Manhood: The Bare Reality
By Laura Dodsworth
WARNING: This review does contain pictures of penises. It may not be work safe. Be warned. There are no knob puns though.
These days we are all less bound by gender and traditional roles, but is there more discussion about what being a man means. From veteran to vicar, from porn addict to prostate cancer survivor, men from all walks of life share honest reflections about their bodies, sexuality, relationships, fatherhood, work and health in this pioneering book.
Following on from her previous study & photo essay, Bare Reality: 100 Women, Their Breasts, Their Stories, Dodsworth has turned her gentle, enquiring attention to men and their dicks.
Stuffed with plenty of insights and curious asides this book bares more than just penises, and the thoughts and obsessions of them men who are attached to them. It uncovers the state of modern masculinity and how insecurities about an organ which is hardly ever seen consumes and obsesses men to the point where they change their lives to accommodate and deal with their feelings about it. Straight men hardly ever get the honest opportunity to look at other cocks or discuss their dicks in a rational way, and unlike gay men may only ever handle one penis their whole lives.
See the Bare Reality website for more background and information about this series of books
Size matters (to men) this book says over and over again, along with the incongruities of nudity and the strengths and vulnerabilities that this brings forth.
All one hundred of these interviews are intimate and exploratory and give us candid, honest and sometimes difficult insights in what it means to be a man in the 21st Century. Manhood shows us the spectrum of ‘normal’, revealing men’s penises and bodies in all their diversity and glory, helping in dispelling body image anxiety and myths.
Sensitive and compassionate, Manhood may both surprise and reassure you. It may even make you reconsider what you think you know about men, their bodies and masculinity and make you look at your own dick (if you have one), or dicks in general in a whole new light.
Out now £12.99
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