Insult humor among male friends can be about bonding or establishing a pecking order. But how do you know when it goes too far?

Published on: Aug 31, 2026, 16:00:58 IST

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A group of 40- and 50-something guy friends met up recently at a sports bar. As they were exchanging back slaps and handshakes, someone hurled the first insult: “Did My Little Pony throw up in your closet? I hate it when that happens.”

His buddy was an easy mark, wearing pants in a color perilously close to fuchsia. Suddenly, it was game on—and not the one playing on the bar’s big screen TV. The trash talk continued all night, some of the insults breathtakingly personal and often profane accompanied by raucous laughter. They all left vowing to get together again soon.

It’s a familiar scene. Men, gay and straight, have engaged in what anthropologists call “jocular abuse” since ancient times, when Spartan warriors were schooled in using wit to cut their peers to the quick. Today you find guys talking smack just about everywhere, from locker rooms to barrooms to boardrooms. It’s so second nature that if men are aware they are doing it, they can’t remember ever not doing it. But beneath the banter lies a more complicated and character-defining social dynamic.

“In Western cultures and especially in the U.S., men are just socialized this way,” says Dr. Drew Adelman, a clinical psychologist in Atlanta, GA. “It’s the idea of the pecking order.” No doubt there is a competitive aspect to ball-busting: whoever gets the most laughs wins (bonus points if the wisecrack has to do with a certain distinguishing feature of the male anatomy).

Brandon Thomas, a former United States Air Force pilot who now flies for a major commercial airline, likens it to battle-testing when someone proves they can take a hit and fire back.

“It’s how you develop mutual respect and reinforces that you’re close enough that you can do that and no one is going to get their feelings hurt,” he says. Not to mention close enough to come up with an insult that really lands. Academicians who study male insult culture say it also serves as an ego check to prevent anyone from getting too big for his breeches (fuchsia or otherwise).

Dr. Barbara Plester, an associate professor of management and international business at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, studies jocular abuse in the workplace and while she believes it can serve a prosocial function, she worries that it can sometimes cross the line into bullying. She recalls a young IT worker who’d been a particular target. “He was adamant it was fun,” she says. “He was going to get them back.” Still, she suspects that on some level he knew that if he complained or showed weakness, he might be excluded. The inner armor required to deflect a constant barrage of slings and arrows may explain why the incidence of alexithymia, difficulty processing and identifying emotions, is significantly higher in men.

Although an army of healthy masculinity experts and assorted dude gurus have sprung up in recent years encouraging men to learn to be more vulnerable, given the long history and pervasiveness of male insult culture, that’s a bit like telling them to stick a “kick me” sign on their backsides. “Showing your underbelly in that kind of environment is very unappealing,” says Panio Gianopoulos, a writer and editor in Westchester County, N.Y. “Your guy friends are not there for you to share your feelings so much as, like, you’re just kind of watching a movie together, and the movie is your lives, and you’re joking around and throwing popcorn at the screen.”

“My joke with my male clients is that we’re socialized to feel happy, horny or angry,” says Adelman. “Those are the only emotions that men are allowed to access because otherwise you get the label of that’s too feminine.” Difficult emotions like shame, humiliation, regret, fear and sadness often show up as anger, and that’s when insults can turn hurtful and corrosive. “You see men get really pissed off and put their fists through walls or through each other,” he says.

Gianopoulos says many men learn that they are “human beings with emotions” from their wives, girlfriends or female friends. That can be tricky, too, since women have likewise been socialized to expect men to suck it up. Moreover, women already tend to do more than their share of emotional labor in relationships. “So when a man is vulnerable and says, ‘Hey, I’m really sad about this thing, I’m really struggling,’ women might feel like, ‘Oh, great. Now I’ve got to hold this for this guy,’ ” says Jeremy Price, a psychotherapist in Denver

But men can be one of the guys without turning into insensitive jerks, says Jon Pillow, an educator and basketball coach at Pasadena Memorial High School outside Houston: “I see my job as coach as not only helping kids develop as players but also develop in their relationships with their teammates.” Part of that is pointing out when locker room banter crosses the line.

Not that it’s easy. The backlash against “wokeness” has further unleashed a no-holds-barred, “can’t you take a joke?” repartee that pushes the boundary between good-natured ribbing and withering humiliation. There’s also the question of knowing when to stop. Even slight jabs, if relentlessly delivered, can undermine, if not rupture, relationships.

“One person’s line may be completely different than someone else’s,” Pillow says and can change depending on the context and where the person is mentally. “If you pay attention to nonverbal cues, you can kind of tell when someone is taking something personal.” Which is an argument for toning down the trash talk in online group chats where you can’t read expressions or read the room.

Even so, Pillow says, there are certain things that you just don’t joke about, including disabilities, family members and love interests. A good rule of thumb is that you can make fun of attitudes, behaviors and yes, pants, but not core attributes or misfortunes a person can’t help.

And never do it in front of people outside the friend group, which is as indecorous and disloyal as family members airing their dirty laundry in public. When in doubt, Pillow advises asking yourself, “If this person were my son, would I want someone talking to him like that?”

Better yet, maybe call out something you admire once in a while. It’s said that men insult and don’t mean it, while women compliment and don’t mean it. Wouldn’t it be great for both sexes if we all tried a bit more authenticity?

Kate Murphy is the author of “Why We Click: The Emerging Science of Interpersonal Synchrony.”

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