I recently discovered a YouTube video of Jane Fonda discussing the differing impacts of our patriarchal culture on boys and girls. She was speaking at UC Santa Barbara. Her point is that patriarchy goes after girls when they reach adolescence by attacking their voices (metaphorically). They pursue a relationship with boys instead of exploring a relationship with themselves. But even more dismayingly, patriarchy goes after boys at the age of 5 when they enter the public school systems, and it goes after their hearts. At age 5 boys become socialized to suppress emotions and they then have to operate in a very small parameter of "masculinity" that is about 100 years out-of-date, and if they don't, they get labeled as gay. When in reality they become emotionally illiterate, the consequences of which, for all involved, are enormously destructive.

I have, indeed, observed such groups of young men doing similar things to what is described here. And their behavior does seem to have all the expected bad consequences. I don't know if it's as bad as Mr. Hannaham makes it sound--it feels as if he's saying everything is just like it was in the '60s, or even in the '50s: racism and sexism among the boys, basically because to be 'modern' or 'pro-integration' or 'pro-equality' is, well, gay. Is the point that nothing has changed for these groups of young men, or that it has become worse? Is it the case that liberals and progressive people in general have somehow failed to raise boys that don't have old prejudices, or are these boys the sons of other kinds of people--say, right-wing conservative Christians?

I wonder what the statistics are on this. I also wonder what the situation is for groups of young women: is it all as in Mean Girls, and in this case also the same as it was in the '50s, or not?

I was lucky growing up in that I had a great dad who taught me what being a man really meant, i.e., accepting responsibility and doing the right thing without expecting a reward every time. Honesty is the best policy but not always the fruitful one. When people who cut corners suspect I am doing the same, I tell them my father had a serious personality flaw - scrupulous honesty - which he passed onto me.

I also had a cadre of men to look up to when I was young: uncles and my dad's friends who had survived the Depression and the War and were serious about their work, their families and their play.

I was also lucky that I qualified to attend an excellent high school where being smart and a little odd were not liabilities. Even the jocks won National Merit Awards. And the girls were smart, usually smarter than me, and did not feel any pressure to hide their intelligence. I am happy they didn't because it made me appreciate them even more.

Growing up in NYC exposed me to gay people, many of whom I found more insightful and caring than straight people. They also seemed to put themselves "out there" emotionally more than others.

When, on occasion, my Y chromosome forces me into a silly behavior, the worst epithet my wife can toss at me is, "Sometimes, you are such a guy."

Simply looking at it from a chuavanistic standpoint, more gay guys in the world would mean more women for you. In other words, it would be a boon. Yet this logic hasn't sunk in. Perhaps this is the way to get rid of homophobia, don't sell fair treatment of gays as an "equality" issue but as a "it's to your advantage" issue. It would be interesting to see this argument presented to these guys.

Did the author speak to some of the guys who rejected the "guy or gay" scenario or did he create a false premise that all guys go through this social ritual?

Lots of guys in high school are nice, respect women, pursue a variety of interests in sports and the arts, maintain friendships with like-minded men and women, and are completely secure in their sexuality whether gay or straight.

I knew people who were embracing the boys gone wild behavior, and I avoided them as best as I could. They were always the ones sponsoring the house parties with the big vat of toxic jungle juice, and I think the aim of those parties were to get the girls to pass out so the guys could commit rape via intoxication. I remember a girlfriend and I running away from one of these wild parties as a college freshmen. I had been making idle chit chat, then had passed out momentarily, and woke up to a really big drunk guy sloppily kissing me and was like, WTF? Young women really should have their girlfriends watching their backs if they go to these parties! These guys are so hammered they don't even recognize the girls they tried to mate with after they run into them in the dining hall the same week. I remember rescuing a different girlfriend from a potential intoxication rape situation later that year. And the guy that was forcing himself on her was supposedly a "friend" of everyone while sober, but really he was kind of a self-absorbed prick for the most part.

It isn't that hard to find the sensitive, shy, smart, progressive guys on campus who respect women and manage to avoid the fratboy/hazing scene. These guys make great boyfriends and go on to become great husbands and dads.

Some of the frat boys who are not criminal rapists and sodomizers -- those who survive the physical and psychological hazings that they volunteer for-- often grow up and become good men too but I think that they need to sober up first and get the sort of courage that permits them to carve an existence for themselves, no longer seeking approval of their "brothers" or the group.

I'm an immigrant to this country although I've spent all of my life past the age of 8 here in the US. I'm 34 now. I was part of a fraternity in college, played sports too but only once in my entire life have I had a white male friend that I would consider close. Why? I used to think it was something about me. All my close friends have been other immigrants. Anytime I entered the world of the white male I saw almost instantly how difficult it is to be yourself, how much posing goes on, how rapidly their conversations move disallowing intimacy or profoundity of any kind, and especially how abusive white men are towards each other. They think it's funny but I know the jokes they make hurt the people they are joking about and their humor is often wielded like a club against someone in the group. Penis size also happens to be an obsession with these guys. There is definitely something not right here.

On a completely different note, how funny is it that the author of this book is named Kimmel like Jimmy Kimmel, the host of a late-night talk show and exactly the obnoxious, aggressive, homophobic type of male being described here.