“We had one situation where someone talked about how they reached out to a woman because he felt like he may have crossed the line, but the woman didn’t think it was sexual assault,” said Mr. Fleisher, 40, an alumnus of Sterling’s Men’s Weekend who works as an acupuncturist. “This topic in general is an area where we need to dig deeper. Many men are struggling to come to terms with #MeToo and how they feel complicit in abuses, even if they aren’t the perpetrators, by not taking a more active stand for a woman’s sovereignty.”

Lest this all comes off as self-indulgent, devotees of men’s groups say blunt-force honesty is something that keeps them coming back. “I’m very verbose and have a lot of opinions,” said Mr. Krieger, who has been training for almost seven years to be in a volunteer leadership position in the MKP. “I started getting feedback that it was totally killing the energy in the circle and wasn’t leaving room for other people. Since I’m the boss at work, no one is going to tell me that to my face.”

Some are unflinching in requesting feedback. Instead of having a blowout party on his 50th birthday, Mr. Fried told his I-Group that he wanted each person to tell him something he needed to work on. Mr. Fried, now 55, said the experience made him realize that “I come with a lot of victimhood because I got infected with H.I.V. But the group has called me on that and helped me recognize that I’m a powerful man.”