Celebrating Toxic Masculinity

Return of the Real Man

Breaking news headline: “Women are seen as more attractive when they are naked.” Evidence of toxic masculinity, or common sense?

I recently discussed this with Jeremy Nell of South Africa in his podcast Jerm Warfare. Some excerpts below…

The masculine expression of desire--for a woman, a promotion, or a trophy--is now verboten in America. Men are dissuaded from displaying assertiveness. They are threatened and punished for going after what they want. They are told to always ask for permission before acting and to always apologize after provoking any conflict. If a woman finds herself as much as displeased by his words or actions, a man may very well lose his right to carry a firearm, face expulsion from school, or find himself fired from his job. “Believe all women” is the new mantra, even if the woman is a bold-faced liar.

Over the past month, women in the United States have been transfixed by the Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard defamation trial. American men have largely ignored it. Beyond the salacious details of this live-broadcast theater—coerced body cavity searches, severed fingers, bedroom encopresis, and threatened post-immolation necrophilia—what has seduced the overwhelmingly female viewing audience is the utterly nasty psychological portrait drawn of the defendant, and her exhibition of the absolute worst aspects of the adult female.

Clearly hoping to become the new face of the MeToo movement, Heard has drawn the ire of American women everywhere, exposing herself as a mendacious, violent sociopath. She is a caricature of the narcissistic, borderline, histrionic woman. Johnny Depp comes across as thoroughly weak and entirely unable to respond to, much less contain, this woman’s explosive emotionality. Drugs certainly played a significant role in their tempestuous relationship, but their respective characterological deficits drove the short-lived marriage to sadism and perversion. Frequent cursing, flying vodka bottles, and black eyes were the more innocuous offenses. Depp’s ex-wife appears to have honestly earned her new nickname Amber Turd. Had the sexes been reversed, Heard’s viciousness and wanton violence toward her spouse would have landed her in prison. She was given a legal pass, though, because women can no longer be held responsible for any domestic violence they commit. But in the court of public opinion, she has been crucified. Her career is likely over, and every wealthy man who may have considered dating her has now been put on notice that a fate similar to Depp’s awaits him. Short-term boyfriend Elon Musk got off easy--$500,000 and a Tesla. He must be celebrating his good fortune right now.

The Depp vs Heard trial represents the logical relationship endpoint of the decades-long feminist movement, and it isn’t pretty. I see the effects in my clinical practice, as young men and women come to me, utterly lost and bewildered, incapable of navigating the new social terrain that has set them up for relationship failure. Undesired women and non-desirous men lead lives of loneliness and desperation, with little hope of ever finding a partner. I remind them that society may be sick, but they don’t have to be. I encourage them to return to their traditional feminine and masculine roles, where women invite and encourage the desire of men, and men push past their fear of rejection by expressing their desire and communicating it to women. It often feels like I am teaching them a foreign language whose words they have never heard before.

As we finish celebrating Mother’s Day in 2022, is it any surprise that the median age for giving birth in the US just hit 30? To maintain our current population, a birth rate of 2.1 per woman is required. We are now at 1.6, and that number continues to decline. If young American men and women no longer know how to talk to one another, how can they date, marry, and start a family?

Miserable women and cowardly men. As a society, we have allowed this group to define our current social norms. Of course, there are plenty of examples of both sexes here in the United States who do not display these traits. But they are fighting an uphill battle. From movies to universities to the workplace, there are virtually no healthy examples to follow. The mode of communication of the traditional man and traditional woman is no longer the lingua franca of the nation. And our nation is dying because of it.

We need more toxic masculinity, not less. We need men who dare to express their desires, to lead, to stand up to uncontained female emotionality. We need John Wayne, not Johnny Depp. The Amber Heards need to be exiled to where they can no longer do any damage, until they learn how to behave. Feminism and its recent ugly outgrowth—MeToo—need to be exposed as the societal cancers they have become, and then surgically removed. When true masculinity is restored, the feminine can flourish. Both sexes need one another.

Mark McDonald, M.D.

Psychiatrist and author of United States of Fear: How America Fell Victim to a Mass Delusional Psychosis