The Beast Inside Every Man

In literature, Jim Harrison got closest to this with his Legends of the Fall trilogy (1979). The 1995 film adaption, starring Brad Pitt, also explores the masculine madness (in this case, with a metaphor and living scenes with a grizzly) of the beast in any real man.

This beast is necessary to manliness. Without it, there is nothing left but a weak and ineffectual man. Women, though they might not admit or know it, are attracted to men with beasts in them that are mostly under control. They typically don’t find genetic men without this wild facet beneath the surface attractive.

It would be easy to detail the sociological or even genetic need for this beast; after all, to compete among men and to have the strength not to abuse women, a man needs this animal side of himself. Without it, he is self-loathing.

Women then need to tame this beast, but not too much. If they true to neuter such a man, they will either end up single or, worse, they’ll find themselves with an empty man, a man with nothing to give.

The man, meanwhile, must get to know this beast. The animal should be restrained, but not so completely that it can’t break its chains to defend themselves and their loved ones. Other men will sense the beast beneath the skin of another. They know they must be respectful.

The martial arts in particular are great at helping a man humble, but not neuter, the beast within him. It is there, ready, waiting, watching but under manly control. It will laugh when an ineffectual man tries to threaten it. It has the confidence not to act … until it must.

This is not something today’s pop-culture understands.