Helen Martin: Appeal of macho men holds strong

Published on Monday 12 October 2009 09:14

"Long before the pill, when John Wayne was keeping the frontier safe, when Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas fought or led (I can never remember which) the Romans, men were men and women were weak-kneed"

IN A scientific journal piece that will put the wind up tall, broad, stocky, hairy, chisel-faced macho men everywhere, a female scientist at Sheffield Uni has proposed the theory that years of the pill have suppressed women's desire for masculinity.

Dr Alexandra Alvergne says the ingestion of all these hormones could explain why women now prefer pretty men with delicate features, snake hips, luscious lips, flowing locks and no stubble unless it's designer.

She admits that there is no concrete evidence yet, and goes on: "We need a lot more research in this area."

She would say that because she's presumably after a grant, which is quite unnecessary. There are dozens of reasons for the shifting sands of female attraction, none of which have anything to do with hormones.

Long before the pill, when John Wayne was keeping the frontier safe, when Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas fought or led (I can never remember which) the Romans, men were men and women were weak-kneed.

"Teenagers" didn't exist. Every young single woman was either a bride or mother in waiting wearing cut-down ladies' costumes, and young men, wet behind the ears, were aspiring to proper manhood and longing for the day their weedy frames filled out.

There was no market for teens and no teen movie idols, unless you counted Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland and Elizabeth Taylor who played "old children" in scripts where no vestige of sexuality would be tolerated.

Singers were slightly less censored. Frank Sinatra was dubbed the first "teen idol" in 1940 when he released his first hit record. He was 25 and gangly, an Adam's apple on legs, but then radio ruled the waves and he had the voice of an angel.

It wasn't until he went to war in From Here to Eternity in 1953, by which time he was 38, that any grown woman would give him a second look.

Marlon Brando (hardly a "nancy") and Elvis were probably the start of the "pretties", though it was really with the rock 'n' roll era that teenagers found any identity of their own, became recognised as a market, and developed their own fashions, styles and desires. Fancying the same man as your mother became decidedly unfashionable, even if the alternative was the less-than-attractive Bill Haley, at 31 still much older than most of his fans.

Inevitably, young women wanted heartthrobs of roughly their own generation and movies and TV followed where music had led with The Monkees, David Cassidy, John Travolta et al.

Stars became bigger, younger, hence the Brad Pitts and the Johnny Depps. We had the Gothic, undeniably effeminate and muscle-less, home-grown Russell Brand who would fit through the eye of a big needle yet apparently has so many notches on his bedpost he's inadvertently carved it down to a futon, and now Zac Efron who is cute, but at 22 is well-nigh indistinguishable from your average sixth former.

Macho men can rest easy. Any woman whose breasts have stopped growing knows she is too old for these fresh-faced babe pullers. What could we possibly do with them, apart from look at them and help them with their homework, that wouldn't seem perverse? Who wants to be mutton to Zac's lamb? Send them out with the recycling bin and you'd be afraid they'd either be blown away before they picked it up at the back door or break their delicate backs with the weight of the wine bottles.

As her wrinkles gradually form and her body moves from pert to past its best, a woman finds the odd bit of male ear hair comforting – as long as it's regularly trimmed. Deep down she still wants someone who, without hiring a minder or bodyguard, is macho enough to change a tyre and disturb a burglar all by himself. Sean Connery's still hot, and that says it all.

You broke it, you fix it

A SYSTEMS error at Aegon in Edinburgh has left thousands of OAPs with 25 per cent less than they thought. The money hasn't been lost, but in many cases it was released and spent years ago despite still appearing on their statements.

These are not silly old folk who didn't understand the small print. Many had respected financial advisers working for them and they trusted the statements too, so vital planning and investment decisions were based on misinformation.

Aegon can't be expected to pay back all the money customers thought they had, but some compensation is surely due, to reflect that if they had known the true state of their pensions over the last few years, customers could have taken steps to maximise their income rather than living and spending in blissful ignorance.

This can't be blamed, like everything else, on the global recession. It's Aegon's error. Long-awaited controls of the finance sector should start with the principle that if they make a mistake, they put it right.