Focus 580; Looking Good: Male Body Image in Modern America

Good morning and welcome to focus 580 This is our telephone talk program My name's David Enge. Glad to have you listening this morning. In this first hour of the program we'll be talking about the way that men think about their appearance and how that has changed within the last few decades. It was pretty much the case if you go back to the time say right up until about World War Two that men were mostly judged by their achievements by what they did however. So argues our guest this morning increasingly in the last particularly maybe in the last 30 years or so men more and more are judged and judged themselves on how they look. Our guest for the program is Lynn Luciano She is assistant professor of history at the University of California Dominguez Hills and she will be talking with us this morning about her book titled Looking good male body image in modern America Helen Wang is publisher out now if you'd like to take a look at it. And of course people who are listening are welcome to join the conversation.

If you have questions comments we'd like you to participate all we ask of callers is that people just try to be brief so we can keep the program moving along and get as many different people in as possible but of course anyone is welcome to call. Here in Champaign-Urbana where we are the number is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Also we do have a toll free line and that was good no matter where you can hear us around Illinois Indiana wherever that signal will travel and that he has 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 3 3 3 w y l l and toll free 800 to 2 to WY allow Professor Hello. Good morning David how are you. I'm fine thanks and thank you very much for talking with us. Thank you my pleasure. I think that a fair amount now has been written about the fact that at this time and place in our society we have created a standard for female beauty that is extremely difficult for anyone to meet and we a lot have been written about the kind of problems but come with that. The things that women will do to try to meet that standard including starving

themselves. That eating disorders have a lot to do with that. And there's a lot of money spent on plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery other sorts of things. Now here what seems to be happening is a paralleled sort of development when it comes to men something that has kind of snuck up on us although when you look at where we are now compared with the 50s it seems pretty dramatic. We have men who are obsessed with their appearance and they are obsessive Lee going to the gym and they are indeed also having cosmetic surgery and all sorts of things and we can talk about it in some detail. So just to start out I guess what I wonder is when you look at these two things what women are doing what men are doing. Are they doing them. Are they doing this for the same reason or is it somehow different. That's a that's a wonderful question and that's the thing that puzzled me so much when I started out my initial take on this was that perhaps men were becoming more feminine I think so

because we are becoming so much more parallel in all women's position in society or at least we're trying to be that way. But I really think that the reasons are distinctive. We different because men as far as I can determine are doing what they're doing really to enhance their masculinity. And that's nothing new one. It's just that they're going about it in a different way because they have to because appearances become so important for everybody where it was once a Porton only for women. Well that it does seem to beg this question about who is who men are doing this for and whether indeed they are doing this to make themselves more attractive to women or whether it has something more to do with the way that they the way that other men see them and their ability to compete particularly in the economic sphere with other men. I think the stronger of those two really is the competition with other men. Men are always in competition with other men they don't like to talk about that. But that's really the fact.

They also however are making more and of an effort to make themselves appealing to women than they once did because there is more pressure on men. There's unquestionably been an influence from the feminist movement from what we call second wave feminism that rears its head. You know we're less in the mid 60s and really starts moving forward in the 70s women are more demanding women have reached more of the state of parity with men than they once had. They can afford to ask for more because they're not as dependent on a man to take care of them as they once were. And you really do see this reflected in behavior between the two sexes I think. Well if I guess one one would think that if part of the reason or a big part of the reason is men and they're just sort of jockeying for position with other men and the particularly I think with younger men if we're talking about the economic sphere then one might expect that the the men who were most aggressively doing things like you know getting hair transplants and having face lifts and spending hours and hours in the gym and

so forth would in would be older men that you know that is say at least guys over 40 as opposed to guys in their 20s is do you think that is the case. Well it starts out the phenomenon really can be rooted very strongly in the Baby Boomer generation. You know like it or not this generation really has influenced our culture. And you can sort of track the progression. It male beautification also the health revolution the fitness revolution. Take it decade by decade and you see it very much marching into in tandem with baby boomers as they move through life. For instance you see them starting to become concerned about their health in the thirties when they're just starting to get that first paunch and they're just feeling you know that first step over the line into adulthood. Because remember this is the generation that was told You mustn't turn 30. You can't trust anyone over 30. And then you see a decade a very vigorous baby boomer activity in the gym. But then you see it slowing down because they move into their 40s and whereas they don't dominate the culture totally what they do really does that send out very

strong signals to everyone else. And if a man in his 40s it's a baby boomer generation number is doing something those images that that sort of emphasis shift to the population as a whole. And they've been the ones really setting the trends now as they're moving into their 50s and even 60s you're seeing very different things happening in the gen that's slowing down a bit. What it does it seems in part though too isn't it doesn't have something to do with the gender role. Feeling that we have in society that we just we just don't want to get old and I don't want to get old. You can trace that really back to the 60s as I just mentioned you know anybody over a certain age is hold in ideas. But as you move out of the 60s into the 70s it's not so much ideas and attitudes and social reform that matter it's increasingly how you look and how you continue to project youthfulness how you continue to look young and act young. People don't want to grow up anymore and that means they don't want to get old physically anymore than they want to get old mentally. And we see this is going to this is been intensifying as

indeed we are all getting older. It is become a very strong image in our society. You make the argument that I think that that at least since the 50s the things that men there are basically four sorts of things that men have really thought a lot about and and I would imagine also these things are not just concerns of men since the 50s but maybe go back a way that is their hair and whether they have it or not their their physique and you know and wanting to be muscular looking you know you don't want to be the 98 pound weakling you want to be in. And in my childhood I guess it would have been Charles Atlas and today it would be Arnold Schwarzenegger. And the other things have to do with a youthful appearance and so that's why maybe we're also starting to see more things like face lifts and also liposuction. Men getting that and the last area has to do with with the sexuality sexual performance and so forth. But let me just pick one of these things just because it seems to me that

it it get least going back to you know my childhood and before you guys want to be big and strong and muscular and He-Man manly guys. And so even then people were talking about things that you could do to bulk yourself up but lift weights go to the gym whatever it was. If though if you look at what's happening today and make some comparisons between the 50s is that how and how indeed is that different and is it a difference in degree and what it is that men are doing to try to get to that look. Well it's a substantial difference in degree because. I think if you look back as you say in the 50s or even earlier young men especially boys adolescents are always very sensitive about projecting their masculinity and looking you know like men and getting the girl and that sort of thing and particularly adolescent boys are a bit ganglia in their you know sort of groping for their identity and those used to be the primary customers

for the Charles Atlas products young men also working class men men who perhaps didn't feel they were you know having all the opportunities or all the self-respect that they deserved through their work or through their accomplishments. But what have alternately happened with most men most boys that were 14 by the time they became 21 were focusing on other things sort of the national ethos was a man grows up he gets a job he provides for a family he moves up the career ladder. And then these things like weight lifting and worrying about being a 97 pound weakling don't matter so much anymore you prove yourself in other ways. And this is what we've moved away from. The famous statement from the 80s of the Peter Pan syndrome the sort of relentless hanging onto this youth beyond the point where it would have been had done in the 50s or the 40s or the 30s. We're talking this morning in this part of focus 580 with Len Luciano She's assistant professor of history at University California Dominguez Hills and she has written a book that looks at

men the way they think about their bodies and the increasing tendency of men to do things to try to improve their appearance to look stronger more attractive younger. The title of her book is looking good male body image in modern America. We have a caller and we'd certainly welcome others who want to be a part of the conversation. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5 years call or our toll free line in Clay City line number four. Hello. Oh yes I was sort of wondering you know how much the cover up book is based on not blind research studies where they were they were. By hiring practices what I was concerned with was used seeing studies where they were young attractive women go and apply for a job and they have less qualifications than say someone who's maybe a little overweight and and is not as attractive and they have a tendency to get snapped up faster than than the other way how to how is it working. Demographically for men is that is

that trend starting to happen more especially when you have more women in management positions doing the hiring is there more cute men being hired than say the fat bald guy and how does it play out as far as as far as job and and salaries and careers go I know that never was much of a factor before but I think it's more and more factors day is it not. Thank you Slava stopped us. That's a that's a good question actually it always has been a factor. Even if you go back in the 50s my research showed that I used a lot of sociological data for this. Companies were a little bit nervous about hiring a fat man even in the 1950s. But this was less a concern with how he looked then concerns about Gee is he going to have a heart attack you know we do invest a lot of money into putting this man through a management program and he's not going to be able to do the job because he's overweight and he's not well. But then the image part of this really comes in in the 1970s and I located a lot of my book in that decade because the 1970s if we remember those terrible years is when the

United States really came in for a pounding economically. We were no longer number one in the world size. We were losing very badly to Japan. We were downsizing madly. We were laying off by the hundreds of thousands. And most of whom we were laying off were the middle class white collar men who had become quite accustomed to just you know staying in their jobs forever and not having to worry about such things. And you start to see a real rush then to compete on the basis of looking young looking dynamic looking strong. But you also have hiring practices that whereas they don't discriminate overtly. They definitely select on the basis of looks. Even if people are unconscious about it in management more attractive people are consistently perceived through all studies that I've read as being more competent simply because they are more attractive. Interestingly where this falls off a cliff is with women who are very very attractive. If women are too attractive the equation works the other way and

they're perceived as less effective because they're too pretty. But for men there's always been a strong parallel between perceptions of employers about how they look and the hiring practices based on looking better getting more more money more pay and better jobs. You at one point in the book you suggest and sort of question this although I. I'm not we don't really have any good basis but that there would have been a time when if a man was too attractive. It would have counted against him. I remember bringing those kind of men home on dates no parents not thrilled you know like well what's he going to be when he grows up his hair is too long and it's closer to sharpen. Gee can't you bring somebody home who isn't just a good dancer. There was a ceiling and I'm talking very much about middle class values here you know which are kind of the driving force really in our culture or were until recently. But the idea that a man who pays too much attention to his looks is somehow not having enough energy left over to

devote himself to the important things. That's a long term thing in American and American culture because a lot of what is associated with looking to good and looking a little bit soft ish goes back to that old American you know idea about the Europeans as being that way but we have our eyes on more important things. You know the front here and all that kind of mythology and masculinity. Yeah. So you know rather you want to be John Wayne and rather than Leslie Howard. Oh absolutely no question about it. Or at least that used to be the case. Well debatable now is that I still wonder though whether you might. Need see some of the same effect that you mention for women that is a man who is too attractive who looks like a model who dresses like he just stepped off the cover of GQ. Then we might also hold that against him as well that we might say well you know this guy's just pretty and he doesn't have much between his ears. That's still the case. Yes I think and I hear women say that often it's too much he said lavishing too much attention on on himself. Women don't like to think that a man is trying too

hard. And that is especially one of the reasons I think that women have expressed such dislike not only visually But just conceptually about bodybuilders not only do they generally not like the extreme extreme look but they don't like the idea that a man is spending that much attention on his appearance we are still carrying those prejudices. We have another caller this is someone locally. The line is one in. Hello. Hi thanks for taking my call I have to second that I must be one of those many many women out there who find a man who is a little too GQ. He actually seems unmanly to me and that's just my own psychology and I you know who knows where that comes from. But but I must be one of those many many women. Anyway here's my real question. It seems to me and I haven't you know done research on this this is just based on what I observe around me is that while men and women both want to look good more than they ever have before and placed more emphasis on appearance it seems to me that men

are more satisfied with their appearance more easily whereas women are constantly. Denigrating themselves and no matter how wonderful they look it's never good enough. Whereas in my experience men you know they might go to the gym and they might buy some nice clothes and they think they look pretty good and they're really satisfied with themselves. Do you find that in your research. Absolutely. You're absolutely right on some things don't change. What has changed I think most is that men care as much as they do but they still have an awfully long way to go as a group before they catch up with women and even plastic surgeons expressed that to me. They said that they would really rather work on men because men are much less to have to think about the result that they expect. One of them put it this way he said women usually want to fit in in a facelift for example to have December turned back to May or is a man is usually satisfied with July or August. Yeah. Now do you think this is the reason for that is that to some

extent it still is the case that for example if you're a man and you make a good salary or you have a good job that's enough. Compensation for not being may it's still much more important it's still much more important for a man to express his success financially and in other ways. What is what has changed is that women are less satisfied with a man who simply doesn't care at all right. And that's really used to be the case. Women often resented that particularly as the fitness revolution starts and women go off to the gym and they workout and manner Well you know you go workout you're all sit on the couch I don't have to work out. That was a double standard. You're the woman you have to work at it. I'm fine the way I am dead and then begin to become disenchanted with that. But you're absolutely right there still remains a gap and part of that is because of the efforts of Marketing to Women are still targeted much more than men. I think that obviously there's you know men's health and magazines like that but it doesn't

seem to me that you're quite as bombarded read let legislate with well-meant men's health as a perfect example because it is called men's health not men's beauty. But if you look at the magazine and the content of the inside of it it is a little bit different than men on the cover is always just as beautiful as the women on the front on the covers of glamour. Right. But they're healthy they're not beautiful. This makes me very interested in your book I look forward to reading it. Thank you know what I think like oh I just I do find myself wondering whether in fact maybe men are. Maybe not. As dissatisfied with their appearance as women are but I think that men do think about it but they tend less to talk about it. You know one guy's not going to say to the other guy does my butt look big in these jeans. You know that's just not going to happen but men have a different dialogue going on themselves. Certainly and it's not it's considered very inappropriate to express concern about your looks if you're a man or you really don't hear men complimenting each other oh great haircut Jack you know

it just isn't the same. It's a different sort of a social ethos that men have among themselves. But I also found that to be problematic in conducting my research because whereas plastic surgeons were willing to talk about the surgeries they did the men on whom the surgeries performed prefer to pretend that the surgeries had never happened. It just looked this way naturally they were very reluctant partly because cosmetic surgery is still regarded as a very Stehman kind of thing. Even though 25 percent of the people getting it are men but also because men just don't talk that way as much as women do. What are some of the common surgeries cosmetic surgeries for men and are they this basically the same. Mostly the. That women get are they somehow different they're different. Women are flocking to face lifting you know that is that is the big one for women always has been that's been regarded always as a quintessentially feminine surgery because the main point of the facelift is not really to change your face but simply to make it look like it did some years

ago. In other words to restore the youthful looks and I wasn't considered very important for men. What men are doing is having I lift. That's very popular because a tired eyes makes a man look tired and not dynamic and not energetic In other words and then focus very much on plastic surgery on him storing a kind of a masculine image. And when they do get a facelift the surgeons have had a bit of a problem with this because surgeons are accustomed to doing this process on women and their tendency has been because they're not familiar with working on men to do the same exact things to men that they were doing to women with peculiar results. For example they would give men the sort of wide eyed surprised Oh hello they are book. So it's that a woman one wants to have if she wants to look like she's 18 again men don't want to look like that. They want to look strong and tough. So surgeons have had to readjust their procedures to accommodate this. Men are also getting liposuction because no matter how many hours they spend in the gym love handles

just don't go away. But again that's restoring. It's not slimming you down it's not feminizing you it's just making you look like a tougher tighter stronger man. We are almost at the midpoint already and we're talking here in this part of focus 580 with Lynn Luciano She's a professor of history assistant professor of history at University California Dominguez Hills if you're interested in reading some more on the subject you can look for her book it's titled Looking good male body image in modern America published by hill and Wang it's out fairly recently here and we have some other people to bring into the conversation. Anyone's welcome to call you have questions comments 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800. 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. Next up color and downs this is the line number four. Hello. Hello. I was talking with some female friends of my son who are in their mid 20s these are college friends and they were talking about a female friend who had had eating disorders in college. But then they started

talking about men and men who had been her friends and kind of pressure she was getting from them but that they also were throwing up. And they had talked about it together. Is there more male eating disorders going on these days. Yes indeed. And whatever numbers we have which at recent count were around a million are probably very understated even more so than say Szell cosmetic surgery eating disorders are considered a disease of women when men simply cannot have this. So we when they do engage in this kind of behavior they're very secretive. Of course it's a secretive kind of behavior for women also. But with the case of throwing up it's a wonderful example. Men can throw up and get away with that for socially acceptable ways that women can. A woman throwing up is oh my gosh you know you just wouldn't one do that in public or any other place. Man on the other hand or a particularly young men well they drink too much or they

party too much and their behavior is kind of borish but hey there man. So it's less remarked upon. There's also more of a history with men young young men in athletics and sports in high school and college of actually using throwing up as a mechanism for controlling weight. Men are more likely to engage in sports that require rigorous weight. You know you have to make weight and women less likely to do that. So men can do these behaviors and they're they're not necessarily perceived as as aberant behavior whereas a movie spotted right away in a woman. But a lot of the case studies that I looked at were talking about adolescent boys who were exercising for hours and throwing up and not eating and their parents simply didn't grasp that this was an anorexic horrible ENIC episode because these were boys. This was not behavior that a boy Oh he's overdoing it a bit. Oh he should eat a little more or we ought to slow down a bit. Whereas immediately red flags would have gone off for a girl or a woman.

So it's still a bit of a mystery and a bit of a misunderstood phenomenon but actually the driving force is exactly the same. You're trying to change your body to make it leaner to make it more muscular than fat and to look good as a man. That get at your question I was just amazed when I when I heard these young women talking about this because it's like high interest who work with this with this problem have tried to start therapy groups for men and men don't want to come they did they are in total denial about this. I don't have that's a woman's disease I don't have that. I just died I'm just nervous or I'm tense or I'm you know trying to die I'm not just doing this at this present time and I'm not going to do it permanently I don't have an eating disorder. That's a woman's disease the fear of feminization you know really is very strong here. Well thank you I. It just bothers me that this is. It's too bad that women are so affected by this disease. But the fact that I think it's

the same kind of societal pressure. It is it's very it's very sad. It's it doesn't alleviate the problem for women to have men joining in a fight. Fortunately thank you thank you. Let's go next to Southeastern Illinois line one. Hello. Yes I just have a number of kind of assorted comments I probably forget most of them. For one thing I it if I think it's interesting that there is a seem to be a parallel between this and Mr. and just as a guess about women fixated on there they're being slammed and yet at the same time the news reports that there is an epidemic of obesity. So I mean those things seem to be happening internally. I think you're right your first impression that this is a famine is asian of the country I have another example of the feminization is the fact that so many people were not.

Offended or add to rage by Clinton's looseness with the truth through the integrity of the word is a standard of male honor not of women's honor among Mormons honors as traditionally been in her body. Man has been in these word and his courage. And that this is a day that the country is losing the principle of among men the integrity of a man's word. At one point though have you did you take into consideration that this may have all had the effect that the importance of television making the whole country and making it a camera country where everything is. Influenced by how it will appear on a camera and also by the fact that nobody grows old

much on air on television except comedy characters. There that's very much at the core of my research not just television but the whole sort of kind of collection of images that we as Americans are subjected to it really starts back at the very beginning of the century with advertising that tells us that we must use certain products to look good or to be good or to be happy or to win the person of our dreams. And that continues very relentlessly through the rest of the century and of course accelerates tremendously with television. But even before television you had movies and that's our national mass medium and those two are holding out images not just to native born Americans the two millions of immigrants who come from other countries and say oh this is what an American is supposed to look like. This is what the ideal of American Beauty and American handsomeness really is. And of course for a long time those images show beautiful women but men whose beauty really resides in their courage as you put it their honor you know their success the

frontier ethic of the cowboy who saved the damsel in distress. It's only recently that we've had these different ideas for men. But yes image is extremely important. And it accelerates after the 1960s it accelerates with the me generation of the 70s when we really turn inward and focus on ourselves how can I be happy. How can I achieve the greatest level of personal success. This is about women better do you have any thought as to why the beautiful woman has disappeared for movies. Well I think what we have is different standards of beauty we have a more diverse standard of beauty we once had a very distinct idea of what constituted beauty and what multiculturalism diversity in our population and a sort of downward thrust also in Age of what we consider beautiful. We just have a different idea than we once had I don't know that our women are less beautiful they're just the beauty is defined differently. Getting a clear cut is that once any star though that is is not as strictly as a

beauty as as as the Michelle Pfeiffer was when she started out. But she has gotten to you. She should jump from Bamako. Well I again I don't think that that's necessary that it we have gone away from the idea of beauty I think that we're just looking at it differently than we once did. It's not as it's not as strictly defined for men or for women. Thank you. I think so do you think that Professor Luciano that in the if you look at I say look at movie stars I guess they always have been the benchmarks I guess. And you take a look at say in all the big male stars who would have been considered to be the most attractive maybe in the 30s in the 40s and that you compared them with big male stars of today you know you take take Clark Gable and set him beside Brad Pitt. Oh gosh that is the inevitable. Well I'm I'm afraid to kind of you know Mel Gibson I guess I don't you could take your

jokes does it does it seem that what we consider to be attractive in men particularly if you're just looking at their. Faces that that has that that has really changed it has really changed and it's tied up with what we were speaking of earlier this growing emphasis of the Cessna's with you which has finally caught up with men as well as women women have always been valued more. They're younger at least younger looking and the same thing is now happening with men Brad Pitt is an enormous icon an enormous star and so is Mel Gibson that both of them are extremely boyish Brad Pat. Brad Pitt in fact and Mel Gibson in self-presentation sort of the rebel that never grows up in the 50s we had one person one or two like that in Jimmy Dean. Now we have practically everyone who is a big star carrying forth this ideal which which is. And the successful corporate man or the breadwinner or the man who takes care of his family so much it is as it is the teenager who never grows up. The crazy adolescent and that look of course you have to have a look go along with that it's not going to work for Brad Pitt or Mel Gibson if they're overweight

and have a lot of wrinkles that they have to maintain that look to keep the edge. Let's go to another caller here this is Aurora. Lie number four. Hello. Yeah I have a question. When Bill Blass retired from designing he said our problems began when our clothing and our dress including men mostly or men anyway. The can to be what is the word they use it's so. Trashy that's not the word I mean but they'd you know they panned St. 5th is they don't tie their shoe laces. They trashy I guess might be the word. You know they look this is the grunge look. Yeah yeah. Why did that come into being and why do young men think that the way to go.

Well I'm not a fashion historian. That's a whole field of study in and of itself but I think really when we look back on any fashions I think all of any generation that we belong to we are often horrified by the fashion so that we see coming up behind us. I know when I was growing up you know it was we had some socks and those kind of things and those were appalling to people too. I would suggest that other other historians have have said that perhaps the beginning of the end or the decline and fall of civilization came even before the people started leaving their shoelaces untied it came with the popularity of blue jeans in the 1060 because here again the U.S. saying this is design you don't think this is the way that you know you're talking about men and their appearances aren't you. I'm talking about the body itself the whole of the body in my book is really about the body. Not so much about fashion but Blue jeans are very important arbiter of fashion because. People who look good in blue jeans are young people. Well I don't know I had

to work she looked at him with a chain of jeans but you see these kids walking down the street and their pants look like they had ten sizes too big for them. But in a sense that's just another outgrowth that's just another jeans fashion for the most part because most of it was a laugh. There are pants and a blue jeans. They're black pants now but that they come out of the blue jean tradition. The idea is it's a it's a look and it'll go away don't worry. I don't care I don't care but if the if us saying these men seemingly want to give an impression I am wondering if that is I guess I'm mad of it. I guess I don't understand. But when Bill Blass said that I thought to myself Well he's a man of design. And I agree with him. Well I have to agree with you too that's not my favorite style but it's it's the style that in right now and that's what one must wear to be popular in a certain age group that's always been with us I'm afraid. Keeping up with the peers in means of dress and what is not

attractive ought to our eyes nevertheless attractive to maybe younger people who who like that. We're stuck with it until it goes away. Well it also it seems to me what's interesting is it. I mean you know my dad is not wearing baggy jeans but he is wearing jeans and I guess. And ever remember seeing my grandfather wear jeans ever. No it simply was not done. This was something you threw away when you grew up. Really nobody wore jeans at all in the mid century because it was something you were if you were a farmer. Now if you were a city person. But they become enormously popular and they are form fitting and they make the body look good they hug the body to accentuate the body but of course for that to work the body has to be in good condition which puts more emphasis on looking good for both men and women. But that does not also unfortunately mean that people don't really mentally cling to that style beyond a point or perhaps a shift which puts more pressure on them to keep slim. I want to get him down to the point we got about 10 minutes left I want to ask you about something that I know some people listening might find sensitive or disturbing so I'm issuing a fair warning here. We're going to

talk about penis enlargement as if anybody finds you know it's going to I don't want to hear anybody later saying oh you don't you don't talk about that already I'm giving your chance to turn it off if you think it's going to be disturbing before we do that though I want to talk about underwear. Lads now we have advertising for underwear for both men and women that is that is more provocative than ever on television we have women modeling Victoria's Secret and I can only presume that what they're hoping is that men will run down to Victoria's Secret and buy that for the women in their lives. Now we also have hunky guys in underwear ads. Are they hoping that women will run down and buy those for their husbands and boyfriends. Actually a lot of them none of buying those for themselves. And that's where we see a reality Parcher in underwear when one of only the look of underwear which has become Provocative indeed of fifty years ago even 30 years ago that kind any kind of skimpy or revealing male underwear was really considered very de class-A the better department

stores wouldn't even carry it. Now that's if you can get it anywhere of course it's the underwear of choice and it's not the wives who are buying the underwear anymore it's often the men themselves and the girlfriends. But what you had with the underwear and it's 50s early 60s is a very sensible packaged underwear that breathes it that washed easily and it was the pitch on buying it was oriented entirely to the person presumed to do the buying which was usually the wife or the mother not the young man himself. So the market has changed completely and you want to project it your underwear matters as much as your the shirt you wear. As far as projecting your sexiness and your looks so are the men themselves are going to be the consumers as much as women. Well we talked about men going to the gym to build themselves up and you also do talk in the book about the fact that we also do see men using steroids and all kinds of other stuff to to achieve that look we've talked about cosmetic surgery. The the

thing that's just sort of shows the height to which things are getting is plastic surgery men are having plastic surgery to enlarge their penises. I don't I'm not you can tell me what the numbers here are. It's enough to certainly take note of it. It seems that. I this sort of boggles my mind every time I think about it. And I suppose that tells you that well this is the most this is the male marker. This is it and if you feel that somehow it's not enough. I guess there are guys who are actually willing to. And it can be a problematic procedure for a lot of reasons. There really often introduced them. We're not talking the same numbers with this kind of surgery the official name of which is valid press taken from the medical profession. We're not talking as many men doing this. Certainly as well as we're getting liposuction and I lift or even face lift. But in substantial numbers when you consider the risks involved and the fact that this is not really a body part that you would expect to be

displayed quite as much as pectorals or have the number certainly in the tens of thousands. And whereas it started out being localized a lot of a lot of the surgery was being done in Los Angeles where I am often an image related phenomenon seem to begin and flourish. It is spread everywhere in the country. You can get hella plasty done pretty much anywhere. Virginia Texas the Midwest it's available. So it's a surgery that is not going away and it's a surgery that men do very much for other men. And I'm not talking here about the gay that and gay men versus straight men the population of men getting the surgery is largely heterosexual. The representation of gay vs. straight is the same as it would be in the population as a whole. So there's no there's no real distinction there. But men apparently want the surgeons tell me is that men do this for each other in something that is the surgeons referred to as locker room syndrome. And here is male competitiveness raised perhaps to its highest level. The idea that in the

locker room you are subject to other men looking at you. This is other men not women and you're not trying to attract them you're not trying to repel them you are trying to establish your your privacy your place in the pecking order with this body part. So it's not. That's that's one of the most interesting sort of wrinkle on this I guess. The first impulse I suppose would be to think that a man would be doing this to make himself more appealing to women sexually. But and indeed I guess some men maybe do have that. I'm sure that's in the bag because this is a dating tool it's a mating tool you know it's certainly in the idea of sexuality but as far as the visual part because women need it repeatedly in surveys taken of women women are almost universally not interested in this large size phenomenon as long as things are functional they're much more interested in if things are normal they want intimacy they want other things in sexual relationships not just of penile size.

It's the men who have come up with this is a measurement of self-worth not women. And the marketing tapes that the surgeons put out show men talking you know let me tell you about my surgery usually with the woman sitting demurely at their side to sort of reinforce the idea that this is really for women but it's apparently not any good surgeon will qualify his patient by asking questions you know why are you getting the surgery and what do you hope to gain. And this is what the result has been that the answers are. I want to look good in the locker room. Not not in so many words perhaps but that seems to be what it comes down to. We have other callers let's go next to champagne here lie number one. Hello. Hello I apologize if you've already covered this. But in terms of damage how does how do beards come into this picture because during the 60s there was kind of this hippie orientation to beards and and then you know currently there's maybe the Ted Kaczynski the camera kind of image with the

beards. How do they stack up in this current evaluation of man's image. I don't know if you know any men are striving for the Ted Kaczynski look to his face in the 60s body image was an odd little bit of an oddity for men it was not so much predicated on masculinity in fact perhaps just the opposite sort of androgynous. They were trying more to project. Oh gosh in a lot of anti-authority authority images rebels you know this kind of thing it had more to do with the social image than it did with body image and sexual image. So beards were an expression of you know after all Fidel Castro and Che Guevara had beards and. And it was a total throwback against what was considered appropriate by the average middle class man who certainly. Not have a beard. When he went to his corporate job in his grey flannel suit so the beard was really a tool of a social expression more than body image. So if a person if a person is interested in body image you would probably get rid of the beard as their muscles increase so that's right you want to keep that face you want to keep those surgically crafted

cheekbones visible not covered under a beard right. Okay thank you. Well thank you. We'll go to Bloomington lie number four. Hello. I think one of the callers had mentioned earlier about the increasing percentage of people that are overweight and I have to wonder if some of the concern about the parents could equally come from that. Health wise and perhaps in some other words the negative trend of simply we have so many more people in that position rather than to increase the ante. As far as the occupational implications of the pier it strikes me that as long as we have such a shortage of skilled people in our culture that may be true but I have to wonder how much practical nothing and the other thing I wonder too is that everything these days whether we were talking about health or whether we're talking about college and Chris

I don't know that a parent can be singled out and play well you know some phenomenon occurring here. We do it may be sharing the fine tuning that's going on with respect to letting things just strikes me that for example greater sensitivity and intelligence being affected a man too. So how does this really differ from the things you're pointing out and I think you have to remember there are a whole range of male attitudes on that and it strikes me that men certainly don't all want to be perceived as just need to refer to the media etc. etc.. My feeling would be that a book like yours simply will take in the gullible and make them think that while the most important thing in my occupation here is getting past the death of appearance it just strikes me that some of this has to be carefully qualified as we have a small percentage of people that are acting in this way and this way we have some men that are taking on some of the worst traits of

femininity. Just as we have women in the feminist movement taking on some of the worst traits of men in their attempt to achieve a more egalitarian position. So I just want to to caution you about the impact of your book. If people overreact to what you're saying is happening and really it's probably a little bit. We have a couple doesn't have a bad impact actually has a history of what men have been doing for the last 50 years and again I want to emphasize that I'm really not saying that men are becoming feminized rather the thrust of the book is The. The sort of emphasis of the media the advertising the increased importance for all of us of the image is pushing all of us in this direction it's not a matter of feminization it's a matter of image driven commodification of people whose bodies have become more and more important as a means of expressing who they are. And this is not to say that everyone is caught up in this but an awful large number of people are. More so in this country than in

any other and what happens here tends to spread as other countries become more consumer oriented and more middle class. We seem to we seem to be projecting these values outward. And I. Think that is cause for concern not because men are fools or women are fools but because we are subject to the cultural influences that we encounter. And if I could address your first comment on the fitness revolution. You were talking about fitness vs. health. It's a very interesting revolution in the sense that we didn't all of the all of the sudden become concerned with our health. Five years ago or 10 years ago we really started to become concerned and by we I really now n way back in the 1950s when doctors first identified the connection between heart disease and sedentary lifestyles and the kind of food we eat in America and we're all aware we when we got here many food revolution's but we can't seem to tear ourselves away from those steaks and you know red meat because the darn stuff does taste good.

But men start out trying to stay healthy by going to the gym and jogging and exercising and then gradually ever so subtly and start shading into it being very much about body image as well because going to the gym doesn't just clean you up on the inside it makes you look better on the outside. And how much of everybody's trip to the gym every day is for beauty versus FOR HEALTH There's no way of knowing. But there's definitely been an evolution toward that not as a means of looking good just as much as it is I think of the means of staying healthy. We are going to have to leave it at that because we've come to the end of the time we want to say Professor thanks very much for talking to David. What a pleasure. Our guest Lynn Luciano if you'd like to read her book it's titled Looking good male body image in modern America. Hill and Wang is the publisher.