If you were to ask the average man to tell you offhand just
what qualities he likes in other men, he would probably boggle a good deal over
his answer. His first impulse would be to say, “Oh, I don’t know!” which is
with men a convenient formula for avoiding thought upon unexpected or (to them)
uninteresting topics. A little later, after turning the matter over in his
mind, he would give you a catalogue of qualities to which he would be willing
to swear. His list, however, would bear a strong resemblance to the
“hundred-best-book” lists made my persons who sincerely believe that they are
expressing their own literary preferences, but who are actually indulging in a
bit of intellectual pose. Just as these individuals mention the books which
they feel they ought to enjoy reading rather than those which they really read,
so the average man will name a number of qualities which he thinks he likes,
rather than those which in his heart of hearts he actually does like.
In the case of one who tries to enumerate the
characteristics which he admires in other men, this sort of answer is not
insincere. Although it is defective, and essentially untrue, the man himself is
quite unconscious of the fact. The inaccuracy of his answers really comes from
his inability to analyze his own preferences. The typical man is curiously
deficient in a capacity for self-analysis. He seldom devotes any serious
thought to the origin of his opinions, the determining factor in his judgments,
the ultimate source of his desires, or the hidden mainsprings of his motives.
In all that relates to the external and material world he observes shrewdly,
reasons logically, and acts effectively; but question him as to the phenomena of
the inner world – the world of his own Ego – and he is dazed and helpless. This
he never bothers his head about, and when you interrogate him closely and do
not let him put you off with easy generalities, he will become confused and at
last contemptuous, if not actually angry. He will begin so suspect that you are
just a little “queer”; and if he knows you well enough to be quite frank with
you, he will stigmatize your psychological inquiries as “rot.”…
So when you ask a man just what it is that he most likes in
other men you find him utterly unable to give you any satisfactory reply. …
[I]t will clear the ground a little if we first discover
what it is that men dislike in men.
I suppose that every man who is a man would
readily agree that he dislikes a “Sissy”; but it is doubtful whether most
persons could give off-hand a really comprehensive definition of what a Sissy
really is…
The subject of Sissyism is really very interesting – first
because there are so many Sissies in the world, and in the second place because
only a very small number of them are usually recognized as being such. Hence it
may be worthwhile to give a little space to Sissyism here and to regard it in a
scientific spirit, since, negatively at least, it has a definite bearing upon
the subject of this paper.
Most persons when they think of Sissies, have a mental
picture before them which is easily described. A slender, youthful figure,
smooth-faced, a little vacuous in the expression of the countenance, with light
hair and rather pale blue eyes a little wide apart; a voice not necessarily
weak, but lacking timbre, resonance, carrying-power. The mouth is
wavery and the lips are imperfectly closed. The chin tapers away a little. The
shoulders slope, not with that peculiar slope and droop which often accompany
great physical strength, as shown in the famous statue of the Farnese Hercules,
but slanting straight down, so that unless they are scientifically padded by
the Sissy’s tailor, they scarcely give you the effect of being shoulders. The neck
is usually long, and the pomum Adami or Adam’s apple is very
likely to be noticeable. The hands and feet are often large; or if not large,
not very well compacted and put together, but giving one a general feeling that
they are more or less imperfect. Such are the main physical attributes of one
particular kind of Sissy.
In other respects his traits may easily be sketched and
recognized. He is polite and rather anxious to please. He wishes always to do
the thing which happens to be the proper thing at any given time. He never
would think of initiating anything novel or starting out in a new and
unexpected course. He likes very much to be with ladies, and ladies like him –
in a way. He is a most useful creature and absolutely harmless, intended by
Providence to carry wraps and rugs, to order carriages, to provide
theater-tickets, flowers, bon-bons, opera-boxes and four-in-hands, according to
his means and the position which he holds. He will call regularly upon a girl
and in fact upon all the girls he knows, and he will keep it up for years, and
it will never mean anything to him or to them, for he is essentially a tame
cat…He is really an indispensable person in our modern life; for it is
desirable that young women should have some male creature about them to fetch
and carry – one who will do it all for the mere pleasure of the service, and
who will never agitate them and disquiet them or make them feel it necessary to
be on their guard. The best picture of a this especial type of Sissy, perhaps a
little bit idealized, is that which is drawn by Henry James in his delicious
story, “An International Episode.” Turn to its pages and you will find there a
sublimated portrait of a Sissy, in the character who bears the subtly
felicitous and expressive name of Willie Woodley.
But the Sissy of this sort is of no particular interest to
philosophical students of human life. He is merely a somewhat effeminate young
person who does not count. Men laugh at him, perhaps; yet he is not of
sufficient consequence to be actively disliked. The true Sissy, who has never
yet been classified as such, is the man of any age or any external appearance
who for certain physical reasons always inspires you with a vague yet
insurmountable feeling of malaise. He need not be a physical
weakling at all. The most perfect specimen of this type that I have ever seen
was a man over six feet in height, of powerful build, and with the torso of a
gladiator. When you first saw him you said to yourself, “Here is a man!” Yet he
was a Sissy all the same. Nature had merely mocked him in giving him a presence
such as his. Back of his thews and sinews, back of his broad chest and massive
head, there dwelt a Sissy-soul, and every man and woman who came to know him
felt it by an unerring instinct. I never encountered so striking an
illustration of the relative importance of mind and body. When he spoke, he
uttered nothing but inanities. When he laughed, the sound concealed a giggle.
When he was angry, he scolded like a peevish woman. When he was hurt, he whined.
When he was pleased, he simpered. Whatever he did or said or thought, he was
always flat. This kind of Sissy is the kind that men dislike – and women too;
and the reason for it when you get down to the last analysis, is that in
everything he is somehow incomplete. He tries to do as others do, and yet he
never rings quite true. With men he endeavors to assume an air of manliness,
and they laugh at him or else avoid him. He is always groping for something
that he never finds. With women he endeavors to ingratiate himself, and they
resent it. He is chicken-hearted, cold, and fearful. He would like to be
considered dangerous – a rake, a man of the world, a gaillard, a viveur –
and when he nerves himself up to some piece of petty vice, he runs about the
cackles over it, though all the while he quakes internally lest the wrong
persons should ever hear it. He has no daring, but he ventures on all sorts of
odious little familiarities – the furtive squeezing of hands, the pressure of
arms, the ogling and leering which he considers safe and yet conducive to a
reputation for gallantry. He is of the class of the street masher, only with
him it all means nothing, for his blood is water. How women hate him! They will
always, in their heart of hearts, pardon a man who is impetuously overbold,
even though they ever after shut him from their presence; but a Sissy with his
flabby, feeble, mawkish imitation of an ardor which he never felt, affects them
with a sort of moral nausea. Nothing that he tries to be can he succeed in being.
He tries to be witty and is only flat; he tries to be profound and is only
platitudinous; he tries to be daring and is only impudent; he tries to be
ardent and is only offensive. As I said before, he represents a certain
intellectual and spiritual incompleteness, in the presence of which the normal
man experiences a most intense repulsion.
The traits in which this type of Sissy is most lacking are
the traits which men most like in men. And yet this is a very negative
description. Moreover we must distinguish between the man who is merely
“popular” with others, and the man who is really liked, the man to whom other
men will go not only in their jovial moods but in their serious ones as well,
the man for whom they will make sacrifices and of whose friendship they are
really proud. Many a man with easy manners, with a reckless, careless, hearty
air, is popular. He has the gift of picking up acquaintances at every turn, of
entertaining them, of making himself known as a “good fellow.” Yet all this
sort of thing is superficial. Deep down there must be something more
fundamental in order that a man may grasp and hold the hearts of other men.
These vital attributes are few in number, and with the exception of just one
they do not need much more than a mere mention.
First of all, a man must be what other men call “square” –
which implies that he must have a sense of honor. This means so much in the
relations of men with men. From women they do not expect it, at least in the
fullest sense – a man’s sense; but it is the very corner-stone of friendship
among men. For it does not mean that one must be merely true to his friends,
but, in a sense, to those who are not his friends, who are even, possibly, his
enemies. Fair play and the rigor of the game is a masculine ideal; and men will
trust and like and honor those who live up to its strict requirements. The
foundation of it all is justice – the most masculine of virtues, and the only
one in which no woman ever had a share. Some women have been generous, and many
have been brave and wise and self-denying, but there has never lived a woman
who was absolutely just. Justice, even-handed, clear-eyed, supreme over
prejudice and passion – this is God’s gift to man alone, and man alone can feel
how splendid and sublime a thing it is.
Allied to it is reasonableness, another virtue that appeals
to men when found in other men. It involves a number of related qualities, and
most of all a sense of humor which throws a clear light of its own upon so many
difficulties, and sets things in their true proportions, and shows how small
the small things really are. Reasonableness is the lubricant of life, as the
lack of it is the irritant. No other virtue can quite compensate for the
absence of this reasonableness; and he who has the quality is one to whom all
men will be drawn as by a magnet.
Then there is courage, without which man is not a man; and
generosity, which really is an element of reasonableness; and with these,
modesty, which, while it quietly conceals the other traits, does in the end enhance
their value and increase the charm which they possess. And dignity, which many
would not name or think of, is a most important element in the character of the
man whom other men most like. For dignity is not to be confounded with its
counterfeits – with stiffness or pomposity, or even with reserve. It is the
touch of self-respect which exists in every fine character and which is never
consciously assertive but which even the most careless spirit can feel and
recognize. No really great man ever lacked it; and no human being ever felt it
to be other than a claim upon his liking. For it means that somewhere there
exists a barrier which none can pass, a barrier which shuts the way to the
sanctuary of a human soul. And men respect this, and without respect there is
no liking that endures.
The last of all the qualities which men like most in men is
one of which but few are conscious even when they feel its influence. We have
seen that men dislike effeminacy. They do. Yet in the nature of men whom other
men like best there is always to be traced a touch of something that is
feminine. It is like a thread of silver woven in some useful fabric, gleaming
amid the plain, strong texture of the web, not very noticeable and yet
imparting just a hint of beauty to the whole. This feminine quality in man
gives fineness to the character. Intellectually it means intuition,
sensitiveness to all impressions, and the imaginative element which illumines
the dark places of the mind and shows the way to great achievement. Temperamentally
it denotes gentleness, and the tenderness which is the perfect complement to
strength. It is to men who have this last and finest gift, that other men,
since history began, have given not alone their liking but their service, their
devotion, and their very lives.
What then is the conclusion? Men like in men these traits:
the honor that ennobles; the justice that insures the right; the reasonableness
that mellows and makes plain; the courage that proclaims virility; the generous
instinct that disdains all meanness; the modesty that makes no boast; the
dignity that wins respect; the fineness and the tenderness that know and feel.
But when one thinks of it more carefully, may he not sum it up in just a single
sentence, and accept it as truth, that all men like a gentleman?