The Manosphere: Christian reflections

September 30, 2026

An unhelpful consensus

In early 2025, there was a wave of alarm across the media, in schools, education departments, and even the halls of parliaments, when Netflix released its award-winning series Adolescence. In this fictitious story, a thirteen-year-old boy murders a female classmate after being radicalised by online male influencers. Blame was apportioned to suspects like the incel subculture, Andrew Tate, and other sinister online forces, and phrases like ‘toxic masculinity’ hit peak levels.[1] The alarm was perhaps best captured when British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer declared that all UK schoolchildren should be made to watch the series.[2] I wrote at the time that Adolescence had limited usefulness, because it both misdiagnosed the issue and was factually incorrect in places.[3]

Twelve months later, in March 2026, the Western world, and Australia in particular, found itself under another wave of concern, this one starting with Louis Theroux's Inside the Manosphere documentary, followed by Monash University's manosphere report and the eSafety Commission's manosphere education initiative.[4] Around the same time, a University of Melbourne national survey reported that more than a third of adolescents agreed with misogynistic attitudes, and that support for resisting feminism with violence was highest among adolescent boys.[5] Australian teachers have reported escalating sexism in classrooms since 2023, and other studies suggest hypermasculine behaviour is increasing in high schools.[6]

The phrase ‘manosphere’, itself a play on ‘blogosphere’, was coined on men's blogs and forums around 2009 to describe a loose online network of men's rights, pick-up artist, and related communities, later popularised by writer Ian Ironwood through his 2013 book The Manosphere: A New Hope for Masculinity.[7] In the words of Louis Theroux, much of the manosphere is made up of relatively uncontroversial comedians and podcasters broadcasting to a male audience about women, fitness and health; but, as he puts it, ‘at its edges is a community of extreme content creators’.[8] Those edges are populated by figures pushing rigid gender roles, male victimhood narratives, get-rich-quick schemes, links to pornography production, and a steady diet of muscularity, sexual entitlement and coercive control over partners, wrapped in a promise that a man can have whatever he wants, whenever he wants, from whomever he wants.

I want to stress that this should not be read as a dismissal of actual harm. Some young men do follow the worst of the manosphere closely, internalising its scripts and acting them out in their own lives. The girls and young women who encounter an Andrew Tate copycat may be genuinely harmed by it, and so might the quieter, non-alpha boys who get shoved further down the social hierarchy by classmates performing dominance in the school, public and online arenas. Calling out these bad actors, and the platforms that profit from amplifying them, is necessary and right. But this is, in the end, a comparatively small piece of a much larger puzzle. If the public conversation stops at naming the worst influencers, without addressing the conditions that make some young men receptive to them in the first place, we will keep failing to solve the underlying problem.

Put these pieces together—the documentaries, the reports, the surveys, the headlines—and a fairly consistent public consensus emerges: a generation of young men is being manipulated and swept along by a range of dangerous male influencers, reinforced by a larger male-centric online presence, with imitation and harm rippling out into local schools and communities. It is a tidy, emotionally compelling story. I want to suggest in this article that it is also, in important respects, a weak and unhelpful one.

Four problems

I want to state my position from the outset that I think these commentaries, however well intended, do more harm than good. Rather than equip young men with the resources for healthy social and psychological formation, they risk further isolating them, and may even drive some young men toward the very behaviours the initiatives are trying to avert. There are four problems with the consensus view that need airing.

1. It presumes cause and effect

The public narrative assumes a fairly direct line: a boy watches dark content, then a boy behaves badly. But no one has actually established that direct causal link. There is no doubt that content consumption and poorer behaviour are associated. But it does not explain causation, nor does it establish that the influencer caused the behaviour. Indeed, it is more than possible that the online content consumption confirms something already present. A boy with an inclination toward degrading attitudes toward women may turn to this content precisely because it validates something already forming in him. If we treat every instance of a boy behaving badly as proof he was ‘radicalised’ by Andrew Tate or an algorithm, we will misdiagnose the boys who would have struggled regardless, while missing the boys whose behaviour struggles have nothing to do with online influencers at all.

2. There is no nuance between different influencers

The term ‘manosphere’ is used as though it describes a single, coherent thing, when in practice it is a catch-all that flattens enormous differences. Is Jordan Peterson part of the manosphere? What about Christian commentator Charlie Kirk? It depends entirely on who is doing the defining. I have debated with academics who insist Peterson belongs in the same basket as Andrew Tate, and I have heard exercise-focused male content lumped together with material that coaches men on manipulating their girlfriends into OnlyFans work. As soon as any male with influence over other males becomes suspect, the category collapses into absurdity. Peterson is not Tate; he openly condemns Tate, and his values and advice run directly counter to Tate's.

There is, in fact, a curious irony here. Louis Theroux is, in one sense, no different from the manosphere subjects he lampoons. He produces media content to build his own brand, through a particular digital medium, with his own disarming, slightly goofy style, carefully edited to expose the absurdity of his subjects while quietly bolstering his own authority. He allows himself to be the butt of their jokes, yet his audience comes away inspired, even impressed by his own performance of masculinity in the credits. Louis has a different audience and message, but he and his subjects are, in the end, all entertainers competing for attention. A vulnerable, pornified teenage boy might rush toward an extreme influencer for guidance and affirmation in much the same way a middle-class, geeky young man rushes toward Louis Theroux for his own kind of validation. Painting the problem through the lens of the worst possible examples does not help educators, policymakers or parents distinguish between a young man following Andrew Tate and a young man following Jordan Peterson, even though those two are likely to end up in very different places.

3. We lack good data on actual prevalence

This is perhaps the most basic gap in the public conversation: how many young men are we actually talking about? At present, there are no credible studies measuring the proportion of young males who consume genuinely dark manosphere content. The Movember Foundation released an Australian report on the manosphere, but it did not distinguish between good, neutral and harmful content, so it cannot answer the question either.[9] Other worldwide observations point in a similar direction: a WHO Regional Office for Europe study, covering almost 280,000 adolescents across Europe, central Asia and Canada, found that nine per cent of boys showed signs of problematic social media use, and sixteen per cent showed signs of problematic gaming—figures which at least point toward a ceiling.[10] My own working experience in schools suggests the boys who actually initiate sexist or domineering behaviour are a genuine minority. Most boys simply do not consume the dark influencer material, and those who stumble across it generally recognise it is not workable in their own lives.

Compare that to the proportion of young men using pornography: 70% monthly, 54% weekly,[11] 30% daily.[12] If the proportion of young men influenced by the dark manosphere is genuinely low, while exposure to pornography is overwhelmingly high, then something is out of proportion in how much public alarm is directed at a handful of idiot streamers relative to the far larger, far more thoroughly embedded influence of pornography. As far as pieces on the chessboard go, Andrew Tate is a pawn. Pornography is at least a rook, quite possibly the queen.

4. There is a substantial body of research on actual vulnerability factors

This is the gap the consensus narrative skips over almost entirely. There already exists a considerable body of research, from writers like Richard Reeves and Warren Farrell internationally, and from Australian researchers such as Simon Kennedy at PAGE, describing the real factors that make a young man vulnerable to negative influence.[13] These include educational disadvantage, economic marginalisation, purposelessness, fatherlessness, social stigma around masculinity, pornography, dopaminergic conditioning, peer culture, parental engagement, algorithmic amplification, and shame—eleven distinct factors well documented in the literature, even if rarely covered together in the media. None of this is hidden. It simply receives a fraction of the airtime given to the more sensational, individual-influencer version of the story, and it is where the real diagnostic work needs to happen.

The roots of vulnerability

If the real story is not simply ‘bad influencer corrupts good boy’, what is actually going on? A reasonably consistent picture emerges once you put the relevant research together, of eleven separate factors, each well documented, that compound on one another.

Educational disadvantage. Boys fall behind girls from early primary school, and the gap compounds through to university. In 2022 PISA results, girls outperformed boys in reading by twenty-two score points, with a quarter of boys counted as low performers. In the 2023 NSW HSC, despite making up over half the senior secondary cohort, only forty-six per cent of boys were awarded an ATAR.[14] Boys are over-represented among the most academically vulnerable students and under-represented in vocational and university completion.

Economic marginalisation. Deindustrialisation has hollowed out traditionally male-dominated employment sectors, while the growing care and service economy is overwhelmingly female. Young men now earn less than young women and face higher unemployment, while home ownership and family formation slip further out of reach. The number of young men classified as NEET (not in employment, education or training) has more than doubled since the mid-1980s, while the trend for young women has moved the other way.[15] Into that vacuum step the promises of ‘cheat codes for life’ and get-rich-quick schemes.

Purposelessness and lack of direction. Farrell identifies this as close to the central driver. Historical modes of male validation—rites of passage, being a provider, a protector, a breadwinner—have eroded without anything coherent replacing them. Boys disengage from school, work and civic life, filling the void with gaming, social media and influencer content, which Farrell calls ‘purpose substitutes’. I think Farrell is broadly right but underestimates how aggressively the specific content involved, especially pornography, hijacks the developing brain and worldview.

Fatherlessness and absent role models. Father absence remains one of the strongest predictors of school dropout, behavioural problems, criminal involvement and mental health struggles in boys. AIFS data for 2021 indicate that 22% of households with dependent children were single parent households. Since the substantial majority of these are mother-led rather than father-led, the proportion of households with children growing up specifically without a resident father is a little lower, in the vicinity of 18%.[16] Fathers uniquely encourage risk-taking, boundaries and independence, and their absence leaves a template missing; young men without real-life male role models are more likely to go looking for role models online.

Social stigma and cultural attack on masculinity. Many young men have absorbed the message that their masculinity is itself a problem. ‘Toxic masculinity’ framing makes them feel like second-class citizens in their own culture. This generates resentment and a sense of being an outsider, which extreme influencers exploit deliberately, positioning themselves as the only honest voice willing to say what others will not.

Pornography consumption. This is, in my view, the most underweighted factor in the whole public conversation. Around seventy per cent of young men view pornography monthly, fifty-four per cent weekly, and thirty per cent daily, with first exposure occurring increasingly early.[17] Modern mainstream pornography is consistently misogynistic, objectifying and dehumanising, and young males who consume it demonstrably adopt attitudes that mirror it: more objectification, a stronger desire for casual sex, less empathy, lower self-esteem, poorer social conduct.

A further complication sits inside this same factor. Andrew Tate, Myron Gaines (the on-air name of Amrou Fudl, co-host of the Fresh and Fit podcast), and numerous other prominent manosphere figures have direct, overlapping connections to the pornography industry itself, through OnlyFans, webcam platforms, and content they produce or promote themselves.[18] This blurs the analysis considerably. A young man who consumes mainstream pornography has already absorbed its themes of entitlement and objectification, so when a manosphere influencer appears alongside, profits from, or openly endorses that same industry, the consumer experiences instant resonance rather than persuasion. The influencer is not introducing a foreign set of values so much as validating and amplifying ones the consumer has already internalised through porn. In this sense, the dark manosphere often functions less as an independent cause of harm and more as an echo chamber for a pre-existing, porn-saturated worldview.

Dopaminergic conditioning from supernormal stimuli. Gaming, social media and pornography all deliver high-yield, low-effort dopamine. Repeated exposure reduces prefrontal cortex activity and impulse control, escalates craving, diminishes motivation for slower real-world rewards, and creates behavioural patterns that mirror addiction.[19] Boys conditioned this way are more easily captured by influencer content delivering the same neurological hit.

Peer culture and perceived peer norms. From my PhD research on attitudes and behaviours of mid high-school teens, peer group attitudes had a greater effect on what was normalised than any other single factor we measured, including parental influence. Levels of approval of pornography, desires for casual sex and the objectification of women were most strongly predicted by peer group attitudes.[20]

Lack of parental engagement and absent rules. Also from my research, parental rules and active, ongoing communication significantly reduced pornography engagement, objectification, and casual sex attitudes. Notably, the type of family structure—divorced, single-parent, two-parent—did not predict these outcomes; what mattered was the quality and consistency of the parent-child relationship, and the age at which first exposure to pornography occurred.[21]

Algorithmic amplification. Social media platforms are explicitly designed to keep users scrolling, curating feeds that trigger dopamine responses and maximise time on the app; engaging with one piece of content, however briefly, causes the algorithm to rapidly serve more of the same. Emerging research on these systems describes platforms analysing viewing behaviour and emotional vulnerabilities, then pushing content, including increasingly extreme options, that aligns with those vulnerabilities, administering cycles of anticipation and reward to sustain engagement and monetise attention.[22] Boys do not, on the whole, set out to find Andrew Tate. Tate, or someone like him, finds them.

Shame, emotional suppression, and low self-esteem. Shame about weakness or vulnerability, and a need to control those around oneself, compound susceptibility to content promising power, status and control. Boys who lack confidence or feel diminished are particularly susceptible to a message that promises to fix all of that at once.

None of this excuses the dark manosphere's content, which remains genuinely appalling, nor does it excuse the harm done by the young men who imitate it. But the picture is one of layered, compounding vulnerability across eleven distinct factors, not simple corruption by a handful of bad actors. Pornography, peer norms, algorithms and parental disengagement do far more of the heavy lifting than Andrew Tate ever could.

Theological response

For Christians, there is a rich set of biblical resources here—resources that speak directly to the risk factors just described rather than to the media's simplified version of the problem.

On fatherlessness. Scripture teaches that God is Father before any human father ever existed; every family in heaven and on earth takes its name and pattern from him, not the other way around (Ephesians 3:14-15). This means fatherlessness is rightly understood as a genuine wound: the Bible assumes a father shapes identity, discipline and security (Proverbs 4:1-4), and its absence leaves a real gap. But God's fatherhood does not depend on, and is not diminished by, human failure. Psalm 68:5 calls him ‘a father to the fatherless’, and through adoption believers are not merely forgiven but brought into his household (Romans 8:15). The remedy for fatherlessness, then, is the re-rooting of identity in this divine sonship, with the church called to provide the mentoring relationships that stand in where earthly fathers are absent.

On purposelessness. Scripture teaches that man's chief purpose is to glorify God and enjoy him forever—a truth distilled in, for example, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, but rooted in passages like 1 Corinthians 10:31 and Psalm 73:25-26. For men, this expresses itself through responsibility (Genesis 2:15, to work and keep), sacrifice (Ephesians 5:25, a love that costs), and stewardship (Luke 16:10, faithfulness in what is given). Purpose, on this view, is not self-created but received, and is not found in status, income or sexual success. This directly answers the ‘purpose substitute’ problem Farrell identifies: a man does not need to manufacture meaning through gaming achievements or influencer content once he understands his life is endowed with purpose by and for God himself.

On masculinity and male fellowship. Masculinity, biblically, is not domination but ordered responsibility under God. Adam is given charge of the garden before Eve is created (Genesis 2:15), indicating accountability rather than superiority. Crucially, masculinity is formed relationally, not discovered in isolation: Paul instructs Timothy to entrust what he has received to ‘faithful men’ (2 Timothy 2:2). Boys become men by imitation (Titus 2:6-8), which is a direct corrective to the absence of real-life male role models.

On economic uncertainty. Scripture teaches that God governs all things, not vaguely but meticulously, down to the fall of a single sparrow—what we call the doctrine of providence (Matthew 10:29-31). It produces a dual posture: working diligently while resting inwardly in God's sovereignty (Proverbs 6:6-8; Philippians 4:11-13). Economic instability tends to expose false saviours—security found in money, identity found in career—but the Christian man works hard without panic, because provision ultimately comes from God rather than vocations. (1 Timothy 6:9-10; 1 Thessalonians 4:11; Matthew 6:25).

On pornography, self-control and shame. Self-control is not a personality trait but a fruit of the Spirit, flowing from regeneration, union with Christ, and ordinary means of grace (Galatians 5:22-23). It is built not by willpower alone but by training desires and putting sin to death rather than negotiating with it (Romans 8:13). And when men fail, as they will, they can rest in Christ's righteousness credited to the believer, not on performance (2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 8:1). Given how much shame and secrecy surround pornography use among young men, a gospel response offers a way out of the shame spiral rather than another layer of condemnation. Additionally, there is a whole theology of healthy sexuality and marriage and appropriate inter-gender relations (Hebrews 13:4, Song of Songs; 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8). These things should be taught loud and clear.

On the dignity of women, and on strength. Against the manosphere's commodification of women, Scripture is unambiguous: men and women are equal in dignity because both are made in the image of God, which rules out misogyny, exploitation and the reduction of women to sexual objects (Genesis 1:27). A Christian man does not compete with women for status, rather he honours them and refuses to consume or degrade them (1 Peter 3:7). This pairs with a redefinition of strength itself. Jesus says, ‘Whoever would be great among you must be your servant’ (Mark 10:43). Therefore, we find our significance through sacrifice, strength through self-restraint, and power used for the good of others rather than domination. Physical strength has some value but cannot conquer sin or produce righteousness. True strength is moral, the willingness to do what is right at cost to oneself, which is the direct counter to the looksmaxxing and alpha-physicality obsessions running through manosphere content.

On critical thinking and influencer culture. Scripture is blunt about the company a man keeps: ‘whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools suffers harm’ (Proverbs 13:20). A fool, in the Proverbs, is not someone unintelligent but someone who trusts his own judgement above counsel and correction, while the wise listen to advice (12:15). This bears directly on influencer culture, since the appeal of a confident, charismatic voice is precisely that it asks nothing of the listener except agreement, and Proverbs is wary of exactly this kind of unexamined consumption (18:2). One corrective is humility, a willingness to be taught and corrected rather than simply affirmed: ‘when pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom’ (11:2). For a young man choosing who to listen to online, the operative question is not how confident or entertaining a voice sounds, but whether it is wise, true, directed by love, and grounded in reverent fear of God (1:7). Biblical wisdom looks like teachability rather than certainty. Vital to responding well to any and all online content is discernment: we should test everything and hold fast only to what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

For leaders and parents

So what does this mean practically, for those of us caring for young men in Christian communities?

First, resist treating every boy as a potential extremist. Most boys are not engaging with the dark manosphere, and framing that presumes otherwise alienates the boys you most need to reach. We should direct our energy toward the factors that affect the majority—pornography, algorithmic exposure, peer norms, purposelessness, lack of male role models—rather than chasing the worst individual examples.

Second, address pornography directly and proactively, not reactively. Honest, age-appropriate teaching about its neurological, social, spiritual and relational effects, introduced before exposure occurs if possible, is far more effective than damage control afterwards.

Third, build genuine male fellowship and mentoring into the life of your church. Given how strongly fatherlessness predicts vulnerability, mature men who actually show up, week after week, in the lives of boys is one of the highest-leverage interventions available. Every male in the community can aspire to be positive for others. This also facilitates counter-cultural peer groups that produce a shared vision, providing agency and confidence in the face of relentless cultural messaging about what is normal.

Fourth, engage parents, not just young people. The family structure matters less than the quality of parental engagement, clear boundaries and ongoing communication. Equip parents to have early, unembarrassed conversations about pornography and social media, and to delay first exposure for as long as possible.

Fifth, help young men name a positive vision of purpose. Goal oriented, mission-minded, active service, through the church or in the community, while reorienting the goal of employment as worship, gives a young man something to aim at that does not depend on wealth, status or sexual conquest (Colossians 3:23).

Finally, do not pathologise masculinity itself. The data on boys' educational and economic disadvantage is real, and young men know it. A community that treats their maleness as inherently suspect will simply hand the field to influencers who, for all their faults, at least make young men feel seen. The better approach is to take their struggles seriously, name the genuine forces working against them, and offer something better: an identity that does not have to be performed, a strength that serves rather than dominates, and a Father who does not abandon his sons.

Dr Marshall Ballantine-Jones is currently the CEO of DigiHelp Publishing. His PhD with Sydney University focused on reducing the negative effects of pornography and sexualised social media behaviours on adolescents.

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