what you want to do for what they want to do. And building self-esteem, a lot of the time, involves trading what other people want you to do for what you want you to do. And we end up defaulting to the former rather than the latter and over time, have then begin to ask, why is it that my self-esteem is in the fucking toilet?

So well, because you have done what other people have wanted you to do and you haven't stood up for yourself and you haven't told the truth for two decades. Why would you trust you? If you had a friend that was you, you wouldn't invite them out to dinner, you wouldn't expect them to turn up to parties, they don't keep their word. So yeah, building it up bit by bit. Connor Beaton, ladies and gentlemen, Connor, I'd fucking adore your work. I think your book's great, I think your Instagram's great. I think all of the stuff you're doing is fantastic

so if people want to join this ethical cult, where should they go? I love that. Voted voted highest in class first in class to start a cult. You can go to mantalks.com and all my stuff's there or you can go to Instagram and it's just man talks on Instagram and then the book is just called Men's Work. And there's a ton, I've wrote it in a way where I wanted guys to have real work to do as they read through the book. So you're not just going to read the book,

you're going to do a shit ton of work. There's questions, there's integration exercises. So enjoy. Hell yeah, Connor, I appreciate you. Thank you, mate. Thank you. Thank you mate. Thank you.