He’s an environmentalist and supports feminism but he’s addicted to porn and dislikes his Dad…

Do you know kind of the guy I’m referring to? Progressive but something feels off. Let’s start by giving these men some credit: at least part of them doesn’t want to repeat the insensitivities they experienced growing up.

I’m thinking of one Birkenstock-wearing man who was so progressive I felt conservative beside him. He championed every minority, yet in private he was dismissive, passive-aggressive, and rarely without headphones—later he told me he “couldn’t tolerate his own mind.” A friend of a friend had dated him and ended things when she realised he was addicted to porn and sexually rough in ways that felt hurtful. He’d told me proudly that he loved rough sex.

This is why instincts matter. If we trust an idea about someone’s character instead of watching how they actually behave—how they handle conflict, or how they attune to us—we can fool ourselves. We think: He works in conservation, he fights for minorities, he’s against toxic masculinity, so he must be safe.

But some men cling to political identities to avoid resembling the men who hurt them. It’s not that they lack goodness; it’s that they build an acceptable progressive identity that sounds trustworthy on the surface, but conceals deep wounds beneath it,

How Violence Mutates

Violence doesn’t disappear—it takes new shapes. A man who grew up with physical aggression may not hit, but the unresolved energy shows up as:

Passive-aggression: shutting down, withholding, punishing through silence.
Moral superiority: using ideology as dominance—“I’m more evolved than you.”
Emotional manipulation: gaslighting or framing your boundaries as unreasonable.
Sexualized aggression: roughness, porn-driven scripts, or ignoring consent as a replay of old power dynamics.

It’s the same wound, just socially disguised.

If men never face the pain of the rough men who dismissed or shamed them, it will leak into relationships as insensitivity, boundary violations, or subtle emotional violence. They may make great friends, but as long-term partners they are unsafe until they do their inner work.

Takeaway

Pay attention to in-front-of-your-eyes behaviour, over ideology.
Watch how a man treats people he disagrees with, how he handles conflict, and how he attunes to you, and respects what you ask for.

Your instincts notice what your mind tries to explain away.
His politics are not his character.
His behaviour is.