00:01:16.300We live in a politically correct society in a world where, you know, we don't want to ruffle any feathers or make anybody feel bad about themselves or their decisions.
00:01:26.280And I certainly don't set out to piss people off, to make people feel bad.
00:01:34.960And there is a distinction between truth and opinion.
00:01:37.580I recognize that and realize that and acknowledge it.
00:01:40.080But I'm going to share those things with you because these are the conversations that need to be had.
00:01:44.480And they're the conversations nobody else is having.
00:01:46.540And specifically, if you're new to this podcast, we're talking about all things manliness and masculinity, which in and of itself seems to be an increasingly polarizing conversation.
00:01:57.980Which is funny because, well, it shouldn't be polarizing.
00:02:06.100And that's exactly what I'm going to talk with you about today because there is so much confusion about what it means to be a man and what a man is and what a male is and what masculinity is and what manliness is.
00:02:16.120And we have all these terms and buzzwords that we use and they're often misconstrued.
00:02:26.060People don't completely understand what terms mean and people don't understand what everybody else's meaning or what their intent is when they use these terms like masculinity and, of course, the one we hear quite a bit, which is toxic masculinity.
00:03:38.600We need to lay some foundation here because, again, we have these phrases and these words that are loaded words and people don't understand what they mean.
00:03:55.840It's weird that we have begun to debate what a male is, what a man is, what masculinity is.
00:04:05.220There's plenty of people out there who are confused and think that just because you believe you are that you can be a man, that isn't true.
00:04:23.880So the three terms I wanted to specifically break down for you today are, number one, male, number two, masculinity, and number three, manliness.
00:04:42.440And it's important that we understand what each of these things means so that we as men can step more fully into who we are and who we're meant to be.
00:04:48.780And also, we can ward off any sort of perversion of the truth, distortion of the reality of what it means to be a man and what our job and responsibilities and roles are.
00:05:01.560And what's interesting is as I talk about this, I already know.
00:05:05.020I already know because I deal with it every day.
00:05:08.800This one's probably going to get a lot of hate, and it's going to be polarizing.
00:05:12.060Not for a lot of you because you agree.
00:05:14.260And I'm willing to say the things that I think most of you believe but maybe feel like you can't say or can't talk about.
00:05:20.920I'm willing to be politically incorrect here or incorrect, I should say.
00:05:24.240But as I talk about this, people will say, well, what do you care?
00:05:29.080What do you care what people think about themselves and who they are?
00:05:34.080If you're a woman and you think you're a man, okay, well, you can think that.
00:05:40.940If you're a man and you think you're a woman or you think you're a man or a woman and you think you're some sort of alien space creature or a different animal, okay, that's fine.
00:05:56.180People think all sorts of things that are incorrect, and it doesn't impact my life.
00:06:00.620But this actually does because when a man believes himself to be a woman or vice versa, a woman believes himself to be a man, that actually permeates much of society.
00:06:12.680It infuses itself into the societal conversation, which is why we have men, biological men, males, who are attempting to infiltrate women's sports.
00:06:31.140I also think it's a problem that a biological male who believes himself to be a woman based on new executive orders can be involved with not only sports, but be involved in exclusively female activities in public.
00:06:52.840For example, the use of restrooms, I'm not interested in having a biological man who believes himself to be a woman going into women's restrooms, women's locker rooms, permeating sports.
00:08:31.440That doesn't mean that there's more than two sexes.
00:08:35.000It just means that we have a medical anomaly, a disorder that falls outside of the two sexes that we see among the animal kingdom, including homo sapiens.
00:08:54.920It doesn't create any third class or tier of individual.
00:09:00.060It just means this is a medical anomaly that falls outside of the standard.
00:09:04.780You wouldn't say that human beings have any more or less than 10 fingers and 10 toes or two arms and two legs just because there's a fraction of a percent of individuals who are born with a different number of fingers or are born without a leg or an arm.
00:09:26.120You wouldn't say that, well, human beings, you know, we can have this wide range of spectrum when it comes to how many digits and how many toes and how many arms and legs.
00:09:34.280No, you have two arms and two legs, human beings, and you have 10 fingers and 10 toes.
00:09:39.240And yes, there are a few people who fall outside of that, but it doesn't create its own class.
00:09:44.700It doesn't create its own sex or its own gender.
00:10:03.600And if you want to be a man, the higher tier, I would say, of maleness, you have to first be a biological male.
00:10:14.500And all people, oh, right, how can you be so exclusive and you're excluding these people and you're transphobic and you're this and you're, no, no, not at all.
00:10:23.340Stating the biological truth does not make me any sort of phobic.
00:10:27.980It doesn't mean that I hate these individuals.
00:10:30.220It doesn't mean that I don't care about them.
00:10:31.760It doesn't mean that I think that they should suffer any sort of hardship.
00:10:37.880These are individuals who are confused clearly, and we should be empathetic to that, but we don't need to distort reality in order to make them feel better about their own choices.
00:10:51.800We need to help these individuals so that they can live the most fulfilling life possible.
00:10:57.000And the only way you can do that is by operating in reality.
00:11:01.660I would never take a person who's severely obese, for example, and tell them that their own life choices are healthy choices.
00:11:14.800That might make it easier for them in the short term.
00:11:19.600It might make me feel better, but that doesn't serve that individual.
00:12:41.520Masculinity is a set of characteristics and behaviors and virtues that are developed through hormones, primarily testosterone, that we associate with being male.
00:13:02.100And we have things like the American Psychological Association will come out and say, you know, these things are inherently and intrinsically destructive or dangerous to our young men.
00:13:21.680Being competitive, being stoic, the things that we would generally associate and attribute to males through their biological markers and makeup are not inherently good or bad.
00:13:52.180Now, when I talk about this, people will say, well, you know, if that's the case, then why don't you believe in toxic masculinity?
00:14:02.260It's not that I don't believe in that concept.
00:14:06.220I actually do understand the concept when some people, and I'm using that deliberately, some people use the term toxic masculinity.
00:14:14.480I understand what they're attempting to say.
00:14:17.800They're saying that if you use the masculine characteristics that I just acknowledged and told you were amoral for negative outcomes, then wouldn't that be toxic masculinity?
00:14:30.200But I don't use that term because it's a loaded term.
00:14:35.680The fact that we even have to spend a bunch of time discussing what it means, and some people think it means this, and other people think it means that.
00:14:42.040And it's this term that's been used and manipulated and massaged to paint all masculinity.
00:14:47.380All masculinity as inherently toxic means that I'm not going to use that term.
00:14:54.260Now, my children, my boys in particular, and I've got a daughter as well, but we're talking about boys right now.
00:14:58.920Now, they've got, first and foremost, they're males.
00:15:02.460They're not men, and I'll explain that here in a minute.
00:15:15.860You can see it in his physical makeup.
00:15:18.340You can see it in his demeanor and his behavior and activity, and I love to see that development and growth.
00:15:22.760I need to, as a father who's attempting to do the right things by him, help him harness that masculinity in ways that will serve him and other people.
00:15:34.660And left unchecked, you have, at worst, this Lord of the flies type situation where we have boys running around without direction and discipline and guidance.
00:15:47.500And you look at, in the wake of a couple of mass shooting situations over the past couple of weeks, most mass shooters, mass killers, I should say, have been documented to be without permanent father figures in the home.
00:16:02.900Which means that their masculinity isn't being directed and channeled and harnessed into productive outcomes.
00:16:09.980It's been used ineffectively, and it's been destructive and dangerous and violent and catastrophic in many situations.
00:16:18.440But I'm not going to use the term toxic masculinity because that is a loaded, semantically overloaded term.
00:16:27.460And it's been politicized, and it's been used to push down men altogether.
00:16:33.640So let's recap here so far, and then we'll get on to the third component of this.
00:16:36.520So number one, we have male, biologically male.
00:16:40.740You cannot be a man if you are not biologically male.
00:16:45.280I know I'm going to get emails and responses and everything else.
00:16:48.740Well, right, you know, some people think they're, that's fine.
00:16:54.940In order to be a man, you have to first and foremost be biologically male.
00:16:58.040Then we have masculinity, which is the raw testosterone and hormones coursing through males' veins that cause them to be generally more competitive, more dominant, more aggressive, potentially more stoic, stronger.
00:17:13.920This is why men who believe themselves to be women who have been allowed to compete in women's sports will generally dominate those arenas.
00:19:52.160Man means biological man, male, first and foremost.
00:19:56.140Now, there's more to it because, again, I just explained that my sons are not men yet.
00:20:02.400So in order to be a man or what I would say manliness is a male, a biological male who takes his chemical and hormonal and biological makeup, mostly testosterone and, of course, other hormones as well.
00:20:16.500And directs those and harnesses those and challenges those and tweaks and adjusts and uses them as tools to promote effective outcomes for himself and for other people.
00:21:23.320You might still be a male, but you're acting more like a prepubescent boy, a child, than you are a man.
00:21:31.920Manliness is about taking what you have through your biological makeup and refining it and crafting it and honing it and putting it through a series of processes and systems that will allow you to produce for yourself and other people.
00:21:51.740To protect people in violent situations and dangerous encounters and emergency situations to provide the financial resources that your family and your community need to survive and live their best lives.
00:24:28.320The walls of your home, you can think whatever you want.
00:24:30.100But when it starts to permeate society and impact the way that we view people, the things that we do, it starts to have a negative outcome.
00:24:39.580Allowing men who believe themselves to be women to interact in women's circumstances, in private situations where they should be, I don't want to say sheltered, but protected.
00:25:28.020And it's going to become increasingly more difficult and taboo and politically incorrect to discuss what I'm discussing with you today.
00:25:39.640Which is actually the reason or part of the reason that we should be talking about this.
00:25:43.960Because I want a healthy, functioning society.
00:25:47.880I don't want to acquiesce to people who are confused about who they are and then allow those conversations to permeate society and permeate the way in which we live our lives.
00:26:41.580And I need you to get more men involved in this.
00:26:45.020And what I also need you to know is that I get messages every single week from individuals who say they believe in what I believe, but they can't share it.
00:28:55.540It's important for us, but I think even more so because I believe unless we are willing to speak up and speak out like I'm talking with you about,
00:29:02.360it's only going to get worse for our sons and daughters and their sons and daughters.
00:29:11.680Unless I'm willing to be a man and do what needs to be done now and say the things that need to be said and have the conversations that need to be had.
00:29:17.100Right now, it's only going to get worse.