The Vital Masculinity Podcast

This week, the gents sit down with Catholic author Kennedy Hall to discuss his books on masculinity and how we can combat and overcome the rise of "effeminate manliness."

Show Highlights:

• How Kennedy's "vague cultural Catholicism" influenced his development as a man.
• How did he ultimately realize the problems with modern masculinity?
• The nature of effeminate masculinity.
• How can men become less effeminate and more masculine?
• How important should a man's faith be?
• Family Be Damned and why good fiction can inform and enliven the soul.

View the full show notes here.

About Kennedy:

Kennedy Hall is the author of Terror of Demons: Reclaiming Traditional Catholic Masculinity and Family Be Damned, as well as the host of the Fatima Centre's Kennedy Report.

Keep in Touch with Kennedy:

The Kennedy Report

Website

Newsletter

Twitter: @kennedyhall

---

About our Sponsor:

Covenant Eyes is a screen monitoring and accountability platform for all your devices which will help you kick your porn addiction once and for all. Stephen personally used this to help him break free of the vicious cycle of addition. The resources provided by Covenant Eyes also help you identify triggers, form healthy new habits, boost your confidence, and restore hope so that you can live the life you want to live.

Our followers can get 30 days FREE by using the promo code "VIRTUE" at checkout.

---

Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe.

Check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Discord chat group which you will receive an invite to by signing up for our newsletter.

You can also contact us via email ([email protected]), Twitter (@ManlyVirtue), or Gab (@vitalmasculinity)

--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/vitalmasculinity/support

In this episode, the gents discuss the institution of marriage and the virtue of chastity, including her role inside and outside matrimonial covenants.

Show Highlights:

• What is the virtue chastity?
• The common misconception that chastity only refers to celibacy.
• What does a rightly ordered sexual appetite look like?
• What is marriage?
• The traditional understanding of marriage.
• The role of sex and chastity within marriage.
• The four aspects of marriage.
• Marriage as a 'type' of Christ and the Church.
• Chastity in single people and married people.
• Examples of 'unchastity.'
• Why chastity is important in dating/courtships.

View the full show notes here.

Resources:

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis

Catechism of the Catholic Church

About our Sponsor:

Covenant Eyes is a screen monitoring and accountability platform for all your devices which will help you kick your porn addiction once and for all. Stephen personally used this to help him break free of the vicious cycle of addition. The resources provided by Covenant Eyes also help you identify triggers, form healthy new habits, boost your confidence, and restore hope so that you can live the life you want to live.

Our followers can get 30 days FREE by using the promo code "VIRTUE" at checkout.

---

Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe.

Check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Discord chat group which you will receive an invite to by signing up for our newsletter.

You can also contact us via email ([email protected]), Twitter (@ManlyVirtue), or Gab (@vitalmasculinity).

In this episode, the gents take a short break from their series on Eros and the Four Loves to discuss ways to handle stress.

Show Highlights:

• How stress can be good for you.
• Hormesis and antifragility.
• Avoiding vs. combatting stress.
• Advice on how to mitigate and avoid stressors.

View the full show notes here.

About our Sponsor:

Covenant Eyes is a screen monitoring and accountability platform for all your devices which will help you kick your porn addiction once and for all. Stephen personally used this to help him break free of the vicious cycle of addition. The resources provided by Covenant Eyes also help you identify triggers, form healthy new habits, boost your confidence, and restore hope so that you can live the life you want to live.

Our followers can get 30 days FREE by using the promo code "VIRTUE" at checkout.

---

Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe.

Check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Discord chat group which you will receive an invite to by signing up for our newsletter.

You can also contact us via email ([email protected]), Twitter (@theVMPod), or Gab (@vitalmasculinity).6xgment names before you publish

In this episode, the gents discuss continue their exploration of distortions of eros, the third love, by examining the opposite approaches advocating a Victorian puritanism and a more open and promiscuous stance.

Show Highlights:

• How do Christians properly view the body and natural desire?
• Why is a promiscuous worldview incorrect?
• What do the Victorians and Puritans get wrong about a prude and rigid treatment of eros and sex?
• What a properly ordered eros or desires look like.
• Why sex and pleasure are, at a base level, good until they become corrupted.
• Is eros mainly an evolutionary appetite?
• Does this carnal element of eros make it dangerous?
• Why our view of Eros and sexuality need not be restrictive if ordered properly.

View the full show notes here.

Resources:

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis

About our Sponsor:

Covenant Eyes is a screen monitoring and accountability platform for all your devices which will help you kick your porn addiction once and for all. Stephen personally used this to help him break free of the vicious cycle of addition. The resources provided by Covenant Eyes also help you identify triggers, form healthy new habits, boost your confidence, and restore hope so that you can live the life you want to live.

Our followers can get 30 days FREE by using the promo code "VIRTUE" at checkout.

---

Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe.

Check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Discord chat group which you will receive an invite to by signing up for our newsletter.

You can also contact us via email ([email protected]), Twitter (@theVMPod), or Gab (@vitalmasculinity).6xgment names before you publish

In this episode, the gents discuss the issues with PUA and the Red Pill movement, discussing how each are distortions of eros. 

Show Highlights:

• What is a pick-up artist?
• What is the Red Pill?
• Why do more men seem attracted to these movements/philosophies?
• The relationship between evolutionary psychology and the Red Pill.
• The problems with making sex your top priority. 
• The manipulative nature of these philosophies.
• What do these both get right?
• What do these both get wrong?

View the full show notes here.

Resources:

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis

About our Sponsor:

Covenant Eyes is a screen monitoring and accountability platform for all your devices which will help you kick your porn addiction once and for all. Stephen personally used this to help him break free of the vicious cycle of addition. The resources provided by Covenant Eyes also help you identify triggers, form healthy new habits, boost your confidence, and restore hope so that you can live the life you want to live.

Our followers can get 30 days FREE by using the promo code "VIRTUE" at checkout.

---

Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe.

Check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Discord chat group which you will receive an invite to by signing up for our newsletter.

You can also contact us via email ([email protected]), Twitter (@theVMPod), or Gab (@vitalmasculinity).

In this episode, the gents explore two modern distortions of Eros or romantic love: hookup culture and casual dating.

Show Highlights:

• Recap of the definition of eros.
• Becoming worthy of your love.
• Dating and discernment of marriage.
• Defining casual dating.
• What is friendship "with benefits"?
• Transactional sex and hookup culture.
• Physical love over all else -> the credo of the modern world.
• The damage that comes from hookup culture.
• The subordination of love to pleasure.

Related Episodes:

Masculinity and Femininity: Biological Differences Masculinity and Femininity: Psychological Differences

Resources:

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis

View the full show notes here.

About our Sponsor:

Covenant Eyes is a screen monitoring and accountability platform for all your devices which will help you kick your porn addiction once and for all. Stephen personally used this to help him break free of the vicious cycle of addition. The resources provided by Covenant Eyes also help you identify triggers, form healthy new habits, boost your confidence, and restore hope so that you can live the life you want to live.

Our followers can get 30 days FREE by using the promo code "VIRTUE" at checkout.

---

Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe.

Check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Discord chat group which you will receive an invite to by signing up for our newsletter.

You can also contact us via email ([email protected]), Twitter (@theVMPod), or Gab (@vitalmasculinity).

This week, Stephen and Brian sit down with Professor Scott Yenor of Boise State University to discuss his new book The Recovery of Family Life.

Show Highlights:

• Why do we need to recover family life right now?
• What is the "rolling revolution?"
• How has feminism mixed with other cultural and political aspects to get us here?
• What is the end goal of feminism and the rolling revolution? Is there one?
• Why haven't conservative and traditional institutions done more to stop the transformation of family life?
• How do we fix this as a society?
• The pros and cons of legislating a new pro-family society.
• How each man can fight back and help reclaim a healthy, stable, traditional family life.

View the full show notes here. 

Resources:

The Recovery of Family Life by Professor Scott Yenor

Exclusive Patron Content:

On our patron-only question, we discuss Professor Yenor's run-in with the cancel culture mob, how he handled it, and his advice for how we can react and respond to those that seek to cancel us for the opinions we hold or the life we live.

Sign up for our Socrates Tier at $5/month for access to this and more!

About Scott:

Scott Yenor is a PhD and tenured professor of political science at Boise State University, as well as a Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute. He has authored multiple books and also writes at multiple sites

Keep in Touch with Scott:

Website

YouTube

Book Website

---

Give us a like, follow, subscribe, and leave us a rating and review - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe. 

You can learn more about our mission and find more content at our website at vitalmasculinity.org or at our Patreon page. Connect with us on Twitter or Facebook and sign up for our newsletter as well to stay on top of all our latest content.

In this episode, the gents begin an analysis of C.S. Lewis' third love, eros, and explore why this is more than pure romance or only about sexuality.

Show Highlights:

• Is eros just about sex?
• The relationship between eros, lust, and sexual desire.
• Pleasure vs. Person focused loves.
• The human aspects of eros.
• Friendship vs. eros.
• Does eros aim at happiness?
• Why this love should not become a god.

Resources:

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis

About our Sponsor:

Covenant Eyes is a screen monitoring and accountability platform for all your devices which will help you kick your porn addiction once and for all. Stephen personally used this to help him break free of the vicious cycle of addition. The resources provided by Covenant Eyes also help you identify triggers, form healthy new habits, boost your confidence, and restore hope so that you can live the life you want to live.

Our followers can get 30 days FREE by using the promo code "VIRTUE" at checkout.

---

Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe.

Check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Discord chat group which you will receive an invite to by signing up for our newsletter.

You can also contact us via email ([email protected]), Twitter (@theVMPod), or Gab (@vitalmasculinity).

In this episode, the gents wrap up their discussion on friendship by investigating limits and ends of these relationships.

Show Highlights:

• Defects in relationships.
• Self-imposed limits.
• Physical, Mental, and Spiritual limits to friendship.
• What happens when virtuous friendships turn bad?
• Friendship and the innermost self.
• Man's helplessness and friendships.
• How friendship ultimately respects the personality of the individuals.
• Why these limitations are "God's occasion."

Resources:

1. The Art of Being a Good Friend by Hugh Black
2. The Four Friendships by Kevin Vost

About our Sponsor:

Covenant Eyes is a screen monitoring and accountability platform for all your devices which will help you kick your porn addiction once and for all. Stephen personally used this to help him break free of the vicious cycle of addition. The resources provided by Covenant Eyes also help you identify triggers, form healthy new habits, boost your confidence, and restore hope so that you can live the life you want to live.

Our followers can get 30 days FREE by using the promo code "VIRTUE" at checkout. 

---

Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe. 

Check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Discord chat group which you will receive an invite to by signing up for our newsletter. 

You can also contact us via email ([email protected]), Twitter (@theVMPod), or Gab (@vitalmasculinity). 

In this episode, the gents continue discussing The Art of Being a Good Friend, focusing on the art of protecting and restoring your friendships.

Show Highlights:

• The deepest tragedy of life.
• How some friendships wither or die.
• Money's dangerous role in friendship.
• The harm of gossip, envy, and poor breaches of trust.
• How healthy conflict can actually strengthen your friendship.
• Protecting against purposeful dissension.
• How should you recover from breaches of trust?
• The why's and how's of reconciliation.

Resources:

• The Art of Being a Good Friend

---

Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe. Also, check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Discord chat group which you can do by signing up for our newsletter. You can also contact us via email or Twitter (links are on our website). We look forward to continuing the conversation with you.