I’m Getting Super Tired of Wannabe Macho Guys on YouTube Destroying Male Sexuality
Is anyone else getting super tired of these Red Pill dudes on YouTube who seem to have taken over? Maybe I’ve fallen into an algorithmic filter bubble or something, but I keep seeing video after video cropping up in my feed with some wannabe macho man pushing the most toxic versions of masculinity conceivable.
Above all, I blame Jordan Peterson.
Just to go ahead and clarify my stance, no, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a man. I think men have a lot to offer the world. A near infinity of brilliant life lessons I’ve learned throughout the years has been taught to me by the wonderful men I’ve been blessed to have in my life.
No, I don’t think masculinity is inherently toxic. Yes, I think the word “toxic” is overused, but at current, there isn’t any other way to describe it. I mean, what else do you call a guy who literally spends thirteen minutes and fifty-three whole ass seconds complaining about how he can’t find a virgin girlfriend or wife anymore? Why does that even matter? Oh yeah, that’s right, it doesn’t.
The most recent offender was a guy whose channel is called Entrepreneurs in Cars. The channel is run by a guy and designed for guys. But not just any guys, guys who like toys and shiny things. It’s the overly “macho” bald head and tough-guy attitude compile together into a persona that too many men strive to be like.
And it’s sad.
He’s the Instagram influencer of YouTube personalities.
Here you’ll find rants about how women aren’t saving themselves for marriage anymore, coming prepared with charts and graphs showing how many partners people had in a lifetime, charted over the last century.
The graph in question is from The Institute of Family Studies, an organization hellbent on pushing “the Protestant Family Ethic.” These are the exact kind of people who would lose their lid if they found out that a close friend of mine of 20 years just got married to her girlfriend and will now enjoy a lesbian marriage with two children.
Meanwhile, I’ll be celebrating the wedding with those two and wishing them all the best with their new family.
What bothers me the most is the message. The message is grim, but it’s also simple. Let me boil it down for you in no uncertain terms. It goes something like this…
Men are born without value. Women are born with immense value in their beauty. Men have to earn their value in the world, while women are handed it on a silver platter. Therefore, successful men ought to be entitled to certain rights that women aren’t…but you have to become successful first.
Great. More male victimization tropes.
Stop, bros, just stop…
I’m going to pause here for a brief interlude of my own opinion. Yes, men often have it very hard in life. Pretty much everybody who wasn’t born rich in America has it hard in life. Men, women, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, it doesn’t matter. A lot of people have lived in the gutter.
America is a big jungle of all-against-all.
But I’ll tell you this, all of the great men that I’ve ever known didn’t turn their hardship into a weird, self-pitying victimization status. They didn’t pride themselves on having it worse. What did they do? They took responsibility for their lives and those they love and they took pride in their reaction to being dealt a tough hand. They overcame life’s worst against all odds. I’m one of those men myself.
Back to the Red Pill Kool-Aid…
Where this ideology hits record lows is when they begin to discuss sexual relations. I’ll just drop a direct quote here, the idea is that “promiscuity ruins women, but not men.” Sigh.
This is just as bad as TI performing forced “virginity” checks on his daughter to make sure she’s not having sex with anyone.
The needle that threads all of these guys together (and not in the cool voodoo doll kind of way) is the idea that a woman’s value is:
- Encompassed entirely by her sexuality. The woman is only as valuable as the sex (and beauty) that can be attained from her in the eye of the (usually male) beholder.
- Dictated by the number of sexual partners she has. That a woman who has more sexual partners is “lower value” than a woman who has fewer sexual partners.
- Prized if virginity is present. That virginity is some biblical holy grail that all men should seek after.
The primary focus is on the fact that men should want a woman who’s chaste. Frankly, I don’t want all of that. I just want a wonderful human being I can share my experiences with, someone I can support, someone who will call me reliable at the end of the day and thank me for my contributions — as I thank her for hers.
Here comes the kicker, in the footnotes of the video I just watched, the guy literally suggested that his followers read Sex at Dawn, a book about polyamory and relationships involving multiple sex partners (you definitely should get that book).
Something tells me he’s insisting that they read it with the aforementioned sexual double standards in mind.
This is all wrapped up in a warped view of human sexuality that’s surface level. It’s as bad as when someone thinks supply and demand are all there is to economics. It’s the idea that men trade money for sex and women trade sex (and beauty) for security.
How abysmal of a conception of human sexuality is that?
It misses so much. It misses all the beautiful conversations, the moments where the feelings of butterflies swell up in our stomachs to a degree that we can’t even contain ourselves; it ignores the concrete biological fact of good old fashion chemistry, and worst of all, it perverts attraction and love by forging them into instruments of human transactions.
For a group of people who pretend to be all about building a family, they sure seem to be hellbent on turning relationships into things of competition instead of cooperation.
It’s no wonder so many men who follow this kind of advice find themselves sad and alone. And honestly, I’m not here to talk bad about them. I’m not here to finger-wag as I tell them they’re all wrong, calling them misogynists — at least not the viewers who are often young teenage boys or lonely men looking for a little hope and guidance in a confusing world.
But I absolutely will call out these peddlers of pseudoscientific nonsense. And most of all, I’d like to offer a better way.
Sexuality, in all of its glory, confusion, sweetness, form, splendor, and pain, is, at bottom, a mechanism of human relations — not transactions.
Male sexuality isn’t predicated on obtaining things and the sooner we learn this as a species, the better off we’ll be. It’s about sharing experiences. It’s about sucking the beautiful sweet nectar out of every shared moment of life we have with those we’re attracted to and those we have feelings for.
Most of all, men succeed when we stop viewing sexual relations as a war, a battle to be won by either men or women. We win when we develop the understanding that sex isn’t a zero-sum game; it’s a symbiosis of wonder to be respected and nurtured. And we can do all of this with our masculinity intact.
Masculine sexuality isn’t about conquering women. It’s about building beautiful experiences with them.
Thanks for reading. Feel free to subscribe to my newsletter or follow me on Twitter. This story contains affiliate links to Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships. I may make a small commission through these links. You can get the book on Amazon here.