The looksmaxxing is a natural response to a world that leaves young boys confused about their place, role, and purpose in society.
As Helen Andrews outlined in her essay The Great Feminization, the Western society (the American culture in particular) got so bullish and determined to elevate and prioritize the female perspective, it left very little room for boys and young men.
We may debate how the pendulum swung towards women and how Girl boss, and Girls in STEM and Future is Female, etc. is expected or natural or whatever but the fact remains that this focus created a vacuum for young men. Being strong and healthy and defending the weak - aka being the good man - disappeared from the culture almost completely. We are celebrating every possible demographic except young men. Teenagers and young men want to thrive, they want to matter, they seek role models, they are hungry for their tribe. The guys who are on social media with big followings because they work out or are just saying 'hey, if you're a young man, you matter, welcome!" then they will flock to that. Because the rest of the world sure isn't telling them any of that. The Andrew Tates or looksmaxxers are just filling the void because as a society, we pretty much abandoned our boys.
Yes, exactly. The point of mentioning Calhoun’s experiments was to drive home that the men in question are responding understandably to external conditions over which they have no control.
It is some consolation that these topics are gaining traction in some (online) circles, at least.
That's an important point. It's the biggest blind spot of feminism: the insistence on a binary dynamic where elevating girls and women is only possible if we kick down the boys and men. Of course, it takes about 5 minutes to see how a society with no good men functions (or actually doesn't) and how the women are the first to suffer in a society that doesn't have good men.
Really insightful post. The parallel between the overpopulation and crowding of the Universe 25 experiment and the fact that social media has forced everyone upon everyone all at the same time--too much humanity--is clear. A retreat from the mess is not so much insane as it shows the insanity of the situation.
Great thoughts on beauty as well, like a breath of fresh air after describing the poison we're all swimming in.
Glad you found it interesting. And yes, the psychic overcrowding from being constantly online is such an important consideration in everything we’re dealing with today.
Great article. I’d be interested to hear more about what are acceptable practices regarding enhancing your body’s beauty vs what are not. (Maybe there isn’t a clear answer.) My friend is adamant that working out for appearances is inherently vain, but he will spend time dressing well, which is also appearance-oriented and has fewer obvious health benefits. I don’t think his position is logical, but I’m also not sure where the line is on enhancing personal beauty. Would love to hear some thoughts on that!
Some good points but ultimately a surface-level analysis.
Obviously what Clavicular is doing is wrong, but is it wrong for a man to mew, to thumb-pull, to exercise, to use makeup, perfumes, etc. to maximize his appeal, i.e. to looksmax? That's what most "looksmaxxers" are doing, they're mostly not doing surgeries and taking hormones, they're studying what makes men attractive and applying it.
If you're trying to come through to these boys I assure you you're not coming through. First you need to establish credibility by showing you understand their motivations -- it's not looks for looks' sake, they do it for worldly success, especially with women. You could also get on their good side by acknowledging that women are obsessively and constantly concerned with their appearance and you could condemn the use of makeup like St. John Vianney did. Why not draw the obvious parallels?
It’s a fair point that most men aren’t going to extremes of surgical intervention and hormone replacement. And many of them are certainly motivated by women and success, not just status.
The line between rightly ordered and disordered in matters like this should be an examination of personal intention and conscience. Rather than pretend we have the definitive answers and get too granular about which non-extreme practices may be excessive, it seemed better to raise questions about the difference between cultivating the body as a tool used to achieve things vs its cultivation as part of a well-ordered life. The first makes the body an object to be used, the second sees the body and its care as something more profound. The message boils down to the point that without a clear hierarchy of values, even reasonable practices can become disordered.
But your point about engaging the complexity of the motivations is well taken.
It's a great article.
The looksmaxxing is a natural response to a world that leaves young boys confused about their place, role, and purpose in society.
As Helen Andrews outlined in her essay The Great Feminization, the Western society (the American culture in particular) got so bullish and determined to elevate and prioritize the female perspective, it left very little room for boys and young men.
We may debate how the pendulum swung towards women and how Girl boss, and Girls in STEM and Future is Female, etc. is expected or natural or whatever but the fact remains that this focus created a vacuum for young men. Being strong and healthy and defending the weak - aka being the good man - disappeared from the culture almost completely. We are celebrating every possible demographic except young men. Teenagers and young men want to thrive, they want to matter, they seek role models, they are hungry for their tribe. The guys who are on social media with big followings because they work out or are just saying 'hey, if you're a young man, you matter, welcome!" then they will flock to that. Because the rest of the world sure isn't telling them any of that. The Andrew Tates or looksmaxxers are just filling the void because as a society, we pretty much abandoned our boys.
Yes, exactly. The point of mentioning Calhoun’s experiments was to drive home that the men in question are responding understandably to external conditions over which they have no control.
It is some consolation that these topics are gaining traction in some (online) circles, at least.
Worse still, this vacuum is actively derided as ‘fragility.’
That's an important point. It's the biggest blind spot of feminism: the insistence on a binary dynamic where elevating girls and women is only possible if we kick down the boys and men. Of course, it takes about 5 minutes to see how a society with no good men functions (or actually doesn't) and how the women are the first to suffer in a society that doesn't have good men.
Really insightful post. The parallel between the overpopulation and crowding of the Universe 25 experiment and the fact that social media has forced everyone upon everyone all at the same time--too much humanity--is clear. A retreat from the mess is not so much insane as it shows the insanity of the situation.
Great thoughts on beauty as well, like a breath of fresh air after describing the poison we're all swimming in.
Glad you found it interesting. And yes, the psychic overcrowding from being constantly online is such an important consideration in everything we’re dealing with today.
Great article. I’d be interested to hear more about what are acceptable practices regarding enhancing your body’s beauty vs what are not. (Maybe there isn’t a clear answer.) My friend is adamant that working out for appearances is inherently vain, but he will spend time dressing well, which is also appearance-oriented and has fewer obvious health benefits. I don’t think his position is logical, but I’m also not sure where the line is on enhancing personal beauty. Would love to hear some thoughts on that!
Some good points but ultimately a surface-level analysis.
Obviously what Clavicular is doing is wrong, but is it wrong for a man to mew, to thumb-pull, to exercise, to use makeup, perfumes, etc. to maximize his appeal, i.e. to looksmax? That's what most "looksmaxxers" are doing, they're mostly not doing surgeries and taking hormones, they're studying what makes men attractive and applying it.
If you're trying to come through to these boys I assure you you're not coming through. First you need to establish credibility by showing you understand their motivations -- it's not looks for looks' sake, they do it for worldly success, especially with women. You could also get on their good side by acknowledging that women are obsessively and constantly concerned with their appearance and you could condemn the use of makeup like St. John Vianney did. Why not draw the obvious parallels?
It’s a fair point that most men aren’t going to extremes of surgical intervention and hormone replacement. And many of them are certainly motivated by women and success, not just status.
The line between rightly ordered and disordered in matters like this should be an examination of personal intention and conscience. Rather than pretend we have the definitive answers and get too granular about which non-extreme practices may be excessive, it seemed better to raise questions about the difference between cultivating the body as a tool used to achieve things vs its cultivation as part of a well-ordered life. The first makes the body an object to be used, the second sees the body and its care as something more profound. The message boils down to the point that without a clear hierarchy of values, even reasonable practices can become disordered.
But your point about engaging the complexity of the motivations is well taken.
Just call them gay and move on
I wrote about this some time ago.
https://joshuavic.substack.com/p/the-most-awful-way-to-live?r=2j5h5m&utm_medium=ios