masculinity

Two quick hits:  While Obama and McCain were duking it out in Nashville this week, a rather brilliant student I met while speaking last month at USC Upstate shared her thoughts on alternative portrayals of masculinity on TV, and its social implications, over at the Popular & American Culture Associations in the South conference taking place this week in Louisville, KY.  More here.

And speaking of, finally a guy doesn’t have to be a pussy to love a cat, reports my fellow Invisible Institute-er Abby Ellin in the NYTimes.  Most funny quote from one of the guys Abby interviewed for “Sorry Fido, It’s Just a Guy Thing”: ” A man with a cat… ‘is secure with himself.  He’s sharing his space with a predator.'”

So, cats are the new macho accessory?  Amelia (whose picture I am not posting only because Kristen has yet to give me my remedial lesson in Flickr) purrs approvingly.

I’m back in action. I mean, rather, back at work.

A piece I wrote, “Sex and the Single Guys, For Real,” is up today over at the Women’s Media Center. The piece has nothing to do with Grandma of course, unless you count the fact that Marge volunteered at a center that offered counseling and contraception to teens, for which I will always remain extremely proud of her.

My WMC commentary features Michael Kimmel’s new book, which was also reviewed, btw, by Wesley Yang in yesterday’s NYTimes (see “Nasty Boys”). Here’s the teaser:

With all the excitement of the summer games, you may have missed this juicy bit of “news” from Olympic Village: as soon as their competition ended, the athletes apparently got rather busy themselves.

They had sex. Lots of it. So much that organizers in Beijing handed out free condoms, says former Olympian Matthew Syed of the UK’s Times Online. And this year, Syed tells us, the female athletes were as horny as the men.

We’ve long been inundated with images of young men with libido flowing unchecked. But with sexual insatiability now cast as an equal-opportunity calling, the guys are no longer portrayed as alone. If all the hook-up hoopla about kids on U.S. campuses is true—the girls have gone wild! the boys can’t get enough!—then the athletes in Beijing were hardly the only modern young men and women engaged in an Olympic-size orgy of never-ending desire.

But wait! New research…Read the rest.

And for those here in NYC, Kimmel will be reading from and discussing his book, Guyland, on Sept. 9 at 7pm, at Borders Columbus Circle. I may see you there….