Discipline Killed My Gender

Reflections on being born male and existing outside of maleness.

I am beyond exhausted by the fetishization of suffering that permeates so much of masculine thought. There exists a deeply entrenched obsession with self-denial and overexertion. Pain is treated as virtue. Endurance, as moral currency.

There’s a prevailing belief that hurting yourself in service of something - your job, your goals, your passions - makes you a better person. That through this pain, you ascend. Consider how the movie Whiplash enshrines this idea: Andrew Neiman, a passionate young man, destroys his life in service to becoming a great musician, and proves himself worthy of greatness through his self-imposed torture. But perhaps instead of glorifying that suffering, we should ask a simpler question: what if we stopped making ourselves suffer? What if we stopped upholding pain as the gateway to transformation? Why has suffering become the measure of significance? Why must pain serve as proof that we matter?

This isn’t just philosophical, it’s deeply personal. It’s at the heart of my own estrangement from traditional masculinity. I love being in a male body. I take joy in things like growing facial hair. I don’t feel “wrong” as a male. But I feel completely disconnected from the ways many men are taught to exist in the world. And while I recognize that this perspective might sound like the cliché of the “6’2 feminist,” this tension has always been central to my experience of gender.

Consider the man who speaks with unending reverence about his experiences doing acid. Many describe “realizing that like, every car driving by has a person inside, and they all have like, lives and stuff man,” as though basic human connection is a transcendental awakening. He speaks at length about escaping desire, his psychedelics giving him an experience of some abstract “higher form of being.” He calls this an out-of-body experience. And for the man who’s been trained to see the body’s needs as weak, corrupt, or lesser, that moment of separation feels like freedom.

But here’s the thing: his body is not a flesh prison of base desires. It is beautiful, messy, painful, orgasmic, contradictory. An experience that permeates the human condition.

Rather than chasing an “out-of-body” state, what if he pursued an in-body state? What if he stopped striving for ascension and accepted that embodiment, in all its contradictions, is not something to conquer, but to cherish? Detachment from the body isn’t enlightenment - It’s denial. But it doesn’t surprise me that this man, socialized to process the world in hierarchies, doesn't seem to grasp the notion that the body and mind can coexist as equals.

You can witness this hierarchical social contract first hand in male institutions like fraternities. You begin as a subordinate, with no power or status. You are expected to endure humiliation, repress your need for dignity, and ignore suffering in the name of “discipline.” If you do it well enough, if you master the art of self-denial, you are granted equality with your abusers. And eventually, permitted to inflict that same suffering on the next group. The desire for discipline morphs into a desire for domination. The will to endure pain becomes the need to impose it. And this thinking is destroying men.

It is no coincidence that so many male philosophers have prioritized mind over body, ego over desire. Pleasure is framed as weakness. Indulging in sweets, intimacy, rest - these are considered failures of will. A man must master himself, overpower his wants, and suppress his instincts. To give into his hunger, lust, or fatigue? That’s the epitome of moral failing.

This is why, when a woman speaks about being raped, this man will say, “That wasn’t a man, that was a boy.” In doing so, he frames manhood not around empathy or accountability, but around power. The rapist “gave in” to desire, therefore he failed to achieve the masculine ideal of self-mastery.

But what if that very ideal is part of the problem? What if the constant push to conquer the self, to deny the body, suppress pleasure, and embrace suffering is in fact what cultivates the conditions for violence?

And while some men may survive under that model, this man cannot. When his entire sense of self depends on his ability to endlessly self-deny, to out-suffer others, to “win” against his own instincts, he unravels. He collapses.

We need to stop chasing power.

We need to stop starving ourselves of joy in an attempt to prove our worth.

Discipline should serve life, not replace it.

Of course, discipline has value. It’s necessary to develop the ability to do what is difficult, to resist destructive urges, to care for ourselves and others even and especially when it’s hard. But somewhere along the line, discipline stopped being a means, and became the end itself.

What if pleasure isn’t suspect? What if the joy which comes from indulgence isn’t beneath you?

Here’s something I think a lot of men need to realize: You are mortal. You will die. And when that moment comes, will you look back with pride that you skipped your mother’s apple pie to maintain your cut?

Or will you mourn the joy you denied yourself? The unnecessary suffering? The years spent proving you were stronger than your body, when you could have simply lived? This obsession with suffering isn’t noble. It’s killing you.