In These Times

Latest Comments view all 5

• • 05 Sep 06
  • 8:39 pm

  Men being more visually stimulated (being one and knowing many I can say this) has made them more vulnerable to media - TV, videos, video games. Watching too much TV is akin to eating too much junk food. The easier it is to obtain and consume the lazier we become, the easier we want it to be to obtain and consume... Maybe I'm simplifying. Why do my two older boys like watching TV so much now. When they were younger it was less important. Peer pressure has made it more so. They are both big readers but if we let them …

  Posted to Why Hemingway Is Chick-Lit

• • 19 Mar 06
  • 6:35 pm

  I am personally sick and tired of ads, TV shows, and movies alternately representing men either as pliable spineless jellyfish tripping over themselves to please their significant other or as pleasure-seeking, responsibility-avoiding, idiots with nothing to offer this world and even less of substance to offer in a meaningful relationship. Don't get me wrong, please. I am in a long-term (14 years), meaningful relationship / marriage with a best friend / lover in which we do achieve real communication. We read some of the same books together and love to discuss and hear each other's thoughts on them. We argue, we …

  Posted to Men Growing Up to be Boys

• • 20 Mar 06
  • 8:26 am

  wileywitch & johnnyincentx: I think much of the infantilization of men is related to men's suppression of women through the 50s and early 60s. It is a backlash generated by valid grevances not just by women but by men. I have at times been ashamed of being a man given the treatment of women - at work, the objectification as sexual objects. Hey, I'm a normal guy and have always appreciated femaile fiminity and sexuality. The place to enjoy that aspect of our respective sexes is in committed and not in using relationships. It was in my 30s that I started …

  Posted to Men Growing Up to be Boys

• • 21 Mar 06
  • 8:16 am

  I have to admit that I find this discussion on testosterone fascinating but I do think in focusing on this one element we are missing the forest for the trees. Firstly I challenge the assumption that we can prove testosterone as being the defining factor in men. I do believe that it can be proven to be an influencing factor and of having significant influence over our behavior. I do not believe that either male or female behaviors are deterministic. Males are influenced by genetic makeup, environment, family, other males, social pressures. It is too simplistic to say that we are …

  Posted to Men Growing Up to be Boys

• • 21 Mar 06
  • 12:33 pm

  rocco Don't get me wrong. Yes, there is diversity and no perfect line in the sand seperating genders exists. I am referring to the masses, perhaps - or the mean of the range of each sex if you will. There are more genetic differences between sexes than between between members of the same sex or members of the same sex and different races.

  Posted to Men Growing Up to be Boys