Here I am again, talking about virility, circling back to a theme I’ve tackled before. And, as always, just when I think I’ve said enough, something pops up to prod me again. This time it was the French podcast Les Couilles sur la table that left me both unsettled and inspired to write about virility — that cultural enigma running through centuries of rituals, wars, humiliations, and, more recently, even sperm races in Los Angeles.
From the initiatory rites of Ancient Greece to the shaved heads and endless drills of military service, and the punishments of republican schools designed to teach obedience, the message has long been the same: manhood isn’t something given, it’s something conquered — through pain, silence, and ideally, quite a bit of violence.
And here I’ll admit, as a man: I grew up in that atmosphere, bombarded with explicit and subtle demands to be “strong,” “tough,” “invulnerable.” Spoiler: it’s never enough. There’s always someone to remind you that you can — and must — be “more of a man.” Virility is a race without a finish line, a marathon that starts early and never ends.
Which is why, when I hear these conversations or read thinkers like Olivia Gazalé, it strikes me that virility isn’t just cultural practice — it’s a system. A machine that molds, oppresses, and polices. One that, as Gazalé points out, isn’t so much about the “father” (as in patriarchy) as it is about the constant performance of virility — what she calls the viriarchal system.
The myth of virility and its historical invention
Gazalé uses the term viriarchy to describe this machinery of mass-producing “virile men.” Unlike patriarchy, which locates male power in the figure of the father, viriarchy highlights the demand to display virile attributes — strength, hardness, potency — as the true basis of social recognition. It’s not enough to be born male: you have to prove it, perform it, and repeat it.
This system rests on three not-so-subtle pillars: domination, emotional repression, and violence. Domination over nature, over nations, over women, and most of all, over other men. Emotional repression, because crying, fearing, or showing vulnerability has always been branded “feminine.” And violence, because without the ability to hit and take a beating, your membership in the club of virility doesn’t count.
And like all good myths, virility isn’t natural: it was invented. Alain Corbin, Jean-Jacques Courtine, and Georges Vigarello show in their monumental Histoire de la virilité that what it means to be “virile” has shifted radically across centuries. The Roman warrior, the medieval knight, the Renaissance courtier, and the French republican soldier have little in common — except the demand to embody whatever ideal the times required.
Elisabeth Badinter, in XY: De l’identité masculine, reminds us that chromosomes don’t define manhood. For centuries it seemed obvious that every man should conform to a fixed ideal. But feminism and cultural change blew that ideal apart. Today, men are forced to ask what it really means to “be a man” — and the answer certainly isn’t written in DNA.
Pierre Bourdieu helps explain why virility feels so natural. In La domination masculine, he argues that virility is a form of symbolic power: a cultural construct imposed as if it were self-evident, inscribed into bodies, gestures, and language. What looks like “male instinct” is, in reality, centuries of pedagogy, painful rites, and daily surveillance. It’s the naturalization of the artificial.
The problem? This ideal was never democratic. It excluded and stigmatized anyone who didn’t fit: the poor, foreigners, homosexuals, “effeminate” men. Virility has always been a party for the few, paid for with the suffering of the many — a trap where both men and women end up ensnared.
What men do to other men
If virility were only about dominating women or conquering territory, it would be bad enough. But it also unfolds among men. And this is where the viriarchal system reveals its most perverse — and absurdly comic — side: punches, humiliations, tests of endurance, painful rituals, and the endless contest to earn the badge of “real man.”
From military drills to classroom punishments to hazing rituals that look more like torture, boys learn early that joining the club of virility requires suffering. It’s not only about strength; it’s about enduring pressure, swallowing fear, and concealing weakness.
Growing up, you learn there is no rest. Someone is always watching — and criticizing — your masculinity. Fail the test, and humiliation hits twice: first inside, through your own self-judgment; then outside, through social ridicule. Men become each other’s police, enforcing an invisible manual with punishments ranging from sarcasm to exclusion.
And no, we don’t need to look back to Ancient Greece or fascist drills to understand this. The logic persists: virility sustains itself through peer violence. It’s a never-ending contest, a cruel reality show without cameras — but with a very real audience.
But if we think about it, maybe that’s precisely what makes the system so resilient: virility is never just individual; it is collective, performed and monitored, internalized by men themselves. A vicious circle of pressure, pain, and performance that turns adult life into a constant stage, where everyone expects you to be stronger, faster, tougher — more of a man.
Virility as spectacle: Spermule 1
If virility used to be measured in battle scars, painful rites, or feats of strength, today it’s been fully spectacularized. Case in point: on April 25 in Los Angeles, the world’s first sperm race was held, baptized Spermule 1. Complete with audience, commentators, stage lights, VIP tickets, and Hollywood flair.
The logic is simple and absurd: men can now compete to find out who has the fastest, strongest—and, believe it or not, the most “delicious” sperm. What could have remained a mere scientific curiosity has turned into a symbolic performance of masculinity, with its own rules and a ceremony that blends frustration, euphoria, and public humiliation. The loser, sprayed with a liquid suspiciously resembling semen, is reminded that virility, after all, is still a race—now microscopic, but just as cruel.
And there’s a serious backdrop behind the show: the decline in male fertility over the past five decades. It’s the contemporary version of measuring masculine potency, but now with high-definition cameras and 3D graphics. The competition is no longer merely symbolic; it is biological, monitored, and broadcast live — a spectacle that blends science, marketing, and a certain touch of sadism.
If Bourdieu were here, he would probably call this high-definition symbolic power: virility is not only what you feel or do, but also how it is performed, observed, and evaluated. From Achilles’ sword to the microscopic races of sperm, man still finds himself in competition — only now with an audience, spotlights, and hashtags.
Looking at this panorama, it becomes clear how the silent pressure to become “more of a man” cuts across generations and contexts. Virility, far from being a natural attribute, persists as a cultural performance, now intensified by stage design, marketing, and real-time broadcasting, exposing the theatricality of the standards that shape behaviors and expectations.
Reinventing masculinity
If virility has always been a race — sometimes bloody, sometimes tragicomic — maybe it’s time to stop measuring everything with rulers, stopwatches, or microscopes. Olivia Gazalé insists: the way forward is not to revive the old model but to create space for a plural masculinity, one that can embrace vulnerability, affection, and diversity.
Today, being a man no longer has to mean swallowing fear, hiding emotions, or proving strength at every corner. We can imagine men who express themselves without the constant surveillance of the “invisible manual of virility,” men who engage with their own bodies, their emotions, and the world in broader ways. Badinter was already pointing this out back in the 1990s: masculine identity is not reducible to the XY formula, nor must it bow to rigid stereotypes.
There is something civilizational in the collapse of the virility myth: when the pressure to perform fades, space opens up for more egalitarian relationships, for conscious choices, and for a healthier humor about what it means to be a man. After all, if virility can be measured in racing sperm, perhaps it can also be measured in empathy, creativity, attentiveness — or simply in freedom.
The very fact that dialogue exists — among women and, above all, among men — about the question of virility signals hope. Reinvention is not a sign of weakness but of courage: the courage to laugh at oneself, to welcome vulnerabilities, and at the same time to rethink what is truly worth pursuing.
Final notes, in maximum dose:
You’ve got to be “more of a man” to put Les Couilles sur la Table
From Achilles’ spear to sperm races in Los Angeles, men have always found ingenious — and pathetically creative — ways to prove their virility. Painful rites, schoolyard humiliations, military service, feats of strength, and now 3D graphics of sperm sprinting down a racetrack: nothing seems to escape the compulsion to measure who is “more of a man.”
Growing up in this landscape is like taking part in an absurd reality show without knowing there are hidden cameras. We learned to swallow tears, to mask fear, to laugh at ourselves while society scrutinized every gesture, every breath, every performance. And even then, we were never enough. There was always an invisible referee ready to call us out for a “masculinity foul.”
But what if the real punchline of this whole theater is realizing that virility was always a farce? That the manual we were handed is as useful as a broken compass in the desert? Maybe the true power lies in laughing at it — laughing loudly, laughing together, laughing at ourselves — while at the same time choosing a masculinity that doesn’t depend on microscopic trophies, rigid uniforms, or endless endurance tests.
Being a man, after all, doesn’t have to mean domination, silencing, or spectacle. It can mean courage to feel, to fail, to change. It can be ethics, empathy, and creativity. It can be poetry, vulnerability, freedom. Perhaps we can finally transform the eternal race of virility into something more interesting: a dance — imperfect, human, and collective — where each man sets his own rhythm.
And let’s be honest: it would be delightful to watch all the would-be “virile men” tripping over themselves together on this stage of life, with no prize, no microcamera, just laughing at their own madness. Because maybe, in the end, the greatest act of male courage is simply not taking virility seriously.
Referências
- Badinter, E. (1994). XY: De l’identité masculine. Paris: Odile Jacob.
- Bourdieu, P. (1998). La domination masculine. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
- Corbin, A., Courtine, J.-J., & Vigarello, G. (Eds.). (1991). L’invention de la virilité: De l’Antiquité aux Lumières. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
- Gazalé, O. (2017). Le mythe de la virilité: Une piège pour les deux sexes. Paris: Robert Laffont.
- Van Lierde, M. (2025, 15 de maio). Insolite: Spermule 1, la toute première course de spermatozoïdes au monde a eu lieu à Los Angeles. DHnet. https://www.dhnet.be/buzz/2025/05/15/insolite-spermule-1-la-toute-premiere-course-de-spermatozoides-au-monde-a-eu-lieu-a-los-angeles-3JYA27224RADBHRCD2TICIH6Q/
- Podcast Les Couilles sur la table. (2025). Entrevistas com Olivia Gazalé e Naomi Titti. France: https://open.spotify.com/show/3xk078ZrBB5X75zQzHEHRN
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