Britain’s lost boys Sonia Sodha

[WarriorN]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/09/jobless-isolated-fed-misogynistic-porn-where-is-the-love-for-britains-lost-boys?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

I do agree but feel it's men who need to step up here

Boys either want to be women or are turning to Tate et al neither of which is ultimately good for women and girls. Victoria Smith has been saying similar recently.

If you're not into sport there's so few decent role models or movements for boys. From experience they go off track at a very young age too.

I filled the house with books - way to many of all sorts - and took them to the local liabaries.

Plus like my own parents allowed early teens let or even encouraged them to read adult fiction - everthing from disc world to Agatha Christie to other classics . Also did comics, graphic novels, audio books and at one point found dysleixic book for eldest girl who wanted the older content but still needed easier reading.

I read YA - amongst other genre and have to say it's I think in many instance adult books are less problematic - there's frequently messaging in them on social issues and frankly some dangerous relationship messages.

I think only DD1 had books recommeneded by the school at secondary - the other ones it's all been us at home or very occaionally their mates or suggestions on here or in papers - or see TV show and then read books behind that.

I will say they came to many classics later than I did as their reading skills generally seemed a bit poorer as did their peers - but then DH and I went to differenet primary's but both rememeber doing book reviews all though the later primary years - so reading school books for pleasure then reviewing- and that's not been there in our DC primary schools.

I think a lot of the modern media is made to be attention grabbing and easily consumed. That's not really new but seems to dominate the landscape in ways it didn't when I was little. And algorithms push similar content which decreases the range of what people consume.

I watched all sorts of random old stuff with my parents because children's tv wasn't on all the time. Or had to pick up John Wyndham books or Pride and Prejudice or one I remember about Louis XIV off the shelves because I'd run out of stuff to read and mobile phones and consoles and the internet weren't around yet. Showed the kids old doctor who recently. Went down ok but 1970s Columbo was a really big hit.

At school there is also increased use of gamification where children learn using software which is designed to within an inch of its life to produce "learning outcomes".

It certainly is a strange new world and I often feel like a stranger in a strange land. I don't think it's just the boys who are lost.

On a more optimistic note, though they are rougher and less predictable, nature and messy human relationships are complex and comforting. And this forum has unexpectedly become a source of both.

We have 3 boys between us. All readers.

We always had books at home and were avid readers. It’s modelling it that’s important.

We read Clarke's childhood's end at school! Oh, wait a minute, that was the early 70s...

The boys that I have spoken too have said that in the books that they are being offered by schools, the males are stupid, they are useless and are there as comic relief or for the main female protagonist to make fun of instead of being there for the story lines.

I've seen that in TV and film writing but haven't come across it in kids books - possibly my kids just missed it or just luck.

Though none of them liked any of the English class books set/read - even if it was new usually YA or often dystopian fiction - and there was a lot of that in teen years via the school.

DD2 and DS did Dracula via e-mail https://draculadaily.substack.com/about which was a hit - and large amount of classics - including sci-fi- have been via audio books for them.

I think we're oversaturated with dystopian fiction, and YA in general is very prone to following fads. It's also been quite heavy handed with political messaging in recent years.

What I see a lack of in current publishing is what you might call the Thrilling Adventures! kind of stories that boys used to lap up. There are tons of old books in the genre of course, though the likes of Conan or James Bond might not pass muster these days for reasons of sexism and racism. There are a bunch of Indiana Jones novels which might be worth a try.

I'm not thinking of great literature here obviously. I'm thinking of the boy who doesn't read, and isn't enthused by the stodge he gets in English class, but who might be open to reading if he discovers something fun.

There are lots of classics that are also fun, but gotta build up those muscles first.

I think there are a lot of misconceptions around incels and Tate followers which result in a misdiagnosis of the problem.

To quote Alexander DatePsych:

"Only 36% of ethnic minorities see Andrew Take as Very Unfavourable compared to 65% of Whites.

“In popular left-wing discourse and in some of the academic literature, the manosphere has often been described as a gateway to far-right or White supremacist movements.

But actually, fans of Andrew Tate are disproportionately ethnic minorities.

This is consistent with research on incels: Sparks (2023) found approximately 48% of an incel sample to be non-White and Costello (2022) found 36% of an incel sample to be BIPOC.

Relatedly, about half of incels also identified as left on the political spectrum.

This also seems to be the case at a glance of popular “red pill” influencers: like Tate, the sphere seems to be led by men of ethnic minority background.

There is relatively little ideological overlap between these dating ideologies and racial or nationalist ideologies.

They rarely talk about them at all.

If they do, it is often in opposition (the “red pill vs tradcons”).

Much of the manosphere has more in common with left-wing social justice ideologies than it does with right-wing racist ideologies.

Some subcultures (like MRAs) are little more than inversions of activist feminism, where concerns about gender inequality are paramount.

They are concerned with equitable outcomes in romantic relationships and employment for men, they substitute “gynocracy” for the feminist idea of “patriarchy” in their own folk sociology of the world.

Incels also have their own folk psychology of “white privilege” that they call “Just Be White (JBW).” It’s the same phenomenon that is described as “dating racism” in academic literature: romantic biases in Western nations that favor White individuals.

The manosphere is really more of a “rainbow coalition” than an ethnically homogeneous, far-right movement.

I know a lot of people see manosphere content and find the way men, women, and relationship dynamics are described as very unrelatable.

The manosphere appeals heavily to the “lived experience” of its subculture members, but the “lived experiences” of the majority outgroup is very different.

Perhaps part of the reason for this is the high ethnic and cultural diversity in the manosphere.

You hear a lot from men who would never have been in your dating pool, peer group, or on your radar because they come from a very different background."

coronaway

The problem is that such terms like incel. manshpere, Tate followers etc. are becoming so overused as to be meaningless.

Really good article from, of all places, radio times, about a new series on Netflix, Adolescence

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/adolescence-netflix-toxic-masculinity-comment/

Netflix's Adolescence: Women and girls will never be safe if we're not talking to men and boys

@WarriorN I saw the writers of Adolescence being interviewed on TV and talking about the issues involved. I think it raises really important points about how we communicate with young boys, and how we support them to cope with all the challenges they face these days.

I do think those are the main issues, and I think it’s a cultural problem .

It sounds very like the writers know what the issue is.

Good to see men tackling it as ultimately we can discuss it here till the cows come home; only when men are actively listening and actively doing will there be radical change.

Coming back to post this excellent book

https://books.google.com/books/about/Boys_Don_t_Try_Rethinking_Masculinity_in.html?id=jQWSDwAAQBAJ

and adolescence is brilliant and much needed

My df would have counted as a 'lost boy. His df was killed in a farming accident when he was a child.

Df was from an affluent family, had plenty of opportunity and chose a career but was still nasty, abusive and bitterly resented his dds for gaining an education, leaving home and not remaining under his control.

Being able to walk into a job didn't stop him from hating successful women.

V interesting and a different perspective. Tate himself is not white, so this makes sense to a degree. I’ve always felt, as a woman, handling your average sexist Reform voter is somewhat easier than your TWAW, insidiously sexist left wing man. There’s one at work who is truly awful - prides himself on being incredibly woke and anti sexism, yet posts hideously offensive stuff about ‘kick a terf’ etc to the applause of all his fellow left wing men.

I wish I could remember where I saw it, but there was some post-election polling on the minority shift to Trump, and one thing that jumped out among Democrat-voting men was the proportion of black and Hispanic men describing themselves as "highly masculine" compared to a much smaller number of white male Democrats who self-describe that way.

Hence I suppose that hilarious Harris ad with a bunch of obviously very gay actors pretending to be stereotypical working class men, sitting on trucks etc. That was a campaign that literally didn't know how to talk to men.

There’s one at work who is truly awful - prides himself on being incredibly woke and anti sexism, yet posts hideously offensive stuff about ‘kick a terf’ etc to the applause of all his fellow left wing men.

I can think of someone similar I know from left wing activist circles - his social media is full of "punch terfs" stuff, which would be scarier if he wasn't a little weedy guy who looks incapable of punching anyone. Pretty sure he's the dictionary definition of an incel even if he doesn't identify that way. Lots of seething misogyny hidden under the wokeness.

I'd much rather have an argument with right wing men I know, who might be a bit sexist on the surface but don't have a problem with strong women in practice.

I'd much rather have an argument with right wing men I know, who might be a bit sexist on the surface but don't have a problem with strong women in practice.

It's the contrast between what one might describe as chauvinism and misogyny. There were historically a large number of men on the right (and probably quite a few today) who believe in traditional sex-based social roles and the like; but the crucial point is that they didn't actually hate women. If one has grown up to see the right as sexist, and the left as not, it is a real surprise when one realises just how much misogyny there is on the political left, and how much of the chauvinism of the right is just superficial.

To add to the observations of @coronaway and @Wildflowers99 above, perhaps I can make a guilty confession. A few years ago, just before his arrest, I wondered what all the fuss was about Andrew Tate and went and had a look at some of his oeuvre online. Yes of course you can find the misogyny for which he is world famous but there's a lot of stuff which is punchily and theatrically delivered but which is much more banal. There's a fair bit of messaging along the lines of 'work as hard as you can and try and make something of yourself and try and get some exercise'. To our horror, my partner and I realised that we'd been doing this very thing for the last several years! Moreover, he managed to make exercise sound fun and interesting in a way which more sober campaigns to encourage exercise from a variety of official agencies have failed to do. There were observations for would-be entrepreneurs, such as if you're trying to start a business, do so as cheaply as possible to gauge if there's any interest from potential customers before you waste loads of money on stock or business premises. Again, hard to argue with. There was also content in which he spoke eloquently about the lives of people in poverty in low income countries and the work demands on nurses. So there's a good deal to suck people in and create a sense that he's on the same page as they are. His recent conversion (or 'reversion') to Islam was interesting - for someone who's usually got a lot to say for himself he's remarkably vague about the details of the theology. Maybe he and his team have done this as a strategic manoeuvre: "Where are all the pissed off young men whose frustation I can monetise?"

I must stress that I don't approve of this sort of thing - I'm just trying to throw a few thoughts into the ring as to how he and those like him have succeded in appealing to people and creating an audience for themselves. I'm reminded very much of the work that's been done on Jim Jones and the The People's Temple.

@Solrock

"It's the contrast between what one might describe as chauvinism and misogyny"

Thanks for this - not a distinction I'd thought through fully before, but explains a lot.

Classics, my arse. All those authors, bar Tolkien, Pratchett, and Clancy, are shelved in the science fiction ghetto.

Tolkien is the only one of those authors regarded as "classic".

A school's failure to promote an author doesn't mean that the books don't exist.

theyre very clever. They piggybacked the likes of Peterson and trends they saw online around him and probably Milo Yiannopoulos, (I had to google his name!) but cleverly swerved away from accusations of racism via conversion to Islam. Which, in the last 18 months, has probably confused a few . I expect how they gathered some left wingers.

none of this healthy work hard stuff is rocket science ffs

Steve Biddulph had been talking about these issues for decades.

(it’s gone bold from my c and p for Milo’s spelling and I’ve no idea how to stop it!)

I bought this a decade ago. Not sure where it is now but would be good to revisit it.

he’s just not trendy, young, has flash cars and is on Twitter rabbiting on about the matrix shite

https://amzn.eu/d/1C98HT8

There were historically a large number of men on the right (and probably quite a few today) who believe in traditional sex-based social roles and the like

The kind of guy who will carry the box of lab consumables for you, even though you were quite capable of carrying it yourself, because he knows he is stronger and cares enough that you don't get injured, even though you feel patronised by him. And who secretly thinks that you shouldn't be going out to work with a child in daycare, not because he hates women with jobs, but because he thinks your husband should earn enough to support a family and you should be doing the important job of raising your child.

The latter is fine in theory but falls down in contact with a reality in which financial abuse exists.

now THIS is a review

Yes, that's exactly my point - a lot of Tate's stuff is pretty mundane once you strip away the tough guy theatricality folowed by a broad cheeky grin. Biddulph's created a niche for himself with a rather different audience - there's an almost excruciating wholesomeness which would probably turn off the Tates' constituency! Peterson's done extremely well for himself with very thin intellectual gruel indeed. North American questionnaire psychology and a bit of social conservatism. He seems to think of those 'big five' personality constructs as if they were real!

I'd almost forgotten about Milo. His star burned brightly for a little while and then he dropped back below the line of sight. I must do a quick Google and see what he's up to. But I should really be doing some work today . . .