Mucho Macho Metro

(2 of 2)

Looking for reassurance, I told Cassandra the results. "You seem like a dude to me," she said in a way I found very reassuring. "Not in a football sense. But you're not emotional or sensitive. You don't notice things aesthetically." This was not making me feel better. "I mean, I know you're not 100% dude. I met you in New York." I know Cassandra is a kind, tolerant person, but I believe that is a direct quote from Mein Kampf.

I was thinking about taking testosterone or watching the History Channel, but then I learned that while male college students in 1973 scored as far more masculine on the BSRI than female students, by 1993 men and women had the same masculinity scores. These studies were done at Stanford. Where I graduated. In 1993. Stanford, obviously, made men girlie.

I don't think it's just late deconstruction-era college students. Thanks to technology and intellectual progress, we're all less manly now. Before the Enlightenment, men were fine with slavery and tyranny. After, they wore wigs and frilly shirts. In 2003, after a New York Times article explained the term, everyone was calling guys like me metrosexual. Warren St. John, who wrote that article, told me that no one even bothers with the term anymore. Partly because women have become more dominant in the workplace and partly because we have normalized homosexuality. "This idea that there was this space between gay and straight that was groovy and cool, that you could use it to brand yourself as sophisticated--that's not a new idea anymore. If Queer Eye for the Straight Guy came on now, it would be the biggest yawn."

But as the fertility study showed, you can't fight evolution. By not being self-reliant and more aggressive, I'm missing out. And so is Cassandra. If that means being "not at all helpful to others" around the house, I'm sure she'll know I'm doing it for her.