Willing emasculation

Ten a.m. Wake up. Walk downstairs. Take a shower. Throw on jeans, undershirt, overshirt, jacket, shoes. \n10:30. Eat breakfast. Brush teeth. Mint floss. Orange mouthwash. Hair gel. \n10:45. A spritz of inexpensive cologne, and I'm off to class.\nIt's mostly basic hygiene -- the stuff Mom spent years etching into her kids' daily habits. \nThe gel and cologne, on the other hand, make Jake look and smell good. It's vanity, I know, but it's harmless enough. \nGuys aren't culturally thought to go overboard on every little detail of their appearance like the better sex. In this vein, some guys, like me, have remained minimalists.\nIn the words of Ben Stiller's incredibly effeminate character, Derek Zoolander: "There has got to be more to life than just being really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking."\nZoolander, a parody of the non-existent male modeling industry, is just the tip of an iceberg floating in enough male-marketed natural skin creams, effervescent body oils and exotic hair applications to fill an ocean of overpriced, fruity-smelling goop.\nSlowly, slowly, male vanity is invading popular culture -- it's Zoolander and male thongs, it's glam rock and, of course, it's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."\nGrowing up, we had soap, shampoo and toothpaste in the bathroom. Now there's so much more. \nThe inventory of a random restroom in my house produced the following: St. Ives Apricot facial scrub, Luxe cucumber-melon body mist, Avena -- "the art and science of pure plant essences" -- phomollient styling foam, FORMEN skin management oil controller, Axe essence body spray and Bidage Matrix styling foam. \nAssuming this lone example is accurate for the entire world of men -- which, obviously, it is -- then many guys are expanding their beautification repertoire. \nDoes this mean that men, as an organization, are becoming (gasp) more feminine? Certain pesticides in the United States caused male frogs to change gender. Will new male-targeted body products cause human men to shed their foreskins and grow labia instead?\nDoubt it. Despite the supposed effeminate self-stylings in the example bathroom, the rest of the lavatory reeked of male presence -- the showers with mold creeping down from the ceiling and up from the floor, the floor as dirty as the rim of the toilet, the toilet with piss-yellow water in which have stagnated a wedge of paper towel and half a piece of white bread. Martha Stewart would know she's in hell if she died and woke up in this bathroom, where the intermixing of flowery body sprays and wet-fart smells perfectly illustrate the dichotomy of vanity and foulness that drives male hygiene.\nIf male vanity can be present in foul places, then it would be no surprise to find it at the gym.\nI once saw a guy kneeling on the hard, thin-carpeted floor of the always rank, over-mirrored weight room at the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. With rosin-caked hands, he drew the handles of the pulley above his head down behind his neck. Then he did bends at the waist, nearly touching his head to the floor each time, like some kind of strange bowing ritual from the church of Magnus ver Mangusen. Up, down, up, down, again, again and again -- like some form of religious worship to a god of aluminum and steel. His eyes were transfixed on his reflection in the mirror in the classic, million-dollar "you da' man" stare. \n It was vanity all right. So why are we doing it?\nWhy are men behaving this way? Going to more salons and tanning beds, applying moisturizers and bodifiers, buying health foods, dietary supplements and colored contacts, working out every little muscle from the bicep to the stapedius (the smallest in the body, located in the inner ear)?\nLike most things that motivate men, the answer is probably either money or women.\nAnd it's definitely not money.