Television: Catering to Cable Guys

Beer, babes in bikinis and frat-house jokes--is this really what it takes to get young men to watch TV?

A guy walks into a bar--a lesbian bar in Manhattan, in fact. Disguised as an unattractive woman--a look, he admits, that is almost effortless for him to achieve--he sets out to see how many attractive women he can pick up. It's an experiment to determine the relative superficiality of gay females vs. straight males, or something like that. The punch line: well, there isn't one, really. Our social scientist is eventually recognized by a patron as Toby Young, a 35-year-old writer for the men's magazine Gear. Young denies being on assignment ("Not me. My name is Jennifer"), makes an abrupt exit...

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