{"id":51122,"date":"2025-10-25T03:04:29","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T09:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=51122"},"modified":"2025-10-25T07:43:51","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T13:43:51","slug":"masculine-fidelity-and-sexual-propriety-in-the-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2025\/10\/masculine-fidelity-and-sexual-propriety-in-the-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Masculine Fidelity and Sexual Propriety in the Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

Often our cultural paradigms for fidelity and sexual propriety are, frankly, seemingly low-testosterone, low-sociosexuality cases. Of course Mr. Rogers is going to be faithful to his wife (although I don\u2019t claim any knowledge of his T-count). Or all those skinny Mr. Darcy-type, regency period love interests that Mormon women are obsessed with (another post for another day).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t bad necessarily, I\u2019m not shaming low-T men, nor am I conflating manly strength with traditionally masculine traits, but there\u2019s a limit to the extent to which a Mr. Rogers type can serve as an example on sexual issues or speak to men and young men who are not so inclined. And as a father of boys I want to be able to draw on examples of manly men who aren\u2019t just faithful because they\u2019re demisexual, gray-asexual, or sometimes just plain asexual (again, nothing wrong with that), but men for whom their faithfulness and respect for women is an extension of, and not simply in spite of, their traditional masculinity (and no, not all traditional masculinity is toxic, although some is).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Since for many male adolescents sex is the driving issue of their existence, how exactly it is channeled and normatively framed is huge, less they become a Andrew Tate or yet another 35-year old masturbating in their mother’s basement. So my antenna is constantly on about what kind of pro-chastity messages I can feed into their media diet in a non-ham-fisted, non-preachy way. Of course there\u2019s no problem with preaching occasionally, but ideally it would be great to pair explicit gospel messages with the kind of social media influences that say the same thing, like that book about how to sneak vegetables into your kids\u2019 food.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So on that note, below is my list of potentially useful examples of high-testosterone, masculine fidelity in the popular media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Maximus in Gladiator<\/b><\/p>\n

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This is the \u201cS-tier\u201d example. It\u2019s hard to get more masculine than Maximus. His passion for his wife is supplemented, not detracted, but his masculine aggression when his desire for making right the death of his wife translates into winning in the arena. Also, a very tear-jerky ending scene that should have a particular appeal to us with our afterlife theology.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

John Wick<\/b><\/p>\n

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John Wick is a similar situation, although sometimes with him there is destruction for destruction\u2019s sake\u2026which can be fun sometimes. The sap here is a little over-the-top, but massacring the people who killed the dog your deceased wife sent you is pretty, base? Dope? (Is that what the kids say these days?). The violence is also a little over-the-top (I mean, it\u2019s John Wick), but the animating force here is his devotion to his wife, not vengeance or just shooting people to be cool like it is for a lot of other movies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Godfather<\/b><\/p>\n

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