What Makes a Good Man?

After Epstein, Our Sons Need More Than Warnings

The question is not new, but it feels newly urgent: What makes a good man?

A recent New York Times Opinion conversation asked that question in the shadow of Jeffrey Epstein, #MeToo, the manosphere, and the growing crisis among boys and young men. The discussion included Ruth Whippman, author of BoyMom, and Frederick Joseph, author of Patriarchy Blues, in a thoughtful exchange about masculinity, feminism, patriarchy, and the vacuum that too many boys are falling into today.

It is a conversation fathers, mothers, educators, clergy, counselors, coaches, and anyone who cares about boys should be having.

Because here is the uncomfortable truth: boys are not born knowing how to become good men. They learn from what we model, what we reward, what we excuse, what we laugh off, and what we fail to teach.

And right now, too many boys are being taught by the loudest voices in the room.

The vacuum around boys

The Times conversation points to a painful divide. On one side, boys and young men are being targeted by influencers selling a cartoon version of masculinity: dominance, money, sexual conquest, rage, emotional shutdown, and contempt for women.

On the other side, many boys hear only accusation: men are dangerous, men are trash, boys are the problem, sit down, be quiet, apologize for existing.

Neither message helps a boy become whole.

One message turns him into a weapon.

The other leaves him ashamed before he has even figured out who he is.

Whippman described young men as caught between caricatured masculinity and a progressive “shut up” narrative that tells them their struggles are not real. Joseph argued that boys and men need a way to understand patriarchy not as charity work for women, but as work that also restores their own humanity.

That matters.

If the only people welcoming boys are those teaching resentment, domination, and grievance, we should not be surprised when boys go where they are welcomed.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

So does adolescence.

Patriarchy harms everyone — but not equally

We do not help boys by pretending women’s anger is baseless. It is not.

Women and girls have lived with harassment, coercion, violence, discrimination, and fear across generations. #MeToo did not invent that pain. It gave language to what millions already knew in their bones.

Nor do we help boys by pretending patriarchy harms everyone in the same way. It does not. Girls and women have borne the brunt of male entitlement, abuse, and institutional protection of powerful men. Epstein was not an aberration from nowhere. He was protected by systems, money, silence, male privilege, and the willingness of too many people to look away.

But if we want a different future, we cannot stop at outrage.

Outrage tells us something is wrong.

Education teaches us what to do next.

Boys need relational education

One of the most important points in the Times conversation came when Whippman said boys are often given a poor grounding in relationships, communication, emotional nuance, and social skills. Girls, she noted, are often socialized from early childhood to notice feelings, track body language, understand emotional signals, and respond to others. Boys often are not.

That sentence should be printed on the wall of every school, locker room, youth center, and family court in America.

We spend years teaching boys math, history, sports, coding, test-taking, and how to drive. But many boys receive almost no meaningful education in how to recognize their own feelings, listen without defending, express attraction respectfully, handle rejection, repair harm, apologize sincerely, or know the difference between power and intimacy.

Then, at 16 or 18 or 25, we act shocked when they are confused.

This is not a defense of harmful behavior. It is a call to prevent it.

A boy who cannot name loneliness may turn it into rage.

A boy who cannot handle shame may turn it into blame.

A boy who cannot tolerate vulnerability may try to control someone else.

A boy who has never learned consent as a living conversation may reduce it to a legal checkbox.

That is not masculinity. That is emotional illiteracy wearing cologne.

Consent is not enough

Consent education is essential. But consent alone is not enough.

A decent man does not merely ask, “Can I get away with this?”

He asks, “Is this mutual? Is this respectful? Is this wanted? Is this kind? Is this honest? Is this person free to say no?”

That is a much higher standard.

The Times conversation touched on the confusion many young men feel in dating and sexual situations after #MeToo. Some of that confusion is genuine. Some of it is defensive. But either way, the answer is not to abandon standards. The answer is to teach better ones.

Consent should not be taught as a trap boys must avoid.

It should be taught as part of care.

At PAIRS, we often say love is a skill. So is respect. So is repair. So is listening. So is self-control. These are not decorative qualities we add after boys become men. They are the foundation.

A good man is not a harmless man

One mistake we make is defining a good man only by what he does not do.

He does not abuse.

He does not harass.

He does not assault.

He does not exploit.

Good. That is the floor. It is not the ceiling.

A good man is not merely a man who avoids becoming dangerous. A good man becomes someone others can trust.

He tells the truth when lying would be easier.

He protects without possessing.

He is strong without needing others to feel small.

He can hear “no” without humiliation becoming hostility.

He can apologize without turning the apology into a courtroom defense.

He can feel anger without making it everyone else’s emergency.

He can be tender without feeling erased.

He can be accountable without collapsing into shame.

He can use power in service of others, not as proof of his own importance.

That is not weakness. That is disciplined strength.

The old model said a man should be invulnerable.

The healthier model says a man should be responsible for what his vulnerability becomes.

We need more than critique

The manosphere is not winning because its ideas are good. It is winning because it gives boys identity, belonging, certainty, rituals, heroes, villains, and a story.

A bad story can still feel better than no story.

Too often, the healthier side offers critique without invitation. We tell boys what not to be, but not who they can become. We name toxic masculinity, but fail to build communities of healthy masculinity. We warn them about entitlement, but do not teach them how to belong without dominance.

That is how we lose boys.

Not because feminism is wrong.

Because boys still need formation.

They need men they can admire. They need women who will tell them the truth without writing them off. They need peers who practice loyalty without cruelty. They need spaces where strength and empathy are not treated as enemies.

They need a path.

Fatherhood is part of the answer

Fathers have a unique role to play, not because mothers cannot raise good men — millions have — but because boys are watching men for clues.

A father teaches masculinity in how he speaks to a waiter, how he handles disappointment, how he talks about women when women are not in the room, how he treats their mother, how he apologizes, how he listens, how he handles power, how he responds when corrected.

A father teaches when he says, “I was wrong.”

A father teaches when he cries and does not apologize for crying.

A father teaches when he refuses to laugh at cruelty.

A father teaches when he tells his son, “Being angry is human. Being cruel is a choice.”

A father teaches when he says, “You do not have to dominate to matter.”

And perhaps most of all, a father teaches when he repairs.

Because no father gets it right all the time. The goal is not perfection. It is direction.

What we should teach boys

Here is a beginning.

Teach boys emotional vocabulary. Not psycho-babble. Plain words: sad, scared, ashamed, lonely, jealous, excited, disappointed, overwhelmed, proud, hurt.

Teach boys to listen for understanding, not just for their turn to win.

Teach boys that attraction is not entitlement.

Teach boys that rejection is survivable.

Teach boys that repair is stronger than denial.

Teach boys that humor is not a license to humiliate.

Teach boys that being respected is different from being feared.

Teach boys that women are not puzzles, prizes, therapists, mothers, trophies, or enemies. They are people.

Teach boys that other men are not only competitors. They can be friends, brothers, witnesses, and sources of support.

Teach boys that courage is not the absence of tenderness.

Teach boys that responsibility is not oppression. It is adulthood.

After Epstein, the question is local

It is easy to talk about Epstein as if he belongs to another universe: private islands, billionaires, famous names, sealed files, grotesque excess.

But the deeper question is not only how monsters gain access to power.

It is how ordinary cultures train ordinary people to ignore warning signs, excuse predation, eroticize domination, protect status, and call silence discretion.

Joseph made this point in the Times conversation: this is not only about wealthy men and an island; it is happening in neighborhoods, too.

That is why the answer has to be local, too.

At dinner tables.

In classrooms.

In locker rooms.

In youth groups.

In group chats.

In father-son conversations.

In the quiet moment when a boy says something cruel and an adult decides whether to laugh, ignore it, or teach.

That moment matters.

The good man our sons can become

A good man is not born from shame.

He is formed through love, boundaries, example, accountability, and practice.

He is not told that being male makes him bad.

He is taught that being male gives him choices.

He can repeat the old scripts, or he can help write better ones.

He can confuse masculinity with conquest, or he can learn that the deepest strength is self-command.

He can inherit silence, or he can learn to speak honestly.

He can protect systems that harm others, or he can become part of repairing them.

The question is not whether boys are broken.

The question is whether we will teach them.

Because love is a skill.

Repair is a practice.

And becoming a good man is not a slogan.

It is a daily education.