Looking Good Male Body Image in Modern America

"The stuff of Lynne Luciano's LOOKING GOOD is inextricably woven into the texture of our daily lives, and many of the changes she describes, though drastic over the long term, have come about so gradually that we've simply taken them in stride. All the more reason, then, to welcome a book that could give us some insight into the cumulative cultural weight of such phenomena as hair transplants, penile implants, bodybuilding and Viagra....On more than one occasion in this book some interesting issue pops into view, and Luciano keeps on driving, her eyes glued to the road. In one instance, a retired clothing manufacturer says that he embarked on a bodybuilding regimen in high school not to attract girls but because of the way it made him feel: 'When you walked down the street, you were a man among men.' Later, discussing men who undergo surgery to enlarge their penises, Luciano informs us that 'most patients suffer from a phenomenon doctors call locker-room syndrome, meaning they want larger flaccid penises, rather than larger erect ones, to give themselves greater self-confidence among men.' More than 100 pages separate these two remarks, and Luciano never comments on them, much less connects them. To what extent are men going to all this trouble in order to prove their manhood to one another? Now that would be an irksome irony.Luciano, Lynne is the author of 'Looking Good Male Body Image in Modern America', published 2002 under ISBN 9780809066384 and ISBN 0809066386.