There is a natural drive for conquest and dominance in men, you can basically boil it down to testosterone. As a father of 3 young boys, I am often thinking abo

There is a natural drive for conquest and dominance in men, you can basically boil it down to testosterone. As a father of 3 young boys, I am often thinking about how to channel this energy into positive avenues. But it's also really clear when taking a more observational role that there is this hardwired drive for them to ride that energy and let it out in pure physical form. It's beautiful to see the absolute joy one gets from riding his bike faster than everybody else, but sometimes scary to see the more negative manifestations: the tendency for excitement to boil over into "BREAK THINGS!". I can't count how many times we've been roleplaying with stuffed animals and a strong emotion, even (and especially) a joyous one, results in them wanting to bash their animals into mine, or knock down some part of the set we've been playing with. The physicality is so hard wired. I think the issue today is not that men don't want to be "virile", I think it's that we've seen the damage that treating masculinity as the highest possible virtue can do, both to individuals and to societies. Just look at one of the foremost symbols of masculinity: the bull. In today's world, he is the apex of the masculine, and yet trapped in a system that subjugates him to one of two roles: an inseminator, or a victim himself of a larger masculine power structure: to be ridden or killed in an arena. I think many men today can see pretty clearly that having a stable society relies on men relinquishing the role of conquistador, but many also realize that it is impossible to give up our virility without losing an essential part of ourselves. It's why men say they are more confident when they lift weights, and when they fight in structured ways like martial arts or well-regulated capitalism. So it's not like we don't want to be virile. We just don't want to be the cartoon image of virility that men like Donald Trump embody.