Lost Boys (UK)
Heron
Shipmate
in Epiphanies
' Boys are struggling in education, more likely to take their own lives, less likely to get into stable work, and far more likely to be caught up in crime'
I recently came across the 'Lost Boys' report from the Centre for Social Justice, via a 'Politics Joe' interview with the head of channel 5 Alex Mahon.
https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/library/lost-boys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_67EQ8lSFNc&t=1616s
The Centre for Social Justice is a centre-right think tank founded in 2004 by Ian Duncan Smith, Tim Montgomery and Phillipa Stroud.
The report is wide ranging, covering a range of concerning aspects of the lives of young men in the UK. It is perhaps of particular interest as many of us come off the back of watching 'Adolescence'
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/mar/22/netflix-from-the-police-to-the-prime-minister-how-adolescence-is-making-britain-face-up-to-toxic-masculinity
On the Politics Joe podcast, I was rocked back in my chair when Oli Dugmore reflected that young men will rarely encounter reference to 'masculinity' without an accompanying 'toxic'.
I really hesitate to post, as right-leaning sources can be regarded on SoF as inherently invalid, but there seems to me to be a conversation to be held about increasingly large numbers of young men who have lost their way.
How have they lost their way? Why? What can be done?
Respectfully,
Heron
I recently came across the 'Lost Boys' report from the Centre for Social Justice, via a 'Politics Joe' interview with the head of channel 5 Alex Mahon.
https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/library/lost-boys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_67EQ8lSFNc&t=1616s
The Centre for Social Justice is a centre-right think tank founded in 2004 by Ian Duncan Smith, Tim Montgomery and Phillipa Stroud.
The report is wide ranging, covering a range of concerning aspects of the lives of young men in the UK. It is perhaps of particular interest as many of us come off the back of watching 'Adolescence'
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/mar/22/netflix-from-the-police-to-the-prime-minister-how-adolescence-is-making-britain-face-up-to-toxic-masculinity
On the Politics Joe podcast, I was rocked back in my chair when Oli Dugmore reflected that young men will rarely encounter reference to 'masculinity' without an accompanying 'toxic'.
I really hesitate to post, as right-leaning sources can be regarded on SoF as inherently invalid, but there seems to me to be a conversation to be held about increasingly large numbers of young men who have lost their way.
How have they lost their way? Why? What can be done?
Respectfully,
Heron
Comments
It's all very dramatic, which makes it a less useful source. For instance, surely if boys are struggling to stay in school that is an issue whether or not girls are. But your first link makes it all about the difference between genders. Do they care about boys or is it all just a competition to them?
I wasn't great at athletics and was not quite "smart" enough to be a high achiever, so I kinda caught this both ways and definitely had suicidal ideations during high school, which I think is a more common experience for humans than anyone wants to admit. My daughter has had them too sometimes. Life is hard these days.
My experience was that the culture called "toxic male" was exactly what was driving me that way. I wasn't hyper-competitive, I wasn't "good enough." I couldn't see myself as attractive and couldn't figure out an appropriate way to deal with lust because prevailing male culture just didn't give a guy any healthy way to deal with that. If I wasn't raised better I could relate to a lot of incel behavior, or bitch about how I got some really great friends when I was really, really awkwardly trying to get laid. Fortunately I was raised well enough that I wasn't a total douchebag about it and appreciated the friends I got.
I think right wingers who blame this on feminism are generally making an error and I'm not sure whether it's in the interest of selling ideology or if some people are earnestly confused. I'm pretty sure I'm not.
Guys need better role models and we need to cultivate a culture that gives men a better way to be themselves. Honestly, I think society now is miles a head of where it was in the early 1980s when I was a boy. I'd rather not see my boys dragged back into that cesspit of misogyny.
This song wasn't me, but it's relatable enough that I find it poignant, and I find the singer's honesty about his past douchey self to be strangely refreshing.
The rise in misogyny and homophobia which goes with the popularity of figures such as Andrew Tate is pretty much undeniable. On the other hand, that popularity doesn't come out of nowhere. Suspicion - even hatred - of education, especially higher education, among the groups identified and their families will be very high, which in turn must increase the popularity of simple narratives. These narratives are also simplistic, and designed to deflect blame away from the billionaires sucking the life out of societies, who, by a curious coincidence, spend infinitesimal proportions of their wealth supporting those supporting the "anti-woke" agenda which is supposed to be supporting the "lost boys" - or impoverished white people more generally - , in the near-certainty that this will protect them from having to pay serious amounts in tax.
There is a kernel of truth in there, in that these boys, and other members of their families, especially but not exclusively the male ones, may well feel and describe themselves as "lost", but in that they are victims of the same undermining of social provision in the spurious name of "austerity" as everyone else. They are not, contrary to the narratives they are sold, victims of the fact that the rights of women, LGBT+ people, people with disabilities and other marginalised groups are being given lip service, and a modicum of serious attention.
That makes me suspicious of the underpinning of other things they say, but I comment in detail without looking at the ounces.
More broadly it is true men have higher suicide rates than women, and higher involvement in crime as both victims and perpetrators. This has been true for a long time, it is not a new phenomenon - and arguably is a product of toxic masculinity rather than a response to its description (real men don’t talk about their feelings, real men take risks, real men fight etc etc).
In terms of suicide rates; there's evidence that at least some of the difference is attributable to the means used to commit suicide, with men generally picking violent means that are much more likely to result in a fatal outcome:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9602518/
With employment, part of the issue seems to lie with jobs become 'female coded' which then plays into notions springing from toxic masculinity, and then played out against a backdrop of rustbelt towns, reduction of funding for education generally and vocational schemes in particular and so on.
Not always subtly coded - I have mentioned before a doctors' surgery I worked at once which had the dress code on the wall for admin staff.
It referenced skirt, scarf and blouse.
No mention of a male equivalent. It had never crossed anyone's mind that there could be a male admin.
Nearly thirty years ago now, but I was once apparently the only male typist in the entire civil service.
I had thought that a discussion of Adolescence might turn up here at some point.
Gareth Southgate was interesting in the recent Dimbleby Lecture, covering some of the same ground as the 'Lost Boys' report.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceqjpzg0qwno
Given where we are (epiphanies), I guess it's inevitable that people are leaning into their own personal experiences, but I suspect the posters here (myself included) are several decades older than the lost boys of Britain today, and that experiences of growing up in the 60s and 70s may not accord with those of COVID - adolescents. Perhaps some of us have male children or grandchildren growing up in the UK atm? Perhaps some of them are disappearing down misleading rabbit holes?
@Doublethink thank you for looking at the report. I, too, have some issues with the framing. Overall I found the different sections of the report patchy. The stuff on employment and inactivity was useful and I think well known (the stuff on paygap seemed tenuous to me atm); and education and crime were good - this is stuff I have some professional familarity with. The sections on health, and on tech I found thought provoking.
@chrisstiles 'some of the difference', yes. What other factors do you think might be in play?
@gwai ' a lot of these statements are not believable to me' . I hear you that Mr Rogers and others were relevant to past generations. Do you think the 'Lost Boys' report is more opinion than facts? Clearly the Netflix drama is a work of art...and journalists opinions are just that. Is there not a piece of work to be done to get under the skin of so many very young boys who are taking the low road? How should that piece of work be done?
Respectfully
Heron
Well, it was 'at least some of', AFAICT it hasn't been studied in sufficient detail to attribute distribution of causes, and at least some papers I've seen on the subject attributed nearly all the difference to this one cause.
I suspect economic factors also have their place, but the CSJ is unlikely to highlight these as it would involve critiquing Thatcherism (I would also dispute the idea that its on the 'centre right').
I don't think men are being driven to behave in a particular way because they hear about 'toxic masculinity', I don't think that the cohort involved is listening to the kinds of niche media where that kind of wording would have common currency. My observation is that folk like Tate have the same kind of audience who 15 years ago would have been into pickup-artists.
I meant we have male admin staff, and the manager of our admin team is a man. It is still the case we have more female admin staff than male admin staff.
We need to stop lying about what makes lost boys such easy marks for cons
And here's where I think he's onto something
Some of that may depend on whether one believes that there is an intrinsic masculine essence, even perhaps a metaphysical one, or if it is merely socially constructed. (The same applies to femininity, of course.)
I’m not sure how to discuss that under Epiphanies rules, however. Normally I’d just look up dictionaries and cultural descriptions across time, but again I’m not sure that that would fit with Epiphanies rules.
There are a broad set of tasks that fall within the responsibility of a "typical" admin person, if there is such a thing. It's a job that is typically female-coded, for sure, but I don't think there's anything either masculine or feminine about the work, and I don't think there's a "male mode" of doing admin which is different from the "female mode".
Yes
Thanks for being considerate here. You are welcome to share your opinion with I statements. It would be problematic if you share your opinion as normative.
I’m not a fan of the idea that there are some good (or bad) behaviours which are inherently masculine or inherently feminine, nor of the kind of biological determinism that sometimes underlies them.
When I start defining what makes a good man (or a good woman) I’m inclined to think that such qualities are good in either sex or gender, or anything in between come to that.
The question of masculinity and femininity or manliness and womanliness is a running theme through Dorothy L. Sayers’ Gaudy Night coming to something of a head in Chapter 17.
@chrisstiles I'm finding myself experiencing a disproportionately strong response to your posts here! And of course that is about me, not you! This will be a prompt for me to go away and have a long look in the mirror.
I hope you, too, will be gentle if I share a little of what I am feeling.
It seems clear that different methods of suicide attempts is a factor in play in the disproportionately large pile of dead male children - sons, brothers, friends - from the US study you linked. It used to be part of the left wing playbook to look for underlying causes for disadvantage to groups with certain markers, you mentioned economic issues. I am not here to defend CSJ, but you will have read in the report the comparisons between suicide rates in (economically deprived )Teesside (where I was born), and other more affluent areas.
You comment that CSJ would not critique Thatcherism. I wonder what you meant by that? To me it felt like a dog whistle - sorry - and not in accord with the source about CSJ that Double think linked to in post 2.
'A Woman-Centred Approach called on the government to scrap plans for up to five new women's prisons and to put funds towards community-based alternatives. The Ministry of Justice subsequently announced that plans for new women's prisons were being abandoned and set out proposals to pilot five residential centres for women in the community'
'Housing First recommended placing homeless people dealing with problems such as alcohol and drug abuse in permanent accommodation and giving them access to care and training. The approach, known as Housing First, had been tried out in the United States and adopted by Finland with positive results.'
'Lowering the Stake on Fixed Odds Betting Terminals called on the government to reduce the maximum stake from £100 to £2 for fixed odds betting terminals, which the government duly did in 2018'
Last, 'My observation is that folk like Tate have the same kind of audience who 15 years ago would have been into pickup-artists.'
@chrisstiles we are talking about children here. Children are inherently vulnerable and have the right to society's protection. Your comment reads - to me - a bit like 'there has always been scum, and there still is'.
Again, sorry, I know my reaction is likely disproportionate. I'll go and say the daily office now.
Please be gentle - as you can read I'm isolated here.
Heron
I feel that a far better reply has already been written by the quotes Louise provides above, but nevertheless;
The period in which the CSJ was most influential pre-dates all the listed policies, it was the during the Cameron era where they claimed to have been responsible for around 70 policies. The era that also played a major role in the stripping back of the public realm detailed in the first of those quotes.
Children and young men, yes, but the point isn't to write them off, but firstly to remove the element of moral panic by pointing to a continuity, and secondly to redirect ourselves back to material causes, or in the words of the article above:
This is a not-so-subtle way of blaming women for destroying society by earning better wages than their husbands. The underlying assumption always seems to be that boys should always do at least as well as, if not significantly better than, girls and any deviation is an unnatural aberration that needs to be corrected as soon as possible. This is the opposite of the usual reaction when boys (particularly white boys) exceed girls' performance in anything. In other words, if girls outperform boys it's the system that's wrong. If boys outperform girls, that's just nature taking its course.
There was also a bit of rhetorical legerdemain in the section on deprivation (p. 27):
It always seems to be the case that non-whites whose parents do not work (i.e. are FSM eligible) are not part of the "working poor", but white students in the same situation are considered part of the "White Working Class". It's funny (but not 'ha ha' funny) how your white skin earns you credit for working, which is very much not the case for everyone else.
One of the more intriguing sections is on Fatherlessness. The underlying assumption here seems to be that a father, any father, is better than having no father present. The report seems to assume a generic father figure, not the actual, real-life father who may not be present in the home for very legitimate reasons. It's easy enough to claim that children would be better off with a father, but no real effort is taken to drill down to the question of whether maybe children are better off without the specific father who beats their mother, or molests them, or . . . This is very similar to the moralizing we often hear from "centre-right think tanks" around the material benefits of marriage, where correlation is taken as evidence of causation. At any rate it's somewhat grimly amusing to read more than halfway through a report that gets increasingly alarmist detailing ways in which young men are deficient and then get to a section that touts the benefits of having them play a vital role in raising children.
Agreed. It seems obvious to me that this is a consequence of cultural conditioning. The man being the "breadwinner" and the woman being provided for is ingrained in our culture, and so differing from that can feel like failure to anyone who tends to reference themselves to norms or expectations (which is most people).
From my point of view, this cultural conditioning is a problem, and I would want to try to address the mental health challenges apparently faced by couples where the woman out-earns the man by challenging the cultural assumptions head-on. In a sensible world, you'd expect the female member of a mixed-sex couple to out-earn her partner about half the time. This gets more interesting when you bring children in to the equation, because there's an asymmetry in who can carry the children and breastfeed them, but it's a good starting point.
And there's additional cultural conditioning about which parent should provide the bulk of child care that's not biologically determined.
I appreciate that, though I’m not sure what “normative” means here. What most people believe at any given time, or something more transcendent? What if you believe something is, or could be, fully or partly transcendent, regardless of people’s views?
But I’ve also talked about those matters on other threads, and I’m really not sure how to do this without falling foul of Epiphanies rules.
I think I can say this:
I believe that there is something to “masculine” and “feminine” that is transcendent, apart from human ideas about that, as I do about many, many other things, but I think that going into my beliefs—or even the bases on which I hold them— on this thread, in Epiphanies, would derail this thread and also make some people unhappy and very probably not fit within the rules, no matter how I tried to put it.
I think I can also say that the difference in beliefs about gender, whether it’s intrinsic, what gender means, and so on, could be part of why people might talk past one another on the issue of “lost boys” or “men’s problems,” etc., not just on discussions here, but in culture in general. If someone believes that gender is merely a social conditioning thing, vs. someone who believes it’s an intrinsic thing with its own nature, then those people might have more trouble trying to discuss “lost boys” or “men’s problems,” because one side will take a more “boys and men have immutable characteristics beyond the biological, and intrinsic needs of some kinds that are not being met, which is causing them problems,” and the other will be more “people who happen to be biologically male have societal expectations in our society which need to be changed, and that will solve their perceived problems.” (This is very simplified, and there could be other approaches, but I think those are the two main approaches involved; there’s also, though by no means absolute, a political division here, I think—people of a conservative worldview will *tend* to believe in transcendent gender, while people of a liberal worldview will *tend* to think of gender as purely a societal construct, so you’ll see analyses of these matters coming from one “side” or the other. Again, this is a *tendency*. I’m liberal politically myself, but I believe gender is transcendent, for example.)
I don't know what gender is. You might reasonably argue that the existence of trans people suggests that it's somehow an intrinsic thing (trans people are trans despite in some cases severe social conditioning not to be). But regardless of whether men have some intrinsic immutable needs that are different from women (and of whether that statement, if true, is true of all men, or of men on average, or of a subset of men, or who), I think it's clear that there are large social conditioning aspects at play.
It's hard for me to see how, for example, a need to make more money than your spouse can be an intrinsic need of maleness - there's lots of layers of social conditioning that you need to do things like tie self-worth to income.
For example, questions like that implies the existence of a monetized economy, which has not been a thing for most of human existence. If you're a peasant paying taxes in the form of grain to feed your local warlord's army questions about the income of each member of a household can be quite abstract.
But some problems boys and men are having are in fact systemic problems. The education gap, for one thing -- girls are more likely to graduate high school and they have higher GPAs in high school, and women earn more bachelor's degrees. Men were 13 percentage points ahead of women getting bachelor's degrees in the US when Title IX was passed in 1972 and addressed the systemic issue of discrimination based on sex. That gap is now more than reversed: women are 15 percentage points ahead of men getting their BA.
Numbers are from this interview of Richard Reeves by Ezra Klein (gift link); his proposal is that boys start school a year later than girls, as they simply aren't ready as early.
I absolutely agree with that last part. How this would play out in any given society would vary.
Er, “this” in “How this would play out in any given would vary” refers to any kind of transcendent/intrinsic masculinity/femininity that I was mentioning earlier. Just realized this might be confusing.
Anyone can do that.
Maybe the problem is that our society hasn't figured out how people are supposed to fit, and so people who want a place to fit don't find it as smoothly as they did.
Given who wrote the report, I think it is using the facts and research it has very selectively to argue a very specific agenda. Like many similar reports, it seems more interested in finding scapegoats rather than addressing the structural failures and lack of opportunities that make the easy answers of people like Tate attractive.