“Silencing to the poor behavior of boys and men creates emotionally fragile men. Don’t coddle.” Lisa Merlo-Booth
The Alexander brothers didn’t become who they are overnight.
Monday, March 9, 2026, all three –– Tal, Oren, and Alon Alexander –– were found guilty of conspiracy to sex trafficking, and of raping, drugging, and sexually assaulting dozens of women. Found guilty on every count. The allegations stretch back to high school. As one classmate put it: “It was a privileged bunch of privileged kids. They got to do whatever they wanted, say whatever they want—without any consequences.” Vanity Fair
Decades passed before anyone stopped them.
Tal and Oren were prominent, well-connected real estate agents who ran with some of the wealthiest and most powerful in the world. None of these people intervened. None of them addressed the concerns, protected the women, or looked a little closer at the convenient “players” label that somehow made it all seem okay. Not one. The level of collusion, coddling, and enabling of these men likely started in childhood and followed them everywhere: parents who defended them, friends who laughed, colleagues who looked away, clients who kept calling, a world enamored by their wealth and lifestyle readily opening doors for them no matter what the rumors held. Collusion that thorough doesn’t happen by accident. It is a culture.
Sadly, that culture is not the exception. It is the rule. It is the thumbprint for how we raise boys and men.
I see it everywhere: wives going silent rather than naming what’s happening; men laughing off the harmful behavior of their friends; bosses shrinking before angry male employees; parents running interference for their sons; therapists carefully managing the feelings of men who don’t want to be challenged. It is constant. It is subtle and quiet. And then, in the next breath, it is bold, loud, and relentless.
It sounds like:
- I know my son. He wouldn’t do that.
- He was drunk –– we don’t want to ruin his future over one bad night.
- He’s a good guy. He didn’t mean anything by that. Don’t be so sensitive.
- I don’t want to upset him.
- Your father had a hard day. He loves you and didn’t mean to get so angry.
What all of the above have in common is: they protect the men — even when the men are the ones doing the harm.
The cost of this protection is enormous. When you spend your life being shielded from accountability, when people tiptoe around you, placate your anger, and excuse your behavior, you never develop the capacity to handle being challenged. This coddling produces a rarely named, deeply toxic pattern: emotional fragility. Our culture trains boys to be emotionally fragile. Then it labels that fragility as strength.
Emotional fragility is an extreme sensitivity and hair-trigger reaction to criticism, limits, or challenges to your behaviors. When you’re emotionally fragile, feedback feels like an attack and your knee-jerk response becomes defending, collapsing, or exploding.
For many men, and certainly for the Alexander brothers, this fragility takes on an aggressive, intimidating form. Intimidating emotional fragility is a pattern of harsh, aggressive knee-jerk reactions designed to shut down any communication that feels uncomfortable or personally challenging. It’s the harsh snapping, the blowup, the cold shoulder designed to punish, the counter-attack that blames the person who dared to challenge you. The message is unmistakable: I am beyond reproach. Challenge me and you’ll regret it.” Delivered enough times, that message sinks in. People stop challenging. Loved ones distance. They learn that your fragility runs deep and eventually give up on the possibility of change. You interpret their silence as peace. Unbeknownst to you, they feel disconnected –– and begin to look for exits.
This is the loop and the two forces that keep it locked in place:
- The cultural reflex to protect men from accountability –– don’t embarrass them, don’t confront them, don’t make them feel small.
- Males responding to criticism, challenge, or limits with anger, defensiveness, or aggression.
These two forces feed each other. And the more they feed each other, the greater the harm –– to men, women, and our world. The damaging loop they create is: The more men react to honest feedback with hostility, the less people offer it. The less feedback they receive, the less capacity they build to handle it –– and the more fragile they become. The more fragile men become, the more carefully the world walks around them; excusing, softening, going silent. The more their harmful behavior is excused and normalized, the more dangerous and entrenched it grows. And so the loop tightens.
Men who are seldom truly held accountable become more entitled, more fragile, and more harmful. Not despite the protection offered to them, but because of it. The Alexander brothers are not an anomaly. They are the destination a culture comes to when left unchecked –– a culture stamped with the same thumbprint that shaped them from the beginning.
And the result is devastating: men who are lonely and disconnected from anything real, and women who are harmed and too often, killed.
Challenge to those around men: How many times have you stopped a confrontation because you knew how he’d react? Apologized for holding him accountable because his anger made you feel like the problem? Kept the peace at the cost of the truth?
Dare to change this pattern. The stakes are too high not to.
Challenge to men: How many people in your life have gone quiet around you? How many times have you snapped, blew up, or blamed others for being too sensitive or critical when they attempted to hold you accountable? The cost of your fragility is not just yours to pay –– it is paid by everyone who loves you, works with you, and lives alongside you.
Dare to change this pattern. The stakes are too high not to.
