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The COVID-19 pandemic was a socionatural disaster that unprecedentedly disrupted the daily lives of individuals, families, and communities. Prior research indicates that Black American men living in rural contexts, particularly in Southern parts of the United States of America, were disproportionately affected by the psychological and economic effects of the pandemic. Despite these disparities, few studies have examined the pandemic's impact on rural Black American men's social networks. This study aimed to explore the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural Black American men's interpersonal relationships. Informed by the principles of critical ethnography and guided by van Manen's hermeneutic phenomenology, seventeen men were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol. Interviews were transcribed and then analyzed using an iterative thematic reduction process consistent with van Manen's approach. Four themes were generated: Familial Reorganization, Adaptive Fatherhood, Rona Romance, and Essential Community. Participants recounted how the pandemic motivated them to improve their relationships with family members and children but contributed additional stress to their romantic relationships. Participants further recounted how their friendships were the least impacted as they were willing to make exceptions to their normal protective protocols to socialize with close friends. Participants also noted feeling disconnected from their wider community because they could not attend church even though their religious beliefs remained unchanged. Findings highlight the need for scholars, clinicians, and policymakers to consider men's relational health when developing and implementing pandemic recovery efforts, as it can significantly influence their ability to recuperate mentally and physically. Future research should be dedicated to (1) investigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on fathers, as prior research has nearly exclusively focused on mothers' experiences and (2) delineating protective effects of rural Black American men's involvement in the Black Church from their individual spiritualities to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the influence of contextual crisis on their long-term health and wellbeing., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Curtis et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

White upper middle-class Americans at the turn of the twentieth century were entrenched in a battle with a newly discovered, or invented, mental illness called neurasthenia. This essay examines the ways in which the medical discourse of neurasthenia reflected late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century white Anglo-Saxon men's belief in, as well as anxiety over, American values bolstered by their idea of cultural, racial, and sexual superiority and consolidated through a conjunction of medicine and politics. The idea of neurasthenia as white American men's malady functioned as a mark both of whites' racial superiority to the "new" immigrants and African Americans as well as of women's intellectual inferiority to the opposite sex of their own race. Imposing a subtle distortion on the etiology and diagnosis of neurasthenia and associating it with specific groups of people, the "American disease" constituted the era's representative pathological symptoms which addressed Anglo-Saxon American men's anxieties about overcivilized effeminacy and racial and national decadence which was originated as a response to the racial and sexual heterogeneity. This essay also argues that neurasthenia was an imagined disease which addressed late nineteenth-century American men's spatial anxiety about the decline of the American pastoral ideal caused by the closure of the frontier. Given that the treatment for neurasthenic men was an escape to the frontier in the West in which they could rejuvenate withered American masculinity, their uneasiness about barbarous, unhygienic, and prolific immigrants and unruly white women, in fact, was tied to their spatial anxiety which symptomatically signifies the crisis of American masculinity. Channeled through the medical knowledge of neurology, it made American men's racial, sexual, and spatial anxieties function to act out their racist, misogynist, nativist, and imperialist impulses which legitimized exclusionary political techniques toward the racial and sexual others such as the U.S. imperial expansion in the 1890s and 1900s and a eugenic-influenced immigration policy from the 1900s through the1920s. In this sense, the decline of neurasthenia around 1920 should not be attributed solely to the continued efforts to professionalize American medicine accompanied by recent discoveries of chemical factors such as hormones and vitamins and the rise of psychiatry and psychology which offered physicians with a more specific theory of health built on clinical laboratory science. Like its rise, the decision to move away from the neurasthenic diagnosis was rather a cultural phenomenon, which reflected the American ascendancy to global power in the early twentieth century, particularly after the First World War. Sustaining a political order rested on racial and sexual hierarchies both within and outside the American continent, American men felt that they were no longer liable to specific, time-tested anxiety and somatic symptoms of neurasthenia, which was more an ideological and cultural construct than a clinical entity that dramatizes the racial, sexual, and imperial politics of the-turn-of-the-twentieth-century America.

Importance: Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States, and men experience higher rates of skin cancer than women. Despite publicized preventative measures, men are less likely than women to use sunscreen., Objective: To assess men's motivations, behaviors, and preferred product characteristics towards daily sunscreen use., Design and Setting: Cross-sectional online survey of 705 men, administered July– August 2019, using Survey Monkey and distributed through Amazon Mechanical Turk., Participants: Men ages 20–70, having completed at least High School/GED, and living in the United States were eligible. Sampling strategy ensured diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Main Outcome(s) and Measures: Men’s sunscreen use, behaviors, and preferred skincare product characteristics., Results: Final participants included 705 men. The most frequent skincare products used regularly were liquid soap/body wash (65%), bar soap (47%), and moisturizers (32%). Most men (n=612; 83%) reported not using sunscreen daily, and 38% reported using sunscreen weekly. Income was related to daily and weekly sunscreen use, as males who earned between $40-$50,000 annually used sunscreen less often compared to people who earned $100,000 annually (OR 0.54%, 95% CI −0.34% to .88%; P = .01). Age, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, and region were not related to daily or weekly sunscreen use. Main motivators for daily sunscreen use included reducing skin cancer risk (n=575; 82%) and looking younger (n=299; 42%)., Conclusions and Relevance: This survey shows lapses in evidenced-based sunscreen behaviors to reduce skin cancer among men. Campaigns to reduce skin cancer should focus on increasing men's interest in daily sunscreen use and adherence to wearing sun-protective products. J Drugs Dermatol. 2021;20(1):88-93. doi:10.36849/JDD.5470.

Background: Sexual violence-any sexual act committed against a person without freely given consent-disproportionately affects women. Women's first experiences of sexual violence often occur in adolescence. In Asia and the Pacific, 14% of sexually experienced adolescent girls report forced sexual debut. Early prevention with men that integrates a bystander framework is one way to address attitudes and behavior while reducing potential resistance to participation., Methods: This paper describes a study protocol to adapt RealConsent for use in Vietnam and to test the impact of the adapted program-GlobalConsent-on cognitive/attitudinal/affective mediators, and in turn, on sexual violence perpetration and prosocial bystander behavior. RealConsent is a six-session, web-based educational entertainment program designed to prevent sexual violence perpetration and to enhance prosocial bystander behavior in young men. The program has reduced the incidence of sexual violence among men attending an urban, public university in the Southeastern United States. We used formative qualitative research and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Map of the Adaptation Process to adapt RealConsent. We conducted semi-structured interviews with college men (n = 12) and women (n = 9) to understand the social context of sexual violence. We conducted focus group discussions with university men and stakeholders (n = 14) to elicit feedback on the original program. From these data, we created scripts in storyboard format of the adapted program. We worked closely with a small group of university men to elicit feedback on the storyboards and to refine them for acceptability and production. We are testing the final program-GlobalConsent-in a randomized controlled trial in heterosexual or bisexual freshmen men 18-24 years attending two universities in Hanoi. We are testing the impact of GlobalConsent (n = 400 planned), relative to a health-education attention control condition we developed (n = 400 planned), on cognitive/attitudinal/affective mediators, prosocial bystander behavior, and sexual violence perpetration., Discussion: This project is the first to test the impact of an adapted, theoretically grounded, web-based educational entertainment program to prevent sexual violence perpetration and to promote prosocial bystander behavior among young men in a middle-income country. If effective, GlobalConsent will have exceptional potential to prevent men's sexual violence against women globally., Trial Registration: U.S. National Library of Medicine Clinicaltrials.gov NCT04147455 on November 1, 2019 (Version 1). Retrospectively registered. Protocol amendments will be submitted to clinicaltrials.gov .

Body image disturbance and eating disorders are rising all over the world. However, little is known about experiences of body image in men across cultural groups, and measurement tools often fail to account for the profound ways in which culture and gender can affect these data. An American cultural model of the ideal male body was compared with that of South Koreans using cultural domain analysis and residual agreement analysis. Cultural domain analysis gives researchers the ability to systematically study cultural models based on informants' emic understanding of phenomena; residual agreement analysis evaluates the patterns of agreement in disagreement with a larger cultural model. This study shows that Americans and South Koreans often overlap in their assessments of the desirability of male bodily features; however, they also strongly endorse many differing features, as well as similar features for different cultural reasons. For example, Americans endorse muscularity because it indexes physical prowess and health; South Koreans only sometimes endorse muscularity, mainly as an aesthetic choice. As a result, psychometric tools for measuring body dissatisfaction that are uncritically adopted for use in cross-cultural research may miss important information affecting the validity of findings and the efficacy of prevention campaigns and treatment plans.

Sexual harassment is a pervasive problem predominantly perpetrated by men. Creating cultural shifts to prevent men's sexual harassment perpetration requires attention to community as well as individual factors. Study data were collected from a cohort of 768 youth and young adult males ages 10-18 at baseline (2013), with follow-up 3 years later. Multivariable regression was applied to assess the role of neighborhood characteristics, including crime rates, gender equality, and concentrated disadvantage, adjusting for individual sociodemographics and views on traditional gender stereotypes. The self-reported prevalence of sexual harassment perpetration was 8.8%. In neighborhoods characterized by greater concentrated disadvantage, the likelihood of male sexual harassment perpetration was significantly lower than in neighborhoods characterized by greater advantages. Relative neighborhood advantage was associated with sexual harassment perpetration even controlling for the significant positive association between espousing traditional gender stereotypes and perpetration of sexual harassment. The relative rates of neighborhood crime and gender equality did not predict young males' sexual harassment perpetration. In sum, young men's perpetration of sexual harassment behaviors is more common in more advantaged communities, underscoring the importance of awareness that, beyond individual attitudes, there is a collective social influence on individual behavior.

The purpose of this study was to understand the influence Black college women have on the health behaviors of Black men. Using the Health Belief Model and the socioecological model as guides, focus groups and interviews were conducted with Black college men (n = 35) and Black college females (n = 25) at a Historically Black College and University in the Southern United States. Participants provided responses to questions on what impacts their health behaviors and whose health they influence. Results indicate that Black college men believed Black peer women influence decisions they make regarding their diet, physical activity, and general health behaviors. However, Black college women believe they only influenced physical activity and sexual health in Black college men. While they understood they had some influence on their health, the women were unsure if they had long-term influence. These findings highlight the need for programming that informs young Black women on the important role they play in the health of men in their lives, particularly young Black men. These findings also highlight the need for peer health educator training to cross-train educators on health issues of all gender groups.

Sub-Saharan African immigrant (SSAI) men have significant influence on the health-seeking behavior including cervical cancer screening uptake by their female partners/wives. We conducted a qualitative descriptive study with 21 SSAI men to explore knowledge, perceptions, and support related to cervical screening. Participants were aged 36 ± 9 years, college educated (88%), and 53% have lived in the U.S. > 5 years. Three themes emerged; inadequate cervical cancer knowledge, willingness and strategies for support, and shared versus autonomous decision making for screening. Social structure with emphasis on male leadership could be leveraged in cervical cancer screening promotion for SSAI women.

Common stereotypes hold that men and women differ strongly in their attitudes toward sex and that such differences are amplified by social power. In contrast, an emerging literature suggests that social power affects both sexes similarly, thus potentially attenuating differences between the sexes. Four samples obtained in the Netherlands, the U.S., Britain, and South-East Asia (total N = 1985) test the effect of social power (operationalized as self-reported amount of power over others at the work place) on validated self-report measures of sexual assertiveness and sexual esteem. Across all samples, power was associated with greater sexual assertiveness and sexual esteem-equally for men and women. Furthermore, effects of power were larger and more consistent than differences between men and women. These findings add to an emerging literature, suggesting that often-observed differences between male and female sexuality actually reflect power differences. This suggests that such differences decrease with greater social equality.

Purpose: Recent studies have focused on the pseudo-psychological condition 'post abortion syndrome' and women, particularly the content and veracity of these claims in the USA. What such claims say about men and the accuracy of these claims remains unclear, and we seek to remedy this., Methods: The study proceeded in two parts. First, we identified primary documents from anti-abortion activists in the USA making claims about men and post abortion syndrome and analysed them for assertions about the effects of abortion upon men. Second, we searched Google Scholar using the terms 'men' and 'abortion' to identify 41 peer reviewed articles that included (1) thorough descriptions of sampling, data collection, and analysis, (2) acknowledgement of the limitations, and (3) findings/discussion that do not extrapolate beyond the scope of the data., Results: We compared U.S. activists' claims with scholarly findings. Activists claims rely on gender essentialism, arguing men should stop women from aborting to prevent psychological disorders and disruption of traditional family and sexual norms. In contrast, scientific studies find a range of minor psychological responses but not responses akin to post abortion syndrome to be common., Conclusion: Similar to findings about women and abortion, we do not find support for anti-abortion activists' claims or the existence of post abortion syndrome among men.

Early fatherhood is common in the United States (U.S.). The emergency department (ED) plays a disproportionate role in serving patients with unmet reproductive and sexual health needs. With 8 million adolescent males visiting U.S. EDs annually, the ED is a potential site to implement interventions to minimize early fatherhood and unintended teenage pregnancy. Little is known about how adolescent male ED patients perceive and behave in sexual relationships and how they influence contraceptive decision making. The objective of this study was to identify the barriers and enablers affecting contraceptive and condom use among adolescent male ED patients. Semistructured interviews were conducted with males aged 14-19 in one urban ED. Enrollment continued until saturation of key themes. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and coded based on thematic analysis using NVivo 10. The Social Ecological Model was used to organize and understand themes. Participants ( n = 24) were predominantly 18-19 years (63%) and Hispanic (92%). Most (71%) had sex ≤3 months prior but infrequently used a condom at last intercourse (42%). The primary barrier influencing contraceptive use was lack of knowledge of effective contraceptives. Other barriers consisted of perceived gender roles, poor partner communication, and little relationship with a primary provider. Enablers included intention not to get a partner pregnant, school-based sexual health education, normalcy to use condoms, and a trustworthy confidante. The identified barriers and enablers influencing adolescent males' perspectives toward contraceptives should be addressed if designing future ED-based pregnancy prevention interventions targeting teen males.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) uptake has been extremely low among key groups. PrEP-related stigma and shaming are potential barriers to uptake and retention in PrEP programs. There is a lack of literature describing PrEP stigma. In order to fill this gap, we recruited online 43 HIV-negative Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) who use PrEP. Semistructured interviews were conducted to explore their perceptions and experience of stigma related to PrEP use. Data were analyzed using Strauss and Corbin's grounded theory and constant comparison techniques to enhance understanding of the lived experiences of MSM who use PrEP. The participants experienced PrEP stigma as rejection by potential/actual partners, stereotypes of promiscuity or chemsex, and labeling of both the user and the medication. They connected PrEP stigma with HIV stigma, generational differences, moralization of condom use, and inability to embrace one's own sexuality. These findings point to a need to develop tailored interventions to address PrEP-related stigma and shaming for individuals, health-care professionals, and the MSM community-at-large.

The transition from high school to college represents a pivotal developmental period that may result in significant maladjustment for first-year college men. Men may feel pressured to "prove" their masculinity by engaging in traditional masculine behaviors that could be negative for their overall well-being. Although adherence to multidimensional masculine norms has been associated with poorer mental health, no studies have examined the role of masculine norms on prospective depressive symptoms among first-year college men. Examining college men's adherence to multidimensional masculine norms longitudinally can offer a promising theoretical framework to explain within-group variability in depression symptomatology. The sample included 322 men from the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Masculine norms were assessed during the beginning of their first year of college. Depressive symptomatology was assessed 6 months after the first wave of data collection. Masculine norms were positively and negatively related to prospective depression scores, such that men who endorsed the masculine norms of Self-Reliance, Playboy (i.e., desire to have multiple sexual partners), and Violence, had heightened risk, whereas men who endorsed Winning and Power Over Women were less likely to report depressive symptomatology. Distinct masculine norms appear to confer risk for depression while other norms appear to be protective. This study was the first to examine the role of multidimensional masculine norms on prospective depressive symptomatology among college men. The results suggest that practitioners working with men should consider assessing their clients' adherence to distinct masculine norms and explore how these might be impacting their current mental health.

Purpose of the Study: Adults with HIV infection are living into old age. It is critical we investigate positive constructs such as resilience and mastery to determine factors associated with psychological well-being. We examine HIV-related factors, adverse conditions, and psychosocial characteristics that are associated with resilience (the ability to bounce back) and mastery (sense of self-efficacy)., Design and Methods: We analyzed 2014 data from the longitudinal study Aging with Pride: National Health, Aging, and Sexuality/Gender Study (NHAS), focusing on a subsample of 335 gay and bisexual older men. Multivariate linear regression was used to identify factors that contributed or detracted from resilience and mastery in the sample recruited from 17 sites from across the United States., Results: Resilience and mastery were independently associated with psychological health-related quality of life. In multivariate analysis, adjusting for demographic characteristics, previous diagnosis of depression was negatively associated with resilience. Time since HIV diagnosis was positively associated with mastery whereas victimization was negatively associated with mastery. Social support and community engagement were positively associated with both resilience and mastery., Implications: Individual and structural-environmental characteristics contributed to resilience and mastery. These findings can be used to develop interventions incorporating an increased understanding of factors that are associated with both resilience and mastery., (© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Murder-suicide (M-S) is a complex phenomenon that can involve a multifaceted set of interrelated biological and social factors. M-S is also sexed and gendered in that the perpetrators are most often male and their underpinning motives and actions link to masculinities in an array of diverse ways. With the overarching goal to describe connections between men, masculinities, and M-S, 296 newspaper articles describing 45 North American M-S cases were analyzed. The inductively derived findings revealed three themes: (a) domestic desperation, (b) workplace justice, and (c) school retaliation. Cases in the domestic desperation theme were characterized by the murder of a family member(s) and were often underpinned by men's self-perceptions of failing to provide economic security. Workplace justice cases emerged from men's grievances around paid-work, job insecurity, and perceptions of being bullied and/or marginalized by coworkers or supervisors. The school retaliation cases were strongly linked to "pay back" against individuals and/or society for the hardships endured by M-S perpetrators. Prevailing across the three themes was men's loss of control in their lives, hopelessness, and marginalized masculine identities. Also evident were men's alignments to hegemonic masculinities in reasserting one's masculine self by protesting the perceived marginalization invoked on them. Overall, the findings give pause to consider the need for men-centered M-S prevention strategies to quell the catastrophic impacts of this long-standing but understudied men's health issue., (© The Author(s) 2014.)

By the late 1950s, Harry Frank Guggenheim was concerned with understanding why some charismatic leaders fought for freedom, while others sought power and domination. He believed that best-selling books on ethological approaches to animal and human behavior, especially those by playwright and screenwriter Robert Ardrey, promised a key to this dilemma, and he created a foundation that would fund research addressing problems of violence, aggression, and dominance. Under the directorship of Rutgers University professors Robin Fox and Lionel Tiger, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation fostered scientific investigations into the biological basis of human nature. This essay analyzes their discussions of aggression as fundamental to the behavior of men in groups in order to elucidate the private and professional dimensions of masculine networks of US philanthropic and academic authority in the late 1960s and 1970s.

In recent years, prescription drug misuse has become a serious public health issue. A number of studies in this area have identified females to be at an increased risk for prescription drug misuse during adolescence. Guided by Agnew's general strain theory, the current research examined the relationship between prescription drug misuse and gender during adolescence. We used data from the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, a sample representative of the non-institutionalized population of the United States. Logistic regression models were estimated to examine the relationship between gender, prescription drug misuse, strain, and depression. The findings indicated that females were at an increased for prescription drug misuse. We also found support for general strain theory, as strain and depression were significantly related to prescription drug misuse. In addition, we found evidence that strain was gendered in that elements of general strain theory accounted for the relationship between prescription drug misuse and gender.

While recently there have been renewed interest in women's childbearing intentions, the authors sought to bring needed research attention to understanding men's childbearing intentions. Nationally representative data from the 2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) was used to examine pregnancy intentions and happiness for all births reported by men in the 5 years preceding the interview. We used bivariate statistical tests of associations between intention status, happiness about the pregnancy, and fathers' demographic characteristics, including joint race/ethnicity and union status subgroups. Multivariate logistic regressions were used to calculate adjusted odds ratios of a birth being intended, estimated separately by father's union status at birth. Using comparable data and measures from the male and female NSFG surveys, we tested for gender differences intentions and happiness, and examined the sensitivity of our results to potential underreporting of births by men. Nearly four out of ten of births to men were reported as unintended, with significant variation by men's demographic traits. Non-marital childbearing was more likely to be intended among Hispanic and black men. Sixty-two percent of births received a 10 on the happiness scale. Happiness about the pregnancy varied significantly by intention status. Men were significantly happier than women about the pregnancies, with no significant difference in intention status. Potential underreporting of births by men had little impact on these patterns. This study brings needed focus to men's childbearing intentions and improves our understanding of the context of their role as fathers. Men need to be included in strategies to prevent unintended pregnancy.

This paper applies a social-ecological theory of power to posit that individual HIV-related vulnerability stems from how power is leveraged across situations over time. The current study identified six power domains and explored how the interchangeability of power shapes HIV-related vulnerability among men who have sex with men of colour. Data were collected as part of a mixed-methods study on the social networks and experiences of racial/ethnic and sexual minority status. A total of 35 Asian/Pacific Islander, Black and Latino men who have sex with men were recruited and individual in-depth interviews were conducted. Results showed that men who have sex with men of colour actively traded upon various domains to alter their relative power within a given situation. Results suggest that power interchangeability, or the degree to which power from one domain can be leveraged to gain power in another, may shape HIV-related vulnerability. Findings offer a dynamic understanding of the nature of HIV risk as derived from everyday power exchanges and provide theoretical foundation for future work on individual resilience against HIV-related risks over time.

Purpose/objectives: To investigate how gender-specific issues shape the experiences of young adult men with cancer and what they report to be problematic., Research Approach: A qualitative, descriptive approach., Setting: Website, focus group in the southwestern United States, and phone interviews throughout the United States., Participants: Text from an online forum (N=3,000 posts), focus group of six men, and separate interviews with four men., Methodologic Approach: Data analysis took place over two months through constant comparison of online text as well as a focus group and interview transcripts., Findings: Men face challenges being both a receiver and provider of support in relationships with their peers, romantic partners, and children. Cultural expectations to "be strong" drive their support-seeking beliefs and behaviors., Conclusions: Men report conflict between desires to show strength and to be honest that present a barrier to support, as well as contribute to inadequate relationships with male peers and greater difficulty in exchanging support with romantic partners., Interpretation: The authors identified attitudes about and barriers to men's experiences with social support, which healthcare providers, such as nurses, should be sensitive to when developing and providing support.

Although religion and spirituality can promote healthy behaviours and mental well-being, negative religious experiences may harm sexual minority men's health. Despite increasing vulnerability to HIV infection among young gay and bisexual men, few studies examine how religion and spirituality might affect them. To this end, we interviewed young gay and bisexual men who were diagnosed with HIV infection during January 2006-June 2009. Questionnaires assessed religious service attendance, disclosure of sexuality within religious communities, and beliefs about homosexuality being sinful. A subset described religious and spiritual experiences in qualitative interviews. We calculated the prevalence of religion- and spirituality-related factors and identified themes within qualitative interviews. Among men completing questionnaires, 66% currently attended religious services, 16% believed they could disclose their sexuality at church, and 37% believed homosexuality was sinful. Participants who completed qualitative interviews commonly discussed religious attendance and negative experiences within religious settings. They often expressed their spirituality through prayer, and some used it to cope with adverse experiences. These data suggest that religion and spirituality are notable factors that shape young, HIV-infected gay and bisexual men's social contexts. Programmes and interventions that constructively engage with religious institutions and are sensitive to spiritual beliefs may promote these men's health.

This research examined the influence of a romantic partner's success or failure on one's own implicit and explicit self-esteem. In Experiment 1, men had lower implicit self-esteem when their partner did well at a "social intelligence" task than when their partner did poorly. Women's implicit self-esteem was unaffected by partner performance. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that Dutch men's implicit self-esteem was negatively affected by their romantic partner's success. In Experiment 4, we replicated Experiments 1-3 in both the academic and social domains, and in Experiment 5, we demonstrated that men's implicit self-esteem is negatively influenced by thinking about a romantic partner's success both when the success is relative and when it is not. In sum, men's implicit self-esteem is lower when a partner succeeds than when a partner fails, whereas women's implicit self-esteem is not. These gender differences have important implications for understanding social comparison in romantic relationships.

Research suggests that there may be unique barriers to accessing care among men who have experienced sexual trauma. The primary goal of the current research was to elucidate potential barriers to accessing military sexual trauma (MST)-related care for male veterans. A secondary goal was to explore whether veterans have preferences regarding the gender of clinicians providing MST-related care. Qualitative analyses were used to examine data collected from semistructured interviews conducted with 20 male veterans enrolled in Veterans Health Administration care who reported MST but who had not received any MST-related mental health care. Veterans identified a number of potential barriers, with the majority of reported barriers relating to issues of stigma and gender. Regarding provider gender preferences, veterans were mixed, with 50% preferring a female provider, 25% a male provider, and 25% reporting no gender preference. These preliminary data suggest that stigma, gender, and knowledge-related barriers may exist for men regarding seeking MST-related care. Interventions to address potential barriers, such as outreach interventions and providing gender-specific psychoeducation, may increase access to care for male veterans who report MST., (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.)

Married men engage in significantly less antisocial behavior than unmarried men, but it is not clear whether this reflects a causal relationship. Instead, the relationship could reflect selection into marriage whereby the men who are most likely to marry (men in steady employment with high levels of education) are the least likely to engage in antisocial behavior. The relationship could also be the result of reverse causation, whereby high levels of antisocial behavior are a deterrent to marriage rather than the reverse. Both of these alternative processes are consistent with the possibility that some men have a genetically based proclivity to become married, known as an active genotype-environment correlation. Using four complementary methods, we tested the hypothesis that marriage limits men's antisocial behavior. These approaches have different strengths and weaknesses and collectively help to rule out alternative explanations, including active genotype-environment correlations, for a causal association between marriage and men's antisocial behavior. Data were drawn from the in-home interview sample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a large, longitudinal survey study of a nationally representative sample of adolescents in the United States. Lagged negative binomial and logistic regression and propensity score matching models (n = 2,250), fixed-effects models of within-individual change (n = 3,061), and random-effects models of sibling differences (n = 618) all showed that married men engaged in significantly less antisocial behavior than unmarried men. Our findings replicate results from other quasiexperimental studies of marriage and men's antisocial behavior and extend the results to a nationally representative sample of young adults in the United States.

Reflective opposite sex norms are behavior that an individual believes the opposite sex prefers them to do. The current study extends research on this recently introduced construct by examining estimates and influences of reflective norms on drinking in a large high-risk heterosexual sample of male and female college students from two universities. Both gender and Greek-affiliation served as potential statistical moderators of the reflective norms and drinking relationship. All participants (N=1790; 57% female) answered questions regarding the amount of alcohol they believe members of the opposite sex would like their opposite sex friends, dates, and sexual partners to drink. Participants also answered questions regarding their actual preferences for drinking levels in each of these three relationship categories. Overall, women overestimated how much men prefer their female friends and potential sexual partners to drink, whereas men overestimated how much women prefer their sexual partners to drink. Greek-affiliated males demonstrated higher reflective norms than non-Greek males across all relationship categories, and for dating partners, only Greek-affiliated males misperceived women's actual preferences. Among women however, there were no differences between reflective norm estimates or the degree of misperception as a function of Greek status. Most importantly, over and above perceived same-sex social norms, higher perceived reflective norms tended to account for greater variance in alcohol consumption for Greeks (vs. non-Greeks) and males (vs. females), particularly within the friend and sexual partner contexts. The findings highlight that potential benefits might arise if existing normative feedback interventions were augmented with reflective normative feedback designed to target the discrepancy between perceived and actual drinking preferences of the opposite sex., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The purpose of this article is to deepen our understanding of twentieth-century masculinity by considering the social function of facial hair. The management of facial hair has always been a medium of gendered body language, and as such has elicited a nearly continuous private and public conversation about manliness. Careful attention to this conversation, and to trends in facial hairstyles, illuminates a distinct and consistent pattern of thought about masculinity in early twentieth-century America. The preeminent form of facial hair - mustaches - was used to distinguish between two elemental masculine types: sociable and autonomous. A man was neither wholly one nor the other, but the presence and size of a mustache - or its absence - served to move a man one way or another along the continuum that stretched from one extreme to the other. According to the twentieth-century gender code, a clean-shaven man's virtue was his commitment to his male peers and to local, national or corporate institutions. The mustached man, by contrast, was much more his own man: a patriarch, authority figure or free agent who was able to play by his own rules. Men and women alike read these signals in their evaluation of men.

The violence and duration of fighting throughout the Great War created an intense feeling of vulnerability among the men engaged in battle, which challenged their perception of manliness. When the Americans joined the war in 1917, the balance between the two opposing armies was modified and the psychological crises of French soldiers brought to an end. The confidence shown by the American soldiers and their first successes on the battlefield changed the way the French Poilus perceived their new allies. From scepticism to admiration, Frenchmen's feelings extended beyond the fighting. Indeed, by living with American soldiers in the trenches and camps behind the front, French soldiers discovered a new culture where games and sport played a major role and contributed to building manliness. The Foyers Franco-Americains du Soldat (Franco-American hostels for soldiers) provided an ideal place for the cultural transfer of a model of masculinity from Sammys to Poilus. The foyers were managed by the American YMCA and eventually reached the number of 1,500 in France during the war. These hostels afforded soldiers numerous opportunities to develop cultural and sports practices, by bringing together Americans and Frenchmen. Mainly based on the archives of the American Expeditionary Forces, the YMCA and the French Army, the paper argues that the Foyers du Soldat brought to light a new model of masculinity based on sport, which challenged the Frenchmen's vision. It aims to show the rapid transformation of masculine identity within a context of extreme vulnerability and confirms the changes in representations of men in French society at this time.

After WWII in the United States, gender and sexual minorities began to construct social identities in a cold war climate hostile to gender and sexual transgression. The coming of the sexual revolution in the mid-1960s and 1970s unleashed forces that provided opportunities for these groups to demarcate their differences from one another, achieve visibility, and court public favor in a more permissive and tolerant society. In this article, I examine how a cohort of white, heterosexual crossdressers and their wives forged a redeeming social script in ways that seem counterintuitive to the "spirit of the times." The presence of transvestism within the sacred, idealized space of the American home produced tremendous anxiety on the part of these transvestite husbands and especially their wives. To deflect the stigma of sexual deviancy and sooth feelings of insecurity, these couples utilized strategies of containment and embraced the domestic ideal, even well into the sexualized and swinging seventies. Their strategic yet curious retreat into domesticity compels a second look at the consensus, conformity, and containment narratives that once dominated our scholarly imagination of intimate matters during the postwar years. Might current revisionist histories have gone too far in discrediting these potent forces? How do gender and sexual populations beholden to whiteness and notions of respectability fit within the sexual revolutions of postwar America?

The present study developed and contrasted predictive models of male nonphysical sexual coercion (e.g., verbal pressure or manipulation) and physical sexual aggression (e.g., incapacitation, physical force, or threats) using a sample of 369 incarcerated males to identify shared and unique risk factors for each form of sexual perpetration. Results revealed a set of shared risk characteristics that predisposed individuals to both sexual coercion and aggression (i.e., belief in rape myths, sexual promiscuity, aggressive tendencies, and empathic deficits). In addition, findings indicated that whether the offenders engaged in only sexual coercion or also used more violent sexually aggressive tactics depended on the presence of two sets of traits unique to these forms of perpetration. Specifically, sexual coercers tended to possess traits that facilitated the use of verbal tactics (i.e., ability to manipulate others and to imagine others' emotional reactions). In contrast, sexual aggressors had characteristics that could increase their willingness to "cross the line" and resort to more violent means to obtain sex from an unwilling partner (i.e., hostility toward women, egocentricity, an impulsive disregard for sociolegal proscriptions, and childhood emotional abuse). A model of general sexual perpetration that directly contrasted sexually coercive and aggressive men was also developed, and hostility toward women was identified as the only predictor capable of predicting perpetrator group membership. Together, these findings suggest that although sexual coercers and aggressors share some underlying risk factors, the etiological patterns of these behaviors are distinct and necessitate individual attention by researchers and prevention programs.

The FDA recently approved the use of the HPV quadrivalent vaccine, Gardasil, for the prevention of genital warts in males ages 9 through 26. This literature review seeks to examine men's knowledge of and interest in HPV vaccination as this could potentially affect vaccine uptake.

When women are scarce in a population relative to men, they have greater bargaining power in romantic relationships and thus may be able to secure male commitment at earlier ages. Male motivation for long-term relationship commitment may also be higher, in conjunction with the motivation to secure a prospective partner before another male retains her. However, men may also need to acquire greater social status and resources to be considered marriageable. This could increase the variance in male marital age, as well as the average male marital age. We calculated the Operational Sex Ratio, and means, medians, and standard deviations in marital ages for women and men for the 50 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the United States with 2000 U.S Census data. As predicted, where women are scarce they marry earlier on average. However, there was no significant relationship with mean male marital ages. The variance in male marital age increased with higher female scarcity, contrasting with a non-significant inverse trend for female marital age variation. These findings advance the understanding of the relationship between the OSR and marital patterns. We believe that these results are best accounted for by sex specific attributes of reproductive value and associated mate selection criteria, demonstrating the power of an evolutionary framework for understanding human relationships and demographic patterns.

Ischemic stroke accounts for 87% of the 780,000 strokes occurring annually in the United States and is a leading cause of death and functional limitations worldwide. The prompt recognition of stroke symptoms and timely arrival at the emergency room are important to stroke outcomes. Recent literature was suggestive that women may have different stroke symptoms compared with men. If women have nontraditional symptoms at stroke onset, this may contribute to delay in diagnosis and treatment. The purpose of this manuscript was to review the current literature regarding gender differences in stroke symptoms. Ten articles met the inclusion criteria for the review. Overall, the extant research was not indicative of robust gender differences in the classic symptoms of stroke or a greater frequency of nontraditional symptoms in women. One study found that women were significantly more likely than men to report nonspecific "somatic" symptoms, and in another study women were significantly more likely to have a change in mental status compared with men. Implications for nursing practice and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Objectives: We examined associations between perceived racial/ethnic discrimination, gender, and cigarette smoking among adolescents., Methods: We examined data on Black and Latino adolescents aged 12 to 19 years who participated in the Moving to Opportunity study (N = 2561). Perceived discrimination was assessed using survey items asking about unfair treatment because of race/ethnicity in the prior 6 months. We used logistic regression to investigate associations between discrimination and smoking, stratified by gender and controlling for covariates., Results: One fourth of adolescents reported that discrimination had occurred in at least 1 location. Discrimination was associated with increased odds of smoking among boys (odds ratio [OR] = 1.9; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.2, 3.0) and decreased odds among girls (OR = 0.6; 95% CI = 0.3, 1.1). Discrimination at school or work contributed to associations for girls (OR = 0.3; 95% CI = 0.1, 0.9), and discrimination at shops (OR = 2.0; 95% CI = 1.1, 3.8) and by police (OR = 2.0; 95% CI = 1.2, 3.4) contributed to associations for boys., Conclusions: Associations between discrimination and smoking differ by gender. Girls' decreased smoking in higher-discrimination settings may be a result of protective factors associated with where they spend time. Boys' increased smoking in higher-discrimination settings may reflect increased stress from gender-specific targeting by police and businesses.

This commentary reviews and integrates several themes described in this special issue on men. Social forces of the past and present such as colonialism and hegemonic masculinity are noted as a continuing influence on men's social roles, as are the social-justice movements that contribute to the liberation of women and sexual minorities. The early sections of the commentary examine the studies in the context of these forces and movements, emphasizing how men both resist and accept traditional masculinities. In the latter sections the commentary turns to the research process -first with a discussion of the structural and constructionist themes in the studies, followed by the issue of how men are classified (implicitly or otherwise) as either agents or targets of oppression. The implications of these for community psychology research with men are considered, along with the idea that research is a social "performance" in which a researcher's concern about her or his audience influence the research process. The conclusion summarizes the challenges of conducting research with men while making the case that community psychology offers some distinct advantages in managing them. Of particular value is the field's emphasis on diversity, social justice, and social ecology.

Scholars have noted that an elevated level of sports socialization in the family, neighborhood, and media exists within the African American community, creating an overrepresentation of African American males in certain sports. As a result, African American males may face consequences that are distinctly different from the consequences of those who are not socialized as intensively toward athletics, such as lower levels of academic achievement, higher expectations for professional sports careers as a means to upward mobility, and lower levels of career maturity. This study examines the sport socialization of African American male former collegiate athletes through in-depth ethnographic interviews. The results show that the respondents' perceptions were that their socializing agents and socializing environment emphasized athletics above other roles, other talents, and the development of other skills.

The purpose of this study was to examine predictors of male body image dissatisfaction, specifically ethnicity, societal factors and a personality variable. A total of 202 college males (37.3% Asian, 27.7% Caucasian, 14.5% Hispanic, and 13.6% African American) completed measures of perfectionism, internalization of societal messages, and a multidimensional measure of male body attitude. The results indicated that an Asian ethnic identity, socially prescribed perfectionism, and internalizing societal messages were predictors of muscle dissatisfaction. Socially prescribed perfectionism and internalization were the only predictors of low body fat dissatisfaction. Ethnicity, perfectionism and internalization were not predictive of height dissatisfaction. Unique aspects of perfectionism appear to predict specific body image dissatisfaction in men.

A longitudinal examination of male perpetration of physical aggression toward a romantic partner and its covariation with sexual aggression reveals a decline from adolescence through 4 years of college. Witnessing domestic violence and experiencing parental physical punishment increased the likelihood of physical aggression in adolescence, but not thereafter. Prior perpetration best predicted subsequent perpetration. Although adolescence was the time of greatest risk, the 2nd year in college was an additional time of increased risk. Furthermore, physical and sexual aggression covaried with each other in the sample at rates significantly greater than chance, indicating that covariation may be a unique form of perpetration. Witnessing domestic violence and experiencing parental physical punishment were associated with an increased likelihood of men committing both forms of intimate partner aggression in adolescence.

Objectives: We investigated the effect of spousal bereavement on mortality to document cause-specific bereavement effects by the causes of death of both the predecedent spouse and the bereaved partner., Methods: We obtained data from a nationally representative cohort of 373 189 elderly married couples in the United States who were followed from 1993 to 2002. We used competing risk and Cox models in our analyses., Results: For both men and women, the death of a predecedent spouse from almost all causes, including various cancers, infections, and cardiovascular diseases, increased the all-cause mortality of the bereaved partner to varying degrees. Moreover, the death of a predecedent spouse from any cause increased the survivor's cause-specific mortality for almost all causes, including cancers, infections, and cardiovascular diseases, to varying degrees., Conclusions: The effect of widowhood on mortality varies substantially by the causes of death of both spouses, suggesting that the widowhood effect is not restricted to one aspect of human biology. Future research should examine the specific mechanisms of the widowhood effect and identify opportunities for health interventions.

Purpose: To describe unique barriers to health care and health-seeking behaviors faced by Black men and to make recommendations to healthcare providers for improving healthcare access for Black men., Data Sources: A PubMed search for research articles published after 1999 was conducted., Conclusions: The articles selected for this state of the science clinical paper addressed barriers to access faced by Black men and/or management strategies used to mitigate barriers and improve access. The barriers identified include socioeconomic status, masculinity, racism, lack of awareness of the need for primary care, religious beliefs, and peer influences. As singular entities, these may not appear unique, but when viewed collectively, they represent an overwhelming constellation of obstacles for Black men., Implications for Practice: Individual, community, state, and national level recommendations for nurse practitioner actions to improve healthcare access for Black men include public service announcements, radio commercials, and billboards aimed at raising awareness of healthcare issues in the Black community, provision of preventive services through health fairs, and development of positive provider-patient relationships.

Background: Although a number of studies have reported different domains of cancer patients' needs for help, very little is known about gender and ethnic differences in those needs. Gender differences have been implicitly assumed in most studies, and specific ethnic groups have been focused on rather than comparing several ethnic groups., Objectives: The purpose of this pilot study was to explore cancer patients' needs for help among four major ethnic groups in the US, to determine gender and ethnic differences in needs, and to provide direction for future studies., Design: This was a descriptive and comparative pilot study using a feminist perspective., Settings and Participants: A total of 110 self-identified cancer patients were recruited through both Internet and community settings using a convenience sampling method., Methods: The instruments included sociodemographic questions, the Cancer Needs Questionnaire-Short Form, and the Supportive Care Needs Survey. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics including the Mann-Whitney U tests and Kruskal-Wallis tests., Results: The findings indicated that there was no significant gender difference in all domains of needs for help. There were significant ethnic differences in all domains of needs except communication and sexual needs. Asians reported the lowest scores in most domains of needs for help while Hispanics reported the highest scores in most domains of needs for help., Conclusions: The findings indicated certain ethnic differences in cancer patients' needs for help and suggest further in-depth qualitative investigations on cultural beliefs and attitudes that may influence needs, with a careful examination of gender sensitivity and cultural competence of the instruments measuring cancer patients' needs for help.