Where Have Men Gone? We're Right Here.
Rachel brought professional insight to the issue, having worked at Playboy for more than a decade, where she learned about the monetization of men's desire, what drew them in and kept them coming back. 'It wasn't intimacy,' she writes. 'It wasn't mutuality. It was access to stimulation — clean, fast and frictionless.'
Her essay led to an extraordinary amount of reader email, nearly all from men. Here is a selection, edited for length and clarity.
Rachel Drucker's essay captures a real and painful longing — for presence, reciprocity and emotional connection. But if men are retreating, it's not out of indifference. It's often out of exhaustion and confusion.
Dating today places enormous and conflicting demands on men. We're still expected to pay for dates, take the lead and demonstrate confidence — while also being emotionally available, deferential and self-aware. The goal posts shift constantly, and women's expectations are often unstated or contradictory.
Emotional openness in men is encouraged in theory but penalized in practice. And the risk of being misjudged, misquoted or shamed online makes genuine vulnerability feel dangerous. Many of us want connection, but not at the cost of constant anxiety about saying or doing the wrong thing.
If we're to 'come back,' as the essay pleads, it has to be to a space of mutual grace and clarity. The new normal hasn't been defined yet. We need to create it together.
Jonathan Stowe
Charlottesville, Va.
Perhaps men and women are in a holding pattern, and we don't know what's next. But as a white, urban, married father of two late teen boys, I can say it's an increasingly daunting task to meet the ever-changing expectations of what a man should be. According to women but, more important, according to ourselves and our self worth.
No one should feel sorry for us — but nor should they complain when we become introspective and quietly check our guts when deciding how to proceed.
Morgan Clark
Studio City, Calif.
I think what's going on is that for the past 10-20 years, men and boys have been marginalized, probably in response to women being marginalized before that. It feels like punishment but for something that current men never did, at least not consciously or intentionally. Everything in the culture says: women good, men bad.
What I think Ms. Drucker is asking for is leadership and confidence in men. But we've been told that those are toxic traits. So, here we are.
Justin Hornburg
Bloomfield, Mich.
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