Male Instincts Being Framed as Psychological Disorders

By Neil Bryan

REAL masculinity terrifies the system. Not because it’s violent, not because it’s cruel, but because it remembers. It refuses to be neutered in the name of convenience.

That kind of masculinity—the kind that can hold a crying child and stare down a tyrant without blinking—is public enemy number one in a society built on passive obedience and quiet self-erasure.

The system doesn’t fear men who posture and pout. It fears men who see. And real men are starting to see.

They’re seeing how every institution that claims to liberate them is, in fact, an anaesthetic. They’re seeing how fatherhood has been reduced to a sitcom punchline. How protectiveness is called toxicity. How strength is labeled dangerous, unless it’s directed toward the system’s preferred targets.

They’re seeing how boyhood is medicated, and how healthy male instincts are now framed as disorders.

The crime is not aggression. The crime is discernment. Because a man with discernment can’t be sold the lie. He doesn’t sign up blindly. He doesn’t get suckered into the endless performance of productivity.

And he doesn’t just protect his family—he protects the village. Which means he might notice when the village has been poisoned. He might ask why the food isn’t food, why the leaders aren’t leading, and why the war is being waged in his name.

This man is ungovernable. And that’s why the war on masculinity is not a meme. It’s not a culture war sideshow. It’s central to the entire modern project of demoralization.

We are not witnessing the evolution of men, we are witnessing their slow administrative castration.

It begins in the classroom, where little boys are told to sit still and be quiet. Their natural energy is reframed as behavioural disorder. A sense of adventure is recast as disruption. And the boy who questions authority becomes a candidate for diagnosis—a future problem to be managed. If they can’t control him, they’ll sedate him.

Then it moves to culture, where men are given two options: the buffoon or the brute. Either soft, self-deprecating and compliant, or cartoonishly violent and broken.

Nowhere in that spectrum is the man who walks with power and principle; the man who knows his own shadow but doesn’t serve it, the man who feels deeply but isn’t governed by his wounds.

Instead, we have the docile boy-man stuck in a consumer loop of dopamine, porn, and podcasts—unable to build, protect, or commit. They flood him with content that mocks his instincts. They sell him solutions to problems he never had, they tell him he is broken when he is whole.

And at the spiritual level, they feed him false gods.

Sacred masculinity retreats where men learn to weep on command but never to stand with conviction. Rituals without risk. Talk without truth. A carefully curated vulnerability that never threatens the status quo. It’s not healing. It’s castration with incense.

But the wild man is waking. He’s not perfect. He’s bruised, exhausted, and often confused – but he’s waking up. He’s noticing that the world doesn’t need softer men.

It needs stronger, wiser, wilder ones. Men with backbone. Men who remember the sacred purpose of their presence—not to dominate, but to defend. Not to conquer, but to contain the chaos that threatens the people they love.

This is not about nostalgia. We are not returning to some cartoon version of manhood carved from war films and football coaches.

We are resurrecting something older. The man who plants trees he will never sit beneath. The man who watches the skies and feels responsible for what happens below them. The man who cries in private, but never lets despair rot into cynicism.

The man who calls out bullshit—in the meeting, in the street, in the mirror.

That man is not a fantasy. He is real. And he is needed now more than ever.

Because our world is burning. And it’s not going to be saved by hot takes and hashtags. It’s going to be saved by human beings who remember how to stand. Men and women both. But let’s not pretend the role is the same.

Masculinity holds. It creates the container.

It makes the space for love to grow without being annihilated by entropy.

That is not toxic. That is sacred. And without it, cultures rot.

So no, you’re not imagining it. You’re not crazy. There is a war on men. Not just the caricature. Not just the bruisers and blowhards. But on you. The one who still feels the ache to protect. The one who still knows that something is wrong. The one who still wakes in the night, not with fear, but with the weight of responsibility pressing against your ribs.

You’re not failing. You’re remembering. And the system can smell it.

That’s why you feel the shame rising when you speak your truth. That’s why you hesitate before you act with clarity. That’s why they’re trying to call your instincts obsolete.

But they’re not obsolete. They’re ancient. And they are rising.

So if this world has made you question your worth, your role, your sacred duty, then remember this: we need you.

Not the mask. Not the performance. You. The man who sees. The man who stays. The man who says no, even when it costs him everything. You matter.

And it’s because they know what you might become. And they’re terrified.

Originally published in TheLightPaper.co.uk