Being English, and therefore by definition irredeemably effete to most Americans, I’m fascinated by the way our colonial cousins appear to love rolling hysterically hirsute words like ‘macho’, ‘manly’ and the double-furry, XXL ‘manly men’ around in their mouths. When they’re not exhorting everyone to ‘man up!’, whatever that means.… Read More »Macho Nachos: Man-Sized Oral Insatiability
Dire warnings of how men are doomed because more chapesses are now in work than chaps, are more educated, and now earning more (in large cities), prompted a special ‘Man Up!’ issue of Newsweek a few weeks back on the ‘crisis of masculinity’. The centrepiece was an interesting, lengthy… Read More »America to Machismo: How Do I Quit You?
A new study of puckering practises reported in today’s Daily Mail (‘How men kissing each other on the lips in friendship is “no longer taboo”‘) 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… Read More »Most UK Male Students are Metrosmoochers
What are little boys made of?“Snips and snails, and puppy dogs tailsThat’s what little boys are made of!”What are little girls made of?“Sugar and spice and all things niceThat’s what little girls are made of!” This popular kids nursery-rhyme, and the popular notion that men and women are different species… Read More »Sexing the Brain: Neuroscience vs. Neurosexism
(Originally appeared in The Guardian August, 2010) As a boy growing up in the 1960s and 70s I was raised to fight the Second World War all over again. Airfix models. Commando comics. Air tattoos in June. Watching The Battle of Britain and The Longest Day on telly with my dad,… Read More »Army Dreamers: A Backwards Salute to British Army Recruitment Films