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 passé?
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.