Regular listeners of this podcast will know that we recently had Scott Burnett on the show to talk about his work on understanding online communities of men related to the No Fap movement, the manosphere, and the alt-right. His work charted these groups and some of the often dangerous and worrying views they espouse.

In today’s show we are going to take a more psychoanalytic approach. How are men in the manosphere constructing their masculinities. How does this relate to fascist ideas now, but also the fascist histories of the early 20th century? How can men in the manosphere both repress sexualities yet also built entire communities talking about it? What fantasies are told about the threat to masculinities and how are they both necessary and necessarily destroyed? And what are our best hopes for how we can respond, or how these men might respond? Is there ever a way back for violently misogynistic men?

Jacob Johanssen has written an excellent and engrossing book called ‘Fantasy, online misogyny and the manosphere’

We chatted about:

Why psychoanalysis for this work? What does it bring us?

Broad overview of the manosphere and who it is we are going to speak about.

Hegemonic masculinities of the manosphere (in the post feminist and post-fordist era)

The Friekorp (the militias in early 20th century Germany post WWI) and the manosphere - key similarities and differences (and why it's a useful analysis)

The fantasy of women (the other) as something necessary but also needing to be destroyed

Dis/Inhibition

The armour of these communities (and what community does for them)

The potential role of sex education

Recognition

His book is here

https://www.routledge.com/Fantasy-Online-Misogyny-and-the-Manosphere-Male-Bodies-of-DisInhibition/Johanssen/p/book/9780367468651

And the next book Event Horizon is published on Zero books in January (it looks amazing)

https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/zer0-books/our-books/event-horizon-sexuality-politics-culture

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