What the Hell Is Masculinity?

Two young fish are swimming along when an older fish passes by and asks, “How’s the water?” The young fish nod politely and swim on. A few moments later, one turns to the other and asks, “What the hell is water?” This is a major hurdle with talking to men about masculinity and how they perceive themselves as men.

Most men do not experience masculinity as an idea. They experience it as an atmosphere. It is the water we learned to swim in before we knew we were swimming. It is in the compliments we received as boys, the insults we feared, the emotions we learned to swallow, the jokes we learned to laugh at, the masks and postures we learned to assume, and the stoicism we learned to mistake for strength.

This is why conversations about masculinity so often begin awkwardly. Ask a man what masculinity means to him, and he may give you a shrug, a joke, or a list of clichés: provider, protector, strong, independent, responsible. None of these words are wrong. All of them are noble. But they often arrive prepackaged, as if pulled from a cultural shelf rather than examined from within a life.

The harder question is not whether a man is masculine. The harder question is whether the masculinity he inherited is helping him become whole.

After speaking with men in one-on-one conversations and small groups- in my personal and professional life for nearly a decade- I have noticed something: men are often more articulate about pressure than they are about identity. They can describe the expectations placed upon them. They can talk about needing to earn, perform, lead, endure, fix, and remain composed. They can describe the fear of being seen as weak, needy, foolish, irrelevant, or replaceable. But when asked what kind of man they actually want to become, the room often gets quiet.

That silence does not mean men are shallow. It means many of us were never given the language. We were handed a role before we were invited into reflection. Long before a boy is asked what kind of man he hopes to become, he is told to shake it off, toughen up, help carry the heavy thing, stop crying, protect his siblings, make the team, get the job, pay the bill, keep it together. We were trained to function and enlisted to serve in one way or another, not to wonder and question. We were praised for being useful, but not always for being honest. A man who stays late at work may be called dedicated by his boss, while his family experiences him as absent. A boy who wins the game is celebrated; a boy who names his fear is often criticized. Over time, we learned that competence mattered more than tenderness, control more than vulnerability, and achievement more than self-knowledge.

This is not an excuse. Men remain responsible for how we behave, how we love, how we wound, how we listen, and how we grow. But responsibility without reflection becomes hollow leadership and performance. And performance, over time, can become a prison.

The conscious act required of men today is to step outside the water long enough to see it. To ask: What have I been swimming in? Is it healthy? Is it making me more generous, more courageous, more emotionally alive? Or is it teaching me to confuse numbness with discipline and loneliness with independence?

There is also the matter of perception. A man may think he is being calm when others experience him as distant. He may think he is being strong when others experience him as unavailable. He may think he is protecting his family by withholding his fears, while those around him experience only distance. Masculinity is not merely how a man sees himself. It is also how others have learned to brace themselves around him. That can be painful to hear. But it can also be liberating. Because once masculinity is no longer invisible, it can be chosen rather than merely inherited.

This is why men’s groups matter. At their best, they are not complaint circles, ideological workshops, or nostalgic attempts to restore the halcyon days of manhood. They are sacred spaces because they allow men to do something many have rarely done: speak truthfully in the company of other men without immediately competing, advising, mocking, or retreating.

A good men’s group creates a different kind of water. It allows a man to say, “I am tired,” without being diminished. “I am scared,” without being shamed. “I do not know who I am supposed to be anymore,” without being dismissed. It gives men a place to discover that their lives are defined by far more than the narrow menu popular culture offers: dominance or defeat, stoicism or collapse, alpha or failure.

In Pirkei Avot (“The Teachings of the Fathers”), the sage Hillel teaches: “In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.” But this is not a call to swagger, dominance, or heroic self-display. It is a call to moral adulthood. When the surrounding culture has no language for honesty, become the one who tells the truth. When the room rewards hardness, become the one who remains open. When no one else knows how to model accountability, tenderness, courage, or restraint, strive to become that kind of man. Not the loudest man. Not the most invulnerable man. But a more awake one.

That is why the old fish’s question is still the right one: How’s the water? For men, that question is not theoretical. It is personal, relational, moral, and urgent. The water shapes how we love, how we lead, how we take accountability, how we age, and how we suffer. We do not need to reject masculinity in order to examine it. We need to care enough about men to ask whether the version we have inherited is worthy of the lives we are trying to live.

And maybe that is where the conversation begins: not with accusation, not with defensiveness, but with awareness. What the hell is water? And once we finally notice it, what kind of water do we want to swim in together?