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by Prioleau, Betsy

  Anger has also crept into men’s relations with women. Unhinged by the loss of historic prerogatives and power and uncertain how to adapt, some men have reverted to chauvinism. “The men of my generation are angry, howling nasty,” inveighs New York Times correspondent Charlie LeDuff, and aren’t about to “waste time trying” to “understand women.” In a recent retrosexist outbreak at Yale, men chanted obscenities at freshman women and rated them in an email blast according to the number of beers it would take to have sex with them. Tucker Max’s misogynistic hump-and-dump adventures with “sluts,” I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, has sold over 1.5 million copies. In TV and movies, notes New Yorker writer Anthony Lane, “sexual politics are going backward fast.”

  Another contingent of men has retreated from the fray by taking shelter from romantic engagement in man caves with their buddies. Director Judd Apatow has created a popular genre, the “bromance” movie, out of this trend: guys who’ve opted out of the whole love business to bond with each other and horse around with guitars, video games, and easy pieces.

  Machismo is making a feeble last stand too, with men anxious to salvage the shreds of masculine identity. Pickup artists feign warrior cojones and roll out paramilitary maneuvers to seize prey in bars for quickie takedowns. Culture-wide, men feel romantically beleaguered, regarding women with a wary, jaundiced eye and clenched fists.

  Estranged Women

  Women are equally at odds with men. The biggest surprise for researchers in one survey of over two thousand women was the female anger toward men. For every misogynistic Tucker Max, there’s a man-basher, cat-calling “ass-pirate” and sporting T-shirts that read, “Boys are stupid. Throw rocks at them!” Two scholarly books have chronicled a rise in misandry (antipathy to men), and attack jokes fill the Internet: “What is that insensitive bit at the end of the penis called?” “The man.” Or: “What do clitoris, anniversary, and a toilet have in common?” “Men always miss them.”

  If men are riled and unnerved by the gender quake, women are bitterly disappointed by it. The sexual and feminist revolutions of a half century ago were supposed to have ushered in a love fest—fem-centric sexuality, parity, and romantic happiness—especially as women rose in the world. When it didn’t work out that way, and the male backlash kicked in, generations of women felt cheated.

  Women’s libidos have been just as quashed as men’s by all this. Two-thirds of women opted for anything but sex in a 2010 study, and female sexual dysfunction persists in large numbers. “Women’s sex lives,” says New York University psychology professor Leonore Tiefer, “are often a struggle, a disappointment, an archipelago of regret.”

  Nor are relationships paying off as hoped. Since 1972, women have become steadily unhappier according to several 2009 studies, a trend caused in part, claims Huffington Post writer Lisa Solod Warren, by men’s failures to pass muster. Spouses and boyfriends aren’t “evil,” per se, she writes, they’re “obtuse” and “clueless,” despite “women’s every effort to wake them up.” Napping on the job has consequences. Women’s infidelity is rising, and the most commonly cited reasons are boredom and neglect. “Women,” said one seasoned cicisbeo (lover of wives), “just want to be loved.”

  Not just loved, but loved extravagantly. Improbably, in the midst of erotic famine and dismay with men, women have never asked so much of romantic partners. Journalist Jillian Straus and others document the sky-high expectations of contemporary women, while romance novels parade battalions of superlative lovers—complete-package Casanovas. The voices of reason advise settling for a Mr. Almost Perfect and simpatico pal, but as Zoe, the art dealer, says, “Why would I settle? I can earn my own money. I’m looking to meet someone who blows my socks off.” Women with options, report researchers, aren’t satisfied with “solid, good, nice men” any longer; they seek passion and excitement, too, in “hedonic” unions with equals.

  Imagining a Neo-Ladies’ Man

  So what would a “hedonic” man look like if Zoe could locate him in this unpromising scene? Although each woman has her own mate print and preferences, ladies’ men have remained remarkably similar through the ages. A 2012 survey of romantic values concludes that “women’s needs haven’t changed one bit”; what enthralled a queen of ancient Sparta and an eighteenth-century salonnière still enthralls the banker, product manager, and college dean today. With a few tweaks; every era favors a signature set of charms.

  The twenty-first century, with its tectonic upheavals, is changing—ever so slightly—the face of the ladies’ man. Driven and overtaxed themselves, women will unlikely embrace high-maintenance men like the overwrought, labile Gabriele D’Annunzio and the alcoholic Kingsley Amis. “Too needy” is one of the top-five deal-breakers for women in a new study, and both Karen and Trina of my focus group had discarded lovers when they became clingy or flunked AA.

  Money and status, minor lures in any age, are losing further ground with women. Reflecting a common sentiment, none of the “hot choosers” at my gathering cared about either. The brighter the woman, found a University of Michigan study, the less swayed she is by a man’s wallet size, and in a University of Louisville survey, three-fourths of women would choose a teacher with short workdays over a surgeon with eight times his salary.

  Some charms, though, will carry more weight with women. One may be looks. As popular romances dramatize, the “female gaze” has been liberated in recent decades. Women notice beautiful men with nice bulges and are less tolerant of Pillsbury Doughboys. A Psychology Today feature notes that the more attractive and self-sufficient the woman, the more she values a man’s appearance. As a result, male cosmetic surgery is climbing and men admit, “it’s really to do with women.” Karen, Roxie, Anne, Trina, and Zoe all mentioned “the chemistry of good looks,” but as soon as they spoke about specific lovers, their tune changed; their favorites were consistently unhandsome and “sub-average.” Supporting the homely seducer phenomenon, psychiatrist Michael Pertschuk discovered in a large-scale study that women tend to like a loved one’s appearance, regardless of stated ideals.

  Sexual virtuosity will also loom large in the new ladies’ man profile. Stanford professor Shelby Martin, who has studied the “orgasm gap,” believes women lag behind men largely through male ignorance and ineptitude. Another factor is female naiveté, which is changing fast. Huffington Post contributor Gail Konop Baker writes that as women’s power in the workplace grows, their “inner vixen is coming out and saying HELLO.” These vixens will demand their due. Mass-market romances, with their man stallions and detailed orgasmic romps, have anticipated this desire for years. No great seducer has ever failed women, but now he must be at concert pitch to keep up with today’s pleasure-claimers. Every guest at my klatch put a premium on sex with a capital S.

  Women, too, will ask for an extra dose of romantic zeal in a postmodern ladykiller. Despite the privilege of the sexual initiative, “women want men’s urgency.” The great lovers my group discussed were regular Aly Khans, surging in like Roxie’s Pierre. Neuroscientists Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam determined in their 2011 investigation that women long to be vehemently desired and pursued. Journalist Laura Sessions Stepp made the same finding in her sample of young women. Weary of putting the make on men, they yearned for suitors like romance heroes who scoop up heroines and say, “There’s something about you I’m finding impossible to stay away from.” According to sexual psychologist Marta Meana, assertive, fervid male ardor is critical to the female libido. “Strike one” against Ashton Kutcher’s character in the movie A Lot Like Love (and what keeps the heroine from committing for seven years) is that he doesn’t “make the first move.”

  Fun and novelty in a technoculture of overstimulation will be another priority. Where the media saturates us with nonstop amusement, and ubiquity has dulled appetites and spirits, women are going to want, as Karen the financier says, “entertainment value.” Seventy-five percent of women in the 2012 “romance” survey complained of boredom with dates or partne
rs. Cultural historian Paul Hollander writes that in his study of thousands of twenty-first-century personals, “the most unexpected” discovery was the desire for fun, ranking first in importance from Alabama to California. We’re ravenous for unplugged, engaged enjoyment. Anne, the psychoanalyst at my gathering, tied this to the secret of lasting excitement: “Habit kills,” she says. “Marvelous lovers keep things interesting, and desire grows and intensifies in that way.”

  With ladykillers, “macho,” to quote Zsa Zsa Gabor, has never proved “mucho.” And tomorrow’s Casanovas will have moved beyond machismo and strengthened androgynous appeals. The authors of The Future of Men anticipate a swing toward “M-ness,” masculinity that combines the best of traditional manliness, such as courage and honor, with positive female traits—expressivity, nurturance, and communication.

  Such “M” heroes have long been a fantasy in romance novels—SEALS with the sensitivity of psychics—and have lately become women’s preferred picks in dating and mating. Zoe reserved her highest praise for a friend whose mother “raised him like a girl” without making him one. “It just turned into an appreciation of women and the finer things,” she says. Adds Karen, “The feminine side of Mac was so much of his charm; he could relate to me; it was an equalizer.”

  If gender equality is a given in modern relationships, the ladies’ man will have to be a “worthy sparring partner,” as Stepp’s subjects requested—a man whose character, IQ, and conversation match or outmatch a woman’s. Female medical students in another study sought men at least at their level who, said one, know “art, history, philosophy, and literature.” “If you’re successful,” Karen chips in, “you screen men differently in order to keep the parity thing going.”

  Like romance heroines, today’s smart, ambitious women want peers for lovers. In personals and polls, intelligence is one of the most desired traits, and everywhere women clamor for conversation. With good talk on the wane in a tech-addled age, the colloquial arts will become increasingly seductive. Roxie, the journalist of my discussion group, said she liked conversation better than sex.

  As women’s horizons and growth opportunities expand, they’ll prize multifaceted, self-potentiators, the H. G. Wells of the world, and be less thrilled with seducers like Porfirio Rubirosa, whose growth stopped at the polo ground. On dating sites, observes Hollander, male “Renaissance characters abound”; men boast of lifelong learning and a Leonardian breath of interests, from sculpture, philosophy, and Matisse to reggae.

  They’re targeting a current feminine wish. The medical-school women wanted a man who would “grow at the same rate,” and the female ideal in The Future of Men was a “growing type of man” who was “well-rounded.” Anne the analyst defines ladies’ men as “people who are crazy for growth, and want to stay interesting, to shift their lives and ours.”

  A great seducer’s most powerful spell now, though, may be the simplest: attention. Roxie calls “concentration” and “focus” the essence of the ladykiller. Amid the population explosion and cyberverse, we compete with billions to be noticed, and after a millisecond, we vanish without a trace. Instead of watching the one we’re with, we’re often watching texts, laptops, game consoles, and flat screens, sometimes all at once, with timers pinging and pots boiling. Everyone is multitasked to distraction. A major female grievance is men’s fixation on smartphones and virtual images.

  “Falling in love,” however, is foremost a “phenomenon of attention.” Every romance hero puts the heroine in his cross-hairs and singles out her “specialness” for adoration. Attention is the food of love, and researchers Cindy Meston and David Buss found that “attention-deficit” propels many women into random sex. To be looked at, perceived in her uniqueness, can hit a woman like a voltaic charge.

  “The snap of the ladies’ man,” writes poet Molly Peacock in an email, “is the feeling of really being seen. It’s the man’s ability to zero in, erase your sense of invisibility, as if you were a camouflaged animal in a forest being found.” “Such a man,” she continues, “can be downright ugly, but if he’s lovely, trim, and expresses something vulnerable about himself, it’s simply a knockout recipe for falling in love. You’re hooked, you’re sunk, you have to struggle for your last bit of social sanity before you plunge.”

  A Neo-Ladies’ Man: The Reality

  Women are poised to plunge. “In our post-feminist age,” asks British journalist Glenda Cooper, “what’s so wrong about the seducer; the very word conjures up high-octane sensuality and pleasure.” The “eternal seducer” is “God’s gift to women,” concurs Marina Warner, “only giving them what they want.” Actress Sienna Miller quips, “I’ve met a few Casanovas that I like and some that I haven’t, and I hope to meet a few more.”

  One of the Casanovas Miller refers to is Jude Law, her philandering ex-fiancé. Since ladies’ men, in reality, often can’t resist exercising their talents abroad, how’s a liberated woman to cope? For starters, if she wants her man to herself, as the majority do, she has enough seductive chops nowadays to secure him, like Minette Helvétius and Pauline Viardot before her.

  On the other hand, libertine lovers may license a woman’s own roving libido, and give her space to sample the goods. Or their magical presence may be worth it. “If Liszt,” said one admirer, “would only love me for a single hour that would be joy enough for life.” Novelist Jane Smiley explains, “Some men are so delightful, so engaged that time with them is valuable no matter what.”

  At this point, love-life coaches and counselors cry foul: therapy exists to serve social harmony, and these fantastic ladies’ men—actual and imagined—only exacerbate the erotic crisis, setting women up for disappointment, further alienating men, and destroying homes. Recent research, however, shows that high amorous aspirations lead to higher-quality relationships. It pays to wish.

  Most men, philosopher Ortega y Gasset acknowledged sadly, “never succeed in being loved by anyone,” while a select group are universally adored. What is the secret? he asked. Honoré de Balzac compared the average man to “an orang-outang trying to play the violin,” and thought the answer lay in the example of erotic geniuses. As philosophy has its Descartes and war its Napoleons, he wrote, “love has its great men although they be unrecognized.”

  These geniuses may be unrecognized, but I discovered that they’re far from extinct. The men I interviewed landed on my doorstep without any deliberate search, and would have doubled in number if I’d had time to follow up leads. They’re undoubtedly a shadow society, but they’re more plentiful than believed, even in this romantic slump, and available for inspiration.

  Taking Balzac’s advice, I go to a Paganini of amour for a realistic read on how keen men will be for his inspiration. Bryce Green, the Scottish couturier I had visited in SoHo, greets me with a peck on each cheek, his sandy, frizzled mane spilling over a mandarin tuxedo collar.

  “You’ve come to the right place,” he says, loping across the studio in faded jeans and green cowboy boots. “The men I hear about!”

  “Not red-hot lovers, I’m guessing. Unlike you . . .”

  “Completely,” he begins. “I don’t look like their husbands or boyfriends or behave like them. I don’t know how to play it cool. I have Scottish blood in my veins—fire. But I know how to play it charming.”

  “Lord, women must be all over you.”

  “Well, yes,” he demurs, tapping a tracing wheel on his thigh. “But I’m much happier taking the initiative, romancing a woman and making her feel loved and appreciated. That’s what women like, I think—somebody who puts it out there and gives them unconditional love. Humor is huge too. And stimulation.”

  “Back to these other men,” I pursue. “Don’t they want to pick up on this stuff?”

  “Well,” he considers, “men are in a crisis. There’s a lot of insecurity, fear, and a serious lack of charm. I hate generalities, but British and European men are more in touch with their feminine side. And being respectful, kind, and romantic doesn
’t fit in with the ‘jock’ idea of masculinity.”

  “You’d say then, that men aren’t looking to you for enlightenment?”

  “Absolutely not!” he exclaims as we part on Broome Street.

  That same day, Rick, the fire captain whom Vivien Leigh once compared to Rhett Butler, calls up and vehemently disagrees. “Sure, there are men that aren’t mentally or physically fit for seduction,” he says, “phonies, cowards, porn-addicts, body-count guys, drunks, and moguls who buy women—but the rest? Hey, everyone wants to learn to love and be loved.”

  Selling Men on the Ladies’ Man

  Could Rick be right—that beneath the armor of swagger and cool—men are just as anxious as women for connection and a grand passion? Although men’s magazines would rather run household tips than love-and-relationship stories, new research has shown that men are closet romantics. They fall in love at first sight more often and fare worse emotionally after breakups than women do. Men prefer romantic over sexual images and yearn equally for children and marriage. Eighty-four percent of men under thirty-five believe they will stay married to the same person forever. Love, wrote Garrison Keillor, “is the mainspring of our lives.”

  With traditional definitions of masculinity in tatters, the ladies’ man might be a fresh model of male identity. The Dionysian man hasn’t had a starring role in the Western masculine pantheon, but his pedigree goes to the heart of manhood. Dionysus personified male sexual energy and traced his ancestry to the phallic gods of remote antiquity. If, claim cultural scholars, “we need a new myth of love” for our century, we also need a new guiding myth of the lover that’s vital, holistic, and virile. “Sexual behavior,” romantic success with women, writes psychiatrist Willard Gaylin, “is the ultimate expression” of manhood.