There is a pathetic sentence in the chapter 「Fetish-ism」 in Dr. Norman Cameron’s book Personality Development and Psychopathology. It goes, 「Fetishists are nearly always men; and their commonest fetish is a woman’s shoe.」 I cannot read that sentence without thinking that it is just one more awful thing about being a man—and perhaps it is an important thing to know about us.
羅曼·卡梅隆的書《人格發展與精神病理學》中「戀物癖」那章裡有一句話令人感到可悲：戀物癖者大都總是男人；他們最迷戀的是女人的鞋。」我讀起這句的時候不免想到，這是身為男人的又一樁糟心事——但或許對了解我們很重要。
I have always disliked being a man. The whole idea of manhood in America is pitiful, in my opinion. This version of masculinity is a little like having to wear an ill-fitting coat for one’s entire life (by contrast, I imagine femininity to be an oppressive sense of nakedness). Even the expression 「Be a man!」 strikes me as insulting and abusive. It means: Be stupid, be unfeeling, obedient, soldierly and stop thinking. Man means 「manly」—how can one think about men without considering the terrible ambition of manliness? And yet it is part of every man’s life. It is a hideous and crippling lie; it not only insists on difference and connives at superiority, it is also by its very nature destructive—emotionally damaging and socially harmful.
我向來厭惡做一個男人。在我看來，美國人所謂的男子氣概是項可憐的觀念。這種男子氣概有點像不得不一輩子穿著一件不合身的外套（想來與之相反的是，女人味應是一種壓迫性的裸露）。甚至那句「要像個男人」，在我聽來就是帶有侮辱性的罵人話。它意味著：愚蠢、冷酷、順從、好鬥和無腦。男人意味著「具有男子氣概」——想起男人，人們怎麼能不想到他們對「男子漢」的追求呢？雖然這是個可怕的宏偉願景，但卻是每個男人生活的一部分。然而，這其實是個令人厭惡且貽害無窮的謊言；它強調了人與人的差異，默許了優越感的存在，且自身就帶有破壞性—傷害人的感情，損害人與人的交往。
The youth who is subverted, as most are, into believing in the masculine ideal is effectively separated from women and he spends the rest of his life finding women a riddle and a nuisance. Of course, there is a female version of this male affliction. It begins with mothers encouraging little girls to say (to other adults) 「Do you like my new dress?」 In a sense, little girls are traditionally urged to please adults with a kind of coquettishness, while boys are enjoined to behave like monkeys toward each other. The nine-year-old coquette proceeds to become womanish in a subtle power game in which she learns to be sexually indispensable, socially decorative and always alert to a man’s sense of inadequacy.
大部分少年都會被灌輸一種錯誤的想法：真正的男子漢就應當同女性保持距離，於是他們一生都會覺得女人心思難猜、相處不易。當然，這種男性苦惱也有個女性版本。始於媽媽們鼓勵女兒探問大人們：「你喜歡我的新裙子嗎？」。在一定意義上，我們的傳統就是鼓勵小女孩賣弄風情以取悅大人，而教導男孩子像野猴子那樣與彼此相處。隨後，這個九歲的輕佻小女孩長大成人，繼而在男性女性的微妙的權力遊戲中扮演柔弱的角色——她會習得如何讓自己對男性而言具有不可或缺的魅力，為男人社交上錦上添花，並永遠體貼男性自身的各種缺陷。