I started following Adam Heath Avitable because I saw him roasting some guy on Instagram.

I stayed because I realized the roasting wasn’t really the point.

Underneath the sarcasm, the exasperated looks, the stitches, the jokes and the occasional absolutely deserved verbal evisceration, Adam is doing something much more useful.

He is talking to men.

Not about how to become more dominant. Not how to become an alpha. Not how to manipulate women into wanting you, make yourself appear more masculine, win the dating market, restore the natural order, or whatever variation of that nonsense the manosphere has invented this week.

He talks about how we behave.

How we listen.

How we respond when women tell us something makes them uncomfortable.

How quickly some men make women’s experiences about their own feelings.

How consent works. How entitlement works. How misogyny hides inside apparently ordinary behavior. How masculinity and toxic masculinity are not the same thing. How women having freedom does not somehow diminish ours.

And perhaps most importantly, how becoming a better man requires something considerably less glamorous than buying a truck, growing a beard or learning how to fight.

It requires accountability.

Calling Men Out Without Making Women Explain It Again

One of the reasons I appreciate Adam’s work is that women should not constantly have to provide remedial education to men about their own experiences.

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from saying, “This happens to us,” only to have somebody respond with, “Well, I don’t do that,” “not all men,” “what was she wearing?” or “maybe he was just being friendly.”

None of those responses engage with what the woman actually said.

They ask her to stop discussing the problem long enough to reassure a man that he personally isn’t the problem.

Adam doesn’t seem particularly interested in offering that reassurance.

One of his recent posts asks a wonderfully simple question: if content criticizing bad behavior by men makes you defensive, why? Another, published in August 2026, directly asks men for more self-awareness and accountability.

Adam Avitable on self-awareness and accountability

That is such an important distinction.

If somebody says men routinely make women feel unsafe and my first response is “But I don’t,” I have learned nothing.

If my response is, “What are men doing that creates that fear, have I ever contributed to it without realizing, and what can I do differently?” then perhaps the conversation can actually go somewhere.

Consent Is Bigger Than Sex

This, obviously, is where Adam’s work overlaps heavily with what we try to do here at Consent Culture.

Consent isn’t just the dramatic moment before sex.

It is whether somebody wants your hug.

Whether they want your attention.

Whether they want you touching them.

Whether “no” causes you to stop or causes you to begin negotiating.

Whether somebody is allowed to establish a boundary without being punished for it.

Whether we actually recognize another person as an autonomous human being rather than someone whose decisions become legitimate only after we agree with them.

Years ago, on Dating Kinda Sucks, Adam discussed how thinking seriously about the idea of a forced or unwanted hug became a catalyst for changing his own behavior and developing a better appreciation for women’s agency and boundaries.

Dating Kinda Sucks: “Male Audacity: What Women Don’t Want”

I love that example precisely because it isn’t spectacular.

Most violations of someone’s autonomy do not begin with a masked villain jumping from behind a tree.

They can begin with, “Come on, give me a hug.”

“Don’t be like that.”

“I’m just being friendly.”

“Why are you making this weird?”

The behavior might appear small to the person doing it. The principle underneath it isn’t.

Do I believe you are entitled to decide what happens to your body?

That question sits at the center of consent.

The “Nice Guy” Problem

Adam has also spoken publicly about the so-called “nice guy,” and I think this is another area where his approach is valuable.

Being kind to women isn’t feminism.

It isn’t heroic.

It certainly isn’t a deposit into some invisible sexual vending machine where enough friendship, favors and emotional support eventually produce sex.

In a 2021 conversation with psychologist and certified sex therapist Dr. Kate Balestrieri for Modern Intimacy, Adam discussed benevolent misogyny and the “nice guy” dynamic, including the assumption that kindness should eventually be rewarded romantically or sexually. The conversation also addressed Adam’s experience confronting misogynistic ideas within himself.

Modern Intimacy: “The Myth of the Nice Guy with Adam Avitable”

That transactional version of kindness isn’t kindness.

It is entitlement wearing a nicer shirt.

A woman does not owe me sex because I listened to her.

She doesn’t owe me a date because I supported her.

She doesn’t owe me attraction because I managed to behave like a decent human being.

Friendship with a woman is not a failed romantic relationship.

It can just be friendship.

It amazes me that this still needs explaining, but apparently it does.

His Target Isn’t Masculinity

I also appreciate that Adam doesn’t require men to stop being men.

There is an increasingly profitable little industry telling men that feminism wants to emasculate them. Apparently treating women as equals will cause your beard to fall out, your pickup truck to disappear and somebody from the government to confiscate your barbecue.

It is bollocks.

I like big cars. I have owned trucks. I lived on a farm. I used to own guns. I ride motorcycles. I like getting muddy and building things.

I also recently sat beside my little girl while we had our nails professionally done together for the first time.

None of those things make me more or less of a man.

They’re just things I enjoy.

Masculinity isn’t so fragile that nail polish can destroy it.

And if your definition of manhood requires women to be smaller, quieter, less powerful, less independent or more sexually available to you, you haven’t created strong masculinity.

You’ve created masculinity that requires somebody else’s subordination to survive.

Adam’s work repeatedly goes after that distinction. His content addresses toxic masculinity, but he has also pushed back against treating masculinity itself as inherently toxic. The problem is not being masculine. The problem is the entitlement, domination, misogyny and emotional restriction that can become attached to ideas about what men are supposedly required to be.

Adam Avitable on masculinity and toxic masculinity

Women Do Not Exist to Make Men Comfortable

A lot of Adam’s content ultimately comes back to women’s autonomy.

That includes sexual boundaries, reproductive freedom, safety in public, freedom from harassment, choosing whether to date men at all, and simply being able to exist without every decision becoming subject to male approval.

Dating Kinda Sucks, which Adam co-hosted with Sarah G., has tackled everything from the 4B movement and the “man or bear” conversation to tone policing, dating-app boundaries, objectification, adult sex education and the difference between setting a boundary and controlling a partner.

Dating Kinda Sucks: “Women Don’t Need Men: The 4B Movement”

His social content has also consistently supported women’s bodily autonomy and LGBTQIA+ people.

Adam Avitable on Instagram

And this is where conversations about “freedom” often become revealing.

Freedom cannot only mean my freedom.

Liberty means remarkably little if someone cannot walk through a public space without calculating whether the stranger following them is dangerous.

Equality means remarkably little if “no” is treated as the beginning of a negotiation.

Bodily autonomy means remarkably little if it disappears when someone becomes pregnant.

Sexual freedom means remarkably little without the equal freedom to say “not you,” “not now,” “not like that” or simply “no.”

And LGBTQIA+ equality means remarkably little if queer and trans people are tolerated only when they remain invisible enough not to upset everybody else.

Freedom that only works for people who already hold power isn’t freedom.

Then Adam Said Something That Made Me Like Him More

Before writing this article, I messaged Adam and asked whether he was comfortable with me featuring him here.

I told him I appreciated his work and wanted to amplify it. There was no sponsorship, no quid pro quo, and no expectation that he would promote us in return.

His response wasn’t, “Absolutely, tell everybody how wonderful I am.”

Instead, he warned me.

“Since I am someone who had a lot of years of shitty behaviors before I started to work on myself, there’s a chance that someone will ‘but what about …’ it.”

That sentence may be the most important reason this article belongs on Consent Culture.

Because I do not believe accountability requires pretending you were always the person you are trying to become.

Quite the opposite.

If we build a culture where admitting, “I behaved badly, I caused harm, I believed things I no longer believe, and I had to change” permanently disqualifies someone from ever speaking about better behavior, what exactly are we asking people to do?

Hide it?

Deny it?

Defend it forever?

Accountability is not amnesia.

Growth does not erase harm.

An apology does not obligate anyone who was hurt to forgive you.

And doing good work today does not create a retroactive moral exemption for yesterday.

But neither should accountability be confused with a belief that human beings are incapable of becoming better.

Adam did not ask me to hide his past.

He brought it up himself.

That matters to me.

Accountability Is Not the Same as Purity

I want to be very clear about something here.

This article is not a certificate of moral purity.

I don’t issue those.

I couldn’t issue one for myself if I tried.

There is criticism of Adam online, and there are people who strongly dislike him and his past behavior. I am not going to dismiss other people’s experiences simply because I like the work he produces today. Nor am I going to repeat every internet allegation as established fact when I cannot independently establish it.

What I can evaluate is what Adam said directly to me, the things he has discussed publicly about his own development, and the body of work he continues to put into the world.

And I think there is an important lesson here.

We sometimes talk about “good men” as if they are a separate species.

Good men don’t need accountability because good men never fuck up.

Bad men fuck up, and therefore they are permanently bad.

That framework is useless.

Human beings fuck up.

The meaningful questions are what we do when confronted with it, whether we listen, whether we repair what can be repaired, whether our behavior changes, and whether we use what we learned to reduce harm around us.

Accountability is a practice.

Not an identity.

What I Want My Daughter to See in Men

I am raising a daughter.

That has made some of these questions feel considerably less theoretical to me.

I want her to grow up knowing that men can be safe without being weak.

Strong without being controlling.

Protective without becoming possessive.

Confident without requiring obedience.

Sexual without being entitled.

Masculine without needing women to perform femininity for them.

And capable of hearing, “You hurt me,” without immediately transforming the conversation into, “But I’m a good person.”

I want her to understand that someone’s character isn’t measured by whether they can dominate a room.

Sometimes it is measured by whether they know when to shut up and listen.

I want her to see men apologizing.

Men changing their minds.

Men defending women when there is nothing in it for them.

Men supporting queer and trans people whose identities have absolutely nothing to do with them.

Men calling other men out instead of quietly deciding, “Well, I would never do that,” and walking away.

And yes, men confidently walking into a nail salon with their daughters and asking the women there for help choosing a color.

Because none of this threatens manhood.

It improves it.

Why We Love @avitable

I don’t agree with every person I feature on this site about everything.

That isn’t the standard.

What I look for are people adding something worthwhile to the world.

People willing to say difficult things.

People who make someone feel a little less alone.

People who amplify voices that have spent far too long being ignored.

People who understand that equality isn’t a loss for somebody else.

Adam Heath Avitable does that.

Sometimes calmly.

Sometimes compassionately.

Sometimes by staring into the camera with the expression of a man whose last remaining brain cell has just been killed by whatever misogynistic nonsense he has been asked to respond to.

And sometimes by absolutely roasting the person responsible.

I am fine with all four.

Follow Adam on Instagram at @avitable.

Listen to what he says.

More importantly, if something he says makes you defensive, don’t immediately write the rebuttal.

Ask yourself why.

You don’t have to have been perfect to become better.

You don’t have to hate masculinity to reject toxic masculinity.

You don’t lose freedom when women gain more of it.

And being a good man isn’t something you announce.

It is something the people around you should be able to experience.

Sources and Further Listening

Adam’s recent Instagram and Facebook posts continue to focus on male accountability, abuse, misogyny and women’s safety. You can follow his current work on Instagram and Facebook.

His earlier discussion of unwanted hugging, boundaries and women’s agency appears in the 2020 Dating Kinda Sucks episode “Male Audacity: What Women Don’t Want.”

His discussion with Dr. Kate Balestrieri about the “nice guy” trope, benevolent misogyny and confronting misogynistic beliefs within himself was published by Modern Intimacy in 2021 in “The Myth of the Nice Guy with Adam Avitable.”

Dating Kinda Sucks has also covered women’s independence, the 4B movement, the man-versus-bear conversation, tone policing, boundaries, objectification and related issues across its run, including “Women Don’t Need Men: The 4B Movement.”