"When it comes to mating rituals, young women have rewritten them, leaving some men pining for the clarity of the old days." If by "some men", the writer means "Laura Sessions Stepp". She writes that androgyny among young men today is a direct response to, and another casualty of, Captain Jack Sparrow. See, Sparrow's "swish and swagger" model of masculinity owes to new freedoms expressed by young women. Stepp laments that women are no longer passive agents to be picked up, treated, petted, and returned home before midnight. Today, women might pay for dates, and might skip the movie altogether to get to the sex.
The offer of pay and play has deeply confused young men—so much so that they are dressing out their apprehensions. This is why you see so many fey pirates walking around. But just what exactly are these buccaneers wearing?
They bend the gender role freely, especially if their buds are doing the same.Hey, I'm wearing at this very minute a pair of Rainbows. Like the rest of these clothes Stepp lists, these sandals turn out to be designed and marketed for men and yet have a brightly colored element. Transgressive, somewhat disturbing, and perhaps too high a price to pay for women's entree into professional and academic spheres. Posted by Kriston at May 31, 2007 2:53 PMA preppy guy in high school might pair a lime-green Polo Ralph Lauren shirt with light yellow J. Crew pants, a Lily Pulitzer belt and Rainbow flip-flops.
Who is to blame for this tragedy? Men wearing colors? Women enjoying sex? It is the ultimate chicken-and-egg question, whose lamentable progeny is a little human joy. Down with joy! Joy's for queers!
Posted by: A White Bear at May 31, 2007 5:58 PMTo the pet shop! I must immediately accessorize my lime-green shoulder with a matching parrot!
Posted by: Zeno at May 31, 2007 6:46 PMLime green polo Ralph Lauren shirts are not my idea of piratical costume. Also, Burt Lancaster's very manly-man get-up in The Red Pirate was---how do I put this?---not exactly heterosexual by contemporary standards.
Posted by: Jackmormon at June 1, 2007 11:09 AMI've been noticing more men wearing skirts lately. Will the pirates stop at nothing?
Posted by: standpipe at June 1, 2007 12:01 PMi like her use of Akon as an example of the new froof. nothing's androgynous quite like publicly miming the rape of a 14-year-old.
Posted by: k at June 1, 2007 2:09 PMMy blogless friend Kevin, who is himself a gay pirate, argues that the pink polo can be pinned to The Great Gatsby.
Posted by: Kriston at June 1, 2007 2:11 PMI didn't get the Akon reference. Tara Reid helpfully illustrates "the Akon treatment".
Posted by: Kriston at June 1, 2007 2:18 PMJesus,
Laura Sessions Stepp would be out of it if it was 1976. Chirst on a cracker, I'm 47 and I rembember being mesmirized in 1971 by the antics and stage personae of Mick Jagger and David Bowie when I was 11 years old. Only this preternatuarally aged dowager could think that this sexual androginy is new, i.e, something that has occurred since Little Richard emerged on the scene.
It is just painful to have someone so square (as our older brothers and sisters used to say) trying to report on trends among the young. It makes me want to weep and scream things like -- I've tried drugs -- I had a lot of sex before I was married -- I started drinking when I was 15 and I was slow for my age. This shit is beyond laughable. She is a slow-witted middle aged cow who was lucky to ever have gotten laid. Please stop paying attention to her. She speaks for no one who was born after 1950.
Posted by: Klein's tiny left nut at June 1, 2007 9:36 PMIf you want to see the effects of current gender confusion just check out a few of these guys.
Someone has some explaining to do.
Damn href tag!!! Just go to www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com to see what I mean.
Posted by: Jesse at June 3, 2007 12:04 AMbring back Madras jackets with paisley ties -- that's put a stop to this "men in colors" business!
Posted by: DB at June 3, 2007 9:35 AMGood golly, miss molly, I feel stupider having read that column. These comments make more sense, and they would even if they were disemvowelled and rearranged randomlly. Hello? powder and patch? Beribbonned canes? Taking snuff with a flip of the wrist? high red heels on men's shoes? All signs of intense masculinity for the period of jack sparrow. Taking women out and paying for their meals? Not actually a guarantee of sex unless like a non significant minority of men you actually think that paying for the woman's meal entitles you to rape with impunity. That column is so confused, so mixed up, so hysterically anti historical, anti factual, and anti an actual subjective position either male or female that it seems to have been pulled directly out of someone's rear. I can't agree with Klein's tiny left nut (though I usually do) because, frankly, she does'nt sepak authentically for anyone born *before* 1950 either.
aimai
Posted by: aimai at June 3, 2007 10:18 AMGod I miss the east coast. Capps and company, you must mobilize the beltway to establish the "Ship Laura Sessions Strapps' Blueblood Ass Straight to San Francisco" fund (no pun intended). I'll field the rest from this end.
Posted by: Forward Retreat at June 6, 2007 12:49 AM
