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One should start off by saying that The Affairs of Men by Harvey Kaye is not a psychoanalytic text or a psychological dissertation of clinical case material. This book is a sociological exploration of the dilemma faced by modern man and ordinary individuals who are pressured to live a life that may be dehumanizing by trying to fit into a role of what is generally accepted as the ideal masculine person. In a narrative that is quick paced, and often witty, the author develops his theme of man caught in a crisis; of a life patterned by the “Masculine Mystique.”
Kaye develops biological, psychological, cultural, and ethnological data to demonstrate that man is shaped from birth and compelled to strive for roles satisfying the heroic imperative, the drive for dominance, the unending achiever, and/or the ever potent sexual athlete. All these roles are supposed to provide him and the rest of society with a sense of control and mastery of a world that is complex and dangerous. Although necessary in abetting human survival for most of human history; in the past half century this identity of masculine has trapped boys and men in caricatures that are either impossible to achieve, or may lead to a sense of dehumanization and or interpersonal disturbance.
Kaye describes men caught in a crunch of trying to fulfill their own expectations of masculinity while simultaneously goaded on to ever greater sacrifices in servitude to society at the cost of individual fulfillment or even acceptable relational sexual pleasure.
The intended audience of this book is the general public as it seems to deliberately shy away from well developed psychoanalytic or psychological studies. Nevertheless, it is a worthwhile read for two reasons. Firstly, the dissertation in its wholeness lends deeper insight into the preconscious of some male patients, neurotically driven, to fulfill character roles that can be both destructive and dehumanizing while arguing justifications that are so widely accepted. Secon