Episode 22: The Manosphere

We couldn’t not watch the Manosphere. Join us for this episode where we rant, analyse and share some of our key takeaways from the Louis Theroux documentary and what it says about masculinity, femininity and relationships.

In this episode, we talk about:

•  How we got here – the discrediting of “masculinity” and how it led to polarization
•  The men in the Manosphere are not “alpha men”. Their behaviour comes from deep
• wounding.
•  The behaviour traits of the wounded masculine
•  The difference between leadership and control
•  When women settle for “less” while telling themselves they’re happy
•  The wounded “feminine”

We want to hear your thoughts and questions, so if there's anything you would like us to cover on the show, please drop us a line on 

info@thebone-zone.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the Bone Zone. I'm Sarah.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

And I'm Richard.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

And in this podcast, we excavate sex and relationship myths and uncover the truth of how it all really works. We bridge the esoteric and practical worlds to bring you grounded, sage, and tangible advice and tools, whether you're looking to attract a soulmate relationship or grow and expand within an existing one.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Good afternoon. Hello. Good morning. Good everything. Today we are going to speak about the manosphere.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Very, very exciting episode for you.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

It's quite it's maybe a ranty episode. I don't know. We we don't know. We watched this documentary the other day on Netflix called The Manosphere.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

I'm sure that any of you that spend any time on social media or Netflix will have heard about it. It's a documentary by Louis Thoreau. Basically deep diving into quote unquote alpha masculinity, but what could be described as toxic masculinity. Masculinity.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Masculinity. Masculinity. If I need to pronounce it properly. I thought I was gonna be super, super triggered by this uh episode wanting to kill everyone in it. However, I managed to watch it all the way through, and we had a jolly good old discussion afterwards about this episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

So um and I've also been reading a lot of people's different perspectives on it and what they took away from it, and I took away certain things from it as well. And I mean, I don't lie, in the first five minutes or ten minutes as I was getting into it, I was vomiting in my mouth like consistently. Um but then after I calmed down, I was like, okay, let's just take emotions out of the equation and just observe this.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Yeah, my big takeaway from this is masculine men were basically in the last however many years basically feminized, right? There was no real anything masculine would be classified as toxic.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Yes, so because of the demonization you let me finish, or you just gotta butt in. Well, no, I'm just clarifying what you said. The demonization of masculinity led to let's call it polarization, and polarization is pretty much descriptive of everything nowadays, but particularly in regards to masculinity, as Richard said, it made some men become more feminine, then you've got men that are just asking permission to breathe almost, and we're asking for permission to have sex, which is really a no-no, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Can I have sex with you, please?

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Yeah, it's the way that you ask it as well. If it's like, oh please, please.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Just for clarity, when you said it's the way that you ask it, you weren't talking about the way me. Right. Okay, good. I'm glad we got that straight.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Although I did you already were saying that.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Great. Listen, did you get that listeners? Normally a sneeze, actually, which is indicative of telling the truth when you think or say something and you sneeze. However, she just did and here we go again. A massive yawn.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

It shows I'm actually like relaxing into the anyway. Let's get back on track here. So the polarization, you had some men that um saw masculinity as perhaps a negative thing and went more towards the feminine end of the spectrum, and this is not to demonize feminine traits, but But it did get a bit out of hand, the feminine trait as well. Yes. Basically, if a man is in his feminine, it forces the woman into the masculine, and then neither is particularly happy with that situation.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

And everything is confused.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Because the woman is burnt out from working a full-time job, earning money, looking after children, looking after everything at the house, organizing everything, whereas the man can't seem to make a decision about anything, and then is like, oh, we're not having sex. Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Duh. Can I get a duh?

SPEAKER_00 5:12

No. Anyway, so the polarization of that is the other extreme. The problem is that that is being portrayed by a certain group of people as alpha masculinity.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Which was a result of a kind of a pushback to what was going on with all males bec going into their female. This group of men decided we're gonna take our masculinity back and basically decide that all women should be treated like shit, basically. Then go out to fucking millions of people, young men, from teenagers, young teens, all the way up, millions of them thinking they should all treat women like shit. That's basically in a nutshell what's fucking happened here.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Well, let's talk about some of the things that are being portrayed as masculine from the series, right? Yes, from the series, and we've touched on the idea of toxic masculinity before. Um basically it's characterized by a few things, and all of them are ego-based things. So things like status, money, body, um, being able to show off trophy women, basically from insecurities, being dominant. All of those are very much external things, and the need to do all of that comes from wounding. And in fact, both ends of this polar spectrum come from some form of wounding, and anything coming from wounding is not healthy, whether that's healthy masculinity or healthy femininity. So essentially oh, and one other trait I think it's important to mention the absolute suppression of emotions completely. What was interesting about all of these men was they came from traumatic backgrounds of some kind. So either there was an absent father figure, or a father figure that was not much of a role model, or a crazy chaotic mother that was just all over the place, was drinking, was this, was falling apart every 10 seconds. So they come from this background, and the way that they've learned to deal with it is basically bypassing any emotions they have around it and saying, none of it matters, it's all part of the past. Now I'm gonna find all part of the past, and I'm just gonna focus on the external things, and as long as I focus on that and hold up this image, then I'm a man, thus, continuing to give masculinity or being in your masculine a bad name. Yeah, so that is my worry.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

It is a worry, social media is a mock with all these fucking cretons.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

No, that's my worry with the series that it will further damage the reputation of masculinity.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Well, yes. I mean, well, you know, okay, that's a whole different discussion. I'm not gonna get into it now, actually.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

What was interesting, I saw um someone comment this on social media, and she was saying there is no such thing as toxic masculinity, there is only the absence of masculinity, and the absence of masculinity includes these men that we are labelling as toxic because she said that that masculinity isn't real, it comes from deep-rooted insecurity.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

What do you think about that? Is that a correct way? Is that a more of an understandable way?

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Well, actually, first, before I read the context of this, I saw the post and I was like, is she saying it's okay to be an absolute douchebag and tree women?

SPEAKER_01 9:25

That's what I exactly thought.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

But when I s when she put it into context, I was like, okay, that makes sense. Now, the other dangerous aspect of this is that um as Richard said as well, it's the whole masculinity is based on degrading women in some respect.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

The way these guys talked about their their partners was fucking atrocious. I mean uh in there, live on TV, and anyone who does their homework, I mean they're all haven't got a brain sole to rub together because I would have gone out and searched who is Louis Theroux. He's one of the most famous interviewers out there, he's been there for doing stuff for 30 years, and he's the guy who gets people to act like total fucking dicks on the big screen to show who these people really are.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

I think one of the idiots in it called him Louis Terox.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Terox, yes, you couldn't even pronounce his name properly. I mean I mean he's using the fucking family brain cell here. Seriously. Absolutely men. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

And again, this is another very concrete sign of wounding and insecurity when you feel a need to put down others in order to make yourself feel better. And here's the problematic element. There were grains of truth. There were a couple of some of the things that they said. Yes, there were. So there was one guy in there that literally he was so obnoxious. Um, I can't remember which one he was. Um, his girlfriend left him, which I After the series. Yeah, after the series, she saw herself on camera, and I was like, I feel like this is not right and I should leave. I was like, Yeah, you go girl.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

But um what was I saying here?

SPEAKER_01 11:31

You were saying that there were some truths.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Oh, yes. So there were some truths dotted in uh what these people were saying, but they're distorted and misunderstood and taken out of context. So the truths are kind of warped, so to speak. So to talk about some examples of that, so the concept of women want to be led, again, this is I think this is true. Women do, but not controlled, but not in the way that he was saying it. So led as and you want a man who makes decisions, you want a man who is there to support you and lead you when you're feeling down. But the way he was speaking about it is women want to be dominated and controlled.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

That's basically what he said. Now, another But it's not what he said, but that's what he meant.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

That's 100% what he meant, and then someone else was saying, Oh, well, a lot of women want to stay in the home and look after the children. Again, maybe that's true, but their relationship was dysfunctional because again, you've got the wounded feminine and the wounded masculine together, and actually, I want to go into how the wounded feminine actually gets drawn towards this type of wounded masculine.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

I think the women in this, especially one in particular, in this episode of uh the manosphere, or there's only one anyway, she was kind of forced to she was like, Yeah, stay at home um with the kids. I I really got the feeling that she was forced into it. I don't know whether that was so she used to actually Well that she didn't have a choice, she felt she didn't have a choice because he wouldn't marry her, he wouldn't.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

No, I feel like what was actually going on there was so she used to be a nurse in the hospital and she was tired and burnt out with the long hours, and as one can do in that case, it's a very attractive prospect if a man's like, right, that's fine, I'm just gonna take care of everything, I never have to worry about anything else financially. So it's this kind of thing of I'm running away from something to this thing that I think will give me security, but I will tell you this much for nothing. If she decided, okay, I've actually got this gift or talent for doing something and I want to try and make money out of it, I can tell you for sure he would not be happy with that. No, because it completely threatens his version of masculinity, which is I made the money, I'm big man. But he's doing that to essentially keep control, right? So pigeonholing people into very rigid boxes creates control.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Yeah, I I don't know, I still I'm just looking at her body language and the whole of that scene with the with uh the interview uh with Louis Thurux and She seemed like she wanted to get out and she couldn't.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

I don't know, maybe I'm Well, she can't at this point because um she's accepted a night dynamic where she's entirely dependent on it, and he said it as well. I make the money, I do the business, she does the home stuff, cooking the cleaning and the diapers, and I don't touch that with barge pole because it's very unmasculine. And it's Tarou actually pushes people, so he asks provocative questions, and you can see every single time these men get really defensive and aggressive.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Yes, they do.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

So one of them kept saying to him, he he in fact I think this was a common thing, they all believe in one-sided monogamy. And it was interesting because one of the men in it, when prodded, when Louis, he he literally just asked the question, you know, what is one-sided monogamy? The guy explains, and Tere just looks at him like he has no expression on his face, and the guy was like, I can tell you're getting angry with me. People do get angry with me when I talk about this. So it's this thing of when they know there's a challenge on a specific point, when something touches on their insecurities, they immediately have an emotional reaction, which is interesting because as quote-unquote masculine men, they don't actually believe in emotion, but they are full of emotional triggers, and every single one of those men in that series you could tell they were losing their cool at certain points.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Yes, they were, and Louis Threau, he was a gentle sort of Englishman who just looks and and seems very inoffensive, but he's got this knack of um of asking the question with that look, um, and completely provoking the people. And this is his this is his gift. These people, these guys.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Um But you I think the point is if you are genuinely grounded in something, you don't feel the need to get triggered by it and then go on a massive rant saying you don't care about this at all. It's like you don't care about it, but you're ranting about it for an hour.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Or like that other guy who was trying to get his revenge on Louis Thoreau by framing him and sort of uh by saying he was friends with Jimmy Savile or something. Jimmy Savile, he was a known pedophile in the UK.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Like it's just these pathes.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

My point was, my point was it's he's able to show these people for who they really are. Okay, which He's holding the mirror up. He's holding the mirror up, and so that we all can see this is what real toxic masculinity looks like, and it's extremely worrying. These guys have millions of followers, millions of them, all growing up to wanting to emulate these idiots.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

Um and here's here's the link into femininity because everyone's so worried about going what's going on with boys, but what messages are going out to women? So let's talk about the partners of the wives, girlfriends, whatever of these men in Manosphere who have uh who are with these men, right? They are telling themselves and the camera when they were on camera, they're like, I'm happy, I love them, I'm I'm super cool, I'm in my feminine, but you can see because the body never you can see because the body never lies, the expressions on their faces, and the body language that is giving away the fact that this is actually bullshit, because most of us can disconnect with our bodies enough that we can convince ourselves via our thoughts that we're really happy when we're not. But the girl that ended up leaving one of the guys, she said she actually watched back the footage, saw her face saying, Oh, it's funny that he wants to have multiple wives, and she was like, I could see from her face that I was totally unhappy with. Um, but she'd she needed to be presented with this mirror, like a literal mirror in order to really see it clearly. And this is the archetypal settling, right? Yes, where you just concede and concede and concede so much that you have to convince yourself you're happy at some point. And one of the well, I don't know whether she was a wife or a partner of one of the guys in it, she was like, My partner before used to lie to me all the time, but at least he doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

They weren't married. This is a guy who refused to marry her, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Even though they have two kids and one on the way, yeah. Um he was she was like, partner before used to lie to me all the time, but at least I literally don't remember.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

No, it's at least I know what he's up to now. He doesn't lie to me.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

So and so is honest, and I'm like, great. So basically, you are so damaged that you are basically betraying what it is that you want, you are being forced into a traditional role, and I I don't want to use the word force because at the end of the day, that all of this is a choice, and that choice comes based on your sense of worth and value. And as a wounded, as someone that is in the wounded feminine, the likelihood is your sense of worth and value is not that high, especially if you've been in previous relationships, which were even worse, and you're like, Well, this is better than the last one, so I guess it's okay, or he gives me money, great, like that money can go away at any time, especially.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

It can be, he could dump her there. You can't, this guy cannot be trusted. I've got a question for you. Okay. So, in this um episode, there were a load of like that. The really the worst one of them all, I can't remember his name. Let's just call him Dickhead. Uh Dickhead um had these podcasts with all these women sitting there as guests. I'm not sure if they were from like Oli fans. I think a lot of them were, yes. But the women, some of the women portrayed in that is all and I I'm trying to phrase this in a way that doesn't trigger people because I don't want to trigger people. I I do like to trigger people, but not in this case. There are some women out there who are in such a way that they don't do anything to to allow themselves to be respected by men. Like that one who was like. There with the first one, Harrison.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

He was like with the with the duck face, and she was like going, Oh, well, you know, I don't know. It's almost like it's it's ammunition for guys like that to go out and treat women. Um am I making sense? What I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yes. She was so this was an OnlyFans star.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Oh, she was an OnlyFans star, okay. Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

So a lot of the women in this were again. Obviously, everyone should do what they need to do, but sleeping with I don't know, 500 men on camera for money does not come from a healthy feminine place. I'm just gonna go.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

It's a thousand, actually.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Well, that's one of them. I mean they have varying numbers, whatever. Doesn't matter. It's the concept of it doesn't come from a healthy place. Now, going back to what messages is this sending to girls at school, because we've talked about what messages are these men sending to boys. The message to um girls is well, either you swear off men completely because why fucking bother? I mean, they're either absolute pussies or they're toxic or they expect you to be some kind of pseudo-porn star. So I can entirely see why you have a generation of girls that are like quite happy not getting involved in this shit.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Right?

SPEAKER_00 23:38

So you've got those, then you've got the girls that are like, great, I'm gonna take advantage of this dynamic in any way I can. Okay, maybe those form the only fan stars, so to speak. Um but again, does this send a particularly good message to girls?

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Well, no, it doesn't sound a good message to men either, really.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

No, it doesn't sell a good message to give it a girl.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Doesn't sell a good message to anyone.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

The idea is they all have a certain cosmetic look. Um they all have these competitions, well not they all, but some of them, a group of them all have these competitions to sleep with as many men as possible. So basically the overarching message is you are entirely judged based on your sexuality, and that will determine your status, how much money you make, um, whether men will come to you or not. Like to a teenage girl, do they now think, well, in order to get men to like me, I have to, I don't know, do some crazy porn star moves. I don't know what goes on in porn nowadays, but and then you've got the traditional traditional inverted commons relationship. So you've got the relationships of the women in this that are with these men that are supposedly masculine, settling for less than their worth. And look, what's applies to one side should apply to the other. If everyone wants to fuck around, not a relationship dynamic I wanna ascribe to, but at least it's equal on both sides. Yeah. As opposed to I'm going to be the man and men are gonna sew their wild oats because that's what we've been programmed to believe for however long, and you as the woman are gonna stay at home and put up with this.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Well, could they can just have an OnlyFans account, not do the sort of outrageous stuff, do softer stuff, but earn a living, and not have to rely on men or risk relying on men in the first place, totally navigating any risk, bypassing any risk that they might end up in a situation like the woman who gave up everything to stay at be a stay-at-home mum, and um seemingly not living her best life. So yes, I I think this comes from a total distrust of men, and it's a way for using men. I know that uh the earnings are dependent on men, but one could say that these women are using men to be able to bypass the whole toxic masculinity thing. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

It's programming, it's contagious, it's what they see happening. And it's very attractive for a teenage girl. Okay, I'm hot, I've had a load of Botox, because people having Botox and fillers gets younger and younger. Like literally, I remember spoiler. It's not a spoiler, but two and a half years ago I had fillers in my cheeks for the first time, and I was how old was I? I was about 40 when I went in. The guy in there looked at me and he was like, You're like really old to be doing because he's used to now people in their late teens, early twenties going in to get stuff done. That was the one and only time I did that, I would like to add. Um but basically we see what's out there, and it's attractive to think, hey, I can just earn a load of money and step outside of the matrix. That's a very common phrase that they all use. Um, by just going on OnlyFans and doing whatever people do on there. And I'm pretty sure it ramps up. So they probably don't start with I'm gonna sleep with loads of people on camera. It's more like like it starts small and then it ramps up as you see more and more examples of how this could go and how that leads to more and more and more money. Yeah, but whatever way you look at it, um it's it shows a not particularly healthy relationship with men. Whether you're the the wife or girlfriend of one of these men or whether you're an OnlyFans girl. You know? Let me put it put put it this way to you, Richard, actually. This is a question. Um you've known a few ladies that did stripping in their twenties, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:04

Yes. Did they have My ex-wife used to work in there?

SPEAKER_00 29:10

Did they have healthy relationships with men?

SPEAKER_01 29:13

No. And to this day, I know of one who has a good relationship with her husband.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

But did she have a good uh family relationship?

SPEAKER_01 29:25

The one who's married?

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

No, her family were just fucking mad Italians. But anyway, in general, 95%, and I met a lot of these uh women, because they were more women, not really so young, because this was like 20, 30 years ago. Um but there was a lot of a lot of woundedness. I mean, even in my own relationship, um it was almost like they would use this. You got them in all sorts. Either the the dancers were like some um on the sort of verging on the nymphomaniac who would then go out and just um be promiscuous, which is fine if that's what you want to do. But then there's the ones who used the dancing, the erotic dancing, to be able to be sexual, where in their relationship they could not be sexual with their partner.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Okay, well my point is this comes from wounding because if we take sex as the uh spiritual or potentially spiritual intimate act, it is if you are having sex outside of that, and this is not judging anyone, because believe me, I've had sex with people that I would like to.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Mine was an open relationship, yeah, as well.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Right. So we're not judging anyone here, but the the point is it devalues the potential for what sexuality, true sexuality from a secure place can bring you, and the type of intimacy that it can bring to your relationship with another person, yeah. And therefore, the people, the women that are choosing to engage in that industry, they may be telling themselves, okay, well, it's cool, I get to make money, I'm happy, everything's great. But my question is, are you really, or are you really running away from showing momentarily happy from the outside in, not from the inside out?

SPEAKER_01 31:53

It was it has to be all done from the inside out, is as long as it's external validation and uh too worried about what people think about you and everything else, you will never ever be happy. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

So um again, if I go back to an FYI, the open relationship I was in, was two-way. Not one way, just thought I'd um and you know if if it if we're gonna do a separate episode on that.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

So are we? Yes, we're gonna do an episode on open relationships and polyamory. Oh. We have actually talked about doing this.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

Because I don't listen to a word you say, buddy. No, not really.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

Okay, so again, what message is this sending young girls about healthy femininity, healthy sexuality, the link between money and sex, i.e., by devaluing sex, I make a whole load of fucking money. Um apparently it's a fuckload of money if you'll pardon the pawn. Um, we're talking about tens of millions of millions of dollars. Um, summing up key takeaways from the manosphere, healthy masculinity is nothing like what is portrayed because it comes from the inside out, it comes from integrity, it comes from a respect, a genuine respect for the feminine. Yes, it comes from being comfortable with emotions and holding emotional space for women or for the feminine to express, which believe me, none of these men would have been capable of doing with their partners, that is for sure. It comes from um this need to nurture and protect. And if they are then going out and making lots of money, it's to support all of those things, to really support their uh partner, their family, not I'm getting the money to make me feel masculine and good about myself. So that's the difference. Real masculinity comes from the inside out, and women that have either gone, I am fucking second man, or boys and I'm not going there at all, or women that have gone to one of the other extremes, like either working within the sex industry, yes, they're taking advantage of it, but there is wounded parts that they are not looking at.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

And then the women that settle for less within relationships, then there is a lot of introspection to be done. Let's put it that way. That shit ain't easy, babe. Do you have anything to add to any of that?

SPEAKER_01 35:01

I don't. You did most of the talking once again.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

Yeah, sorry, I don't I'm just like I know, listen. I I was fired up about this whole vibe.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Yeah, well, this was your idea to do um one on the manosphere, and let's be frank, you're very good at what you do.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

And so do you know what? Maybe we should do an episode where I just shut the fuck up for like most of it and let you talk. No pressure. You can talk about open shit.

SPEAKER_01 35:27

Oh, yeah, but I I okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Okay, but that is gonna be another no, I think we should do that in the next week or two, so we'll watch this face.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Alright then, guys. Um I hope you've enjoyed our rantings because there was a kind of an undertone of a rant there.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Um, the world is um oh yes, and I'm I'm I'm into the idea of Sarah's soapbox. Yeah, okay, where I get on a soapbox and rant, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Anyway, okay, guys. We shall see you on the next one. See ya. Take care. Bye. We'd like to thank you for tuning in and listening to this episode today. If you like what you heard, I invite you to follow our show. And if you really liked our show, head over and leave a review on your podcast app of choice. We also want to hear your thoughts and questions. So, if there's anything you would like us to cover on the show, please drop us a line on the email below. Thank you for listening, and until next time.