The essay, by Cathleen Calbert, starts out cute.

John Wayne was a man. The young Marlon Brando was a guy - didn't you see the hurt and indecision in his eyes in "On the Waterfront"? Rock Hudson was a man. James Dean was a guy...On the other hand, I want the E.M.T.'s who show up when I've collapsed to be men, not guys. I don't want someone responsible for saving my life to be torn up about the death of his dog or how some chick hurt his feelings.

You get the idea: "men" are competent and 1950s-repressed. "Guys" are arrested and boyish, but in touch with their feelings. She likes guys.

And then:

After I was molested in a deserted schoolyard, my father explained to me the difference between boys and men. "If it's a man," he told me, "you don't scream. With a boy, you scream." The logic being, I suppose, that a man would do whatever it took to make you stop screaming whereas boys still have fear in them; a boy would run away.

Her dad goes after the teenage molestors and scares them. "That's what a man does. He takes revenge...My father didn't speak to me again about that day. That's also what a man does." Then it becomes all about her dad, distant and mid-century-repressed and unable to give the author more than this harsh guardianship. He dies when she's young, and she thinks that's okay because "I suspect we would not be on speaking terms had he lived."

It's a good, personal essay. But what I found kind of ironic about it is that she's let her dad's harshness color her perception of the world as starkly as he did. "Men" and "guys." "Her dad" and "people she likes." Of course, everyone does this to a degree, but I think the binary she outlines isn't uncommon: we've got the repressed masculinity of a Don Draper and modern guys, and as a culture we've never reconciled the two at all. Even now, the dudes we see on ads or TV tend to be goobers or douches, with not much in-between. Men have to be harmless or they're...not, just as her dad viewed every boy the author dated as a potential molester. We cut "guys" slack. We hold them to a lower standard. Even growing up with a loving, sensitive dad, I fall into this: I've talked about dating "grownups," the men in suits who take you on real dates - as opposed to the vaguely-careered sensitive types who don't seem to have earned the "man" appellation. Time was, this limbo didn't exist.

And that can't be easy. It's easy to blame the Boomers here, but hell, we're adults in a post-existentialist world, with a degree of buck-stopping autonomy nowadays. We know well that stark gendered expectations are constricting, and surely "guy" and "man" is as damaging as "girl" and "woman?" And the truth is, we can like both, because people can be both - but only if we let them, right?

Forget The Men. Pick a Guy. [NYT]

These teensy slivers of man-meat are mirrored on the inside, with Glamour's usual makeup advice, clothing spreads, and true romance tales very slightly recast from a man's point of view. A highlight is the "Man Survey," which tells us that while 54% of guys in 1995 would sleep with a willing 15-year-old, only 17% of 2009 guys would tap that. Equally classy: "21 Things That Make Every Woman Hot," in which guys talk about their unconditional adoration for various parts of your body — and Glamour recommends products to make those parts "even sexier." Because he'll love you a little less without Caress Evenly Gorgeous Exfoliating Body Wash.

The Observer's Irina Aleksander identifies the man-type thusly:

Often the creative type, he projects a deceptive vulnerability, while maintaining an appealing confidence. He’s usually not the best-looking guy in the room, but he is the smartest; he turns these traits to his advantage, playing up the contrast with the typical hot guy or womanizer (physical inferiority, emotional evolvement). His courtship begins with a rushed sense of intimacy and, yet, a disarming lack of forward physical advances; a first date might involve a game of Scrabble or perhaps a cup of tea; his target usually leaves wondering if in fact it was a date at all. And yet the story always has the same ending—he grows distant, stops calling and eventually disappears with little explanation, if any.

As distinct from a self-absorbed emo guy, or what Jessica has termed "the wimpster," l'Homme Fatal manufactures a semblance of emotion as part of his romantic shtick. He's less sleazy than a Gamester, but his M.O. is just as direct. Aleksander identifies several real-life examples of the type: serial womanizers like Ryan Adams, Justin Long, Josh Hartnett and the Gossip Girl character Aaron Rose, all of whom seem to project a wounded humility while surrounded by a suspiciously omnipresent harem of gorgeous women. However, while a scourge on the land, this type is not necessarily villainous: most of those quoted in the article are ready to ascribe the type's antics to immaturity. Says one victim,

“He’s not a bad dude, but he just doesn’t know how not to have this over-the-top magical romance which eventually leaves girls completely broken. He’s like a love monster...I think this type of guy is more dangerous than the typical one-night-stander because there is so much more emotion and attachment involved that is ultimately more destructive.”

Of course, such a type couldn't exist if women didn't respond to it, nor is it necessarily new. Woody Allen, after all, built a career as an unlikely womanizer on the sensitive underdog persona. It's been a while now since the guy who doesn't get the girl has morphed into the hero, but "sensitive" is still equal to "harmless" in the popular imagination. The archetype used to be "secretly-sensitive asshole"; now it's "nice guy with the heart of a jerk." Although we're surrounded by the type, we're still not, on some level, prepared for it. And because this guy is as interested in an emotional conquest as a physical one, we're not trained to fend him off. Perhaps as sexual conquest has become less taboo, a certain kind of man feels the need for another kind of challenge.

In my experience, men of this stripe have a hard time with straightforward platonic friendship with the opposite sex: while they might maintain such a relationship, they insist on introducing an often-flattering, sometimes baffling element of romantic tension into everything, either because they crave drama or need to feel wanted. And when these guys talk about their relationships, they never rule out a hint of conflict, of torture, of uncertainty -they are just that sensitive! Or that immature.

Says one "recovering H.F.," “The empathy is there, but people who do the most harm are people who don’t know what they want, and Hommes Fatales don’t know what they want.” Luckily, we do!

Beware L'Homme Fatale! [Observer]
Related: Manic Pixie Dream Girls Are The Scourge Of Modern Cinema

I don't think I have to say that I like women, that some of my best friends are female, that my sister rocks in unimaginable ways and that a girls' night out is tons of fun. But. When I was four years old, my best friend was a boy who lived down the street. We jumped on the trampoline, played doctor and watched cartoons together until I moved away. And there have been numerous successors ever since. Some of them were gay, some of them were straight. Some were older, some were younger. But having a guy as a close friend — as a best friend — is a feeling I've always known. There's something about the dynamic between two adults who don't want to sleep together and yet have different gender perspectives on life. Being girly with the girls is one thing; having a burger and a beer with the boys (or dumplings and champagne with the gays) is another. What is it about getting close to a man (in a totally non-sexual way) that's so appealing? (And am I the only one who loves having boys as besties?)

Always a Bridesmaid, Never the . . . Groom [Washington Post]

The survey also revealed almost half of the 3,000 women polled had already tried to subtly change their guy's style. And 55% of those reckon their boyfriend or husband didn't mind that they were trying to mould them into someone else.

One: Weight Two: Dress sense Three: Hair (or lack of) Four: Teeth Five: Height Six: Man boobs Seven: Nose Eight: Feet Nine: Legs Ten: Bum

Half Of Women 'Want To Change How Their Partner Looks' [Daily Mail]