Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series real time with Bill Maugh.

Okay, here we are.

Richard, this is for you is the term toxic masculinity itself toxic.

Oh, look at that curveball you got thrown.

Is the term toxic masculinity itself toxic?

Yes.

Why?

What are we really talking about?

I think it's immature masculinity.

It's kind of this acting out that you see among anybody's met teenage boys knows that they have some growing up to do.

But to label that kind of behavior as toxic, it suggests that something is intrinsically wrong.

It's something that can be exercised.

You know, there's some sort of right of exorcism.

If we could just expunge that bit of you.

Right.

You'd be okay and that seems to me to push men away.

So, the evidence is that it doesn't invite boys and men into the conversation to talk about which bits of the metoxic and which aren't.

It does have that feel of original sin about it.

How can we get that out of you?

And so it pushes them away.

And I think what it means is a term now that frankly I think has come to mean any kind of behavior by men that the person using the term disapproves of.

And once it's that broadly defined, it's lost all of its usefulness.

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