The “Real” Toxic Masculinity: Boys to Boys . . .

By Richard Allen – June 20, 2022

Since we’ve just celebrated Father’s Day 2022, I thought it would be fitting to talk about fathers and masculinity in our current culture. Sad to say, masculinity has fallen on hard times. Since I wrote recently about female roles in “Roe v. Wade and the Democrats’ Real War On Women,” I think it’s appropriate to touch on the other half of the male-female equation, men. It’s no wonder that there is such “gender confusion” and “gender dysphoria” in modern life with the relentless war on traditional male and female roles in our culture. As I mentioned in my blog on Roe v. Wade, Abortion has disenfranchised women by demeaning their greatest gift to humanity, Motherhood!

Now I need to talk about the war on Fatherhood and what it means to be a Man. If you are wondering what the connection is, it’s actually quite simple: Just like Faith in a Transcendent God – Family and the Traditional Roles of Male and Female are a threat to the Collective, that is, the State. And anything that is a threat – must be demeaned and / or destroyed! If you think about it in reverse, it’s very clear: If people are not connected with the sense of belonging that both Faith and Family provide, where will they place their loyalty and allegiance? The simple answer: The State! Just remember, it was Hillary Clinton who used an African Proverb to write her book: “It Takes A Village To Raise A Child.”

What Hillary, a committed lifelong “crony-Marxist” really meant was: “It takes the State” to raise your child.” Also, what she did not say was that in the African culture where this phrase came from, a village was the clan, or extended family taking part in child rearing. But in Hillary’s world, it’s the Socialist State that should have total control over all children, bringing them up to be docile slaves, subservient to the State and its Ruling Class, that is, Hillary and her Elite friends!

With the gender confusion that permeates modern entertainment, education and marketing – I want to start with a word of truth from God’s perspective. Here are two scripture quotes – one from Genesis and the other from Matthew:

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:24).

“He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,’ and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’ ? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:4-6).

This one little verse, quoted by our Lord Jesus in Matthew 19 says a lot. Corroborating biological science, Genesis tells us that: “God created mankind Male and Female.” Not 183 Genders, just two, Male and Female. Let me add that those other 181 genders are Psychological Anomalies, not biological science. These genders only exist as a state of some souls poor troubled mind, and are subject to change or variation at the drop of a hat! With the onslaught of blame and denigration of Biblical manhood and traditional male role models, it’s a wonder that young boys would ever desire to grow up and become adult men. But there’s another phrase in this passage that often gets overlooked: “A man shall leave his father and his mother, and hold fast to his wife” (Matthew 19:5). Over the years I’ve often wondered what the writer of Scripture might have meant saying “leave father and mother,” finally realizing that I was overthinking it.

As we know from numerous stories in the Old Testament, more often than not – sons often stayed on with parents after marriage to till the land and raise flocks. This is apparent as you reflect on the Patriarchy and how it worked in that culture. A good example would be the Patriarch Jacob, whose 12 sons stayed on helping him care for the flock, which was their inheritance – all the while having families and homes of their own. With Jacob’s vast herd, the work required many hands. It was expected that adult sons would stay on – helping with the family’s flock, showing respect to their father as the head of the clan, while still having their own homes with wives and children to care for. So, physically leaving a father and mother can’t be what this divine injunction in Scripture is calling for. Rather, it is saying something else: To be a man you need “to grow up, leave the nurture and care of your mother and father and focus on your own wife and children as the father to a new family!” And it’s right here that we see the real crisis today, Men don’t strive to grow up and become responsible husbands and fathers any more. Rather, they long to play and be a Perennial Boy.

Diana West in her excellent book: “The Death of the Grown-up” details how the culture in Western Societies has changed since the Post World War II years, with the traditional role of boys growing into men and girls growing into young ladies changed drastically:

“Post–World War II affluence gave rise to the teen age, with Seventeen’s 1944 launch marking the ‘end of growing up,’ she writes: Americans have idolized youth ever since. In the 1960s, parents and children reversed roles, the counterculture became the establishment and self-restraint vanished, leaving us bereft of refinement, forbearance, civility, decency and other adult virtues.” (Kirkus Reviews) Issue: June 15, 2007 - https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/diana-west/the-death-of-the-grown-up/

It might surprise you, but the category of “teenager” is a relatively new idea. It’s not something you find in literature – even in the 1800’s. There were only two categories, children and adults. Our modern age – especially after WWII created this new category, teenager, idolized by the entertainment and music industries. By the 1960’s the effect was that children didn’t aspire to be grown-ups, but to forever be a teenager, with all of the physical attributes of a young sexually active adult, but none of the responsibility. This phenom had a horrendous outcome with the hippie generation(of which I was part), and totally changed the culture. Men no longer aspired to be adult, to dress like adults, get a job, get married and settle down with the girl of their dreams. No, men idolized and mimicked the James Dean character in “Rebel Without A Cause,” rebelling against their parents’ values, but having no real purpose or direction themselves.

We now live two generations out from the “rebellious1950’s” and the “anti-war 1960’s. Two generations of men and women who have grown up when traditional “male / female” roles are called into question. At some point, the Women’s Liberation Movement decided they’d had enough with the little boy mentality that defined many eligible bachelors. Then the Women’s Liberation Movement fulfilled the old saying: “What’s good for the Goose, is good for the Gander,” and our current sorry state came to full fruition. The movement promised women: “You can be just as successful on the job, just as cavalier about sexual trysts, and just as negligent as men are toward raising children and suffer no consequences.” This promise was a lie that had dire consequences. However, many women - repulsed by the boys never growing up culture, decided that making a commitment to a man-boy, or being tied down to a family, was just not worth it.

So here we are in 2022, where for the past decade the Boys remaining Boys culture, that society has created, has all but given up on traditional manhood. The Boys who want to forever remain Boys are a non-entity in modern society. Men are no longer needed to support the family – government created “female breadwinners” are more than capable of doing that. Even for those who work, women account for fully 2/3 of all College Graduates, as women out-earn their male counterparts in the corporate workplace. And with the deliberate push for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and other deviant lifestyles, men are not even needed for sexual fulfillment. The “normal couple” that is promoted today, is two successful females going to a “sperm bank” to get impregnated with some poor donor’s seed – so they can start a family! Add to this the stereo-typing of Traditional Males as “Toxic Masculinity” and Rapists, and you have the recipe for a complete overthrow of God’s design, which has led to a total societal breakdown!

One of the few voices sounding a warning is Jordan B. Peterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. He’s a clinical psychologist by profession, the author of a multi-million copy bestseller “12 Rules for Life.” But he’s best known for his College Campus Lectures where he has decried the sad state of men in today’s world. He’s also debated several “radical feminists,” giving him a strong presence on Youtube. As Dr. Peterson rightly explains, the real problem is not “Toxic Masculinity,” but rather “Toxic Humanity” – because as he explains, “we’ve all got serious problems.” While I’m not sure that Jordan has arrived at the same “total depravity” diagnosis that we Evangelical Christians hold, I can say that he’s well on the way. As we believers see it, our real problem is: “While we’re made in the image of God, we are also fallen – living with a marred image that is distorted in many ways.”

As Jordan and others see it, the new assault using the term “Toxic Masculinity” is just the latest in a series of moves by Socialist experimenters in government and Academia – seeking to change men in to something God never intended, Women! The first moves a generation ago, virtually eliminated all the male heroes that boys used to look up to, and dreamt of becoming. The advent Multiculturalism in the 70’s and 80’s smeared America’s Founding Fathers, and passed on outright lies to a generation of upcoming classroom teachers. Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Lincoln and others were no longer principled men who fought and bled for our Liberty, they were “racists, imperialists, wealthy property owners and xenophobes” who hated any foreigners who looked and talked differently than “white Europeans,” coming from different religions and cultures. By the way, nothing could be further from the truth, the smears became dogma with the virtual adoption of Howard Zinn’s fabrications about America’s roots. His over-heralded work: ”A People's History of the United States” became an almost sacred text overnight, with little or no corroboration. Now, years later, we learn of his Communist ideology and his motives for denigrating the United States. Just another Socialist who hated Individual Freedom!

Add the tumultuous 60’s with “Free Love,” which was really “Faultless Procreation,” and a whole generation of “Lost Boys” were raised, many on the streets – without love, family and God. Those fortunate enough to have parents, were still brain-washed by the “Entertainment-Media-Complex.” They did the bidding of the Socialist Revolutionaries who longed to destroy everything that smacked of Judeo-Christian or Western Family Values. Just so you don’t think I’m overreacting, here’s a partial list of the 22 stats that should alarm everyone that “Something is drastically wrong” with Young Men in America Today:

#1 Males account for approximately 70 percent of all Ds and Fs in U.S. public schools.

#2 About two-thirds of all students in “special education programs” are boys.

#3 The average American girl spends 5 hours / week playing video games. American boys spend 13 hours / a week playing video games.

#7 In 2011, SAT scores for young men were the worst that they had been in 40 years.

#9 According to the New York Times, approximately 57 percent of all young people enrolled at U.S. colleges are women.

#10 It’s being projected that women will earn 60 percent of all Bachelor’s degrees from U.S. universities by the year 2016.

#22 Young men are about four times more likely to commit suicide as young women. (Michael Snyder – The Gathering Spot December 12, 2012)

Men are dropping out of Family Life, no longer committed to a woman in selfless Christlike love (see Ephesian 5:25). They are opting for the “safe pretend world” of video games, online pornography or one-night stands in the “hook-up culture.” They are avoiding college and finding it increasingly difficult to find meaningful relationships with young women. Strange, but many young women still seem to want manly men and not the “sissified” version who experience their period cramps. But at the same time, young women have followed the social experimenters’ society-killing model, and still want a man-boy they can control. The reasons are plentiful and obvious for our current plight, but the main reason can be boiled down to one reason: “We’ve abandoned God’s design for both Men and Women,” and are now reaping disaster.

Since 1973 we’ve aborted 62,000,000 babies in the effort to “save the planet” from “overpopulation.” Now, social experimenters from the Marxist-Progressive colleges denigrate what is left of masculinity as “toxic,” and femininity as “baby breeders.” Is it any wonder we have a generation of men who are poorly equipped to be Fathers? To be a father, they’d need to leave father and mother and become men! Sadly, our culture makes Boys into Boys. My encouragement to men – especially Christian men – is to grow up, look for godly role models of faithfulness and sobriety. Resist the culture’s allure to remain an irresponsible boy. I Pray that God would revive us, and raise up a generation of godly men and women. Amen.