“Unlike femininity, relaxed masculinity is at bottom empty, a limp nullity. While the female body is full of internal potentiality, the male is internally barren.... Manhood at the most basic level can be validated and expressed only in action.”
—George Gilder (b. 1939)
“The cool kindliness of sheets, that soon
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss
Of blankets.”
—Rupert Brooke (1887–1915)
“Every modern male has, lying at the bottom of his psyche, a large, primitive being covered with hair down to his feet. Making contact with this Wild Man is the step the Eighties male or the Nineties male has yet to take. That bucketing-out process has yet to begin in our contemporary culture.”
—Robert Bly (b. 1926)