What Is “Tonic” Masculinity and Why It Matters
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What Makes This Article Worth Your Time
Summary
What This Article Is About
Nicholas Balaisis, psychologist and registered psychotherapist, introduces the concept of “tonic” masculinity inspired by recent public expressions from figures like Tim Walz and Pete Buttigieg, which online discourse has praised as models of positive masculinity contrasting sharply with hyper-aggressive or resentful forms. Drawing from clinical experience with male clients, Balaisis articulates three core principles defining tonic masculinity as productive healing alternative to toxic expressions. First, tonic masculinity involves embodying and expanding stereotypical male roles—Walz and Buttigieg heavily lean into traditionally masculine identities like military service or football coaching (often criticized as bastions of male privilege) while simultaneously expanding them through actions like leading gay-straight alliances. This revised vision combats the tendency to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” where men in law enforcement or authority positions carry shame about roles they inhabit, feeling publicly judged and culturally undervalued. By demonstrating that stereotypical male traits like competitiveness coexist with seemingly feminine traits like empathy and inclusion without dilution, figures like Walz offer flexible heterodox visions of modern manhood beyond what’s typically witnessed on YouTube or Discord.
Second, tonic masculinity requires recognizing past traditions’ value without denigrating present progress. Balaisis argues that viewing progress as requiring renunciation of the past creates problematic binaries—contemporary masculinity discourse often pits past gender expressions as inherently damaging and irredeemable, sparking reactive forms like hyper-masculinity or “trad wife” movements reclaiming dismissed values like courage, valor, strength. This psychological process called “splitting” reduces life to simplistic good/bad binaries reflecting early infancy, making it easier to dismiss entire institutions as structurally toxic rather than acknowledging complexity. Male clients in authority positions experience anxiety and guilt about occupying roles for fear of repeating past injustices, yet assertion isn’t inherently toxic or patriarchal—Walz models old masculine virtues (strength, courage, conviction) without linked traits of abuse and manipulation, while Joe Biden’s decision to step down exemplifies soft or mature masculinity resisting narcissism and withstanding ego blows. Third, tonic masculinity demands rejecting resentment and embracing vulnerability through what psychologist Melanie Klein calls the “depressive position”. Male grievance in online spaces reveals resentment and projection disavowing real suffering underneath—JD Vance’s “cat lady” comments reflect grievances rooted in resentments from decades of gender dynamics changes leaving men feeling uprooted from traditional roles. While these feelings aren’t unfounded or inherently judgeable in clinical practice, they become dangerous when projected outward indiscriminately onto wide groups. Grievance and resentment may provide political mileage but psychologically reinforce personality splits without allowing truth of emotions to emerge for resolution. Klein’s depressive position represents mature stance acknowledging the world may not match naive expectations—recognizing that Midwest industrial jobs disappeared and male identities were challenged is painful but necessary. Tonic masculinity, Balaisis concludes, must be strong enough to acknowledge and own vulnerability as one’s own rather than blaming conspiratorial external forces, offering healing alternatives to toxic hyperbolic expressions dominating online masculine discourse.
Key Points
Main Takeaways
Expanding Stereotypical Male Roles
Walz and Buttigieg lean into traditional masculine identities like military service and football coaching while simultaneously expanding them through inclusive actions—demonstrating that stereotypical traits like competitiveness coexist with empathy and inclusion without dilution, offering flexible heterodox visions beyond toxic online expressions.
Cultural Moment Lacking Models
Women and online commentators note that Walz and Buttigieg provide needed positive masculinity models in a cultural moment where such examples feel sparse—these expressions sharply distinguish from hyper-aggressive or resentful masculinity forms dominating online spaces like YouTube and Discord.
Avoiding “Baby with Bathwater”
Contemporary critiques of traditional male roles as toxic bastions risk discarding valuable aspects—Balaisis treats men in law enforcement carrying shame about their positions, feeling publicly judged and culturally undervalued, with some avoiding such professions despite potential to bring integrity for fear of “becoming toxic.”
Splitting as Psychological Trap
Viewing progress as requiring past renunciation creates “splitting”—psychological reduction to simplistic good/bad binaries reflecting early infancy—making it easier to dismiss entire institutions as structurally toxic rather than acknowledging complexity, spawning reactive hyper-masculinity or “trad wife” movements reclaiming dismissed traditional values.
Klein’s Depressive Position
Melanie Klein’s “depressive position” represents mature psychological stance acknowledging the world may not match naive expectations—recognizing painful realities like disappeared Midwest industrial jobs and challenged male identities requires owning vulnerability as one’s own rather than projecting resentment onto conspiratorial external forces.
Projection Versus Ownership
Male grievance in online spaces reveals resentment and projection disavowing real suffering—JD Vance’s “cat lady” comments exemplify grievances from gender dynamics changes becoming dangerous when projected indiscriminately. Tonic masculinity must be strong enough to acknowledge vulnerability without casting blame outward, offering healing alternatives to toxic expressions.
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Article Analysis
Breaking Down the Elements
Main Idea
Psychotherapeutic Reframing of Masculine Crisis
Balaisis positions tonic masculinity as a psychologically sophisticated response to contemporary masculine identity crisis, moving beyond simplistic toxic/positive binary toward nuanced integration. Using Melanie Klein’s depressive position and developmental splitting concepts, he argues healthy masculine development requires moving from infantile binary thinking toward mature acceptance of complexity. The Walz/Buttigieg examples demonstrate that masculine expression can simultaneously inhabit traditional roles and progressive values without contradiction, challenging both conservative nostalgia and progressive dismissal of the past.
Purpose
Clinical Intervention in Cultural Discourse
Balaisis introduces clinically-grounded framework into polarized masculinity conversations dominated by extremes. He aims to legitimize male clients’ authentic struggles with displacement and anxiety while refusing to validate resentful projection, offering language distinguishing healthy from pathological masculine expression. His clinical authority allows pathologizing certain responses without pathologizing individuals, maintaining therapeutic compassion while setting boundaries around acceptable expression.
Structure
Tripartite Framework Building Complexity
The essay employs clear three-part structure building toward increasingly sophisticated psychological concepts. Each principle follows consistent pattern: concrete example, clinical interpretation from therapeutic experience, broader theoretical explanation connecting individual psychology to cultural dynamics. Progressive deepening mirrors therapeutic process—starting with accessible behavioral observations before introducing complex intrapsychic dynamics—while numbered format maintains clarity despite increasing abstraction.
Tone
Compassionate Authority Balancing Empathy with Boundaries
Balaisis maintains balanced tone validating male suffering while refusing to excuse toxic expression, embodying the mature depressive position he advocates. Clinical framing pathologizes mechanisms without pathologizing individuals, maintaining therapeutic compassion while setting clear boundaries. He validates underlying pain—acknowledging men feeling “uprooted from traditional roles” experience legitimate suffering—before boundary-setting about projection. The tone communicates possibility rather than despair, positioning tonic masculinity as achievable alternative requiring difficult work of accepting loss and ambiguity.
Key Terms
Vocabulary from the Article
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Tough Words
Challenging Vocabulary
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Strongholds or institutions strongly defending particular principles, attitudes, or activities; fortified places protecting certain values or practices from attack or change.
“In many circles today, these identities are sharply criticized as bastions of male privilege or toxic masculinity.”
The formal rejection or abandonment of a belief, claim, or course of action; the act of giving up or disowning something previously held or valued.
“One incorrect view of progress and modernity is that it means a renunciation and denigration of the past.”
A psychological defense mechanism reducing complex realities to simplistic all-good or all-bad categories; inability to integrate positive and negative qualities into realistic whole.
“Psychologically, this process is called ‘splitting,’ where life is reduced to simplistic binaries of good and bad that reflect our early infancy.”
A real or imagined wrong or cause for complaint; a feeling of resentment over something believed to be unfair treatment; grounds for dissatisfaction.
“When I hear or witness a lot of male grievance in some online spaces, I see men beset by resentment and projection.”
A psychological defense mechanism where one attributes one’s own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or motives to others; unconsciously displacing internal experiences onto external targets.
“What can become dangerous is when these feelings become projected outward and applied resentfully to wide groups of people indiscriminately.”
Melanie Klein’s psychoanalytic concept describing a mature developmental stance accepting reality’s complexity, ambivalence, and loss; ability to integrate good and bad aspects of self and others.
“What we need to do is move toward the depressive position, a mature stance that acknowledges that the world may not be what it was.”
Reading Comprehension
Test Your Understanding
5 questions covering different RC question types
1According to Balaisis, incorporating seemingly feminine traits like empathy and inclusion dilutes or weakens stereotypical male traits like competitiveness.
2What does Balaisis mean by “splitting” in the context of contemporary masculinity discourse?
3Which sentence best captures Balaisis’s clinical perspective on male clients’ experiences with contemporary masculinity critiques?
4Evaluate these statements about Melanie Klein’s “depressive position” as Balaisis applies it to masculinity:
The depressive position represents a mature psychological stance acknowledging that the world may not be what it was or what we naively want it to be.
Balaisis argues that casting blame and projecting suffering outward through grievance and resentment will ultimately heal men’s pain about displaced identities.
Tonic masculinity requires being strong enough to acknowledge and own vulnerability as one’s own rather than attributing it to conspiratorial forces beyond the self.
Select True or False for all three statements, then click “Check Answers”
5Based on Balaisis’s discussion of Joe Biden stepping down from power, what can be inferred about his view of mature masculinity’s relationship to leadership?
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Walz exemplifies tonic masculinity by simultaneously inhabiting traditionally masculine role (football coach) often criticized as bastion of male privilege while expanding it through progressive actions like leading a gay-straight alliance. Balaisis writes: “A football coach, for example, can be competitive, engaged, and even ruthless as a strategist and at the same time lead and support a gay-straight alliance at the high school.” The key phrase is “at the same time”—Walz doesn’t choose between competitiveness and inclusivity but embodies both fully. This demonstrates that stereotypical male traits aren’t diluted by incorporating seemingly feminine traits like empathy—they coexist without contradiction, offering “flexible and heterodox vision of modern manhood” beyond toxic online expressions. The example challenges the “baby with the bathwater” problem where entire professions get dismissed as structurally toxic rather than reformed.
Balaisis identifies this as “splitting”—a psychological defense mechanism where “life is reduced to simplistic binaries of good and bad that reflect our early infancy and brain development.” Splitting originates in developmental stages before ego can integrate contradictory qualities, making it “easier for us as a species to identify abuses in past institutions such as churches or sports organizations and dismiss them entirely as structurally toxic” rather than acknowledging complexity. This creates problems in contemporary masculinity discourse where past gender expressions get positioned as “inherently damaging and irredeemable,” spawning reactive movements like hyper-masculinity or “trad wife” attempting to reclaim dismissed values like courage, valor, and strength. Mature psychological functioning requires transcending splitting by recognizing that institutions and individuals contain both valuable and problematic elements simultaneously—traditional masculine roles can be reformed rather than requiring complete abandonment.
The depressive position represents “a mature stance that acknowledges that the world may not be what it was or what we naively want it to be”—accepting painful realities rather than projecting blame outward. Balaisis applies this to men experiencing displacement from traditional roles: “The recognition, for instance, that industrial jobs in the Midwest have disappeared and male identities have been challenged as a result is a hard and difficult thing to acknowledge and is painful.” Rather than casting blame through resentment (like JD Vance’s “cat lady” comments), the depressive position requires owning vulnerability. Healthy masculine development mirrors individual psychological maturation—moving from infantile omnipotence (expecting world to conform to wishes) toward mature acceptance of loss and ambiguity. Tonic masculinity must be “strong enough and able to acknowledge and own this vulnerability as one’s own, and not as a result of conspiratorial forces beyond the self,” reframing vulnerability as requiring psychological strength rather than representing weakness.
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This is an Advanced-level article requiring comfort with psychoanalytic concepts and ability to follow sophisticated theoretical arguments applied to contemporary cultural phenomena. Readers must understand Melanie Klein’s depressive position, developmental splitting, projection, and how these psychological mechanisms manifest in political discourse around masculinity. The essay assumes familiarity with ongoing cultural debates about toxic masculinity while introducing clinical framework transcending simplistic binaries. Full comprehension requires recognizing how Balaisis validates male clients’ legitimate suffering (displacement from traditional roles, anxiety about authority) while refusing to excuse resentful projection or toxic expression—maintaining both/and thinking where past contained valuable and problematic elements requiring integration rather than wholesale acceptance or rejection. The article’s sophistication lies in applying individual psychological development concepts to collective cultural processes, arguing that societal maturation parallels personal growth through accepting complexity and ambivalence.
Balaisis observes from clinical practice that contemporary cultural critiques positioning traditional male roles as bastions of privilege create internalized shame: “I have treated many men in law enforcement or other such positions who carry great shame about the roles they inhabit, feeling publicly judged and culturally undervalued.” This extends to potential future occupants—some men “describe aversions to joining such professions even though they may bring great integrity to the positions” for fear of “becoming toxic.” The anxiety stems from concern about “repeating past injustices or abuses” given historical evidence of power abuse in these roles. While Balaisis notes “a little guilt or conscience here is helpful to mindfully occupy these roles,” excessive shame becomes paralyzing and prevents good people from entering fields needing reform. His argument is that “expressions of assertion are not necessarily and inherently toxic or ‘patriarchal'”—authority itself isn’t the problem, but rather how it’s wielded, requiring reformed rather than abandoned traditional masculine roles.
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