Man Made—A Stupid Quest for Masculinity

The smudge looked suspiciously penis- like. The doctor confirmed: "That's the baby's penis!" which caused not celebration, but panic. Joel pictured having to go camping and fix a car and use a hammer and throw a football and watch professionals throw footballs and figure out whether to be sad or happy about the results of said football throwing.

So begins his quest to confront his effete nature whether he likes it or not (he doesn't), by doing a twenty-four-hour shift with L.A. firefighters, going hunting, rebuilding a house, driving a Lamborghini, enduring three days of boot camp with the U.S. Army, day-trading with $100,000, and going into the ring with UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture. Seeking help from a panel of experts, including his manly father-in-law, Boy Scouts, former NFL star Warren Sapp, former MLB All-Star Shawn Green, Adam Carolla, and a pit bull named Hercules, he expects to learn that masculinity is defined not by the size of his muscles, but by the size of his heart (also, technically, a muscle). This is not at all what he learns.

Joel Stein grew up in Edison, N.J., went to Stanford, and in 1997, became a staff writer for Time magazine. In 1998, he began writing his sophomoric humor column which now appears on the back page of the magazine every week. He also writes many other articles for Time, and has contributed to the New Yorker, GQ, Esquire, Details, Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, Wired, Real Simple, Sunset, Playboy, Elle and many more.

He has appeared as a talking head on many TV shows, taught a class in humor writing at Princeton, and wrote a column for the Los Angeles Times for four years. He and his wife live in Los Angeles with their son.