These original essays follow the socio-historical evolution of virility, as opposed to masculinity, to unsettle popular accounts of politics and culture. A major contribution to the nascent field of masculinity studies, this history consults painting, sculpture, literature, philosophy, film, and cultural and sociological critique. With the twentieth century delivering one blow after another to hegemonic virility, this book also explores where manliness might be headed next.
Testosterone makes us stronger, happier, and smarter. It also makes us meaner, more violent and more selfish. A scientific look into the vast and unexpected influence testosterone has on our behavior, our society, and our bodies. The brain of every man—and every woman—is shaped by this tiny molecule from before birth: it propels our drive for exploration and risk, for competition and creation, and even our survival. The effects of testosterone permeate the traditions, philosophy, and literature of every known culture—without it, the world would be a drastically different place. Testosterone also has a role in humanity's darker side, contributing to violence, hubris, poverty, crime, and selfishness. Recent revelations of the science of testosterone show that high levels will deplete compassion and generosity, and even reduce the affection we show our children. In The Virility Paradox, internationally renowned oncologist and prostate cancer researcher Charles Ryan explores this complex chemical system responsible for a diverse spectrum of human behaviors and health in both men and women. Ryan taps his vast experience treating prostate cancer with testosterone-lowering therapy, observing that this often leads to profound changes in the patients' perspectives on their lives and relationships. Often, for the better. Ryan uses the journeys of these patients and others to illustrate the vast and sometimes unexpected influence testosterone has on human lives. Through the stories of real men and women, he also explores the connections between testosterone and conditions like dementia, autism, and cancer, as well as the biological underpinnings of sexual assault and the effects it has on everything from crime to investing to everyday choices we make. Integrating the molecular and the medical, sociology and storytelling, The Virility Paradox;offers a fascinating look at how one hormone has shaped history, and the connections between our biology, our behavior, and our best selves.
"Not only one of the frankest of autobiographies, but also a brilliantly written book, Leiris' Manhood mingles memories, philosophic reflections, sexual revelation, meditations on bullfighting, and the life-long progress of self-discovery."—Washington Post Book World "Leiris writes to appall, and thereby to receive from his readers the gift of a strong emotion—the emotion needed to defend himself against the indignation and disgust he expects to arouse in his readers."—Susan Sontag, New York Review of Books
In this collection, one of the world's leading scholars in the field of masculinity studies explores the historical construction of American and British masculinities. Tracing the emergence of American and British masculinities, the forms they have taken, and their development over time, Michael S. Kimmel analyzes the various ways that the ideology of masculinity—the cultural meaning of manhood—has been shaped by the course of historical events, and, in turn, how ideas about masculinity have also served to shape those historical events. He also considers newly emerging voices of previously marginalized groups such as women, the working class, people of color, gay men, and lesbians to explore the marginalized and de-centered notions of masculinity and the political processes and dynamics that have enabled this marginalization to occur.
When former heavyweight champion Jim Jeffries came out of retirement on the fourth of July, 1910 to fight current black heavywight champion Jack Johnson in Reno, Nevada, he boasted that he was doing it "for the sole purpose of proving that a white man is better than a negro." Jeffries, though, was trounced. Whites everywhere rioted. The furor, Gail Bederman demonstrates, was part of two fundamental and volatile national obsessions: manhood and racial dominance. In turn-of-the-century America, cultural ideals of manhood changed profoundly, as Victorian notions of self-restrained, moral manliness were challenged by ideals of an aggressive, overtly sexualized masculinity. Bederman traces this shift in values and shows how it brought together two seemingly contradictory ideals: the unfettered virility of racially "primitive" men and the refined superiority of "civilized" white men. Focusing on the lives and works of four very different Americans—Theodore Roosevelt, educator G. Stanley Hall, Ida B. Wells, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman—she illuminates the ideological, cultural, and social interests these ideals came to serve.
Vanity, Vitality, and Virility is a fascinating portrait gallery of chemicals involved in our everyday life, from Viagra and selenium to whispering asphalt, nappies, and chewing gum. While it will not advise you what to do if you want to improve your looks, your health, your peace of mind or your sex life, it explains the science behind many of the products that claim to be able to do just that. Lift the lid on the secrets behind products we use every day with renowned science communicator John Emsley, author of The Consumer's Good Chemical Guide, Molecules at an Exhibition, and Nature's Building Blocks. - ;Vanity, Vitality, and Virility is a fascinating portrait gallery of chemicals involved in our everyday life, from Viagra and selenium to whispering asphalt, nappies, and chewing gum. While it will not advise you what to do if you want to improve your looks, your health, your peace of mind or your sex life, it explains the science behind many of the products that claim to be able to do just that. Chemistry is too often associated with poisonous gases and strange bubbling solutions, yet it is all around us, and inside us too. Renowned science communicator John Emsley lifts the lid on the secrets inside the products we use every day. -
Victims of the Book uncovers a long-neglected but once widespread subgenre: the fin-de-siècle novel of formation in France. In the final decades of the nineteenth century, social commentators insistently characterized excessive reading as an emasculating illness that afflicted French youth. Novels about and geared toward adolescent male readers were imbued with a deep worry over young Frenchmen’s masculinity, as evidenced by titles like Crise de jeunesse (Youth in Crisis, 1897), La Crise virile (Crisis of Virility, 1898), La Vie stérile (A Sterile Life, 1892), and La Mortelle Impuissance (Deadly Impotence, 1903). In this book, François Proulx examines a wide panorama of these novels, as well as polemical essays, pedagogical articles, and medical treatises on the perceived threats posed by young Frenchmen’s reading habits. Fin-de-siècle writers responded to this pathologization of reading with a profusion of novels addressed to young male readers, paradoxically proposing their own novels as potential cures. In the early twentieth century, this corpus was critically revisited by a new generation of writers. Victims of the Book shows how André Gide and Marcel Proust in particular reworked the fin-de-siècle paradox to subvert cultural norms about literature and masculinity, proposing instead a queer pact between writer and reader.
A laugh-out-loud visual history of the strangest piece of men’s clothing ever created: the codpiece. The codpiece was fashioned in the Middle Ages to close a revealing gap between two separate pieces of men’s tights. By the sixteenth century, it had become an upscale must-have accessory. This lighthearted, illustrated examination of its history pulls in writers from Rabelais to Shakespeare and figures from Henry VIII to Alice Cooper. Glover’s witty and entertaining prose reveals how male vanity turned a piece of cloth into a bulging and absurd representation of masculinity itself. The codpiece, painted again and again by masters such as Titian, Holbein, Giorgione, and Bruegel, became a symbol of royalty, debauchery, virility, and religious seriousness—all in one. Centuries of male self-importance and delusion are on display in this highly enjoyably new title. Glover’s book moves from paintings to contemporary culture and back again as it charts the growing popularity of the codpiece and its eventual decline. The first history of its kind, this book is a must-read for art historians, anthropologists, fashion aficionados, and readers looking for a good, long laugh.
Whose truth is the lie? Stay up all night reading the sensational psychological thriller that has readers obsessed, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Too Late and It Ends With Us. #1 New York Times Bestseller · USA Today Bestseller · Globe and Mail Bestseller · Publishers Weekly Bestseller Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity’s notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn’t expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of the night her family was forever altered. Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents could devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen’s feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife’s words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving her.
