Christina Spears Brown - Shyness Doesn’t Make a Boy Any Less of a Man

One of the better blogs at Psychology Today is Beyond Pink and Blue by Christia S. Brown, Ph.D. In this recent post (yesterday), she reports on a new study from Sex Roles: A Journal of Research - Bashful Boys and Coy Girls: A Review of Gender Differences in Childhood Shyness.

This particular study found that by elementary schools boys report 50% lower incidence of shyness than do girls (by 5th grade). This is interesting because at birth, rates of shyness (being inherited) are roughly equal between the sexes. 

Based on these findings, it seems boys begin to under-report their shyness - and the likely reason is that shyness is not masculine.

Shyness Doesn’t Make a Boy Any Less of a Man

Parents, teachers, and peers penalize shy boys, leading to long-lasting stress

Published on September 3, 2014 by Christia S. Brown, Ph.D. in Beyond Pink and Blue

Maybe it’s our culture’s preoccupation with superheroes, or pirates, or football players, or cowboys, or explorers, or astronauts, or firefighters. All of these brave and bold archetypes are almost always depicted as men, and are heavily marketed to boys. I have learned these facts the hard way, slogging through toy aisle after toy aisle. As a mother of a daughter who loves superheroes, I am well aware of how difficult it is to find female superheroes (thank goodness for eBay). And we have plenty of firefighter toys, because my husband is one, but they are all men. This is a minor frustration to me, as I would love to more easily show my daughters models of brave, bold, and daring women.

But a new study published in Sex Roles: A Journal of Research by researchers Laura Doey, Robert Coplan, and Mila Kingsbury is a stark reminder that there are times when living in a gender stereotypical culture is much harsher for boys than girls.

The study examined the issue of shyness in children. Shyness is part of our temperament from birth. It has complex biological foundations, and seems to be largely heritable. Shyness is associated with fear and anxiety in social situations, and leads kids to feel self-conscious and inhibited. Shy kids do not boldly rush into new situations. They typically speak less and interact with their peers less often. They are not depressed or “broken.” They are simply shy (largely because of the genes they inherited from mom and dad).

When children are infants, in preschool, and in early elementary school, there are no differences in shyness between boys and girls. By 5th grade, however, twice as many American girls than boys label themselves as shy! These vast gender differences continue through adolescence as well.

What happened? Why did shyness, which started as a biological trait that was similar across boys and girls, become doubled in girls relative to boys by middle school?

Although the answers are complex, a big reason, according to the authors, is that boys aren’t SUPPOSED to be shy, fearful, or anxious. Shyness definitely doesn’t’ fit the stereotype. We never hear about the meek and quiet superhero, pirate, football player, cowboy, explorer, astronaut, or firefighter.

It appears that boys begin to under-report feeling shy by late elementary school. In other words, they don’t become less shy. They just learn to hide it better. The question immediately becomes why hide a biological, heritable, perfectly normal trait. Because boys (but not girls) are penalized for showing shyness, as though it is a sign of weakness.

In a review of past research, the researchers highlight the ways that parents, teachers, and peers discourage and punish boys for displaying signs of shyness. We see that shy boys are consistently encouraged to be assertive and bold, whereas shy girls are allowed to be who they naturally are. Parents in cross-national samples reward sadness, fear, and shyness in girls, but punish boys for the same emotions. In other studies, mothers interact less positively with shy boys than with shy girls. These differences seem to be exacerbated among parents who endorse gender stereotypes.

We also see differences in how shy boys and shy girls are treated in the classroom. “For example, teachers from the U.S. tend to praise boys for outspoken behaviors, but praise girls for restraining spontaneous conversations in the classroom.” Boys get the message from their peers at school, too. Shy boys are more likely to be rejected by their peers than shy girls.

The researchers even point to studies that have examined children’s books. In one study, children’s storybooks were analyzed and found that shy male characters were portrayed as having exceptionally unhappy and difficult lives compared to shy female characters (who seem pretty content to sit and read a book). It doesn’t take much in-depth research to notice that boys’ toys almost exclusively feature aggressive, heroic action figures.

The stereotype that boys should not be shy is even reflected in children’s memory. When children were read vignettes about other children, they remembered more information about the story and the characters when the story involved a shy girl compared to a shy boy. This is a common principle in the stereotyping literature­– when it fits the stereotype, it is easier to remember.

Why does penalizing boys for being shy, and only showing them bold brave role models, matter? Because research shows that it is extremely stressful to be shy when you are a boy. Even in preschool, shy boys have higher cortisol levels (the hormone that becomes elevated when stressed) throughout the day compared to shy girls. This increased stress level stays throughout childhood. If you conceptualize drug and alcohol use as a means of coping with stress, it is not surprising that being shy increases the likelihood that boys will engage in substance abuse in adolescence. For girls, being shy actually reduces their likelihood to drink or do drugs.

This research puts my frustration at only finding Wonder Woman party supplies on eBay in perspective. The reality is that I can find Wonder Woman, so I can show my daughter bold role models (in tiaras). I can also find plenty of quiet role models. She is allowed to be timid when she wants to be and no one seems to mind.

My concern is for all the shy boys who have a much harder time finding timid or meek male role models. Timid men are only portrayed as less-than "real men." The Clark Kent rube hiding the real hero Superman. "Man up!," boys are frequently told. But the reality is not the stereotype: being timid is not a weakness nor a deficit. It is simply a temperamental style children are born with, one without a real gender difference, and one not to be punished or penalized.

Reference:
Doey, L., Coplan, R.J., & Kingsbury, M. (2014). Bashful boys and coy girls: A review of gender differences in childhood shyness. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research; 70(7-8): 255-266.

Abstract

Shyness is a temperamental trait characterized by a fear of novel social situations and self-consciousness in situations of perceived social evaluation. From early childhood to adolescence, shyness is associated with a host of negative outcomes including poor peer relationships (e.g., exclusion, victimization), internalizing problems (e.g., anxiety, depression), and school adjustment difficulties (e.g., lack of academic success, school avoidance). It has been suggested that shyness may be less socially acceptable for boys than for girls because it violates gender norms related to male social assertion and dominance. In the current paper, we review the empirical support for this assertion. More specifically, we examined: (1) possible gender differences in the prevalence of shyness; (2) how important others (i.e., parents, teachers, peers) might respond differentially to shyness in boys compared to girls; and (3) potential gender differences in the implications of shyness across multiple domains. Most of this research has been conducted with school-aged children from Canada and the United States. However, we also explore findings from emerging cross-cultural studies in this area. Possible conceptual mechanisms that may underlie differences in the potential implications of shyness for boys and girls are then discussed, as well as several prospective directions for future research.

The same journal posted a commentary on this article, and it also is not available due to a paywall. For those who might be interested, here is the abstract:
 

Sex Roles; April 2014: 70(7-8): 285-308.

Commentary: Bashful Boys and Coy Girls: A Review of Gender Differences in Childhood Shyness

Heidi Gazelle, Divya Peter, Maedeh Aboutalebi Karkavandi

Abstract

In this commentary we argue that subjective reviews of gender differences, as opposed to empirical meta-analyses, can be more affected by influences which may not yield an objective evaluation of the available evidence, including the potential overrepresentation of articles that do versus do not find gender differences and lack of a systematic evaluation of factors that influence findings. We consider theoretical bases for considering shyness to be detrimental to the development and wellbeing of girls. These include perspectives that characterize girls as being particularly affected by their personal relationships and children of both genders as influenced by patterns of same-gender interaction. Some perspectives are helpful in conceptualizing why gender difference patterns can be nuanced over the course of development, across different outcomes, contexts, and historical periods. We also briefly consider the utility of diathesis × stress and differential susceptibility models in understanding gendered patterns of adjustment. We argue that reviews of gender differences in childhood shyness should address the gender difference paradox in childhood shyness and anxiety. That is, why are gender differences in the prevalence of shyness typically absent in early to middle childhood (as concluded in the review article), but girls and women consistently demonstrate higher rates of anxiety disorders, including social anxiety disorder, than their male counterparts in adolescence and adulthood? Finally, we conclude with comments encouraging researchers to consider the potential consequences of how they convey messages about gender differences in childhood shyness. We suggest how such information can be communicated in a responsible manner.

Lana Wachowski's Emotional Coming Out Speech

The video below has been making the rounds on Facebook since it was released last week. It features Lana Wachowski (born as Laurence ["Larry"] Wachowski), one half of the Wachowski directing team that created the Matrix Trilogy and most recently, Cloud Atlas. She first went public with her transition in July of this year, following an operation to correct the biology of her birth.

According to Huffington Post, her process of becoming herself has been a topic of rumors for almost a decade.

Lana's personal life has been a source of headline fodder for years now. 

In 2002, Wachowski was going through a bitter divorce from wife Thea Bloom, as People magazine reported at the time. In 2003, a date Wachowski took to the Cannes Film Festival told the British tabloids that the director was a "cross-dresser."

That same year the Gothamist reported on a column written by movie journalist Dave Poland, alleging that Wachowski was in the process of undergoing a "sex change".

"Every indication I have says that Larry Wachowski is now in the process of changing his sex," Poland wrote. "Dressing in public like a woman, taking female hormones and yes, having a sex change operation."

It's unfortunate that she had to go through this in the public eye - among the transgender clients I have worked with, simply doing this privately and dealing with friends and family is difficult enough. 

Ms. Wochowski gave this 25-minute talk, a very rare appearance on this side of the camera, during an Oct. 20 fundraising dinner for the the Human Rights Campaign in San Francisco. She talks about growing up as a woman living inside a male body, the wrong body, and the abuse and shaming she experienced as she tried to reconcile her gender identity with the biology with which she was born. At one point, she had her suicide planned out.

Fortunately, she never chose that option.

But many transgendered youth do choose suicide. In fact, more than 50% of Transgender youth will have had at least one suicide attempt by their 20th birthday. This is a horrible statistic, and one that we can change through awareness of what these young people are going through and support for their identities, including the right to have corrective surgery if that is desired.

Blessings to Lana Wachowski for bravely stepping forward to speak her truth.


You can read about the event here - and there is a good interview with Wachowski here.

Finally, kudos to the Hollywood Reporter for handing this story with compassion and integrity.

Documentary - The Erectionman

One of the most successful drugs of all time is the infamous little blue pill - Viagra. This less than serious documentary takes a look at The Erectionman, the supplier of erections for flaccid men everywhere. And they also look at what Viagra says about male sexuality and anxiety - Viagra is essential to the belief that men must be "ready" on demand.

The Erectionman Synopsis

This movie tracks the history of a little pill that popped on to the market ten years ago, and turned the world upside down. These tiny blue diamonds are also known as Viagra. Nosy and armed with a healthy dose of humor, the director discovers a tale about virility, anxiety and the state of our modern-day man. How one little pill changed the course of sexual evolution.

Film Credits

Starring

1. Irwin Goldstein
2. Michael Schaap
3. Chip Rowe

Director

1. Michael Schaap

Producers

1. Bruno Felix
2. Femke Wolting

Writer

1. Michael Schaap

WiseGuyz - Teaching Young Men about Sex and Sexuality in the Age of Internet Porn

This looks like a great program - one that should be implemented in all schools. If we can help young men think about sex and sexuality differently than they might otherwise (which means different from the cultural messages), we can help them grow up to be good men.

In the age of Internet porn, teaching boys to be good men

by ZOSIA BIELSKI
Published Saturday, Apr. 21, 2012

• What is a nymphomaniac? And is it okay to have a relationship with them?
• Is it wrong or weird to think of someone else while having sex with someone?
• Why is it okay for guys to have multiple sex partners but not girls?
• Is it okay to masturbate five times a day?

Deep questions – at least if you consider they're being asked by 14- and 15-year-old boys.

More related to this story

• Many teens say Internet better than parents for sex ed
• The teen sex sleepover: Why so squeamish, mom and dad?
• Canada’s teen birth and abortion rate drops by 36.9 per cent

The new sex ed for guys

In Blake Spence's class, no topic is off-limits, especially when a boy has dropped it anonymously into the “question box.” Mr. Spence, 28, co-ordinates the WiseGuyz Program, now on offer to Grade 9 boys in two Calgary high schools. In 14 two-hour sessions offered once a week, the guys talk – yes, talk, without girls in the room – about everything from reproductive anatomy, sexually transmitted infections and birth control to relationships, values and the media.

WiseGuyz, run by the Calgary Sexual Health Centre (which gave Mr. Spence his training), isn't just sex ed with an update. It's part of a new wave of initiatives to intervene in a young, male culture that is giving many adults cause for concern.

Long-term, the aim is to combat the rates of domestic violence and sexually transmitted infections. Short-term, the goal is to tutor young men in healthy relations with women and non-destructive masculinity.

A U.S. study of 1,430 Grade 7 students published last month found that nearly one in six (15 per cent) reported being physically abused by someone they had dated; one in three (37 per cent) said they had been victimized psychologically or electronically in a romantic context.

“The script about what sexual relationships should be has been written for young men – that they have to be the aggressors and that it's about their pleasure, not necessarily their female partner's,” Mr. Spence says.

He also points out that boys in Grade 9 today “consume a lot of pornography.” Thus, “they need a lens to understand that those messages can be harmful, and that they're actually not realistic. We're giving them a context to consider.”

At a time when media and college-campus chatter seem to celebrate binge-drunk sex, disposable partners and protracted adolescence as the norm, critics such as Wendy Shalit and Laura Sessions Stepp have raised the alarm about “girls gone wild,” while seeming to neglect the other half of the equation.

But educators, at least, are increasingly shifting their focus to the masculinity script.

They say they need to start early: As young men construct their sexuality, they are being presented with myriad misogynist offerings, from the blatantly sexist attitudes of Tucker Max's “fratire” bestseller I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell or on TV in Two-and-a-Half Men, to a “pickup artist” scene that has spewed out countless “seduction manuals” and boot camps for guys eager to try out techniques such as “negging,” which involves bulldozing a sexual prospect's self-esteem to break down her resistance.

On campus, disturbing signs of what feminist critics call “rape culture” have emerged, including a 2010 late-night march by a Yale University fraternity that saw pledges walk around a female-freshman-housing area chanting “No means yes! Yes means anal!”

Equally queasy messages can be found in advertising: Earlier this month, a Facebook ad for vodka manufacturer Belvedere showed a man pinning down a frightened woman in his lap. “Unlike some people, Belvedere always goes down smoothly,” the tagline read.

Most of all, perhaps, hard-core porn is now also seeping into the way adolescent and teenage boys navigate sex.

“Two clicks away and you're watching people have sex, all kinds of ways of women being degraded,” laments Pam Krause, executive director of the Calgary Sexual Health Centre. “Is there a message in urinating on a woman's face? If your parents aren't talking about sex with you, and you aren't getting good sex ed at school, that might be your first and perhaps only context for sex and sexuality for a while.”

A British survey published by Psychologies magazine in 2010 found that 81 per cent of 14-to-16-year-olds (regardless of gender) had looked at porn online at home, while 63 per cent called it up on their phones; a third of them had seen sexual images online when they were 10 or younger. A 2006 study involving rural Alberta youth from 17 schools found that 88 per cent of Grade 8 boys had viewed porn online, while 60 per cent had watched sex videos or DVDs.

“The availability of free Internet porn means not only that pornography is instantly available to anyone of any age, it also means that porn has permeated the culture to the point where its dominant messages about women, men, sex and power have permeated areas that we don't think of as porn: advertising, film and television,” says Michael Messner, a sociology and gender studies professor at the University of Southern California.

“A challenge facing any adults working with boys is just to get them to think about and talk about these images, while not falling back on the guilt-loaded, anti-sex strategies that have proven so unsuccessful in the past.”

WiseGuyz was first piloted in 2010, and it will be adapted into a non-mandatory curriculum available to schools this fall. (Students need consent from their parents.) Teachers and administrative staff nudge into it the boys they think would benefit most: “It might be guys already in relationships, guys that get into trouble often, guys that have potentially negative attitudes about women or about someone from the LGBTQ community,” Mr. Spence says.

Whether it's boys-only sex ed such as WiseGuyz, hockey coaches slipping in gender studies during practice or anti-sexism campaigns for college guys, educators hope that young men will begin asking themselves: “What is masculinity, and why do I act the way I do?”

It's a fine tightrope walk, to discuss these subjects without vilifying men, emasculating or using the dreaded F-word – feminism. That's tricky, given that the new programs for guys only “exist because of feminism,” according to Prof. Messner, author of It's All for the Kids: Gender, Families, and Youth Sports. He argues that although few young men today would self-identify as feminists (and neither would many of their female peers), a lot of them would agree with feminist positions on issues such as equal pay or violence against women.

“The trick is for these guys to come to see these issues not just as women's issues but as their issues, too,” he says. “Feminism as a movement is stalled partly because of backlash against it, but also because we have not yet taken the next step, which is to involve boys and men in seeing how feminism promises to broaden their lives in healthier directions.”

A CASE FOR SEX-SEGREGATED SPACE

 

Most of these new initiatives involve segregating the sexes, which is something of a throwback, as co-ed is the gold standard in contemporary sex education. But proponents suggest that it lets young men talk about their shared experiences from a more specific, gendered perspective.

“Eventually you bring the two [sexes] together, but they need to build self-understanding, self-confidence and comfort on their own,” says University of Windsor sociology professor Eleanor Maticka-Tyndale, who holds the Canada Research Chair in social justice and sexual health.

Programs catering exclusively to adolescent and teenage girls have existed for years in Canada, including Girl Time for Grades 7 and 8 and Starburst, which promotes “resiliency” in girls through Grade 7 to 9, working to bolster their self-worth and help them build and navigate personal boundaries.

In the male versions, “it's about looking at the male experience and helping them to redefine that for themselves,” Ms. Krause says. About sexist images in pop culture, for example, she says: “They don't have an opportunity to explore what that means, or have values around it, because we've never said to boys, ‘What do you actually think of that?' That's what we want to do – start the conversation.”

In many ways, these programs are a junior version of the Men Of Strength (MOST) Club: Now a decade old in the United States, the 22-week curriculum for 11-to-18-year-olds emphasizes “healthy, non-violent masculinity.” A college incarnation, Campus MOST, is now pushing bystander intervention in sexual assaults.

“It does a good job of portraying the well-rounded, healthy, chivalrous man, the real masculinity. It's not just your jock – the media portrayal of what a man should be,” says Adam Middleton, a freshman at George Washington University who attends Campus MOST.

Mr. Middleton, 19, started taking MOST sessions in Grade 10; he would go at lunch on Fridays, and he recalls that they were “compelling conversations.”

MOST is the brainchild of Men Can Stop Rape, a Washington, D.C., non-profit founded in 1997 that this year launched a highly publicized call for college men to intervene against sexual harassment and rape. Its “Where Do You Stand?” campaign stood out for its images of beefy jocks taking on would-be date rapists. “When Kate seemed too drunk to leave with Chris, I checked in with her,” read one such image, which 22 schools from Miami to Montana have already ordered on posters, bus shelters, sweatshirts and wristbands.

The organization is also hosting workshops in which guys are called on to discuss, as Men Can Stop Rape executive director Neil Irvin puts it, how “dominant stories of masculinity impede men's emotional intelligence.” They critique celebrations of binge drinking and putdowns of “cock blocking” (getting in the way of another guy's attempts to “score”) – “the frat-boy culture.”

While that kind of machismo might have been more acute in decades past, “it's not a lot better either” today, Prof. Messner says. “We still contend with sexist hyper-masculinity as a dominant force on campuses.”

Windsor's Prof. Maticka-Tyndale argues that such boorish behaviour goes in and out of style: “We're on a bad swing right now … a more raunchy swing of the cycle.” At least, she says, the jocks sneering from the back rows of her gender-studies classes in the 1970s were replaced in later decades by guys who “came in with an honest desire to address issues of sexuality and gender,” and that remains true, at least inside the classroom.

An anti-sexist men's movement arose in answer to second-wave feminism and “has had a low-keyed life since the eighties, but is still around,” says Gary Cross, a professor at Pennsylvania State University and author of Men to Boys: The Making of Modern Immaturity.
 
But where that movement might once have been negative about “conventional ideas of masculinity as strong and heroic,” as Prof. Messner puts it, today's programs tout male strength as a resource that guys can use to resist peer pressure and stand up for women.

Even some fraternities have taken an interest in rehabilitating their images, as evidenced by the Walk a Mile in Her Shoes campaign, which sees burly dudes donning stilettos to fundraise for rape-crisis centres and domestic-violence shelters. Founder Frank Baird says that “tens of thousands” of U.S. postsecondary male students have participated, with roughly 40 per cent of the walks now being organized by frat houses, a number that, to his surprise, has risen annually since the event was launched in 2001. During the walk, guys shout anti-rape slogans and hand out pamphlets on drinking and sexual consent, among other issues, while teetering around in heels.

“It's a very dramatic way of showing, ‘I want to be a good guy,'” Mr. Baird says. The frat members do the walks to fulfill the community-work requirements in their charters, he says, but they are also occasionally spurred by assaults on campus.

Might the appeal be more in the attention-seeking than the activism? Mr. Baird acknowledges that for some it might be, but he points out that to do the walk, the young men first need to connect with a rape-crisis centre or a domestic-violence shelter: “That's when they start to get educated. ... These guys are directly interacting with the mostly women who are working there. Under what other conditions would they come together?”

After all, he says, “men don't often get a chance – many of them feel like they never get the chance – to say anything about gender. ... What happens when men get beat over the head is they shut down. We need to do this in a way that doesn't make men defensive.”

WANT BOYS TO TALK? ENLIST A JOCK

Reaching young men in a way that doesn't make them leery takes a particular type of role model, but parental efforts have long come across as too prying. In the case of intimacy and sexuality, many parents are still simply too squeamish for the job.

“It depends on each family, but often parents are relieved not to have the conversation with their kids,” WiseGuyz's Mr. Spence says.

One place many advocates are looking to find positive role models is in sports.

“In school, there's a lot of pressure to be sexually successful, have lots of girlfriends and be a jock, an athlete, a man's man,” says Michael Kimmel, a professor of sociology at SUNY Stony Brook University and author of Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men. “Which is why using athletes and coaches to bring men into the conversation is so valuable. They really have the credibility.”

The high-school athletics program Coaching Boys into Men, for example, brings gender studies into team practices. Now used across 20 American states as well as by junior hockey coaches in Alberta, the program started out as a playbook for coaches who wanted to take advantage of teachable moments when they overheard troubling talk in the locker room, some of it about sexual assault. Now, it's free for anyone to download online.

“In our pilot work, we found athletes saying that coaches are like a second dad: ‘Whatever coach says, I listen to,'” says Elizabeth Miller, chief of the division of adolescent medicine at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh who helped to develop the program.

A study published last month in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that young men who went through the sessions were more likely to intervene when they witnessed their peers disrespecting or abusing women than other boys. By the end of a season, Dr. Miller has seen teen males calling each other out in the presence of women: “When they caught each other being disrespectful, they'd say, ‘Yo! Boys to men.' ”

While they're not coaches, the facilitators at WiseGuyz aren't exactly stodgy either: “We're not teachers. We're young guys,” Mr. Spence says of his three-man team. (A female instructor helps with some sessions.)

“The more we can connect with them, the more we're going to respect them,” agrees Collin Anda, a 15-year-old student at Calgary's Georges P. Vanier Junior High School, where WiseGuyz is currently halfway through the 14-week course.

The curriculum includes sessions on sexual diversity, fatherhood, emotional stress, sexual consent and conflict resolution, among many others. The boys discuss cases such as that of Matthew Shepard, the young Wyoming man murdered for being gay in 1998, and watch feminist Jean Kilbourne's Killing Us Softly, a film about gender stereotypes in advertising.

“It's a laid-back class, but it teaches you a lot,” Collin says, such as “how to keep a manly life but also be responsible and respectful” and “how she'll feel in certain situations, and how you can change that – how you can make a relationship better at a young age.”

Does Collin think the exercises have the potential to groom him into a better boyfriend, when he has a girlfriend?

“Yes, actually, I do,” he says. “It makes you think about how you are. It makes you look into the mirror. It just gets you thinking.”

In fact, Collin's mother, Thais Anda, says she has noticed a change already. Before WiseGuyz, Ms. Anda would hear Collin chatting girls up via Skype and “shake her head” at the things he would say.

“Now I notice that he talks differently,” says Ms. Anda, a 38-year-old administrative manager at Dell Canada. “He doesn't talk in a way that's demeaning. He doesn't try to make the girl like him by acting stupid. He talks more maturely and wisely.”

Zosia Bielski is a reporter for Globe Life.

 

The Secret Lives of Men - Mad Men on the Couch with Dr. Stephanie Newman

I have never seen an episode of Mad Men, which probably makes me one of the few guys in the country. Still, it's impossible to not know something about the show, which made this an interesting episode of The Secret Lives of Men - Dr. Blazina speaks with Dr. Stephanie Newman about her new book, Mad Men on the Couch: Analyzing the Minds of the Men and Women of the Hit TV Show.

Mad Men on the Couch Dr. Stephanie Newman

by Secret Lives of Men

Tue, April 3, 2012




Mad Men has captured the imaginations of millions of viewers, winning fifteen golden globes and four Emmys. In Mad Men on the Couch, Dr. Stephanie Newman analyzes the show’s primary characters through the lens of modern psychology.

David Wong - 5 Ways Modern Men Are Trained to Hate Women

Cracked is one of my favorite sites. They have turned making lists into an art form. Usually, their lists are heavy on humor, but they also impart information. This one takes a hard look at the ways males are socialized to conceptualize women. It's not pretty.

One note: I think of this more as fearing women, or their power, than hating women. 

Here is a little humor to lighten the mood - Sex as Understood by an Adolescent Boy, by Rachel Bloom, Jack Dolgen | March 26th, 2012



Sex as Understood by Adolescent Boys -- powered by Cracked.com

5 Ways Modern Men Are Trained to Hate Women

By: David Wong March 27, 2012

If you're not the type to keep up with ugly, soul-killing political controversies, let me catch you up: A while back, hugely popular political commentator Rush Limbaugh lost a bunch of advertisers because he publicly called a college girl a slut and a prostitute after she suggested that health insurance plans should cover birth control. But he's paid to say outrageous things. If you really want to feel all dead inside, you need to listen to what the regular folk were saying.

For instance, on crazy political message board FreeRepublic.com, posters referred to the girl in the above-referenced story (Sandra Fluke) as a "Nasty, disease-ridden plodding uterus, an utter skank crack-ho filthy whore, a prostitute slutbag juice-receptacle" and a "Sperm-burpin' gutter slut," and said she "... is so encrusted and used, that I had to throw out my flat-panel TV because her appearance on my TV infected it with AIDS, gonorrhea and syphilis." There are many, many more worse comments collected here and here and here.

Now go to the front page of any mostly male discussion site like Reddit.com and see how many inches you can browse before finding several thousand men bemoaning how all women are gold-digging whores (7,500 upvotes) and how crazy and irrational women are (9,659 upvotes) and how horrible and gross and fat women are (4,000 upvotes). Or browse the "Men's Rights" section and see weird fantasies about alpha males defeating all the hot women who try to control them with their vaginas.

This current of white-hot rage has to come as a surprise to some of you, because we tend to think "sexism" is being dismissive toward women, or paying them lower salaries -- we don't think of it as frenzied "burn the witch!" hatred. Yet occasionally something like this Limbaugh thing will come along to prick that balloon, and out it pours. Like it's always waiting there, a millimeter below the surface.

Why? Well, you see ...

Read more: 5 Ways Modern Men Are Trained to Hate Women | Cracked.com


Here are the five ways . . . but be sure to go read the article.

#5. We Were Told That Society Owed Us a Hot Girl

#4. We're Trained from Birth to See You as Decoration

#3. We Think You're Conspiring With Our Boners to Ruin Us

#2. We Feel Like Manhood Was Stolen from Us at Some Point

#1. We Feel Powerless

Women, Men, and the Bedroom: Methodological and Conceptual Insights That Narrow, Reframe, and Eliminate Gender Differences in Sexuality

A little more research that refutes sexual stereotypes about men and women. A press release from the Association for Psychological Science looks at a new study from University of Michigan psychology professor Terri Conley (and her team of graduate students – Amy Moors, Jes Matsick, Ali Ziegler and Brandon Valentine) that challenges many of the stereotypes people hold about sex and sex roles.

Women, Men and the Bedroom

In the racy television hit show, Sex and the City, Carrie, one of the main characters tells her best girlfriends that “Men who are too good looking are never good in bed because they never had to be.” This is just one of the many gender stereotypes that audiences were exposed to in this show. The show challenged many stereotypes about sex and gender and refrained from the gender caricatures that typify so much television fare. Now, a new review article written by University of Michigan psychology professor Terri Conley and her team of graduate students – Amy Moors, Jes Matsick, Ali Ziegler and Brandon Valentine – examines how such gender stereotypes fueled the sexual revolution started by women in the 60s, now carried on proudly by Carrie and her gang.

The review article, published in the latest issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, challenges the assumptions and myths that people have about sex and the roles that men and women have in the bedroom. According to the authors, “the take home message of our review article is that people should not take gender differences in sexuality at face value.”

Conley’s team set out to review recent research and literature on gender roles and sexuality with the aim of providing a contemporary understanding of how women and men engage, think and desire sex and romantic partners. For example, there are some who think of the fairer sex as being gentle, delicate flowers – shy and timid in the bedroom, with the men being in control, taking charge and showing off their prowess in the bedroom. Since time immemorial, gender stereotypes about sex have persisted and it is only in the modern era that people have begun to shake off stereotypes and challenge the existing assumptions and myths about it. “We’re hoping that this article helps to debunk and dispel common myths and make people more aware of the social factors (rather than supposed biologically based reasons) related to sex,” state Conley and her co-authors.

The idea behind this subject occurred to Conley and her team who felt that psychology needed a more eclectic and representative perspective on contemporary relations between men and women. “In short, the driving force behind this article was that people typically think that men are sex-crazed and women are sexually-prudish; however, we believe that these descriptions may not paint the picture of how men and women typically behave,” says Conley and her co-authors.

After reviewing the various literatures, Conley and her co-authors arrived at several conclusions regarding gender differences in sexuality which demonstrated that none of the original assumptions people have had about how men and women engage in sex, think about sex and desire sex are not as compelling and well-founded as previously believed. “We expect people to be surprised by the small or, in some places completely absent gender differences,” says Conley and her co-authors.

This review article is important for today’s society because it questions how society views sexuality and the role of men and women in sexual relationships. Conley and her co-authors hope that this article could help debunk some stereotypes that might be the result of inaccurate information.

“When stereotypes based on inaccurate information are left unquestioned, they will continue to impact people’s perceptions. For example, the assumption that men think about sex so much more than women could potentially contribute to the stereotype that men are more sexual, while women are more prudish.”

Bi-Sexual Men DO Exist - What a Relief . . . .

In the recent issue of Biological Psychology, researchers discovered that there are men who are sexually aroused by both men and women, contrary to an earlier study (2005) that suggested there was no such creature. When I read that early study I was alarmed - it implied that I do not exist, or that my experience is somehow not real.

The new study, as you will read below, was a lot more intellectually honest in how it recruited subjects than the original study.

Here is a little bit of the New York Times article:

No Surprise for Bisexual Men: Report Indicates They Exist


By DAVID TULLER
Published: August 22, 2011


In an unusual scientific about-face, researchers at Northwestern University have found evidence that at least some men who identify themselves as bisexual are, in fact, sexually aroused by both women and men.


The finding is not likely to surprise bisexuals, who have long asserted that attraction often is not limited to one sex. But for many years the question of bisexuality has bedeviled scientists. A widely publicized study published in 2005, also by researchers at Northwestern, reported that “with respect to sexual arousal and attraction, it remains to be shown that male bisexuality exists.”


That conclusion outraged bisexual men and women, who said it appeared to support a stereotype of bisexual men as closeted homosexuals.


In the new study, published online in the journal Biological Psychology, the researchers relied on more stringent criteria for selecting participants. To improve their chances of finding men aroused by women as well as men, the researchers recruited subjects from online venues specifically catering to bisexuals.


They also required participants to have had sexual experiences with at least two people of each sex and a romantic relationship of at least three months with at least one person of each sex.


 Men in the 2005 study, on the other hand, were recruited through advertisements in gay-oriented and alternative publications and were identified as heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual based on responses to a standard questionnaire.

Read the whole article.

Salon then ran it's own story on this topic. They looked more closely at the cultural binary, gay or straight. Bi men do not fit into this little box (nor do bi women for that matter, but everyone seems to be okay with that, especially straight men). Because of this limited perspective, bi men become invisible.

In my own experience, gay men tend to think bi men are not fully out or are straight guys exploring a fetish. Likewise, straight men tend to pretend we are normal heterosexual men, possibly as a defense against having to deal with the ambiguity of bisexuality and what it might mean about them (just a guess).

The invisible bisexual man

Science has proven that they do exist, but bi guys say we're a long way from seeing sexuality in shades of gray


By Tracy Clark-Flory 

The big sex news of the week was that bisexual men exist.


OK, so a new study proving that bisexual men are aroused by both men and women didn't come as "news" to bi men, but most are nonetheless relieved by the results, because it will help to legitimize their identity in others' eyes. (This is especially true since prior research controversially reported that there was no evidence of male bisexuality.) Still, the more than dozen bisexual men that I interviewed about the study say it serves as a reminder of just how far they still have to go toward acceptance and understanding. Despite enormous strides made in the past decade for LGBT rights, male bisexuality remains a challenging idea and a unique taboo, even within sexually progressive circles.


A large part of that is because, culturally, we tend to think in terms of black-and-white, not shades of gray -- and that's especially true when it comes to the subject of sex. Rarely does a bisexual come out without fielding questions about which sex they like more -- the assumption being that they must lean one way or the other. It's true that many do: As Ryan from Vancouver wrote in an email, he puts an "emphasis on the 'preference' in 'sexual preference.'" He might be attracted to women more often than men, but believes he "could be attracted to pretty much anybody in the right circumstances, sexuality be damned." But there are also many bi men who describe their sexual attraction in much more fluid terms. The 27-year-old says: "To me, I look for and fall in love with the personality and the intelligence, and then the overall style of the person, never giving any thought to if they are 'male or female.'"


Romantic as it may be, that is a concept not so easily grasped by the general public -- which can make bisexual men feel invisible. Simon, a 26-year-old living in Brooklyn, N.Y., tells me, "Whenever, say, some prominent heterosexually married male public figure has a same-sex affair, literally everyone rolls their eyes at the 'closeted homosexual,'" he says. "I'm not sure I remember ever hearing someone seriously entertain the possibility that the philanderer was bisexual." Bisexuals are more visible than ever, but our cultural default, the shortcut we take to understand a person, is still: gay or straight?

Read the whole article.

If you would like to read this new study, it's been made available online in Google Docs by the good folks at The Stranger in Seattle.

Citation:
Rosenthal, AM, Sylva, D. Safron, A, & Bailey, JM. (2011). Sexual arousal patterns of bisexual men revisited. Biological Psychology, doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2011.06.015
 

Perspectives on Male Sexuality

These two posts have been hanging around in my tabs for a while, but I found them interesting and wanted to share them - I'd be curious to hear what any of you think about these. One post (the first one) features men talking about male sexuality, the second one is a female perspective on male sexuality.

This first one was posted a month ago at the Good Men Project site by Rachel Rabbit White - then there is a follow-up from her own website. This is part of her "The Man Project," an effort to explore male experience.

As an aside, this post was part of the Sex Week series at the GMP, I'll link to the other articles below this post.

What’s Missing From the Discussion About Male Sexuality?

May 31, 2011 By Rachel Rabbit White

Rachel Rabbit White started The Man Project to hear about the aspects of male sexuality that don’t get discussed.

Never ask a guy to braid your hair. A study just came out that suggests men feel angry when made to perform a “traditional feminine task” like, apparently, hair braiding. The researcher suggests this is because men are expected to gender perform in ways that women don’t have an equivalent; they must constantly “prove” their masculinity. While it’s not easy equating the ways that sexism effects men and women, rigid gender roles don’t help anyone.

But I am writing about this male phenomenon as a woman. And most of my sex positive blogging peers are also female. It almost seems there is some silent rule: men aren’t allowed to write about sexuality, as though a guy with a sex blog is the intellectual version of a flasher. It’s another way sexism harms men.

In these sex positive discussions, there is so much I want to hear from the male side, so much about masculinity that needs exploring. And this is how The Man Project was born. I asked men who are vocal about sex and asked them what was missing from the discussion about male sexuality. After talking with a handful of men from varying backgrounds—literature, art, porn, television—here’s a sampling of what I found. Feel free to weigh in and continue the discussion in the comments section below.

♦◊♦

How do you feel about your masculinity? Is this important to you?

David J: I think there’s an interesting cultural struggle around masculinity going on. At least judging by the advertising that’s targeting my demographic, like the Old Spice commercials. There’s this sense that masculinity, as it’s traditionally articulated, is problematic. So, masculinity isn’t something we seriously address. Also, it’s not something that’s presented to us in a serious way, it’s presented to us comically.

So, my friends and I, when we act traditionally masculine, we are both performing and making fun of masculinity–but we aren’t examining it. And we end up expressing our gender that way. It’s not, “I’ve thought a lot of masculinity and other forms of gender expression.” Instead, it’s, “The way I relate to my masculinity is by making fun of masculinity. And other than that, I don’t really know how to deal with it.”

Michael: The one thing that absolutely bugs me in the gay world is the question of, “Are you a top or a bottom?” It’s really, “How masculine are you?” If you want to see how masculinity and femininity are played out in the straight world, you only have to see how it is played out in the gay world. Top and bottom is really nothing but masculine and feminine. In ancient Greece and in Rome, homosexuality was accepted—but only if you were the top. The proscription against homosexuality was not about men having sex with men. It was about men not acting like women.

♦◊♦

Why is the sex writing, sex positive sphere dominated by women?

Michael: When I was selected to be the co-host of Sex Inspectors, they didn’t come out and say, “We want someone who is gay,” but they did more or less. I think the idea was if a [straight] guy talks about sex to a woman, there’s a sense that there is a hidden agenda. Which is a nice way of saying, “He is predator-like.”

Grant: We think there’s something gross about reading about a straight guy and his sexual experiences. Women are given great sexual latitude to do a number of different things—bondage, kinks, even lots of different vanilla sex. Men are really sort of reduced to just wanting to fuck something, and that’s it. Sexually, we are forced into a box and not allowed to express ourselves in many more ways than society allows.

David S: I think the critique and developing analysis of women’s sexuality came out of the feminist movement to a large extent. So, that would explain the critique of traditional thinking about women’s sexuality in general. It’s too bad because I think traditional gender roles in sexuality are just as limiting and damaging for men.

♦◊♦

There is this idea that male sexuality is different, simpler than female sexuality. It’s just a button to push. Thoughts?

David S: I used to run a workshop on male sexuality for women. One of the most common things that women would ask is, “So I’m with this guy, we have amazing sex and then in the morning, he is like gone.” I think guys think they are just gonna have a fun time. Because sex is as powerful as it is, sometimes a big door opens up inside you. Suddenly, your emotional guts are all over the table. Sex, touch, it is powerful in that way. Suddenly, you are dealing with the fact that you never got touched as a child, suddenly you are dealing with the time something happened and you were embarrassed. Suddenly, all sorts of larger issues, even existential ones leap up, and there you are in the middle of them.

I think women are more prepared for this, less frightened. For some guys, in this deeply intimate exposed place with a person they hardly know, they wake up in the morning and start putting a wall up, really fast. One of the sad things about sex, particularly for men, is that the culture shoves a version of sex down your throat that is just a poor, pale version of what is really possible.

Buck: I think and act and interact totally different from how I did when I was female and had little testosterone in my body. Even though I was a very masculine female. But I was much more sensitive, I cried easier. I looked at things differently, my sexuality. My sex drive was intense for a woman. But I would say it is much more intense now.

♦◊♦

What about male stereotypes like guys being “less in touch with their emotions”?

Eon: In a breakup, for example, I think women have a lot more coping mechanisms that society supports. Men are expected to not care and move on. I don’t know what’s going on at the Moose Lodge and I’m sure that some of those brothers are helping each other out. But in general, it’s hard to help another man emotionally. It’s a pride thing and a societal pressure not to.

Danny: There has been so much discussion over how women are treated, or how women feel when they perform in pornographic scenes. But heterosexual men seem to have been left out of this discussion. Maybe even gay men too. “How do male performers feel about performing in sex scenes?” It’s not a question often asked. I think it’s just assumed we want to fuck anything that’s put in front of us. I assure you that’s not the case.

♦◊♦

What about the one, guys are just “thinking with their dicks”?

Zak: So, guys can be extraordinarily smart in order to get their dick to have what they want. Like, right now we’re talking on a telephone. You’ve got Skype. My guess is that both of those things were invented by guys who thought that if they could invent something cool, it would make them rich and famous and get them laid. So Alexander Graham Bell wasn’t maybe thinking with his dick but thinking really helped his dick out.
Women are a complicated target. You have to really do all kinds of crazy shit in order to impress them or to get them to know you. And so, you know, men invent computers and airplanes and socks and healthcare because, like, you can’t have sex with women when they’re dead! We’ve really got to keep them all alive.

Eon: In my youth, the idea was that no girl would want to look at a dick—the dick is just lucky to be here. But I think both men and women want to be ambitious and explore the world in a similar way. [What’s missing for men is] the inability to make the one partner both of these things, wife and sexual adventurer.

♦◊♦

What is missing from the discussion around male sexuality?

Grant: I want to suck a dick. I don’t want to conform to a lifestyle or necessarily move to Chelsea. I just want to suck a big one. If women [want to experiment], it’s cool, but for guys it’s, “Oh, so you’re gay?”

Also, here is what I want to see changed: the way men use language. They talk about banging girls, finger-banging or fucking. It’s something mechanical that sort of gets done. I hope for them it’s actually a little more complex than that, a little more considered. But anything other than some sort of Anglo-Saxon term for what you do to a woman as a man is viewed as somehow weird, or creepy, or it makes you a sensualist.

David J: The message we are getting today is that our sexuality is problematic and destructive. I think that culturally there aren’t enough symbols of non-destructive sexuality for men to really adopt.

♦◊♦

Rachel Rabbit White is a “sex journalist.” Follow her on Twitter for more conversations about masculinity, sexuality and sex positivity. And to see more from these interviews, visit her blog.

More from Sex Week at the Good Men Project:

Benoit Denizet-Lewis: The Dan Savage Interview

Amanda Marcotte: What Women Don’t Tell You

Ed Fell: 10 Secrets to Satisfying Sex

Andrew Ladd: A Billion Wicked Assumptions

Charles Allen: Why I Hate My Giant Dong

Emily Heist Moss: Does Size Matter?

John DeVore: Multiple Inches of Love

Joshua Matacotta: Do Gay Men Fear Intimacy?

Bhatia and MacKinnon: The Psychology of Erectile Dysfunction

Wilson & Robinson: Can’t She See I Need It?

Robert Levithan: Sex at 60

* * * * * * *

This is a follow-up post, of sorts, to the above article - it is a guest article by Elly of Quiet Riot Girl that was posted at Rachel Rabbit White's blog.

Metro or Bi? Digging Deeper into Modern Masculinity

3rd Jun. × ’11

By Rachel Rabbit White

This is a guest post by the cheeky, entertaining and always whip-smart Elly of Quiet Riot Girl. Photo by Mona Kuhn

“Contrary to what you have been told, metrosexuality is not about flip-flops and facials, ‘man-bags’ or ‘manscara’. Or about men becoming ‘girlie’ or ‘gay’” says Mark Simpson, the man who coined the word “metrosexual”. “It’s about men becoming everything. Quite simply, metrosexuality is men’s “desire to be desired”. Men in contemporary society are now able to admit to wanting to be beautiful and to be appreciated as “objects of desire” in a way that was previously reserved for women.”

One of the things I love about Rabbit’s blog is this is a place where men and expressions of masculinity are taken seriously. That sounds strange, when we are forever told (mainly by feminists) that it is women who are not considered adequately in our culture–as people, as sexual beings.

But I find that wherever I look there are discussions about ‘‘the objectification of women’s bodies” or “sexual violence against women and girls” or “pornography and women”. It has reached a point where I have to ask, without irony, “what about the men?” Simpson, an English author and journalist, has spent his entire career asking that very question.

Simpson coined “metrosexual” back in 1994, but it really became a media-fuelled phenomenon in 2003 when “metromania” hit the USA. From Barack Obama to David Beckham to Giorgio Armani to Eminem to The Situation, the metro man is everyman. As Simpson explains, “metrosexuality is the male desire to be desired by everyone, including and sometimes especially by other men. This was once regarded as pathological, perverted and definitely something to keep to yourself. Now it is so commonplace it’s almost ‘normal’. Perhaps even – eek! – ordinary.”

But, it’s not as though men just became narcissistic. Simpson says it’s clear that men had a capacity for sensuality and vanity – a desire to be desired – but for most of history it has been closeted. Men were to be warriors or laborers or empire builders. They weren’t meant to be beautiful. The Victorians codified a sexual division that decreed women were beauty and men were action. But now that men have been encouraged to get in touch with their vanity and sensuality it seems there’s no stopping it!

Metrosexuality differs from other incarnations of male self-love, in that it’s reliant on consumer capitalism. In other words, if you want to look hot: buy more stuff. But that narcissism, ever-apparent for the metro-man who needs mirrors like Narcissus needs the pool, is not necessarily a negative, argues Simpson.

“The rise of male behaviors, practices and tastes characterised as metrosexual are made possible in large part by the decline of stigma attached to male homosexuality. While this stigma made life difficult for homosexual men, it also had an instructive, not to say repressive, effect on all men.” In contrast metrosexuality means masculinity is no longer black and white, “no longer always heterosexual and never homosexual or always active never passive, always desiring never desired, always looking never looked at,” says Simpson.

Nicole Lesser, photo

Back in the 90s, Simpson identified “lesbian chic” — you know, those women celebrities snogging each other on magazine covers and at film premieres-as an example of increasing acceptability of female “bi-curiousness”. It is this blurring of sexual orientation amongst men that some people have found hardest to swallow. I asked Simpson if metrosexuality blurs the boundaries between gay and straight, and enables men to express bi-curiousness, why is it still not acceptable for men to be openly bi?

“It’s still early days, remember. And we’re only just beginning to move away from the commonly held nostrum of the last thirty years or so that all women are bi, but any man who touches another man’s ‘pee pee’ is gay” says Simpson. “ Metrosexuality is definitely a form of bi-responsiveness. But a lot of people want masculinity to remain repressed. Some men are scared stiff of having those options. They don’t trust themselves. This is crucial in understanding how metrosexuality has impacted men’s sense of self, and also why it is still a controversial concept, especially in conservative corners of the globe.”

In the end, it all comes down to one plain fact, Simpson explains, “Frankly, everyone knows that men love cock. Though we’re not meant to mention it. And as a result of this secretiveness there is an unconscious idea that if men taste cock then they won’t want pussy. It’s untrue of course, in most cases – Professor Bailey and his kinky sex-lie detector tests notwithstanding – men love cock AND pussy. Just look at straight porn! It’s salient that this fear doesn’t generally manifest itself with female bi-curiousness. Because, the assumption seems to be ‘she’s always gonna want cock’.”

But despite this homo-anxiety he triggers in many men, the metrosexual won’t stop shoving his pretty sexually-undefined ass in our faces. He symbolizes men gaining pleasure from looking at themselves and each other, you just can’t be 100% straight and metro. In the metrosexual noughties, some male stars have come out as bisexual. James Franco, Duncan James from the UK Boy-band Blue, and Tom Hardy for example. Simpson says about Hardy, “There is something quite inspiring about this married Hollywood star’s ownership of his bi-curious past and his ambi-sexual persona. It’s a good advert for metrosexiness: ‘Don’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling’.”

Some recent research backs up Simpson’s theories. A 2010 report by academics at The University of Bath suggests that “the majority of male students in the UK think nothing of giving one another a big wet one on each other’s lips in all sorts of social situations”. The researchers found that 89% of white undergraduate men at two UK universities and one sixth from college said they were happy to kiss another man on the lips through friendship. Doctor Eric Anderson, the lead researcher, claimed that heterosexual men kissing is a result of the decline of homophobia.

The young men interviewed came out with some lovely quotes which illustrate how comfortable they are with expressing their “metro-love” for one another. Matt, telling a story about breaking up with his girlfriend, “I was really lonely…So one night I asked my housemate who is one of my best friends if I could sleep in the bed with him. He looked at me, smiled, and said, ‘Come on,’ opening the covers to invite me in.” Matt continued, “He kissed me, and then held me. It was nice. I sent him a text the next day saying, ‘I’ve got the best friend in the world’.”

Sam, comparing university with more conservative approaches in his home town, “I never kiss any of my friends back home,” he said. “And I can’t imagine it going down too well.” When asked about how his friends showed him affection back home, he said, “Punching and rubbing their knuckles into my head.”

Pete stressing that when he kisses a mate, it is not because he is drunk: “Alcohol might make it easier for some guys, I guess. But I don’t think that’s why guys kiss.” He added, “I can tell you why I kiss my friends. I kiss them because I love them.”

“I kiss them because I love them” is a little bit different, a little deeper, than the stereotype of the metrosexual, preening and plucking and prancing in front of a mirror. The achievement of Metrosexy and its potentially subversive power lies in the way Simpson manages to take all these aspects of metrosexuality and make whole, a rounded picture of how contemporary masculinities are being formed and changed, made less heteronormative, through our consumer culture.

Quoting that early metro icon, James Dean, who famously denied being homosexual, Simpson characterizes metrosexuality as a man’s way of saying, “I don’t want to go through life with one hand tied behind my back.” And why should he?
Editors Note: “No-Homo”.

Tags: What’s Missing From the Discussion About Male Sexuality?, Rachel Rabbit White, The Good Men Project, men, masculinity, sexuality, sex roles, sex, women, metrosexuals, The Man Project, sexism, stereotypes, rigid gender roles, traditional masculinity, masculinities, gender identity, Mark Simpson, self love, bisexual

FORA.tv - Glenn Wilson: Sex Wars

I'm not a big fan of evolutionary psychology approaches to sex and gender - the basic assumption is oxymoronic, that we have NOT evolved much or at all. EP therefore is actually an essentialist approach with the assumption that social, cultural, and psycho-emotional evolution cannot overcome our prehistoric biology. Nonsense if you ask me, and of course, you did not.

Glenn Wilson: Sex Wars

Why do the "selfish genes" of men and women sometimes create conflict? How do monogamy, polygamy and infidelity stack up in terms of adaptive value? Is sex addiction a real disease or just an excuse for bad behaviour? The distinction between explanation and moral justification. Reconciling the discrepancy between male and female instincts.

Dr. Glenn Wilson

As well as being one of Britain's best-known psychologists, Glenn Wilson is the Visiting Gresham Professor of Psychology. He has appeared on numerous television and radio programs and has published more than 150 scientific articles and 33 books.

He is an expert on individual differences; social and political attitudes; sexual behavior, deviation and dysfunction; and psychology applied to the performing arts. Not one to shy away from contention, his most recent books include: Born Gay: The Psychobiology of Sex Orientation, The Secret of Lasting Love and Psychology for Performing Artists.He has lectured widely abroad, having been a guest of the Italian Cultural Association, and a visiting professor at California State University, Los Angeles, San Francisco State University, Stanford University, the University of Nevada, Reno and Sierra Nevada College.

Apart from being a professional psychologist, Dr. Wilson trained as an opera singer at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and still undertakes professional engagements as an actor, singer and director.

Tags: FORA.tv, Glenn Wilson, Sex Wars, Gresham College, men, women, gender differences, sex roles, psychology, evolution, individual differences, social attitudes, political attitudes, sexual behavior, deviation, dysfunction, selfish genes, monogamy, polygamy infidelity, adaptive value, rape, jealousy, sexual harassment, sex addiction, attraction