Me and George Bell first met 10 years ago as bearded young men passionate about mental health. I was starting Sanctus, and George had been writing about mental health for years. The stars aligned and George joined Sanctus.
We had a load of impact on the mental health landscape through Sanctus and through our own writing. Both being young men battling with lad culture and our masculine identities. This has always been an undercurrent for us, but we’ve never had an outlet purely focused on men to share our stories and opinions.
This is where JACK comes in.
George has just finished writing a book on masculinity, Be A Man About It, due for publication in 2026. And for the last 6 months I’ve been writing exclusively about men and masculinity on my LinkedIn and created a community for “1,000 Good Men”.
We’re both incredibly passionate about men, men’s mental health and masculinity. We’ve both struggled with our mental health and that’s definitely been related to our perceptions of ourselves as men. As we write this now, it’s estimated that a man takes his own life somewhere around the globe every 15 seconds. Depending on your reading speed, that’s at least 20+ men who have sadly taken their own lives by the time you get to the end of this article.
So that’s the reason we’re both here, writing this. Not only because of the suicide statistics, but because we deeply believe, and know, that there is a void for men in relatable, real, honest content. A space where they can see other men talking about the things they’re feeling and experiencing. This isn’t about telling men how to be more manly, or shutting down other publications or forms of content. It’s about expanding our sense of masculinity and what it means to be a man.
We want this publication to be a living, breathing thing. Not a rigid blog that delivers the same tired formula once a week while trying to push you towards some sort of a course. We want to know what you want to hear. What’s going on for you? What’s your mate struggling with? What’s the one thing you’ve never told anybody, but you wish you could? What does masculinity mean to you? This is a publication for you.
Because, the question is, where is the content for men?
There is, of course, no shortage of content out there in the world. Men’s publications, fitness influencers, male podcast hosts - it does exist.
The trouble we find is that it often falls into one very narrow version of masculinity. It’s either about physical body shape (which also coincidentally is only ever presented in one form), grooming products or something about Andrew Tate. It’s as though there’s a three-point checklist for what makes up masculinity, and that’s all anyone ever talks about.
Publications like Men’s Health and GQ are great and have mass appeal, but scanning the front covers below, we don’t see someone that looks like us. We see one body, copy and pasted. This isn’t a criticism of this body type or anyone who aspires to look like this. But what if we don’t? We can’t ignore the subtle, subconscious beliefs that are shaped by placing the words “Men’s Health” next to only one representation of man; as though there is only one way to do “health”.
And then, more broadly, we see the topic of “masculinity” picking up attention from journalists, politicians and celebrities, and don’t get us wrong, it’s great. But again, the message is always the same. How men and boys are lost and broken, coiled springs that if we don’t act quickly enough and save them from themselves, they’ll burst out into acts of rage and violence. And again, there'll be something about Andrew Tate in there, because he seems to be the only man that gets referenced when talking about men.
There are definitely troublesome influencers out there, and their growing appeal points to a problem that we can’t ignore. But the fact that media articles on masculinity seem to just reuse the same picture of Tate to represent men points to an absolute dearth of role models.
Is this really all we have on men? One physical image, one set of hobbies, one poster boy? We Googled “masculinity” and the below is was what was returned back. Muscles, manning up and yep, you guessed it, a certain influencer we’ve already mentioned enough.
We seem to have forgotten that masculinity is so much broader than this. Over the last year, I’ve (George) been writing a book on masculinity, and I’ve been privileged to speak to 40+ men about their experiences.
Conversations about erectile dysfunction, drug addiction, hair loss, grief, suicide, porn, sleeping around, becoming a father and so much more. If I was to challenge you or myself to go and find a place that has content on this, where would you go? What name jumps into your head?
There’s nothing I know of, other than Google. And then I know I’m relying on clinical NHS websites, unmoderated Reddit forums and someone probably trying to sell me something.
I’ve also talked to men who’ve said stuff that so many are thinking, but are scared to say. That they’re fed up of being labelled the problem all the time, fed up of being blamed for a "patriarchy” that they personally had no hand in building. That they feel embarrassed to voice their own struggles and issues, so deep has it been ingrained into them that they have no right to feel them.
This is a complex topic and it’s the murkiest of murky waters. Nothing we write here is about making it “woe is us”, or dismissing the very real struggle that women have faced for so long and in so many ways, often because of men.
But we know from experience and from speaking to plenty of experts that these things are very much present for men, but they’re scared to talk about them, because they know the “us versus them” mindset it immediately triggers in many. And so, again, there is a lack of content on this stuff. Instead it’s just left festering as thoughts in the heads of people, never resolving.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that this is what the JACK publication is here for. To fill a void for men. To give you a place where we talk about everything going on for men. That includes the fitness and the grooming, but it expands beyond that too.
The awkward conversations about sex. The way we brush our hair to hide our hair loss. The fact that we’re using Class A’s to escape. Wondering if we’re watching too much porn, scrolling through too many other attractive men and/or women on social media. Not knowing how to ask our mate if he’s okay. Not feeling able to tell him that we’re not okay. Wondering where our place is amongst feminism and #MeToo, and knowing what the right thing is to say. And also knowing it’s okay if we haven’t got it all figured out.
This is all masculinity. Nothing is off the table for this publication. If it’s happening to men, with men or because of men, let’s talk about it. It’s by not talking about stuff that stigma persists, divisions grow and statistics like the suicide rate tick up.
And on divisions, this publication is not about furthering them. It’s not about blaming others, pointing fingers or elevating men above other groups. We firmly believe in “humans vs the problems” rather than “us versus them”.
We might use this space to have a moan and a vent, but importantly we want to use it to say the unsaids, inspire and remind readers of the power and agency of change. If there’s something we don’t like, we normally have the power to change it for ourselves. But often the first step is education, awareness and feeling like you aren’t alone with it. And that’s the role we want this publication to play.
What would you love to see us write about? Hit reply or let us know in the comments/DMs.
Until next time.
James & George x
Thanks for writing this. These topics are very relatable to me and I'm glad you're speaking about them.