What Is (and Is Not) Toxic Masculinity? | Renegade Cut 

Me and some classmates had to explain 'soyboy' to my biology teacher and the poor man looked like he died a bit inside

I wouldn't say toxic masculinity deemphasizes positive, masculine-coded, traits so much as it warps them. Courage becomes recklessness or brashness, protectiveness becomes possessiveness or entitlement.

As a guy, recognizing and breaking away from my own toxic masculinity was one of the smartest and healthiest self help decisions I've ever made in my life. Period. ANY man who is able to do the same is doing themselves one of the most valuable services they'll ever do. I still have a lot to unlearn, but it's a start. It's tough and challenging. But trust me. It's worth it.

So Gaston from 'Beauty and the Beast' is the poster boy for toxic masculinity?

I get sad whenever men get mad about toxic masculinity. It

The thing about toxic masculinity is that you don't even have to be terribly masculine to have it: take say a middle aged father who is the breadwinner of his family, interested in sports yadda yadda who still loves and cares for his family, is an emotionally available and supportive father and husband etc. Now think of say, a teenage dweeb who can't get a girlfriend to save his life and has become extremely entitled and embittered about it. Despite the former being much more conventionally masculine, his masculinity is far less toxic.

Not sure if this was clearly mentioned, but it needs to be noted that people of any gender can act as enforcers (wittingly or unwittingly) of toxic masculinity.

The first time I got called "a simp cuck" I realized that the word "cuck" is one of the cutest words I have ever heard. It reminds me of the cuckoos on Legend of Zelda and therefore makes me smile whenever I here it.

I have a different interpretation of Conan's character, specifically about his inability to cry. The scene always seemed to be playing his lack of visible grief for tragedy, not manliness--the film regularly reinforces, through Mako's narration, that Conan has suffered repeatedly throughout his life and has not had a fully rounded and healthy upbringing, so it seemed more that Subutai understood that Conan was too traumatized to deal with grief like a normal person, and was both crying in his place and crying for how sad it was that he was in such a state.

Last year when this topic blew up, someone told me, "They're trying to get us to think that masculity is toxic!"

I'm a girl who used to dismiss toxic masculinity in exchange for respect. I would hide my emotions and act like a bit of a douche bag. I wanted to be respected so I took the attitude that would get me that. One day my friend called me out on it and it felt like I had been gutted. I ended up re-examining my behavior and I'm slowly becoming less of a high school female frat boy.

A good way to frame discussion of Toxic Masculinity is to explain it with an equivalent.

I used to be a nurse and one of the things that drove me out was the deeply ingrained mentality that men shouldn't be nurses...

I like the way LOTR portrays masculinity. You can be a strong stoic badass, but also can show moments of weakness and sadness.

I do think masculinity has its place in the world. Men that are humble, hard working, and considerate are needed in the world. It's when men become possessive, arrogant and violent that masculinity goes from positive to toxic. Luckily I was raised to be humble and respectful so I like to think I'm an example of positive masculinity. Plus America has a history of exploiting men with their ideal of the "hard man" for their war machine.

When I was watching the Luke Cage series I found myself thinking about toxic masculinity. I felt like Luke really was a role model on how to be a man without falling into toxic elements (most of the time). He would try to do the right thing, avoid violence as much as possible, try not to escalate things or hurt people, use his words, lead by example, not look for recognition, etc.

In modern society gender roles evolved into templates of behaviour that serve as cogs to keep the machine of capitalism running. While masculinity preaches violence, lack of empathy and unethical competition as a "natural", pseudo-darwinist order, femininity has become a cocktail of material vanity and passiveness to create the perpetual state of social anxiety that fuels the consumer society. It's important to understand that regardless of our biological sex, we are all influenced by the toxic aspects of both gender roles.

Unfortunately, discussing toxic masculinity is paradoxical. Those who need to hear, take in and reflect on the concept are immune to doing so, because of their conditioning. Note, this is not about men. There are women who believe that toxic masculinity is true masculinity. And, anyone who believes that will automatically dismiss any criticism of toxic masculinity, that is how truly and deeply this behavior is rooted.

Whilst it’s true a lot of people misuse ‘toxic masculinity’ when criticising aspects of masculinity, the aggressive and often venomous vitriol spewed by incels and the like in defence of their toxic behaviours is just plain nasty. Also highly ironic the men who seem to care most about values of masculinity couldn’t be further from the ideals they adore: Musclebound, dominant, confident, skilled, wealthy, etc.

Actually, conan says "Hear the lamentations of THEIR women", meaning the women of the enemies one has crushed, meaning they will cry out in lamentation when their men have been crushed.