Emasculation

This was something I brought up with Eddie and Jane some time ago. There was a time when the ideal man was a real man; he was rugged, strong and silent; he was a provider, a hero, he was always there to save the damsel in distress.

Not today. No, it seems that the male ideal today is sensitive, fashion-conscious and emotionally-attuned.... practically bordering on gay. The masculine ideal has done a complete about-face, and boy-man metrosexuals like Justin Timberlake and Andersoon Cooper are the rage. There is something almost borderline paedophilic about this. In effect, they want another woman, minus the menopause. There is something vaguely gay about this.

Which begs the question –Why are effeminate, pansified metrosexual-bordering on feminine Jude Law types all the rage today? How did the male ideal go from Cary Grant to Hugh Grant? What accounts for the vast shift in female desire of the masculine ideal?

This is perplexing. Guys don’t dig girls that are more like guys. Guys don’t find wouldn’t find a butch Hayley Wickenheiser-type female hockey player more attractive over a Kelly from Saved By the Bell cheerleader; most guys find female athletes less attractive (never mind the whole hormonal/lesbian thing). I’d say MOST guys would do a very mature-looking Cherlize Theron over the baby-faced Olsen twins (unless I could have both, then we’d reconsider).

I see the way things are today I think there’s been a lot of emasculation in the men today of my generation. The definition of what constitutes a man has taken has taken a complete about-face. Think of all the family sitcoms our generation up watching, from Home Improvement to Everybody Loves Raymond – wasn’t the father was always a clueless dunce, the mother always sensible, wise and all-knowing? Whatever happened to Father Knows Best? Where are the Ward Cleavers?

I think women do really hold the keys here, especially here in urban, educated circles; it is ultimately women who exercise choice, and it is for men to respond commensurately to the whims of the fairer sex or spend yet another night with the Vaseline. And I think this trend towards the pansifying of the masculine ideal in recent years has to do predominantly with two factors: greater female autonomy, and the homosexualization of Western culture.

I think the first factor is pretty clear; women of my generation are more educated than the average male. It means girls don’t need a guy to provide for them; they can go out and build a career themselves. And the guys getting shafted most in today’s economy are the conservative blue-collar guys who wield old-school views of "bringing home the bacon" – ironically, the guys that embody the (once) rugged notions of manliness like working with one’s hands and prided themselves in ‘providing for’ one’s family. In short, it means women – once at the mercy of men – today have options that have rendered a lot of males useless.

The second point needs further elucidation. If the 60s belonged to African-Americans, and the 70s to women in so far as the impact they made on altering the social fabric, then I think the period from the late 90s and 00s to the present day would be looked upon as the era of the gay male. Nobody used to talk much about guys that liked taking it up the pooper, but gay guys have really been a tour de force in recent years. Will and Grace, Sex and the City (written by gay guys), Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, American Idol and the quintillion home décor and fashion makeover shows in which gay guys play a prominent role, the huge popularity of the gay pride parade, not to mention redefining marriage... Gay guys have come out of the closet en masse and it’s really the straight guy that’s taken a backseat (pun intended).

So homosexuals have impacted upon the cultural fabric in the sense that the ideal man today is someone who is actually slightly gay. Forget a rugged, weathered Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire; even a guy like Dirty Harry or Humphrey Bogart or would be considered a brute by today’s standards. “Here’s looking at you kid.”? Are you kidding me? In 1941 perhaps, but no educated woman today would put up with that sort of patronizing BS. Bogey would be bitch-slapped so bad he’d be running for the waters in Morocco.

Not that I’m complaining – this trend actually bodes well for boyish-looking guys like us. But what I AM alarmed by is the utter wussification of the modern straight male, the absence of a Ward Cleaver type model figure for men of my generation, and I could see how this could be a source of consternation and lead to a lot of confused guys.