The Renaissance of Masculinity

From trad wives to trad bros.

2024 was the year of trad wives. Brat Summer, mob wives, and the office siren occupied the public consciousness. The year also featured proven theater kid (and alleged homewrecker) Ariana Grande and her Wicked costar Cynthia Erivo fawning over each other on press couches. Momala Harris made a brief appearance on the American stage and even went on the odious Call Her Daddy podcast for a whole eight minutes. Lily Phillips sold her body and tried to sell her soul to 100 men. DEI, though weakened, was very much alive.

But at the tail end of 2024, instead of talking about Chief Diversity Officers, we went “Founder mode.” Local beanstalk Barron Trump was the talk of the town, with too many women asking if he was single and too many men calling him God-King. Elon Musk went from a Big Tech mogul to an outspoken Trump supporter and confidante. Bitcoin went gangbusters. Joe Rogan, Theo Von, and Andrew Schulz disrupted the entirety of the legacy media by interviewing Trump when the establishment media would not, with Rogan’s video garnering 25 million views in 24 hours.

In light of these shifts, I predict a frat summer in 2025, a renaissance of masculinity. This will be enabled by Donald Trump, mostly as a backlash against the estrogen wafting out of the Democratic party. It also seems that men are tired of their country looking weak on the world stage. This is why liberal governments are imploding, especially since Trump’s election. Germany’s liberal rule? Done-zo. France? Another prime minister down and in turmoil. Pretty boy Justin Trudeau? So last season.

Conservatives everywhere are prioritizing the masculine idea of peace through strength, i.e. carrying a big stick and issuing pointed threats. Trump said that if Hamas’ hostages were not released, there would be hell to pay. Unlike Biden, the Orange Man meant it. This is a good thing; for too long in the U.S., men have been treated like unintelligent dopes that their wives must cart around. Say what you will about Trump, but he is no dope.

All of these changes are good developments for men. Even the scourge of the dad bod seems to be lifting in our new era of health consciousness. Evidence for this is played out at my local gym, where I am seeing more and more teenagers that are suspiciously jacked. I’m no expert, but I suspect steroids. This trend is a mirror to the trans epidemic among teenage girls. These boys too have body dysmorphia — there is no such thing as big enough. They do not think about the side effects of the drugs – the future infertility, the growing of the breasts.

In other words, men and boys are not immune to the mimetic doom loop either. The horrendous Chia Pet-style perms have come and gone for teenage boys, thankfully. Still, for a time, everyone had one. More concerning than questionable grooming choices, male influencers are now dissuading other men from marriage. Some men in my religious community are starting to say very retrograde things about women, their place in the home, and their role vis-a-vis their husband. At the same time, traditional Eastern Orthodoxy and its “orthobros” are having a moment.

Laced throughout this surface-level masculinity and misogyny resurgence is unacknowledged sexual depravity. Gooning (don’t look it up) is a thing at least culturally, if not in reality. This nastiness is likely due to the nuclear fallout effect that pornography has had on my entire generation. This short-circuiting of men’s reward systems will make it difficult, if not impossible, for them to literally rise to the occasion in the sexual act and more generally in the adventure that God calls them to.

Put bluntly, men cannot take back the holy land when they are all masturbating every night to AI art. An obsession with the Roman Empire will not make you a gladiator. Neither will watching Ultimate Fighting Championship matches. Really, there is nothing less masculine than encouraging men to violate each other’s dignity for sport. There’s a reason Christians helped ban those gladiator games.

If men want to be authentically masculine, they do not need the UFC, sports betting, and steroids. They need brotherhood, a purpose, and a God that is greater than themselves. They don’t need to blame women for their problems, even if they have been personally harmed by their mother or another woman close to them. Basically, men must take responsibility for their actions and control what they can control.

Unfortunately, taking responsibility is on the outs, thanks to the Andrew Tate and Pearls of the world. But I predict these influencers’... influence will not last long. Division between the sexes – though seemingly prominent today – can’t last. This is not optimism run amok either. Most dyed-in-the-wool feminists in history eventually married, with rare exceptions. Eventually, embittered men and women come together again. Man is not meant to be alone.

The masculine resurgence this year may cause the sex divide to appear worse before it gets better. Men will likely wear suits, pocket watches, and fedoras again. They’ll take up shooting and cigars and secret societies. They will swear off going to college and pursuing certain occupations because “only girls do that.” They will lament online about how women only want 6’5 men with a jaw constructed entirely of diamonds. Their ideal woman may be an obsequious, illiterate, barefoot, and (most importantly) pregnant pro chef.

I predict that these delusions of grandeur about women will not last, similar to how women’s lofty partner preferences of yesteryear were mocked by a woman in the oft-quoted “I’m looking for a man in finance” video. Men are where women were five years ago; they are sick and tired of the opposite sex. Some much prefer the pornified world, replete with AI girlfriends. However, none of these moves will satisfy. Only a live woman will do. Even a real woman will not fulfill the longing for God in their hearts, of course, but flesh and blood is far better than pixels.

As men reassert themselves, we should give them grace. Men have been through the wringer in recent years, what with #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and being called fascist, racist, and homophobic for electing a former Democrat – and straight, white male – to the presidency.

However, this does not negate my concern that the pendulum swing back to so-called masculinity could pose problems for women and children. The patriarchy common to the Roman empire – which so many of these men idolize – is not kind to women and infants. Prostitution was ubiquitous, women were forced to leave their female babies to die, and wives and widows had no legal rights. Only Christianity gave these women equal footing with men morally, spiritually, and legally.

The fact is that most men in the U.S. are not Christian today. And even those who are believers forget that it is not the sole responsibility of women to enforce morals – especially chastity – in the United States. As masculinity roars back into the mainstream, let us hope and pray that good, humble men will pull back their fellow men from the brink.