The Affairs of Men

By Harvey E. Kaye

Book Overview

Dr. Harvey Kaye, emeritus assistant clinical professor of Psychiatry at New York Medical College, has spent decades analyzing matters of gender and sexual orientation. He's seen modern men lured by the siren song of the "Masculine Mystique" and pressured to fulfill the "Dominance Drive" and the "Heroic Imperative." The result is The Affairs of Men, a wry view of the masculine wilderness. Pressured by conflicting societal and familial standards, besieged by unrelenting demands to be sexier, wealthier, more successful, "more of a man," men pay a price in marriage, in the bedroom, in the workplace, and most important, in their sense of identity. It's clear that men are at a cultural crossroads, facing difficult questions: Why do men attempt to achieve impossible goals? How do gay men fit into overall images of masculinity? Are traditional male-female relationship passe? What roles should men take in their families? "The Affairs of Men" wittily illuminates the world of men, looking at both the origins of western society's image of masculinity and its current landscape. Dr. Kaye states that men must embrace a new vision of what it means to be a man. Men must give up the entrenched myth of superiority that has limited them for centuries. They must learn to experience all emotions, not just societally-approved anger, hatred, and jealousy. They must learn-from each other and from the women in their lives-what it is to be fully human.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765300214
• ISBN13: 9780765300218
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: Forge
• Length: 223 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.7" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Finally, a 21st century answser to the feminine mystique

Dr Harvey Kaye does a provocative and comprehensive job in defining the masculine mystique, a worthy task for this time in American culture. His comments are wise, pithy and eloquent. What is more, they are important, as he correctly concludes that the masculine image and identity are presently in a muddle, representing a real crisis for most males, causing actual psychopathology for many.His forty plus years of clinical experience, teaching and supervision enable him to spell out in plain English the biologic, psychologic and sociologic bases of masculinity.For example he describes such familiar subtypes of masculinity as The Superman Syndrome, The Sexual Athlete, The Neanderthal Ideal, The Achiever Complex and The Heroic Imperative. He reveals the pitfalls of The Paradise of the Playboy and The Dominance Drive.He debunks The Myth of Male Superiority and gives pungent vignettes from his clinical experience of The Male in the Masculinity Maze. In one dramatic case he spent thirteen windswept hours on a 14th floor ledge with a man seemingly determined to jump.His glorious prose is evident in his opening paragraph to the chapter entitled Man's Wonderful Workaday World. He describes Creation and the origin of life thusly:"A spectacular astral explosion, one monumental miscalculation, and Earth was born. Chaos, cataclysm, fire and brimstone reigned until, the elements exhausted, quiet descended. The primordial slime set, and the volcanic ooze slithered back into the bowels of the earth. The vaporous mists, writhing and consolidating, ascended, vaulting the Earth in a panoply of incandescent clouds. The rains washed the lands and gave rise to the seas. Mother Nature, now liberated from the prison of an inimical planet, borrowed a pinch of lightning from heaven, added it to a stew of oceanic amino acids, and created life."The rest of his chapters are engagingly called The Sex Life of a Penis, Hot Cockles and Husbands, The Gay Life: Fact and Fiction, The Crunch and That Matter of Survival. At 223 pages, it is quick and light reading laced with heavy insights and an optimistic outlook.I think America is ready for this book, male and female alike, as masculinity and femininity are shown as nature intended, to get along and be happy together. I hope it becomes a best-seller; it certainly deserves wide recognition and distribution.It could be a significant contribution to mental health in our time.