Every therapist has problems and populations especially important to us based on who we generally see in our therapy room from week to week. I see a lot of people with complex trauma histories, folks who live cut off from parts of themselves and want to live fuller more meaningful lives, and a lot of men. Part of it is probably just that being a male therapist who’s a veteran makes therapy feel more accessible to some men where I live. Very early on in my career though, I noticed that I had a higher percentage of male clients on my caseload at any given time than most of my colleagues did. About two thirds to three quarters of the people I see are men.
So when a subject comes around that seems especially pertinent to the people I work with, I pay attention. Recently there’s been a lot of talk about a documentary by Louis Theroux called Inside the Manosphere. It’s a brief journey into a subculture of misogyny and patriarchy online and it is undoubtably having an influence on young men in our culture. There have been some critiques online about what was covered and what wasn’t in this hour and a half long documentary. While there’s certainty room for a great deal more conversation, I thought I’d offer just a few observations here.
To be man or human
One of the things that immediately jumped out to me as I listened to the interviews and conversations in this documentary was the way that the agreed upon definition of “manhood” showed up in how individuals related to themselves and their world. In Existential Humanistic therapy, the chief goal is to help people embrace their full humanity and live meaningful and authentic lives. As such, we tend to pay attention to themes such as meaning and purpose. We listen for a sense of who one is and how one shows up in the world. And in Inside the Manosphere, there was quite a bit of it.
I heard a great deal about mens’ purpose for existence. One young man even said, unblinkingly, that men were “meant to suffer” before following it up with the statement that “we don’t believe in depression”. So suffering is one’s lot in life but being affected by it, in the form of an incredibly common illness is out of the question. In another instance, one man stated that women had intrinsic value (which he asserted was tied to who they were sexually) but men had to earn their worth.
What concerns me the most to hear talk like this, is that it separates one from one’s intrinsic value as a person and cuts a person off from their ability to experience their full humanity. When our worth is tied to what we do or accomplish, our value as a person is at stake in “how we do” at something and the consequences of not “measuring up” are severe. Likewise, suffering is an inevitable part of life. But what does it mean if I’m not suffering? Or if that suffering doesn’t produce the idealized “alpha male” lifestyle complete with sizable bank account and a body that would make Adonis jealous? What does it say about who I am?
I and Thou…and my feed
I’ve talked before about theologian and philosopher Martin Buber. He held that all of life came down to relationships and had a model of the I-Thou relationship as being one marked by openness, acceptance, and mutuality. He contrasts it with the I-It relationship which sees the other as an object or means to an end. In the documentary, there’s this example of a manosphere influencer who is disgusted by women with OnlyFans accounts but actively tries to date and bed them. It’s a simultaneous idealization and devaluation of women that reveals the kind of I-It relationship that prevents one from connecting fully and intimately with a human (more on this in a future post).
There’a also an ongoing relationship with one’s social media feed and the “audience” on the other side of the screen that keeps these men performative and reveals an I-It relationship not only with “the audience” but with themselves as well. To the degree that I must perform for “the audience” I am at its mercy and not at liberty to be my unperformative, authentic, and imperfect self. This is a problem that extends well outside the manosphere. Throughout Inside the Manosphere though, it struck me that these influencers (and the young men they’re influencing) are being kept from healthy relationships with themselves and others by the very ideals and lifestyle they’re promoting and pursuing.
Screw “the good life”…live this instead
The third, and possibly most prominent thing that stands out to me about the manosphere, is its portrayal of “the good life. I can tell a great deal about a person or culture by what this portrayal entails. In the manosphere, that life is one of dominance, affluence, and a perfect physique. What’s notably missing are all the things that create a rich life and get a person through suffering: a deep sense of personal meaning, awe, intimate relationships, and a sense of presence in one’s own life (which requires setting aside the performance and embracing the less than ideal aspects of oneself).
I imagine that I’ll have a good deal more to say on the subject, and certainly things like cultivating I-Thou relationships are a topic I return to regularly. I did want to get a few thoughts down however, and I’d love to hear yours as well (if you’re reading this via social media). The more we can have this conversation in a healthy and mature way, the better off we’ll all be for it.
