Recently, I watched Morgan Spurlock's "Mansome." It was part lesson on the history of men's grooming, part study of extreme behaviors, and part funny guys poking fun. What was most striking to me though was the contrast between the attitudes of contemporary men at two ends of a spectrum. On one end are those obsessively focused on their appearance; on the other, those who see almost any grooming not directed at sexual conquest as an un-masculine indulgence.

Earlier this year, I was sitting down with an agency that represents a major European beer brand. They shared that they were having a hard time expressing to their client that the definition of how men in Europe "live large" and how men in the U.S. "live large" has changed dramatically over the last few years. To their client, living large still meant bottle service, designer suits, getting groomed to the nines, and fancy cars. They were trying to show that living large in the U.S. has changed and men, even those with disposable income, don't adhere to the traditional …

In Martin Amis' latest novel, Lionel Asbo, the titular character wonders aloud why any man would want to have a relationship with a woman when so much pornography is available online. Even real-life siren Raquel Welch recently expressed sympathy for men and their growing online porn habits: "We've gotten to a point in our culture where (men are) all sex addicts, sitting in front of their computers, completely annihilated. Poor babies, they can't control themselves."