Dr. Harvey Kaye, a psychiatrist with more than forty years in practice, knows that American men are at a crossroads. He feels optimistic about the challenge men now face -- to drop the old ways and embrace a new vision of masculinity. In The Affairs of Men Dr. Kaye begins by looking at how society and culture have shaped an image of masculinity that once functioned well but now is outdated and apparently inflexible. Once men understand the mold into which they are being forced, they can break that mold, undergoing the equivalent of the consciousness-raising of the early days of the modern women's movement. In Dr. Kaye's view, the antagonism and separatism promoted by John Gray and those in the "biology is destiny" camp will only make matters worse. Men and women must work together to change society's ideals of masculinity into a more flexible form that will enhance rather than limit the lives of men.
The Affairs of Men surveys men's relationships at work and at home, their sex lives and sexual orientations, the "crunch" that fells so many, often in the form of the midlife crisis, and, most important, the lessons men must learn -- from themselves, from each other, and from the women around them -- in order to survive in today's world.
